Greetings and happy Friday! Looks like a gorgeous day today (we’ll be grilling out wings!) and then a bit of a wet weekend, great for some long-for cooking on Sunday (I’ll be making Boeuf Bourguignon in a big old copper pot). Yup – I’ve got weekend food on my mind!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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O2IH/EDA Build Back Better, Phase 1 – This week was the final run around to pull in letters of support – we ended up with just under 50 letters, so that’s awesome. Just today, we received a very powerful joint letter of support from Senators Merkley and Wyden and Representatives Bonamici, Schrader and DeFazio. I presented our O2IH work at the Lincoln City council meeting on Monday (as Susan was talking to the police – see below) and see us building a strong relationship there – a sentiment that was also echoed by Alison Robertson when she texted me after the meeting: “You’ll be golden going forward by building this new relationship.”
Rural Opportunity Initiative – We’ll find out by next Wednesday if we made the cut and get to join Business Oregon’s Rural Opportunity Initiative program – so send out your good vibes next week!
Executive Committee – Our Executive Committee met this Wednesday. We discussed ways in which we will develop a tiered membership approach to help us better bring in support from the private sector and getting that back up and rolling (I started work on that last winter). We also discussed an amendment to our contract with Sequoia Consulting to continue work with them for a few hours prospecting sources of potential economic development strategic plan funding as well as some hours to continue coalition building (and care and feeding) for O2IH. I’ve been very satisfied with our working relationship – right on point with our contracted hours and great time and task reporting on their part. We also discussed potential approaches to get support staff back into the EDALC office.
Linn, Benton, Lincoln Workforce Meeting – An MOU is now in place to allow these three counties to share workforce resources, programs and potential funding – they actually comprise sections of two Workforce Investment Boards, but also substantially share a labor shed. The meeting was to convene together the WIB staff and regional economic development folks to look at shared priorities going forward. Some identified priorities out of the gates: employee retention, educating employers on WIB OTJ training, helping businesses conduct wage analyses on their businesses and creating interest in younger students (7th and 8th grades) in career pathways to priority workforce sectors.
CWEDD Strategic Plan Viewer Grant – The first iteration is nearing done and I’m meeting with Leslie Palotas later this afternoon to train her on the system before we get the other stakeholders back together – so far, it’s looking great.
Community and Economic Development Grant Workshop – We’ve got our virtual workshop set for 1:30pm on Tuesday, October 26th. Myself and Kristi Peter (from the county) will be co-facilitating. I put together a release today and got that out to the local press outlets, Casey Miller at the county and Dave Price at the SBDC for county-wide promotion.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
In other news, Susan and I closed on our house in Depoe Bay this week – we don’t take occupancy until next Thursday, so for one week we are renters, homeowners AND landlords!
I also had my cute little EV get crunched in a hit-and-run just after work on Monday – in our own driveway! Neighbors on both sides heard the crash and came running (we were in the back of our place, so didn’t hear it) and both said they saw a car squealing away. BUT one neighbor saw a dark SUV drive away while the other saw a silver Toyota sedan. Needless to say, the Newport police threw their hands up in frustration! But we’ve got State Farm on it, and we’ll get her fixed up.
In other wacky news, a long-under-development documentary on the Humongous Fungus in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is finally done and premiering at a film festival this weekend – here’s the trailer (with a few snippets of you-know-who): https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=395095218914734&ref=sharing
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 🙂