Greetings and welcome to Friday! Fingers crossed for a mostly sunny weekend – I know I’ve got my propane tank filled and am ready to grill!
Thanks to all who could make it to our Board of Directors meeting yesterday – we had a great (and very useful and informative) conversation on our local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Thanks so much for giving me the information to be able to look back at what’s been done previously (before we hit the left coast) – I feel confident it will help us build on successes as we move forward to support this important economic community.
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Sarah’s Update:
This week began with a lot of reading and getting familiarized with the current projects and all the different software used for various things. I reviewed the OCCC external environmental scan which really helped to familiarize myself with the different social and economic statistics of the area and begin to see patterns and gaps that can be focused on in future economic development projects. I was able to become a Facebook admin and reviewed both the Facebook page and EDALC website so I can begin working on updating both of those next week.
I listened to the last board of directors meeting and finished up the last of the minutes for the meeting on Thursday. I created a draft of the flyer for the CO.STARTERS and Start Up Success classes to be released sometime next week. I also worked on the draft of the Spring newsletter which is also expected to be done and released by next week. On the research front I have reviewed and began recording notes about what other economists and towns have done to encourage entrepreneurship, with the main question in mind being “what do entrepreneurs need to thrive”. Lastly, I got registered to go to the Regards to Rural conference in May!
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Paul’s Update:
O2IH – We had several meetings this week to explore some solutions to some unintended limitations in Business Oregon’s Regional Innovation Hub planning grant call. They are looking to fund only one hub in each BizOR regional development district, but our covers the coast, UofO and OSU – so it sets us all up for conflict and competition over limited resources. It looks like they are willing to be flexible, and we should find out next week if our approach will be to do one unified coastal application or three smaller, linked coastal applications (a hearty “Huzzah!” to Mark Farley for pushing this forward!). I’ll keep you posted.
Economic Report Update – I pulled together a document on the update project at Commissioner Jacobson’s request today – she’ll put it in the county’s internal ARPA funding project request pool, and hopefully we can get that much-needed update rolling this summer.
Newsletter – As you saw in Sarah’s update above, we’re working on our next newsletter that we hope to have out on Wednesday. If you have anything you’d like us to get in there, please shoot it off to me by Tuesday morning.
Newport City Center Phase One Project – I finished up our phase one proposal to help Newport with their City Center redevelopment project early this week and got that off to Spencer and Derrick. I would guess that we’ll start that project later this month, and I estimate it to take about five months (though not full time) to get it pulled together for them.
ROI Kickoff – We had our statewide ROI kickoff meeting this week. All 22 ROI communities came together for a virtual meet and greet and to share our upcoming projects over the next 15 months. In the next week, I’ll be meeting with the ROI consultant to discuss ways she can assist our efforts. We’re coming together again as a group later this month to talk metrics and reporting.
ROI CO.STARTERS – As one of our first “official” ROI efforts, we’re standing up the first of two CO.STARTERS Core 10-week educational programs (facilitated by Misty Lambrecht) that will launch later this month, virtually. We’ll be doing a marketing push out next week to many of the “creative economy solopreneurs” we’ve met during our ART Toledo work. Already, there is some solid interest in this program.
Local Economic Summit – I had a great meeting today with the Newport Chamber to plan the May 3rd Economic Summit that will be held at the Best Western. I think it’s going to be a very solid event – we’ll be meeting again next Friday to finalize the plans and then switch over to logistics mode. Looks like I’ll be the “cat herder” for the panel sessions.
Yaquina Bay Brownfields Initiative – On Monday the COG had a wrap up of their Yaquina Bay Brownfields Initiative project at the Visual Arts Center. I tried to make it there in person, but several downed trees on 101 (by Rocky Creek) had traffic backed up, so I attended virtually. The Initiative was to study a number of brownfields in the Yaquina Bay region (with some clean up), to prepare the data for more robust mitigation funding requests in the future.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Susan and I got a chance to attend the “VIP Launch” of the new Georgie’s remodel on Monday – wowza, did they do an awesome job – so cool with a hip mid-century modern vibe!
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂