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Monday Mailing

Year 21 • Issue 25 09 March 2015 1.

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Oyster Industry Threatened by Climate Change Gadgets to Boost Bike Safety Have Big-Box Superstores Helped To Make Us Fat? Oregon Archaeologists Discover 15,000-Year-Old Knife Oregon Mileage Tax Officially Named 'OreGo' as Sign-Up Website Goes Live Oregon Might Lose Wildfire Insurance Coos Bay to Endorse Revitalize Main Street Act All Rise Rural Development Webinars Drew Dudley: Everyday Leadership The Benefits of From-Based Planning and Coding

1. Oyster Industry Threatened by Climate Change Ocean acidification threatens coastal economies in Oregon, Washington and 13 other states, a report published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change concludes.

Communities in those 15 states depend on the $1 billion oyster and clam industry.

An acidifying ocean – triggered by an increase in carbon dioxide – kills young mollusks.

Quote of the Week: "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." ~Beverly Sills

Oregon Fast Fact: The western Oregon climate is very similar to that of the Burgundy region in France where the Pinot grape is from.

Western Oregon has several wineries which produce Pinot Noir wine.

"Ocean acidification has already cost the oyster industry in the Pacific Northwest nearly $110 million and jeopardized about 3,200 jobs," said Julie Ekstrom, who was lead author on the study while with the Natural Resources Defense Council and now is at the University of California at Davis.

"This clearly illustrates the vulnerability of communities dependent on shellfish to ocean acidification," said George Waldbusser, a researcher in OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and coauthor on the paper.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Gadgets to Boost Bike Safety In a widely viewed YouTube video, a cyclist named Casey Neistat, deliberately takes tumble after tumble while trying to navigate obstructed bike lanes in New York City. The video is funny — it even includes a crash into a parked police car — but it also has struck a chord with bike commuters around the country facing a seemingly endless array of road hazards.

In urban areas, many riders have reason to be nervous, and that in itself is part of a vicious cycle.

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“The most common mistake new cyclists make is not riding predictably,” said Ken Podziba, chief executive of Bike New York, a nonprofit group that promotes cycling. “For example, people who are afraid of getting hit from behind by a car will often do things like ride on the sidewalk or ride against traffic, which actually increases the danger that they will get hit by a motorist who doesn’t see them.

Fear is a cyclist’s worst enemy.”

Driven in part by riders’ demands for a greater sense of comfort and safety on the road, new apps and gadgets are promising to do for the bicycle what air bags and satellite navigation did for the family car. What used to be a simple, healthful mode of transport is fast becoming a tech festival on wheels.

To access the full story, click here.

3. Have Big-Box Superstores Helped To Make Us Fat? The humorist Bill Bryson once wrote that "the purpose of the modern American suburb is to make sure that no citizen is ever more than 500 yards from a food product featuring melted cheese."

That's an exaggeration, but health officials have long worried that our environment of plentiful, cheap and easily accessible calories is contributing to obesity.

A group of economists argues in a new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that the prevalence of restaurants and big-box grocers and warehouse clubs contributes mightily to weight gain. "Food's gotten cheaper and more readily available, so we eat more of it. It's really simple," says study coauthor Charles Courtemanche, a health economist at Georgia State University. "At least a sizable portion of the rise in obesity can be characterized as responses to economic incentives."

A major report from a group of government-appointed nutrition experts released Thursday noted that about two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese and nearly half suffer from chronic conditions related to poor diet and exercise. Many studies have shown that additional caloric intake rather than reduced exercise is driving the trend.

To access the full story, click here.

4. Oregon Archaeologists Discover 15,000-Year-Old Knife In the high desert west of Burns, Oregon, a team of archeologists have discovered an unusual artifact they suspect is new evidence of one of the oldest human settlements in North America.

The discovery has yet to be published in a peer reviewed scientific journal, but if it is, it will add to the mounting body of evidence that suggests humans arrived in the Americas earlier than archeologists once thought.

The discovery is a small, beautiful knife carved out of a clear orange agate. One side has a number of serrated points, like a saw. The other edge has a steep, flaked edge that could have been used to scrape hides and cut meat off of bones.

To access the full story, click here.

5. Oregon Mileage Tax Officially Named 'OreGo' as Sign-Up Website Goes Live Oregon's pay-as-you-drive road usage tax has a long way to go before it replaces the increasingly problematic 30-cents-a-gallon state gas tax.

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But at least it now has a name: OreGo. The Oregon Department of Transportation has quietly launched an OreGo website, where state auto owners can put their names on a preliminary list of participants for the first-in-the-nation mileage tax.

ODOT is looking for 5,000 volunteers to participate in the public trial, which starts this summer.

"People can't officially enroll until July 1," said said Michelle Godfrey, a road usage charge program spokeswoman. "But this is the best way to get information about the program first and to know about enrollment options as they come on line."

To access the full story, click here.

6. Oregon Might Lose Wildfire Insurance Private timberland owners and the state officials charged with protecting those lands are both in the dark over how consecutive bad fire seasons will change the way Oregon pays to fight catastrophic wildfires.

For nearly four decades, Oregon has purchased an insurance policy that kicks in when wildfires are catastrophic. It’s a unique setup similar to car insurance.

The state has paid a premium of around $1 million and a $25 million deductible before the company chips in. The policy has saved the state as much as $46 million since 1973.

With a month left before spring, the only thing that is certain is that the state and landowners most likely will have to pony up if they want the insurance this year, if Oregon gets a policy at all.

The state sent its top forester, Doug Decker, across the Atlantic to meet face to face with brokers from Lloyd’s of London early this month.

Even now, Decker says, the future is uncertain.

“They’ll be asking themselves the question what can they afford to provide, and we’ll be asking the question what can we afford to pay,” Decker said.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Coos Bay to Endorse Revitalize Main Street Act Joining leaders of other rural Oregon communities that need downtown restoration, Mayor Crystal Shoji has decided to endorse a state bill that would give property owners incentive to restore historic commercial buildings.

SB 565, the Revitalize Main Street Act, was introduced two weeks ago by the state Senate finance committee. It would provide a 25 percent rebate for rehabilitation of commercial buildings. The rebate would be funded by an auction of state income tax credits.

Given the high cost of restoration, code upgrades and seismic reinforcement, Restore Oregon brought forth the legislation after five years of work. Restore Oregon executive director

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Peggy Moretti said local government officials and organizations around the state have already shown strong support for the bill.

"We have formal endorsements from 25 mayors, only one of whom is from Portland," Moretti said.

"We've also gotten support from 27 or 28 downtown or Main Street organizations."

Although Coos Bay is focused on removing blight and creating a more vibrant atmosphere, Shoji said the city is somewhat handcuffed because it cannot force property owners to fix up their properties. She hopes the bill will incentivize them.

To access the full story, click here.

8. All Rise Chairs are the new cigarettes, claim countless articles about health and the sedentary lifestyle.

Evidence links prolonged sitting to the rising incidence of cancers, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, not to mention tight hips, rounded shoulders, stiff backs and pudgy middles. Yet workplace demands bind employees to their desks for eight hours a day or more. So what’s a hard-working, health-conscious person to do? Enter the standing desk.

Standing desks have been around for a long time. Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Dickens and Winston Churchill all used standing desks, according to the oddly obsessive NotSitting.com. Today’s furniture companies offer contemporary versions.

The models are popular, especially here at home. David Jones, chief information officer of furniture maker Anthro, reports that half its workstation sales are sit-stand solutions, and Oregon ranks as one of the top three markets for the products. (Anthro was recently purchased by Rhode Island-based Nortek but continues operations out of its Tualatin headquarters and factory.)

To access the full story, click here.

9. Rural Development Webinars Basics for Helping Organizations Identify and Promote Their Public (and Private) Value, Tuesday, March 10 at 2:00 pm EDT Link: https://cornell.webex.com/cornell/k2/j.php?MTID=t224a0202197d781efb536f9cc92c6525 Presenters: Jane Haskell, Extension Professor, University of Maine Cooperative Extension and George Morse, Extension Faculty Associate, University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Professor Emeritus, Applied Economics, University of Minnesota Extension. Click here to learn more about our presenters.

Description: Any public service provides private value to its users or patrons as well as public value to those people who never access or use the service. When public officials only have information from the public service about the private value to those who use the service (or direct benefits), funding decisions are made with incomplete information. The glitch in this scenario is that public services often have no ideas how to identify and then share information about the public value (or indirect benefits) to those who never use the service. This webinar will share how Laura Kalamb okidis’ (University of Minnesota Economist and Minnesota State Economist) ground-breaking model for demonstrating the public value of Extension programs has been used in Maine with nonExtension public services. Our work has involved increasing the capacity of organizations to be able to describe their public value in a way that is memorable and is also 'backed up with numbers'. Hear how 8-year old Curt who lives in southern Maine reads to Winston the therapy dog and learn how we Page 4 of 5

discovered from one of our workshop participants that story telling is a pivotal component of public value messaging. We will describe how our pilot project started with public libraries in 2013, evolved through 2014, its current status, and our next steps.

To Join: The link above will take you to our online event center--it will open 15 minutes prior to the start of the webinar. We will be hosting the webinar via WebEx Training Center. Once you are at the site, enter your name, email address and the event password (ERCCweb2). Next click “Join Now” and follow the instructions on your screen.

What Social Media Platform is Right for You?, Wednesday, March 25 at 12:00 pm EDT The choices can be dizzying and you can’t do them all and do it well. This review will examine the audiences you are trying to reach and will offer suggestions as to which platform works best. Will briefly touch on how to create a needs assessment for your business or organization.

For more information: http://www.extension.umd.edu/womeninag/webinars To register: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-webinars-registration-11452674257 10. Drew Dudley: Everyday Leadership We have all changed someone’s life — usually without even realizing it. In this funny talk, Drew Dudley calls on all of us to celebrate leadership as the everyday act of improving each other’s lives.

To access this video from the TEDx series, click here.

11. The Benefits of From-Based Planning and Coding This article is intended to provoke a discussion about what may be the next frontier for placemaking: The transformation of the movement into a more broadly applicable model for community planning.

To start, I offer a limited narrative explaining the graphic above presented as the principal object of attention.

The placemaking movement has incorporated key urbanism principles into policy and practice. This shift has transformed practice by recognizing the vital importance of development regulations and demonstrating that form-based codes can be used to assure that desirable change occurs. Recognition of local or regional “place” outcomes, and how to achieve them with form-based codes, has moved into the planning/design mainstream.

To access the full story, click here.

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