Greetings and welcome to Friday! What a wet day out there – please be careful driving and walking those dogs!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Rural Opportunity Initiative – I put together a press release on our ROI award and shot that off to our regional news media – hopefully we’ll get some “earned media” attention from that. Still waiting on contracts from Business Oregon, but Brian Plinski has reached out to all of the communities to get us talking together on our various projects.
Water Planning Partnership – I spent some time this week pulling together business connections for the Partnership’s Oregon Kitchen Table Phase Two survey. We’ll convene those businesses together for a virtual session, probably in early December (to get some context on the Partnership and the regional water plan) and then they’ll engage with the survey.
Community and Economic Development Grant – I worked through our applicants and vetted nonprofit status – we had one ineligible applicant, so that’s eleven applicants in total. All applications have gone off to Curt, and he’ll load up the scoring spreadsheet and distribute the materials to the Board. I’ve got our two Subject Mater Experts lined ups and the three larger grants are going out to them for their review as well (to give them maximum time). It took a few tries to get a housing expert – the first three I contacted were great choices, but potentially too many connections back to the one housing applicant.
ART Toledo – This week, the ART Toledo committee selected the artists for the third round of the Phantom Gallery project on Main Street – and quite a few amazing artists in the applicants. It also looks like the first Toledo mural will be scheduled for a December paint by an amazing spray paint muralist that is part of the Portland Street Art Alliance – it should be a vibrant splash of color at the entrance to Main Street.
O2IH/Blue Economy – I spoke with Commissioner Jacobson earlier this week – she is working through the agreements with the multiple funders of the Marine Workforce Sector Study to see how we might move forward (with EDALC as the admin or some other possibilities). I’m going to be doing some research on potential data researching firms who can pull off this work. We initially had a scope presented by Burning Glass, and Melissa Murphy suggested another firm. If that project stays with the county, there must be an RFP process to stay in line with procurement rules and policies.
Foundry Collective – I met this week with Brad Attig of the Foundry Collective to talk through potential technical assistance to creative economy entrepreneurs (which is part of our ROI focus) as well as a new round of Business Oregon technical assistance grants – we’re exploring the possibility of doing a co-application to that program.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Just a reminder: Susan and I will heading out to PDX to catch a red-eye that will (hopefully) get us to Costa Rica early Saturday morning. We’ll be chilling on the beach until 11/23 – looking SO forward to it! So no weekly staff update next week – I know you’ll miss it!
Have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂