Monday Mailing
Year 24 • Issue 05 16 October 2017 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Art of The Rural Street Life After Retail: 5 Scenarios That Imagine the Future Oregon’s Timber History, An Update Fall Energy Symposium Hosted in HR How Cities Can Nurture an Industrial Renaissance Instructables-Shape What You Make Event: Great Oregon ShakeOut - October 19, 201, 10:19 AM How to Conquer Public Speaking Fear More Tsunami Signs for Curry Webinar: Building CRS Capacity - Success Stories at the Local and State Level: Part 2 of ASFPM and CSO's CRS Green Guide Webinar Series Mon, Nov 6, 2017, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM 11. Cities Put Proposed Tax Districts on Ballot, Minus One 1. Art of The Rural As a digital platform, Art of the Rural elevates the rural arts field by facilitating rural-urban dialogue and cross-sector exchange. On the ground, we cultivate an organic manifestation of the digital mapping process by engaging the field in conversation, encouraging partnerships, while also activating participation in rural cultural policy and programming. For more information, click here.
Quote of the Week: “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.” ~John Ray Oregon Fast Fact: The world's oldest shoes, 9,000-year-old sandals made of sagebrush and bark, were found at Fort Rock Cave in central Oregon in 1938.
2. Street Life After Retail: 5 Scenarios That Imagine the Future Early last week, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, Angela Ahrendts, proclaimed that the company’s stores aren’t stores at all any more: “We call them town squares.” That association isn’t especially new. Since the dawn of the pre-industrial city (think the agora in Ancient Greece), street-level commerce has been a key component of vibrant urban life. But Apple’s announcement does reflect the way urban retail is currently undergoing a significant transformation. Over the last decade, the meteoric rise of online shopping has disrupted the day-to-day operations of brick-and-mortar retail across the U.S., affecting the viability of small mom-and-pop shops as well as giants like Barnes & Noble and McDonald’s. In some cities, the impact of e-commerce, long-term lease agreements, and soaring rents — which incentivize landowners to hold out for high-value retailers — have led to the papered windows and vacant streetscapes now characteristic of retail blight. To access the full story, click here. 3. Oregon’s Timber History, An Update In the 1970s when annual Oregon timber harvests totaled more than 8 billion board feet, the industry was a huge economic force. The sector directly employed 80,000 or so workers at wages some 30% above the statewide average. As such, the timber industry accounted for 1 out of Page 1 of 5
every 10 private sector jobs across the state, 12% of state GDP, and 13% of all private sector wages. While there were timber-related jobs in every part of the state, these impact figures were considerably larger in many rural communities, particularly in eastern and southern parts of the state. Beginning with the severe early 1980s recession the industry has undergone massive changes. At that time the industry restructured as interest rates soared and the housing market collapsed. Many of the existing mills had come to the end of their life cycle and needed to be retooled. There was also increased market competition with lumber coming from southern U.S. states and British Columbia. The result by the end of the 1980s was a more efficient, yet smaller in some ways industry. Harvest levels and output had returned but employment never recovered: industry jobs in 1989 were 17% below 1979 figures. Then the federal restrictions took hold, sending the industry on a downward spiral that was only briefly, temporarily interrupted during the go-go days of the housing bubble. To access the full story, click here. 4. Fall Energy Symposium Hosted in HR The 2017 Fall Energy Symposium happens at Best Western Plus Hood River Inn Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 16-17. The two-day event will bring together community leaders, businesses, elected officials, ranchers, farmers, and agency partners to identify strategies to advance clean energy initiatives across Oregon. The second annual event will be a continuation of the Making Energy Work for Rural Oregon workshop series. It will showcase experts addressing resilience, emergency preparedness, and how communities can better manage their energy use. “Sustainable Northwest and Lake County Resources Initiative are helping local communities across Oregon accelerate energy planning and local projects through training, resources, and ongoing support. This symposium is joining those communities with a focus on common goals and workable solutions,� said Sue Fletcher, senior manager, Energy Trust of Oregon. To access the full story, click here. 5. How Cities Can Nurture an Industrial Renaissance More than 130 cities are now in the hunt for Amazon's second headquarters, which carries a Megabucks-like payoff -- and equally long odds. Regardless of where Amazon goes, the company will need to hire tens of thousands of software engineers, most of them from somewhere else. My bet is on Toronto, not only because it is big and cosmopolitan and has an established base of tech workers but also because Canadian visa regulations make it easy to hire talent from other Commonwealth countries like Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Cities would have a much better chance of putting their own citizens to work if, instead of long-shot recruiting like the frenzy to land Amazon, they focused on growing their own companies, especially those that make things. There's an industrial renaissance going on this country, particularly in the business-to-business sale of highly-engineered, high-value parts, and it's accompanied by an industrial return to the city, with companies moving back to be close to the next generation of talent. In many ways, this new generation of industrial companies offer us the best prospects for rebuilding our middle class, particularly with high-skill technical jobs that don't require a college degree. To access the full story, click here. Page 2 of 5
6. Resource: Instructables-Shape What You Make The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects, connect with others, and make an impact on the world. One of these early places was a blog Zeroprestige, which was an open source hardware experiment for kitesurfing. Here they documented their hand-sewn kites, plywood boards, and other general mayhem that happens when PhDs and high winds collide. To access this resource, click here. 7. Event: Great Oregon ShakeOut - October 19, 201, 10:19 AM Millions of people worldwide will practice how to Drop, Cover, and Hold On at 10:19 a.m. on October 19* during Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drills! Oregonians can join them today by registering for the 2017 Great Oregon ShakeOut. Participating is a great way for your family or organization to be prepared to survive and recover quickly from big earthquakes– wherever you live, work, or travel. Learn tips on how to get 2 Weeks Ready and craft your own emergency kits here. ShakeOut is also a major activity of America's PrepareAthon! For more information, click here. 8. How To Conquer Public Speaking Fear: By Morton C. Orman, M.D. Public speaking is a common source of stress for everyone. Many of us would like to avoid this problem entirely, but this is hard to do. Whether we work alone or with large numbers of people, eventually we will need to speak in public to get certain tasks accomplished. And if we want to be leaders or achieve anything meaningful in our lives, we will often need to speak to groups, large and small, to be successful. The truth about public speaking, however, is IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE STRESSFUL! If you correctly understand the hidden causes of public speaking stress, and if you keep just a few key principles in mind, speaking in public will soon become an invigorating and satisfying experience For more information, click here. 9.
More Tsunami Signs for Curry Curry County motorists will soon see more tsunami evacuation signs along Highway 101 as part of a $354,241 grant from the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. More than 45 signs were erected along Highway 101 in the northern end of the Oregon Coast, and Curry County will receive about 100, said Jonathan Allan, the coastal geomorphologist for the Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI). “Thanks to these grant funds, the entire Oregon coast now has tsunami evacuation maps that are available as print evacuation brochures and through a web map,” Allan said. “Development of those maps was a crucial accomplishment in helping residents and visitors get to safety.' To access the full story, click here.
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10. Webinar: Building CRS Capacity - Success Stories at the Local and State Level: Part 2 of ASFPM and CSO's CRS Green Guide Webinar Series - Mon, Nov 6, 2017, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Are you interested in reducing flood insurance premiums while enhancing your community's resilience? Then this webinar series is for you. The National Flood Insurance Program's (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) is a federal incentive program that provides flood insurance policyholders with discounts on their premiums in exchange for their community taking actions to reduce flood risk. This free webinar series will specifically highlight how communities may achieve success in the green elements (http://bit.ly/2wma4Zd) of the program. This upcoming four-part webinar series is your opportunity to learn more about the nature-based solutions for community resilience, hear success stories from around the country, ask questions, and share input. Webinar Series: • Part 1: Oct. 30 "The CRS Green Guide" • Part 2: Nov. 6 "Building CRS Capacity" • Part 3: Nov. 13 "CRS Open Space Preservation" • Part 4: Nov. 27 "CRS Stormwater Management" By the end of this webinar series, participants will be able to: • Identify natural and beneficial functions of floodplains and how they increase community resilience; • Explain how to use the CRS Green Guide and other tools to improve their community's scores in CRS with elements that enhance community resilience; • Describe best practices for achieving success in the CRS program; and • Recognize actions that are credited through specific elements of the CRS program Not familiar with FEMA’s CRS program? No problem, register for the “Introduction to the CRS” webinar scheduled for Oct. 17 at 1:00pm ET (http://bit.ly/2ybjLOy). TARGET AUDIENCE: Floodplain managers, planners, & local officials interested in joining the CRS or learning more about its "green" elements; CRS Coordinators who want to focus on elements to enhance community resiliency & the natural environment. 1 CEC for CFMs who participate in the entire webinar. All webinar presentations and materials will be made available through the CRS for Community Resilience website (http://bit.ly/2wmb1Rh) For more information, click here.
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11. Cities Put Proposed Tax Districts on Ballot, Minus One Come the May 2018 primary election, nearly every voter in Umatilla and Morrow counties will have a say in whether or not to support the formation of two new tax districts for Oregon State University Extension Service. Eleven of the 12 incorporated cities in Umatilla County and all five cities in Morrow County recently passed resolutions forwarding the proposed service districts to the voters, which would tax 33 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to help fund OSU Extension programs. The only city not to pass a resolution was Umatilla, meaning taxpayers there will not pay for or receive services if the district passes. Officials with OSU Extension will now work with county commissioners to initiate the formation of each district. For more information, click here.
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