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Monday Mailing

Year 24 • Issue 9 13 November 2017 1. Rural Opportunity Initiative (ROI) Request for Letters of Intent 2. Crook County Wants Local Voices To Have More Weight In Public Lands 3. Deans to Dunes Meetings Planned 4. Planning for Columbia River Tribal Village Stalls After Funding Denied

by White House 5. Oregon’s Kitchen Table 6. Our Driverless Future Begins As Waymo Transitions To Robot-Only Chauffeurs 7. Resource: Announcing the Public Life Tools 8. Umatilla County Hires New Economic Development Coordinator 9. These Emotionally Intelligent Habits Can Make You A Better Listener 10. Using Local Search Trends to Attract More Customers to Your Main Street 11. Resource: U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit 1. Rural Opportunity Initiative (ROI) Request for Letters of Intent Is your rural Oregon community reassessing economic opportunities, building on existing assets, and working with partners to enhance entrepreneurial capacity? ROI is a strategy to unify and strengthen existing business development resources to build rural prosperity through capacity building grants. ROI values entrepreneurship-based economic development, which emphasizes the creation and support of entrepreneurs and small businesses. ROI is not a new layer, and it is not operating in competition with existing initiatives. Because of this, applicants are prioritized based on:

Quote of the Week: “To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.”

--Douglas Adams Oregon Fast Fact: In Oregon it is illegal to use canned corn as fish bait

 their ability to demonstrate broad commitment and meaningful support from existing local economic development and small business support organizations, and  their ability to build the capacity of existing local economic development and small business support organizations, as well as, grow their collective ongoing efforts to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

For more information, click here.

2. Crook County Wants Local Voices To Have More Weight In Public Lands A plan aimed at giving locals more say in federal lands management is once again before Crook County leaders.

Commissioners held a meeting Monday night in Prineville, Oregon, to gather public input on the proposed plan. They plan to vote on it Wednesday.

The document lays out the history and economy of Crook County, emphasizing timber, mining, grazing and agriculture as mainstays in the

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central Oregon community. It also lays out county priorities for how federal public lands in Crook County should be managed.

The outlined policies favor extractive uses of public lands. For example, the plan calls for no reduction in the number of cows allowed to graze on public lands. It also emphasizes that forests should be logged following a wildfire, calls for no net reduction in Forest Service roads and says that lands previously open to mining should remain open.

To access the full story, click here.

3. Deans to Dunes Meetings Planned REEDSPORT — In a series of upcoming meetings, The Reedsport Deans to Dunes Trail Plan Project Advisory Committee met Monday, Nov. 6, at City Hall.

Meetings will culminate with trails for residents and tourists alike, helping ideally bring more visitors to the Reedsport-Winchester Bay area.

Consultants from the SCJ Alliance provided an introductory presentation at the trail planning project, according to Planning Director Jessica Terra and Planning Secretary Cindy Phillips.

Terra said the advisory committee "will meet approximately three times during the course of the project."

"Open houses and public meetings will be held at least three times during the course of the project as well," Terra said. "These public meetings are held in addition to the advisory meetings but the advisory meetings are open to the public also."

To access the full story, click here.

4. Planning for Columbia River Tribal Village Stalls After Funding Denied by White House Tribal members who live along the Columbia River were cautiously optimistic that the federal government was making good on one of its promises, 80 years late. But a new White House decision has again left hundreds of Native Americans in unsafe, unsanitary makeshift housing for the foreseeable future.

The Office of Management and Budget has decided not to grant a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers request for almost $1.6 million to finish planning a village for tribal members near The Dalles. Those people or their ancestors were displaced when the federal government erected a series of Columbia River Dams that flooded their riverside villages.

Members of Warm Springs, Yakama, Umatilla and Nez Perce tribes lived along the river for centuries and lost their homes as well as their center of social and economic life when the Army Corps built three dams: Bonneville, then The Dalles and finally John Day. To access the full story, click here.

5. Oregon’s Kitchen Table Oregon’s Kitchen Table is a way to bring all Oregonians to the table. It is the creation of a group of non-partisan, non-profit community organizations dedicated to helping Oregonians have a voice - to share their ideas, opinions, beliefs, and resources in improving Oregon and our communities.

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Oregon’s Kitchen Table strives to:     

Create simple, easy-to-use platforms (online and in person) for statewide public engagement Promote in-depth public engagement with the tough trade-offs and challenges decision makers confront in governing our state Provide leaders with high-quality feedback on issues that matter to Oregonians Increase Oregonians’ interest in participating in local, regional, and statewide decision making Empower citizens and decision-makers to communicate and work together in a fact-based, civil, and creative way

For more information about Oregon’s Kitchen Table, click here.

6. Our Driverless Future Begins As Waymo Transitions To Robot-Only Chauffeurs Waymo is ready for a dramatic next step after eight years of preparation, most of it as the Google Self-Driving Car project. The Alphabet Inc. unit has begun testing autonomous vehicles on public roads without human safety drivers at the wheel, and early next year will make its robotic chauffeurs available to Phoenix-area commuters.

Speaking at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Waymo CEO John Krafcik said on Tuesday that company technicians are already hailing its Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans in and around Phoenix via a mobile app and leaving it to the artificial intelligence operating the vehicles to figure out how to get to requested destinations. Within a few months, Waymo vans loaded with laser LiDAR, radar, cameras, computers, AI and no human safety drivers will pick up Arizonans registered in its “Early Riders” program.

“We’re now working on making this a commercial service available to the public. People will get to use our fleet of on-demand vehicles to do anything from commute to work, get home from a night out, or run errands,” Krafcik said. “Getting access will be as easy as using an app; just tap a button and Waymo will come to you, and take you where you want to go.”

To access the full story, click here.

7. Resource: Announcing the Public Life Tools These tools are based on decades of public life research, beginning with that of renowned Danish urbanist Jan Gehl and further honed by the Gehl practice. Earlier versions have been used to shape design, policy, and masterplanning projects in hundreds of cities across the world. By sharing these methods with a wider audience, more people can incorporate public life data into their work, making our communities more vibrant and accessible.

Head to the new public life tools section of our website, where you can:    

Learn about and download tool templates Take a quiz to find out which tools make sense for your project Download a guide on how to carry out a comprehensive survey of public space Read stories about the tools in action

Each tool comes with a description and instructions. We’ve included a longer guide with step-by-step directions to help organize comprehensive surveys of public space. The categories that each tool measures are in line with the broader Public Life Data Protocol. Of course, there is no single

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approach to measuring the quality of public life. Our tools can complement existing strategies for studying and telling stories about the spaces you care about.

To access this resource, click here.

8. Umatilla County Hires New Economic Development Coordinator Umatilla County selected a new coordinator for economic development and tourism. County Commissioner Bill Elfering said the county board aims to announce the hire after the candidate passes a background check, which may take a couple of weeks to complete.

Elfering also floated the idea of a county-wide transient room tax. Under Oregon law, he said 70 percent of that revenue would go toward tourism.

“Tourism is economic development,” Elfering said.

The new coordinator post comes with an annual salary of $42,348 or $51,132 plus benefits and dependent on qualifications, said Jennifer Blake, county director of human resources. Elfering said the departure of a senior department head is helping pay for the post.

Tamra Mabbott left the county planning director job in August for a position with the city of Umatilla. Elfering said the county allocated 20 percent of Mabbott’s time to assisting him with economic development, but she probably did more. She was a senior employee, he said, so the difference between her salary and a new hire is substantial.

To access the full story, click here.

9. These Emotionally Intelligent Habits Can Make You A Better Listener Listening is a skill–but you already know that. There’s plenty of advice on how to become a better listener and why it’s so important. But while you can pick up a few tactics to improve the way you listen, another route is simply to tap into that other skill set you can’t stop hearing about: emotional intelligence. Here are a few straightforward ways to use your feelings to listen better.

Reinforce What Others Feel, Not Just What They Say The starting point for emotional listening is reinforcement–nodding your head, or saying “yes” and “I understand”–but it doesn’t stop there. Show that you empathize by using phrases like, “I can see why you feel that way” or, “That must have been a difficult decision for you.” This encourages others to open up and share their feelings, not just their thoughts and ideas.

To access the full story, click here.

10. Using Local Search Trends to Attract More Customers to Your Main Street Each day more and more people are finding everything from restaurants and store details to products and services by conducting local searches on the likes of Google and Bing. In 2016 the number of local searches actually surpassed searches for the weather on Google!

This increase in local searches could be a hugely positive trend for Main Street retailers as it highlights the proximity advantage they have over online giants. In an age of instant gratification, Main Street stores can actually beat e-commerce giants by providing customers with the products they’re searching for on the same day rather than having to wait for shipping.

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For Main Street stores, getting found in these searches is more important than ever before. We’ve put together a practical list of some of the things that local store owners can do right now to help them capitalize on this increasing trend in local searches.

Make it easy to find your store According to research by comScore shop contact details is one of the primary pieces of information sought by consumers while searching online. It may seem like a no-brainer to have your contact details listed, however, an astonishing number of Main Street retailers have virtually no information for their store online and the ones that do too often have their contact information buried on their website.

To access the full story, click here.

11. Resource: U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit Individuals, businesses and communities can respond to the challenges of our changing climate. This framework can guide you through the process of planning and implementing resilience-building projects.

To access the toolkit, click here.

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