Monday Mailing - September 13, 2021

RARE Monday Mailing Year 28 | Issue 01 13 September 2021 1.

Quote of the Week:

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“Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”

- Swami Sivananda

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Oregon Fast Fact Oregon’s state flag is the only state flag in the United States to have different designs on each side – the escutcheon from the state seal on the obverse and a gold figure of a beaver on the reverse side.

Will the Pandemic Save or Sink Rural Oregon?

(Ciara Williams) How One Town Put Politics Aside to Save Itself From Fire Cities Struggle with the Dark Side of Community Engagement Logging On – Zoom’s Impact on Rural Oregonians Returning to Opal Creek After the Beachie Creek Fire From Extraction to Sustainability: Oregon’s Southern Coast and the Emerging Blue Economy Where Are the Workers: Shortage of Employees Leads to Altered Business Models Oregon’s RARE Program Helps Young Professionals Around Oregon: Court Rules Against Bend Using Hotel Dollars to Fix Roads Sagebrush Solar: How Lake County is Embracing Renewable Energy WEBINAR: Models and Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement

Will the Pandemic Save or Sink Rural Oregon?

The Oregon Way With the disorienting and frantic arrival of the COVID-19 virus, the Oregon Economic Development Districts (EDDs) assembled to address the collateral economic damage and prepare for the recovery of their respective regions. They somehow managed to center their focus in a world that turned on its head seemingly overnight.

They wrestled with one question in particular: How do you recover and save an economy while in the midst of an everchanging pandemic with new information and restrictions turning up any given day? They were both building a plane while flying it and plugging the holes of a sinking ship. There was no roadmap for how to maintain economic functions in a pandemic and there were simultaneous pressures to address the immediate need of keeping businesses afloat and a competing pressure to prepare for the coming government RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 1 of 6

funding to aid recovery. In these circumstances, it seemed impossible to provide immediate relief and long-term planning.

Read the full story.

2. How One Town Put Politics Aside to Save Itself from Fire

Grist They assembled in the parking lot outside the ranger station in Ashland, Oregon. They parked bikes, stepped out of cars, and covertly pulled ski masks over their faces. Then, as one, they ran at the front doors of the building, and before anyone inside could react, they had pushed their way in.

Linda Duffy, the district ranger in charge, happened to be in the front reception area when the masked figures flooded in. She was on her normal morning rounds, greeting staffers once they’d had time to check their messages and drink a cup of coffee. Duffy, then in her early 30s, was one of those earnest Forest Service employees — “nose down, tail up” is how she describes herself — who could tell people without irony that she was from the government and there to help.

Read the full story.

3. Cities Struggle with the Dark Side of Community Engagement Governing After years of debate, delay and political wrangling, New York City will finally get a congestion pricing program — in 2023.

The mid-August announcement of the lengthy schedule by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which is leading the effort, was met by incredulity from many of the organizations and politicians who have come to support a congestion fee. It is the result of a U.S. Department of Transportation request that the policy go through a 16month environmental review process focused on community engagement.

“I’d like to meet the person who thinks 16 months is expedited; that’s ridiculous,” said New York Mayor Bill De Blasio “If they want to know the environmental impact, I’ll tell them: It will reduce congestion, it will reduce pollution.”

Read the full story.

4. Logging On – Zoom’s Impact on Rural Oregonians

The Other Oregon One of the biggest cultural shifts associated with the COVID-19 pandemic was the increase of virtual communication. Virtual meeting spaces such as Zoom, GoToMeeting or Microsoft Teams became a staple for conducting business and keeping in touch with loved ones.

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Now that many Oregonians are vaccinated and returning to a sense of normalcy, local leaders in rural communities reflect on how virtual meetings changed their personal and work life.

At Harry & David in Medford, owned by 1-800-Flowers.com, Zoom and Microsoft Teams kept team members connected “more than ever,” according to Steve Lightman, group president of gourmet foods and gift baskets at 1-800-flowers.com, Inc. “When we transitioned to remote work at the start of the pandemic, we knew it was critically important that we provide ongoing communication and updates to our team members as we navigated such an uncertain environment together,” he said, adding that one way they kept employees engaged was through bi-weekly company-wide town hall meetings.

Read the full story.

5. Returning to Opal Creek After the Beachie Creek Fire

Oregon Public Broadcasting It’s about six hours into our hike to Jawbone Flats, and I’m openly groaning every time I have to hoist my aching body and 35-pound backpack over yet another downed tree on the trail.

“How much farther?” I ask Auggie Gleason yet again. He’s facilities director for the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center.

We had entered the footprint of the Beachie Creek Fire hours ago, so it seems like we should be getting close. But Gleason’s GPS unit tells us we’re still a couple miles away on a trail that’s riddled with fallen trees and washouts.

There aren’t many people who have been allowed to return to the Opal Creek Wilderness after wildfire burned through the area last Labor Day.

The forest is still closed to the public for safety — in part because last year’s wildfire was still burning underground well into June. So, we had to get permission from the U.S. Forest Service to hike in on a relatively safe trail that hasn’t been maintained since the fire.

Read the full story.

6. From Extraction to Sustainability: Oregon’s Southern Coast and the Emerging Blue Economy The Daily Yonder As rural towns become the new mecca for remote high-tech workers, getaway destinations for city dwellers escaping Covid, and refuges for people fleeing fire-ravaged regions, RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 3 of 6

Southern Oregon’s coastal communities are collaboratively exploring emerging blue economies to create local, living-wage jobs while combating threats of climate change.

Gary Burns, a city council member in Port Orford, Oregon, has seen what a homogenous economy in a small town can lead to. “For decades after logging left, this town crippled along,” he said. “Houses started to decay. Tourism was the only thing to grab on to. When your community is so small, you just don’t have the same dynamic of bigger towns to draw in different kinds of manufacturing or companies to come in.”

Read the full story.

7. Where Are the Workers: Shortage of Employees Leads to Altered Business Models The East Oregonian Enterprise isn’t the largest town in Eastern Oregon, with a population of 2,052. But it’s just a few miles from the ever popular town of Joseph and its vistas across Wallowa Lake to the peaks of the Eagle Cap Wilderness.

In a normal summer, the town’s Terminal Gravity Brewing would be busy all days of the week serving local, handcrafted beers to patrons and traditional brewpub fare. But due to a labor shortage this summer the company had to cut hours during its lunch rush, and close altogether on Tuesdays.

Natalie Millar, chief executive officer of the Wallowa County brewery, said it’s an inevitability it will have to close for even more days as their skeleton crew of cooks, servers and hostesses return to school — high school, to be exact.

Read the full story.

8. Oregon’s RARE Program Helps Young Professionals Travel Oregon Katie McFall was in the middle of a career transition when she came across the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) program in her job search. Founded in 1994, RARE is part of the University of Oregon’s Institute for Policy Research and Engagement. A federally funded AmeriCorps program, RARE provides assistance to Oregon’s rural areas by placing young professionals in rural communities for 11 months. While living and working in these communities, members help assist Oregon’s rural areas by developing and implementing strategies that drive economic support through historic downtown revitalization, destination development, agritourism and renewable-energy projects.

“I had previously looked at potentially joining the Peace Corps, another AmeriCorps program, but nothing really quite fit all the buckets since I was looking to get into community and economic development,” says McFall, a former RARE member who was RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 4 of 6

placed with the Willamette Valley Visitors Association and now works there as a full-time development coordinator.

Read the full story.

9. Around Oregon: Court Rules Against Bend Using Hotel Dollars to Fix Roads

Malheur Enterprise The city of Bend must reallocate roughly $1.6 million to go toward tourism-related purposes after the Oregon Court of Appeals sided with the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association in a lawsuit regarding the spending of lodging taxes.

The decision represents a loss, but also provides Bend with an opportunity to invest more in tourism-related facilities, according to the city.

In 2017, the City Council passed an ordinance that lowered the total percentage of transient room tax revenue earmarked for tourism promotion, from 35.4% to 31.2%. The rest was directed to the city’s general fund, which pays for police, fire and roads.

Read the full story.

10. Sagebrush Solar: How Lake County is Embracing Renewable Energy

Oregon Humanities The town of Lakeview doesn’t have a stoplight, but it’s not quite blink-and-you’ll-miss-it small. Situated within southeastern Oregon’s sweeping basin-and-range region just fourteen miles north of the California border, the town of 2,500 is the seat of Lake County and home to nearly a third of its residents. It’s frontier country, surrounded by hayfields and sagebrush desert.

Just north of town, past the towering painted cowboy and the Collins Lakeview Sawmill, is one of the county’s solar farms. Row upon row of blue panels tilt against the backdrop of the Warner Mountains, receiving the abundant sunlight that washes over this wide-open landscape much of the year. Installations such as this one are key to why Lake County may soon be able to boast that it has offset all of its carbon emissions. So far, over 122 megawatts of solar capacity have been installed throughout the county, with more on the way.

Read the full story.

11. WEBINAR – Models and Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement

Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design September 15 – 11:00am PDT What does meaningful community engagement work look like for your rural community? In this webinar you will have a chance to share your best engagement strategies and learn RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 5 of 6

new ways to strengthen your community-engaged design work. We’ll also talk about engagement in the context of COVID-19 and practices for building greater inclusivity. This webinar, hosted on September 15 at 2:00 PM ET, will be facilitated by Jamie Horter, a Nebraska-based rural artist working in community-engaged process and art.

Together we will: • Learn about three different models for planning your community engaged design work • Share practices for more inclusive and accessible participation, including creative virtual hosting options and outreach across diverse identities • Create a shared resource from your best engagement practices This will be a participatory webinar. Come with your questions and ideas to share!

Register for the webinar

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