Greetings and happy Friday! Looks like we’ve got a rainy weekend in store – which we desperately need, and it’s also a great excuse to make a batch of chili! Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Oregon Infrastructure Summit – On Monday, a small team of us (Bob, Mark Farley, Laura Furgurson, Gil Silvia, Melissa Murphy and I) delivered a presentation on the basics of the Blue Economy – what it is and where the opportunities lie. In other sessions, Washington’s Maritime Blue delivered a keynote, and there was a session on port infrastructure – all part of the Blue Economy tract. The event was virtual (delivered in a pretty slick online tool), and it looked like the sessions were quite well attended.
Rural Opportunity Initiative (application due Sept. 20) – Over the course of the week, we received support letters from Lincoln City, Toledo and the SBDC. Lincoln City was a little more challenging than expected – the letter was on the consent agenda at the Monday evening meeting, but one council member pulled it out for further discussion. We had a bit of a heated debate, and we had to wrestle with some comments such as does Lincoln City need economic development or do they really want any new businesses – but we prevailed with a 3-2 vote. Phew! I am still waiting on Newport, but we can still proceed if it doesn’t come in on time. I finished up the application narrative, budget, goals and objectives and other miscellaneous forms. I’ll give it a read through over the weekend and then once again on Monday and submit it to Business Oregon on Monday afternoon. Overall, I think it’s a very strong application to join this program.
O2IH/EDA Build Back Better, Phase 1 (internal deadline is end of the month) – More continuing work this week, as well as meetings with key partners on strategies and deliverables needed for both the Phase One application and also during the Phase One project, should it be awarded. We also started work on a Phase One budget – some tweaking is certainly needed, but we’re getting there. I also met with Lorna at the Port of Toledo to get her up to speed on the efforts (she hasn’t been able to make the last few standing meetings) and discuss some potential capital projects there. We’re currently solidifying the list of letter of support needed (well over 40!) and drafting those templates and reaching out to folks. Im’m in charge of most of the municipal letters. Much work to do, but we’re getting there together!
EDA Travel, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation (deadline January 31) – We received more feedback from Wes at the EDA that was shared out to potential stakeholders this morning. While one of the overt goals of this funding opportunity is capital construction related to tourism, there are some serious restrictions as far as what needs to be completed before an application can be submitted. It may be too heavy a lift for local partners, but those discussions are happening now, and we’ll support whatever direction the stakeholders want to take (since we determined that it does not make sense for EDALC to be a lead applicant here).
Long Term Baseline Budget – I pulled together an initial draft of a long term EDALC budget, focused on breaking out spending into modular “chunks” that could be swapped in or out. I also focused on realistic support income based on what we’ve learned over the past two months. I don’t think we’re 100% there, but we’re close. Curt and I had a good discussion on the budget and some private sector funding strategies this morning.
Economic Summit – I met this week with several team members at the Newport Chamber of Commerce to work with them on planning a half-day economic summit in early November at the Agate Beach Best Western (COVID permitting, of course). We came up with a solid, future-thinking program of panel discussions and speakers and I think it has the potential to be a really strong event for the region.
Lawson Property – I set up a meeting this week between Paul Lawson, owner of the 30 acre shovel-ready property at the north edge of Newport, and Representative Gomberg. Mr. Lawson was able to educate Rep. Gomberg on the details of the potential ODOT/Forest Service emergency preparedness project and Rep. Gomberg promised to do some digging to see if that impactful, multi-million dollar project is actually dead (a casualty of the pandemic) or merely postponed. We’re also working to get his “Shovel Ready” certification re-upped – just needs a few signatures from the City of Newport, since nothing has fundamentally changed on the property since originally certified.
Upcoming – It looks like I’ll be leading a workshop on creative thinking in business in this year’s Leadership Lincoln class. I’m very much looking forward to that! I used to deliver a day-long intensive seminar called “The Creativity Boot Camp” to software developers at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco – I did that for about a dozen years. It’ll be fun to dust off that old program and dive into the new cognitive research to deliver some new (and hopefully useful) material.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
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 🙂