Greetings and welcome to Friday and… welcome to October (with or without the full force of the US government) on Sunday!

If you haven’t yet had a chance to do our short ROI impact survey, you are in luck – this week was so busy that we won’t get to the results until next week – here’s the link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N7DHDMT

Here’s our staff update for the week:

Blue Economy::

This week I worked on the Startup Blue final newsletter and put together some information for the final report. I also attended the Startup blue team meeting Tuesday morning. – Sarah

I had a great conversation with Mark Farley about prepping for the upcoming GAO visit on October 11th (if the government isn’t shut down). We also received a formal proposal from the Eastern Research Group for the NOAA Economic Impact study that we’ll review next week. – Paul

Broadband::

This week, Sarah and I had a great, in-depth two-hour meeting with Commissioner Miller on ways to coordinate local conversations and decision-making as we work to determine which broadband infrastructure projects and grants we want to pursue. I think we can provide some real support as we move forward collectively to improve broadband access throughout our county. – Paul

Communication/Marketing::

I posted on our Facebook page about the upcoming free Fisherman First Aid & Safety training course for commercial fishermen that is being provided by Oregon Sea Grant and the upcoming free “Build Your Business” courses being held in Yachats presented by Reinventing Rural. – Sarah

Community Connecting::

Next week, Leslie is helping to facilitate the Coastal Partnerships for Drinking Water Protection event at OCCC on October 4th (put on jointly by the Department of Environmental Quality and the Oregon Health Authority). EDALC is sponsoring the lunch for the event. This event is the first in a long-term series designed around building networks and capacity support for Coastal Communities who need support for protecting and sustaining their drinking water sources. Got get ’em Leslie! – Paul

For more information on this event:

https://www.oregon.gov/deq/wq/programs/Pages/water-protection-workshops.aspx

Data::

This week, Sarah and I had a follow-up demonstration of placer.ai (https://www.placer.ai/home) – a “big data” visualization tool that can show how people travel through our communities – both as residents (commuting patterns and such) and visitors. We’re trying to coordinate a demo for interested stakeholders to see if this would be a useful to for us to have access to locally. – Paul

Events:

I reached out to our potential summit location again asking for a quote and attended the Career Connected Learning presentation at our office. Paul and I attended the Infrastructure Summit in Corvallis on Thursday. I listened to panels on two new online mapping resources for Broadband and potential renewable energy sites, Oregon ports, broadband funding opportunities, and the changing demographics in Oregon. – Sarah

Project Work::

This week I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider on the EDALC website, put together the board meeting minutes, and updated Oregon Prospector listings. – Sarah

Supporting and Connecting with Partners::

Cascades West Economic Development District (CWEDD) – With work wrapping up on the Cascades West innovation planning grant, I met with both the core team (earlier this week) and Lane County Commissioner Heather Buch (CWEDD chair) to see if the EDD would be a good backbone organization from which to host the hub, should it receive a full grant from Business Oregon. – Paul

I also trekked to Albany for a quarterly lunch with other economic practitioners within on our economic development district – It’s always great to “talk shop” with fellow economic development geeks and to share best practices and war stories. – Paul

Oregon Coast Council for the Arts – This week, the whole team (Leslie included) met with Jason at the PAC. We discussed the November 7th event where the results of the Economic Impact of the Arts (do I have that name right, Jason?) report will be released. We’ll be helping run that program with them. We also discussed next steps along the path towards a Newport Arts & Culture district. – Paul

Upcoming::

Next Thursday will be our October EDALC Board of Directors meeting. Packets will go out next week. For reference, here’s the Zoom link:

Topic: EDALC October Board of Directors
Time: Oct 5, 2023 03:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09

Meeting ID: 917 810 4987
Passcode: 0NyksK

As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:

Board of Directors Resources

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 🙂