Greetings and welcome to Friday! This week was full of deadlines and lots of important work on multiple fronts – time flew by, but I think we nudged the needle a bit in the right direction. This week’s workload really demonstrated to me the value of our work, our partnerships and the need for a strong economic development vision and organization – Huzzah!

Here’s our EDALC update for the week:

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Cindy’s week:

* Continued working on HubSpot integration
* Wrote taxing district meeting invitation and sent out
* Finished up and sent out May event invite via MailChimp
* Edited EZ resolution drafts
* Initial draft of May meeting minutes
* Much research related to Project Big Catch
* Began planning work on office procedure documentation and member packet

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Paul’s week:

Enterprise Zone – Lots going on with the re-designation process this week. On Monday night, Alison Roberson and I presented to the Lincoln City Council meeting on the re-designation resolution and the adjustment of the desired zone boundaries within the city limits. Support was unanimous. I also met with Mayor Worman of Siletz and it looks like they are interested in getting some or all of the city in the re-designated zone, which is awesome. We set our informational event for June 3rd for the non-sponsoring taxing bodies and Cindy sent out the invites (and I’ve already answered a few questions that have come in). Next Monday afternoon, the re-designation resolution is on the County Board of Commissioners agenda for initial discussion.

Blue Economy – This week, I put together two drafts of an in-depth support letter to Senators Merkley and Wyden to urge their support for Congressionally Directed Spending – in Lincoln County relating to O2IH Blue Economy initiatives. Most of my week was spent pulling together information for a submission for Project Big Catch, Round 2 (we made the first cut! It’s for a potential $90 Million, 100 job fin-fish aquaculture rearing and processing facility in Newport). It ended up being a rather large submission, and I had a lot of local help and support tracking down info and some awesome research done by Cindy!

ART Toledo – I wrote up a new release for the new Art, Oysters and Brews event series over the summer on Main Street that ties together the Phantom Gallery project and the First Weekend events already in place. I also helped Rachael Maddock-Hughes refine an application process for downtown building owners and business owners to apply for beautification and outdoor seating funds as pert of the $49K Travel Oregon grant. I also nominated Rod Cross for the Mayor’s Leadership Award to be given by the Oregon Mayors Association this summer – fingers crossed.

Leadership Lincoln – This week was our penultimate Leadership Lincoln class and our project team presented on “How to Make Good Decisions in the Workplace” – we shot and edited together the video presentation that had everything from whiteboard tips to using the OODA decision loop in a hostage situation.

Local First Arizona – I had a wonderful and in-depth Zoom call this week with Michael Peel, the Sustainability Director of Local First Arizona. The connection was made by Jacqueline Danos in Yachats. Local First Arizona is a hybrid ED and community development organization that uses small businesses as medium to weave together a vibrant local community (think of it as “Buy Local 2.0”). We are discussing developing an upcoming program on their best practices and how we can spring board off of some of their successful rural development approaches.

COGs/EDD – This week was the monthly board meeting for the Cascades West Economic Development District and our discussions were focused on moving from the CEDS (Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy) plan development into regional implementation. It looks like I’ll be the “token” economic development practitioner who will be helping define our regional working groups and coordinated efforts going forward.

COGS Loan Review Subcommittee – This week I was able to actively kick-off my role in Sandra Easdale’s loan review subcommittee when we reviewed a local loan application for an expanding Lincoln County business. It was a great opportunity to learn the process and how the COGS loan products help support local lenders in supporting our local businesses.

Great Life by Lucinda – After a first conversation with Linda last week (thanks Linda!), Lucinda Whitacre and I connected again. Linda has a creative idea to repurpose some existing kitchen space and the three of us will be coordinating a site visit to get the possibility juices flowing. We also discussed a $500,000 Business Oregon grant that Lucinda was key in securing – to create co-packing facilities both in Portland and in Lincoln County – and we’ll be meeting soon to see how we can help make the LC part of that project a reality

Meeting Reminders:

Annual Meeting & Event, Tuesday, May 25th at 2:30 pm (we’ll send out a few more reminder invites over the next two weeks):

Topic: EDALC Annual Meeting
Time: May 25, 2021 02:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/94001471660?pwd=ZElxcDZJL0hxcGZWcjlFVEpHQVNwQT09

Meeting ID: 940 0147 1660
Passcode: 348106

June Board of Directors Meeting:

Topic: June EDALC BoD meeting
Time: Jun 3, 2021 03:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09

Meeting ID: 917 810 4987
Passcode: 0NyksK

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 🙂