April 2018 by Southern Oregon Business Journal

NW WINEPRESS OREGON WINERY OF THE YEAR

APRIL 2018

INSIDE: •

•

Combatting Fake News Soil Acidification vs

SPANGLER WINERY

Global Warming •

Compressed Natural Gas

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Pat Spangler, Owner Spangler Vineyards

A Few Words From Greg Getting to your demographic is puzzling everyone I meet. The marketing and sales conversations with all industries relying on cash flow are filled with uncertainty and divided opinions. Of course, it depends on what you’re selling. Sometimes its far more guesswork and personal preference than science. A very high percentage of businesses throw money at the wall to see what sticks. “Will the people who see my advertising in the local paper be the same people who are likely to buy my products and services? How about my television advertising? Or radio?” Often we don’t know. It could be that there are too many people in our business sphere with completely different wants, needs and values. We try to hit them all just in case the right person will see our company name. So, we go for the “biggest bang for the buck”. You’ve heard that many times, right? But, we know that is very inefficient. It becomes a numbers game—put a billboard on the highway so the three people who might be your customer, of the 40,000 driving by each day, will come to buy your product. How much did it cost to get those three customers? This new age of mass communications and high speed everything keeps many awake at night. The options we have now are more numerous than ever; and they come at us from every direction. Who uses what we make? Who eats what we cook? Who needs the services we provide? How and where should we tell them so they will choose us the next time a need arises?

“Build it and they will come.” No they won’t. There must be a compelling reason for our prospects and customers to use our products or services. The Southern Oregon Business Journal will be working with readers, writers, and advertisers to improve the processes we, you, and everyone you know, should be using to make marketing and sales much more effective. It should be fun.

Greg Southern Oregon Business Journal

A JOURNAL FOR THE ECONOMICALLY CURIOUS, PROFESSIONALLY INSPIRED AND ACUTELY MOTIVATED

Contents Inside This Issue 4. Economic Outlook 6. Rebuilding the Pipeline 8. Getting to Work 10. Combatting Fake News 12. Technology, Grapes and Water

FEATURED ARTICLES

24. Enhanced Broadband in Rural Areas

14. Oregon Winery of the Year

27. Nanocrystals in Construction 30. Natural Gas Vehicle Fueling 32. Does Portland Want Affordable Hoousing

18. EDCO Partners with LaPine 22. Boise Cascade—Locally Rooted

34. We smelled the Smoke 38. Is that Really a Good Idea 39. Evergreen Land Title 46. Oregon Tech

28. If a Frog had Wings 40. Acidic Soils—Worse than Global Warming?

44. Leadercast

COVER PHOTO

703 Divot Loop Sutherlin, Oregon 97479 www.southernoregonbusiness.com 541-315-6127 Southern Oregon Business Journal

Spangler Vineyards Photo by Greg Henderson

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Quality Information, Informed Choices

Get to Work! How Oregonians Commute to Work by Christian Kaylor

Getting to and from work is a challenge for many Oregonians. Surveys suggest that commuting is one of our least pleasant chores. Oregonians travel on average for 24 minutes each way to get to work, though 7 percent of Oregonians travel for an hour or more to get to work. The geographies and transportation networks in our communities shape the commuting patterns of more than a million Oregon workers. To understand the workforce of a community, it’s important to understand who is working in your community, but chooses not to live there and vice versa.

Oregonians Working Outside of Oregon The vast majority of Oregonians work in Oregon. However, in three counties, traveling outside of Oregon is somewhat common: Malheur, Umatilla, and Curry counties. In Malheur County, bordering Idaho in the southeast corner of the state, 16 percent of the resident workforce leaves Oregon to work. The town of Ontario is less than an hour drive from the Boise region. In Umatilla County, 11 percent of the resident workforce leaves Oregon to work. Hermiston, in Umatilla county, is just a 30 minute drive from the Tri-Cities community in Washington State: Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick. At the other end of Oregon, 9 percent of the workforce living in Curry County, just north of the California border on the coast, work outside of Oregon. In the Portland region, 23,000 Oregonians work outside of Oregon. The vast majority of those travel across the Columbia River to Clark County in Washington for work. That’s the largest flow of workers living in Oregon to outside the state. For Southern Oregon Business Journal

context, that’s about the size of the entire Coos County workforce. However, that 23,000 represents just 3 percent of the workforce living in the Portland area.

Working in Other Counties Most Oregonians work in the same county that they live in. However, 20 percent of Oregonians work outside the county they live in. And in a few Oregon counties, about half the workers leave their home to work. Moving half the workforce out – and back into - a community every day puts an unusually large amount of pressure on local transportation systems. Clackamas County has the largest population leaving the county to work every day, with 91,000 workers. That’s 48 percent of the workers living in Clackamas County. For context, that’s larger than the entire working population living in the Bend metro region. The vast bulk of those commuting workers are traveling to other counties within the Portland region. By contrast, in neighboring Multnomah County only 18 percent of the workers commute outside of the county. Two smaller counties at the edge of the Portland region have relatively high numbers of commuters. Columbia County (49%) at the northern end of the Portland region and Yamhill County (35%) at the 8

southwest edge. These are both rural economies with relatively smaller populations compared with the rest of the Portland region. Polk County has the majority of its workforce leaving the county to work. West Salem is in Polk County, while the rest of the City of Salem is in Marion County, dividing the second largest city in Oregon between two counties.

people who live outside of Beaverton. Looking around Oregon, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a relatively large percentage of commuters coming into Beaverton to work every day. Though Gresham (78%) and Hillsboro (78%) are not far behind Beaverton and it is common for more than half of the workers in any Oregon city to reside outside of the borders of that city.

Commuters Come to the Cities to Work

Of the largest cities in Oregon, only Bend has a majority of the workforce living inside the city with 47 percent of the workers residing outside of Bend. Close behind, 55 percent of Eugene workers live outside of the Emerald City. Portland, Oregonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest city, has an impressive 249,664 workers living outside of Portlandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s borders. The remarkable freeway and transit system in Portland is necessary for transporting about a quarter of a million workers in and out of the city on a regular basis.

Bikeprtland.org

Among the eight largest cities in Oregon, seven of them have a majority workforce that resides outside

Working from Home Many Oregonians travel from one county to another to get to work every day, but some never leave home. In 2016, 6.6 percent of working Oregonians worked from home. That ratio increased only slightly from 10 years earlier when the figure was 6 percent.

While working from home is still relatively rare, a few communities in Oregon have larger concentrations of home workers. Those communities are most prevalent in rural Central and Eastern Oregon. Two counties stand out for having larger percentages of folks working from home, Deschutes County with 9.5 percent and Hood River County with 10 percent.

of the city limits. For example, of the 70,746 jobs physically located within the borders of the city of Beaverton, 87 percent of those jobs are held by Southern Oregon Business Journal

Combatting Online Fake News That Travels Faster Than Truth Gary Conkling

New research shows fake news travels farther, faster and deeper on Twitter than the truth, creating a nightmare for reputation managers who face a daunting challenge in fighting back. [Photo credit: Reuters] This is real news that should send shivers down the backs of anyone concerned about their reputation – false news moves through Twitter “farther, faster, deeper and more broadly” than the truth. The disquieting finding by a team of researchers at MIT and published in Science is based on tracking the online life of “news” trafficked on Twitter. Real news and false news were judged by a collection of Southern Oregon Business Journal

online fact-checkers that included Snopes.com and Politifact.com. The study authors found a false rumor is retweeted and spreads 70 percent more than a true story. To put that into context, a true story may reach 1,000 people while a false rumor could gain an audience of up to 100,000 Twitter users. While experts speculate on what propels falsehoods to travel faster online than the truth, reputation managers should worry about how to counter a campaign based on fast-moving, unverified fake news. Especially as technology “improves” to automate mass dissemination of fake 10

news, turning a cascade from a single tweet into a volcanic eruption. The Washington Post story on the MIT findings recalled a 2013 incident when someone hacked into the Associated Press Twitter account and “reported” explosions in the White House injuring President Obama. The report was untrue, but before anyone knew the truth, the Dow Jones index dropped 100 points – in just two minutes. MIT researchers discovered that false news isn’t just spread by usual suspect bots. Some of the most viral contagions of fake news start as retweets from random individuals, which means the job of “monitoring the web” is pretty close to impossible. Twitter collaborated with the researchers, which is itself a rarity, allowing them to trace the online lineage of 126,000 tweet cascades, spread by 3 million Twitter users. Skeptics can question the sample and the differentiation between true and false stories. But the underlying fact remains that clicky false stories seem to have more online appeal and, therefore, represent a reputation-busting tool in the hands of unscrupulous or alienated people. It is a reputation manager’s worst nightmare. Someone tells a falsehood about you or your organization, you respond with verifiable facts, but the false narrative still dominates.

news, one tool reputation managers should consider when faced with a cascade of false news is to fight back on Twitter using promoted tweets. You would be, in effect, marketing your truth. Use tools like video that attract the most attention on social media, including Twitter. Don’t whine. Find credible third parties who can verify your facts and attest to your veracity. Punch back hard, but fairly. Tell viewers the stakes. When appropriate, include a call to action such as shaming the person or organization responsible for the fake news – and those who help promote it, either unintentionally or on purpose.

Don’t be afraid to cross news channels to tell your story. Seek earned media coverage from print and TV outlets by stressing you are doing the only thing possible to combat the spread of false stories. The worst thing to do is nothing. If you don’t defend your reputation, don’t expect anyone else to defend it. Purveyors of falsehoods may seem to have the upper hand in an online gunfight, but if you wage an honorable defense, you might receive more help than you expected.

http://www.cfm-online.com/public-affairsblog/2018/3/12/combatting-online-fake-news-thattravels-faster-than-truth

As noted in a previous Managing Issues blog, falsehoods that rise to the level of defamation can be dealt with by demanding that a social media platform removes the offending tweet. Many damaging falsehoods aren’t necessarily defamatory. They misstate facts or tell only part of the story. Debates over environmental issues and climate change are a great example of false or misleading narratives that come from either side of the debate. Big lies by big actors usually get fact-checked. Big lies by lower profile actors seldom get fact-checked, which means the maligned party has the burden of trying to clean up the mess. Even lies exposed by credible fact-checkers can get shifted to their respective political lane of media outlets and never be seen by the other side of a polarized citizenry.

As social media moguls explore how to limit fake Southern Oregon Business Journal

Gary Conkling is principal and co-founder of CFM Strategic Communications, and he leads the firm's PR practice, specializing in crisis communications. He is a former journalist, who later worked on Capitol Hill and represented a major Oregon company. But most importantly, he’s a die-hard Ducks fan. You can reach Gary at: garyc@cfmpdx.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @GaryConkling 11

Technology Boosts Grape Quality, Saves Water Oregon BEST January 25, 2018

deep in the root zone, growers can use data from different soil depths to precisely apply or withhold irrigation at specific times to influence foliage growth, size of the grapes, phenolic content, etc.

Oregon BEST makes impact investment in Oregon-grown technology that saves water and fine-tunes plant stress to boost crop quality, flavor

PORTLAND, Ore. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Applying stress to grapevines by withholding irrigation during key periods of the growing season can influence everything from the size and yield of the ripened fruit to the flavor of wine made from the grapes. An Oregon startup is receiving impact investment support from Oregon BEST to team with researchers at Oregon State University and the Washington State University to fast-track a new technology that helps vineyard owners monitor soil water tension and more precisely manage irrigation, which can both control plant stress and save water. SmartVineyards LLC, based in Portland, has developed a system of sensors, software and machine learning tools that wirelessly monitors soil water tension, while factoring in historical weather data, soil properties, and other information to help growers influence production. Soil water tension refers to the tension in the soil that a plant pulls against to bring water up into the vine. When soils are wet, this tension is low. In drier soils, the tension is high, which can be manipulated to subject the plant to stress. By installing SmartVineyards' sensors (pictured, right) three feet Southern Oregon Business Journal

"It turns out that what's important when monitoring water use and plant stress is not how much water is in the soil, but how easily that water can be pulled from the soil by the plant," said Alan Campbell, co-founder and CEO of SmartVineyards. "So we offer a tool that helps farmers make precise irrigation decisions based on real-time soil and weather monitoring, plus a wide range of additional stored information, such as historical weather data, grape variety, soil type, the typography of the land and other factors." For example, if an irrigation pattern and plant stress in a prior year returned good results, the grower can duplicate this same watering and stress pattern 12

using the SmartVineyards system to attain a similar quality of grapes. "With this technology, growers can stress plants more, or less, at precise times, and monitor soil water tension at different soil depths," Campbell said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A grower might want to change the irrigation volume when the fruit sets to reduce the canopy growth, then maintain target stress levels at various soil depths to impact fruit development." Hector Dominguez, SmartVineyardsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; co-founder and CTO, returned to the U.S. to pursue business opportunities after completing a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in robotics at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. Dominguez said the SmartVineyards system is complicated because it involves such a wide range of science and technology. "We are putting together machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, IOT and the latest scientific developments in plant physiology," Dominquez said. "Without Oregon BEST's support, it would have taken a very long time to get to where we are now."

produces more than two million cases of wine annually and owns several estate vineyards in eastern Washington, including one where SmartVineyards operates a test plot. The startup is working with a cross-disciplinary team of five researchers that includes OSU professors Clinton Shock (crop and soil science), Chad Higgins (biological and ecological engineering), Sharmodeep Bhattacharyya (statistics) and Raviv Raich (electrical engineering), as well as WSU professor Marcus Keller (viticulture and enology). "We are fortunate to be working with such a diverse team of university experts to develop this technology," Campbell said. "Oregon BEST was very helpful in putting together this collaboration, which has provided valuable technical assistance and given us credibility with our early customers." Oregon BEST offers business support and other services to cleantech startups that have the potential for global impact. It has invested $250,000 into the SmartVineyards project, including the university research team.

"We are excited about the technology SmartVineyards has developed because of its potential to impact water conservation worldwide while boosting crop yields," said David Kenney, President and Executive Director of Oregon BEST. "Given the impact climate change is having on global weather patterns, we must find more innovative ways to save water while increasing agriculture production."

Although the startup is focused on the vineyards market initially, the technology can also be applied to crops like onions, potatoes, cherries, apples, blueberries, hazelnuts and hops. Irrigation stress in onions can influence the vegetable's core shape as well as its shelf life, Campbell said. And applying plant stress in apple orchards might have the potential to avoid brown spots known as bitter pit. SmartVineyards has installed its technology in more than 15 locations in Washington, Oregon, and California, including a test plot for Washington's oldest winery, Chateau Ste. Michelle, which Southern Oregon Business Journal

Reprint: by permission Photos by SmartVineyards LLC Gregg Kleiner, 541.740.9654 SOURCES: David Kenney, Oregon BEST, 503.780.8736; Hector Dominguez, SmartVineyards, 971.221.1449; Alan Campbell, SmartVineyards, 503.502.6302

About SmartVineyards LLC http://smartvineyards.net SmartVineyards has developed an innovative, cost-effective soil moisture monitoring system designed to provide accurate, timely and actionable data for managing vineyard irrigation to attain highest quality production. The technology, which has been installed at 15 locations in California, Oregon and Washington can also be applied to other crops, including onions, potatoes, apples, blueberries, cherries and hops. The startup is currently part of the Portland State Business Accelerator cohort. 13

2018 Oregon Winery of the Year Spangler Vineyards

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Quartz. A piece the size of a hazelnut. “They’re scattered all over this part of the vineyard.” Winter is reluctant to let go, but evidence of Spring’s tenacity is pushing bud bumps onto the aging vines. Pat Spangler says he probably wouldn’t have planted the Cabernet vines where they are, the second oldest in Douglas County behind only Hillcrest Vineyard (1961), but you don’t just move well rooted vines. So, they remain unmoved and producing. The soil is rich and deep on the southern half of the vineyard, a result of the explosion of Mt Mazama 7,700 years ago - 42 times greater than Mt St Helens in 1980 – that formed Crater Lake a hundred miles east of here. That small piece of quartz was once a part of the mountain. Another collision of nature during the late Mesozoic period millions of years ago with the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the western border of North America pushed the mountains and the mounds of the Umpqua Valley where they are now. The northern side of Spangler Vineyard with its shallow rocky soil attests to that. Its perfect for the grapes that prefer a more arid soil. Blending, tasting, testing is the art of wine making. When wine making was just a hobby for him, Pat discovered the craft of wine making while in the suburbs of Chicago. He bought a home with a couple hundred vines on the property and thus began his love of the craft. Trading on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange lacked the thrill of creating something with his hands. He had to leave. The decision to move to Santa Rosa, CA was easy. Winning a few medals for his wines at the California State Fair put wine making in his veins. Hobbies become passions. Buying a vineyard was essential to the passion. We don’t normally think of vineyards and wineries as a “fixer upper” but that’s what Pat Spangler bought in 2004. The winery needed attention, but the grapes and opportunity were perfect. With this venture he could develop his talents at creating blends of all six Southern Oregon Business Journal

Bordeaux varieties. Bold red wines are his favorite and the winning of 10 Platinum medals will attest to that.

“2018 Oregon Winery of the Year” The declaration by NW Winepress brought with it from wine enthusiasts from all over the Pacific Northwest, “Its about time.” They knew. Khayam’s Block Estate Dolcetto will be released in May 2018. It may also be the best wine Pat Spangler has ever crafted. The cheetah of international fame, Khayam, was born at Wildlife Safari only a couple of miles from Spangler Vineyards. She was a celebrity of monumental proportions traveling around the world and even appearing on the Johnny Carson show. Her bronze statue is the centerpiece of the small town of Winston. At her death it is believed she was buried in the vineyard soils of what is now Spangler Vineyards.

Phone: 541.679.9654 info@spanglervineyards.com 491 Winery Lane Roseburg, OR 97471-9365

Southern Oregon Business Journal

March 19, 2018

Rural Oregon Communities Awarded Funds to Enhance Broadband Access Today Business Oregon announced seven recipients of grant funds designed to advance broadband infrastructure in rural areas. "Bridging the digital divide is an integral part of growing our rural economies and creating a Future Ready Oregon," Governor Kate Brown said.

The 2016 Broadband Progress Report adopted by the Federal Communications Commission shows that 39% or rural Americans lack access to broadband speed benchmarks, versus only 4% in urban areas. To address that gap, Governor Kate Brown authorized Business Oregon to use $500,000 from the Strategic Reserve Fund to stand up a grant pilot program to advance rural broadband development.

"Cultivating economic stability in rural Oregon is a key priority for us, and identified as such in our agency's strategic plan," said Business Oregon director Chris Harder. "Broadband access is critical to both advancing existing rural industries, as well as diverse economic growth."

As the state's economic development agency, Business Oregon works to expand broadband access as a critical component of 21st century infrastructure for business and community development. Oregon cities, counties, ports, tribes, cooperatives, non-profits, and public-private partnerships submitted proposals in February, 2018. There were 25 applications submitted for more than $4.8 million in requested funding. Grants awarded will support broadband planning and infrastructure projects located in Baker, Columbia, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Morrow, Harney, and Tillamook counties.

Organization

Project Name

Grant Offer

Brief Description

City of Baker City

Elkhorn View Industrial Park Broadband

$137,000

Baker City will deploy a fiber distribution network throughout the 65 acre city-owned industrial park.

City of Boardman

Broadband Strategic Planning

$10,000

Boardman will develop a Broadband Strategic Plan for the city.

City of Glendale

$140,000

Glendale will deploy a city wide fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and fiber-to-the-business (FTTB) network through a public-private partnership.

Columbia County

Columbia County Broadband Project

$68,300

The county will assess its broadband needs, infrastructure, vendor resources, and strategic options including a county-wide fiber ring to provide high-speed Internet services to residents, businesses, anchor institutions and emergency services throughout the county.

Coos Curry Electric Coop

Broadband Feasibility Study

$19,700

CCEC will conduct a feasibility study for building a broadband network to provide services to rural underserved areas of Coos, Curry, and part of Douglas counties.

Harney County

Harney County Broadband

$75,000

The county will develop a Broadband Strategic Plan in collaboration with the cities of Burns and Hines, and the Burns Paiute Tribe.

Tillamook Lightwave

Port area of Garibaldi

$50,000

TLW will expand its fiber network in the Port of Garibaldi area to deliver Gigabit services and support economic development.

This funding is contingent on successful negotiation between Business Oregon and the recipients, of contractual terms for the awards and performance objectives by agreed upon dates.

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Think More, Talk Less to Be Heard Overwhelming an audience or a reporter with too much talk can drown out your key message and cause those listening to you to reach for their smartphones. Better advice: think more about how to simplify what you want to say so you talk less and are heard better. In communication, less is usually more than enough. Brevity is the soul of wit – and quite possibly the only way to get your point across to audiences addicted to mobile devices and plagued by shrinking attention spans. Executive coach Greg Salciccioli instructs presenters to deliver “clear, concise and compelling content.” His advice applies to any form of communication, especially media interviews. A client asked me why a TV reporter totally missed his key message after he gave an in-person interview. I told him he drowned out his message by offering too much information. The reporter needed something quotable; he gave a lecture. In a LinkedIn blog post, Salciccioli cited research by David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work , that indicates full-time workers focus on their jobs for only six hours a week – or roughly 15 percent of their time at work. He also notes a 2016 Nielsen report that says US adults spend more than 10 hours per day interacting with electronic media. These two data points are not unrelated. Statistics like that underscore why simplicity and scintillating content are necessary to grab attention. Simplifying what you say is not the same as dumbing down what you say. Simplification means conveying what you want to say in as few words as possible. Or as Joseph McCormack, author of Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less , advises: “Think and speak in headlines.”

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Headlines are basically the same as sound bites – short, catchy phrases that convey a lot of meaning in a few words. Presenters and spokespersons may balk at reducing their brilliance to sound bites, but they do so at the peril of their key messages, like my client. If you want to be heard, you have to do what’s necessary to be heard. Catering to your audience isn’t an act of surrender. If people are interested in a subject, they will ask for more information. However, pepper-spraying an audience – or a reporter – with a lot of information all at once only serves to push them away. That TV reporter interviewing my client couldn’t wait to beat a hasty retreat. Contemporary audiences don’t view long orations or debates as entertainment. Abraham Lincoln, who participated in seven 3-hour debates with Stephen Douglas, gave his most inspirational and enduring speech at Gettysburg. It lasted only three minutes and consisted of just 272 words, punctuated by the riveting line, “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln’s memorable remarks followed a 2-hour “keynote” speech that has been largely forgotten. People with a lot to say tend to put up the most stubborn resistance to brevity. But their vanity can’t overcome – and might actually contribute to – the lethargy and apathy of an audience. As humbling as it might be, people listening to a speech or media interview will remember more of what they see than what they hear. How you look and present yourself can make up 80 percent of an audience impression. All the more reason to choose your words carefully to maximize that other 20 percent of retention. Speaking effectively and efficiently, as Salciccioli 20

recommends, can earn you credibility with an audience or a reporter. Your preparation, organization and succinct delivery makes listening easier. Audience members don’t need to struggle to figure out what you mean to say. A reporter doesn’t have to scramble to find 12 usable seconds of tape, the average length of a quote in TV stories. Salciccioli titled his LinkedIn blog, “The Power of Getting to the Point.” He is absolutely right that straightforward, brightly expressed commentary puts you in the driver’s seat because you are commanding the narrative. When you wander around and drone on, you muddy and bury the story you mean to tell. You leave it to the audience or a reporter to decipher what you said. My baffled client told me proudly he gave the TV reporter enough material to fill 30 minutes of air time. Sadly, the reporter only needed 12 seconds of good sound for her story. The 12 seconds she

Southern Oregon Business Journal

chose wasn’t his key message, which we had worked on for two hours before the interview. My client blamed the reporter. In reality, he had no one to blame but himself. If you want to make your point, take the time to chisel it into a phrase or sentence that people can hear, comprehend and remember. Think more and

talk less.

Gary Conkling is principal and co-founder of CFM Strategic Communications, and he leads the firm's PR practice, specializing in crisis communications. He is a former journalist, who later worked on Capitol Hill and represented a major Oregon company. You can reach Gary at garyc@cfmpdx.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @GaryConkling .

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Celebrate Oregon Oyster Week at the ‘Ahh Shucks!’ Oyster Feed on April 28th in Charleston!

Charleston, OR - The Charleston community invites seafood lovers to come celebrate fresh and delicious Coos Bay oysters at the 13th annual Charleston “Ahh Shucks!” Oyster Feed on Saturday, April 28th. The celebration is from 12 noon to 4 p.m. at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB) Dining Hall, located at 63466 Boat Basin Road in Charleston. This 13th annual event runs in conjunction with Oregon Oyster Week and is hosted by the Charleston Community Enhancement Corporation. Meals will feature succulent oysters provided by local growers, including Clausen Oyster Co., Coos Bay Oyster Co., North Bend Oyster Co., Qualman Oyster Farms and Pacific Seafood Oysters. This year, cooks will prepare both large and small oyster meals. Pricing ranges from $12 for 3 oysters, $14 for 6, and $16 for 9. Attendees can choose between fried, sautéed, or steamed oysters, and enjoy meals served with dipping sauces, baked beans, coleslaw, garlic bread and a choice of beverages. Gourmet hot dog meals will be available for non-oyster fans, at $8 for adults and $5 for kids 12 and under. Quality pink shrimp cocktails from Hallmark Fisheries and the Oregon Trawl Commission will be served for just $2. The event will include live music, River's Edge Oregon wines, desserts provided Charleston Fishing Families and a fund-raiser and drawing featuring gift certificates and prizes donated by local merchants. The Charleston Community Enhancement Corp. is a nonprofit group dedicated to improving the Charleston community for the benefit of visitors and residents. All proceeds from the Oyster Feed will help support the group’s many community projects, including support of the Charleston Food Pantry. Afterwards, join us for a fun day in Charleston where visitors can kayak the South Slough, walk along Sunset Beach and Shore Acres State Parks, go crabbing, clamming, or fishing in the Charleston Marina, shop at the Charleston merchants or learn about marine life at the Charleston Marine Life Center! For additional information, please contact: Charleston Community Enhancement Corp. Kathleen Hornstuen 541.888.4582 Southern Oregon Business Journal

Southern Oregon Business Journal

Construction Corner: California bridge could transform industry with nanocrystals Korky Koroluk

“A new bridge will be built in California this summer. That’s hardly earth-shattering news. But this one will be different.

For perspective, a single strand of human hair is about 100,000 nanometres (nm) in diameter. A sheet of newspaper is about 160,000 nm thick.

Thanks to the work of researchers at Purdue University, this bridge will use concrete that has been infused with microscopic-sized nanocrystals from wood. The idea is that the nanocrystals will make the concrete stronger so that less of it is needed.

The intriguing thing about nanoparticles is that nano -structured materials are often stronger or have different magnetic properties compared to other forms or sizes of the same material. Sometimes they’re better at conducting heat or electricity. They may be more chemically reactive or reflect light better, or change colour as their size or structure is altered. And they can add strength.”

The nanocrystals are a byproduct generated by the pulp and paper industries, among others. Nanotechnology has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 30 years. Nanoparticles have always been with us, but because they are so small, we didn’t yet have the electron microscopes necessary to see them so that they can be manipulated. They are, after all, as little as a billionth of a metre wide. Southern Oregon Business Journal

https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/ technology/2018/03/construction-corner-californiabridge-transform-industry-nanocrystals Korky Koroluk, Daily Commercial News Daily Commercial News 3760 14th Avenue, 6th Floor Markham, ON L3R 3T7 27

“If a Frog had Wings…” Cloaking a weak argument in big—but phony—numbers By Joe Cortright

Journalists: Stop repeating phony congestion cost estimates. They’re just weak arguments disguised with big numbers. This month The Economist has an excellent special report exploring the prospects for autonomous vehicles. They seem to be coming faster than many people anticipated, and they pose some big challenges and opportunities for cities. This otherwise very useful contribution to the conversation is marred, unfortunately by The Economist also posting as fact the congestion cost estimates produced by traffic monitoring firm Inrix. As regular readers of City Observatory know, we’ve pointed out serious problems with the Inrix congestion cost estimates.

It’s painful to watch an otherwise intelligent journal like The Economist uncritically reproduce the demonstrably fictitious congestion cost estimates. Carrying on the in the tradition of the Texas Transportation Institute, Inrix now annually produces some VERY SCARY NUMBERS about how much congestion supposedly costs travelers in cities around the world.

Congestion cost estimates are the horror fiction sub-genre of what we’ve called “Hagiometry.” Hagiography is flattery in prose form; hagiometry is flattery with numbers; and congestion cost estimates are designed solely to use big numbers to scare people into believing that a problem is somehow worse than it really is. The Inrix figures are an argument—and a remarkably flimsy one at that—masquerading as economic statistics. The implicit argument is that there is some state of the world in which people could travel just as fast at peak hours than they do when there’s no traffic on the roads. The cost estimates are constructed based on adding up how many more minutes it takes to travel when there’s traffic compared to when there are no traffic delays, and then multiplying that by some value of time. The math may be right, but the assumption imbedded in that argument, that there’s some way to build enough lanes to accommodate all that traffic, is just wrong. A clever quantitative biologist using the Inrix methodology could easily compute the number of excess derriere contusions the world’s frogs suffer every day because of their unfortunate decision to choose jumping rather than flying as a means of travel. And that would provide exactly as much insight into transportation policy as does the Inrix report.

In the words of Raising Arizona’s Nathan Arizona: Yeah, if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass a- hoppin’. Southern Oregon Business Journal

There’s no way to build enough roads to eliminate congestion, at any price The essence of the Inrix calculation is this: if there were no other cars on the road when you wanted to drive to work each morning, and also when you drove home each evening, here’s how much time you’d save, and what it would be worth to you? But would it be fiscally or even physically possible to build enough roadway space to give everyone the same level of service at 5pm every day as you get when you’re driving at say 2am? Of course not. One could just as easily add up and value the total amount of time people in the world spend traveling between any two sets of points, and count that as the cost of not having “Star Trek” style mattertransporters. But, you would argue, that can’t realistically be regarded as a “cost” because such transporters don’t exist. And that’s precisely the point, there’s no way to build a road system that allows peak hour travelers to travel at the same speeds. And even if you did build a stupendous amount of additional roadway capacity (and could repeal the fundamental law of road congestion, in which the increment of additional capacity generates more peak hour travel thus replicating congestion), there’s absolutely no doubt that the cost of constructing that roadway would greatly outstrip the supposed “benefits” of eliminating congestion. We don’t have to speculate about this: when road users are asked to pay even a fraction of the of cost of building additional road capacity, in the form of tolls, they readily indicate by voting with their feet (or wheels), that they attach very little value to travel time savings. Notice, for example the case of the I-65 Ohio river crossing in Louisville. The state highway department doubled the size of the bridge from 6-lanes to 12-lanes, and then started charging a toll. Almost immediately traffic on the bridges fell from 120,000 vehicles daily, to about 70,000.

Make it stop! Here’s the point: Anyone who claims that congestion has a cost– meaning a real, net social cost–has to propose some transportation system that would (a) eliminate all of the delays that they’ve counted, and (b) do it for less cost than the value of supposed value of time lost to congestion. If they can’t do that they haven’t shown that congestion has any real costs at all. Credulous reporters need to start looking past the dizzying array of numbers and ask some hard questions about the assumptions behind them. Repeating fictitious claims about the supposed cost of congestion isn’t helping their readers understand, much less solve, the world’s urban transportation problems. Joe Cortright is President and principal economist of Impresa. Joe can be found at: jcortright@cityobservatory.org Southern Oregon Business Journal

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Portland doesn’t really want to make housing affordable Actions speak louder than words; blocking new housing will drive up rents By: Joe Cortright Nominally, at least, the Portland City Council is all about housing affordability. They’ve declared a housing emergency. In the last general election, City voters approved a $258 million bond issue to build more affordable housing. The Council has made permanent a city ordinance requiring landlords to reimburse tenants for moving expenses if they pursue a no cause eviction, or if the tenant moves after a 10 percent rent increase. But ultimately housing affordability in the Rose City, as everywhere, hinges on whether enough supply gets built to accomodate the growing demand for urban living. And the city’s zoning code and project approval requirements are where the proverbial rubber meets the road in terms of expanding housing supply. And in a series of recent actions, the Portland City Council is effectively sabotaging the supply of new housing in a way that will ultimately worsen the city’s affordability problems.

Last week, the council voted to deny a building permit for a proposed 17-story, 275-apartment tower in the city’s booming Pearl District. Neighbors opposed the tower because it blocks views (from their recently completed condominium towers) of one of the city’s iconic bridges. Because it abuts the city’s Willamette River greenway, the building is subject to the city’s design review process. And while commissioners said they weren’t caving in on heights or views, they claimed that the building was somehow at odds with the city’s greenway policies. Portland for Everyone’s Michael Anderson has an excellent in-depth review of the proceedings in a post a Medium: “Open Season for NIMBY Appeals: Portland blocks 275 homes after Pearl District neighbors ask it to.” Briefly:

. . the council unanimously voted to give the anti-housing activists exactly what they had been asking for: no new homes on the site. It’s ironic because one of the virtues of Oregon’s planning system is that, for the most part, new developments that are allowable under a land use plan must be approved using “clear and objective” approval standards. The idea is that the city should be bound by what’s in its plan: so if an area is designated for apartments, the city is obligated to approve permits for an apartment in that area.

A loss of certainty kills off housing investment

DENIED: The hundreds of people who would have lived here will now be bidding up rents elsewhere in Portland. (Next Portland). Southern Oregon Business Journal

Arbitrarily invoking a vague feeling of discomfort about whether a project is consistent with the greenway–and overturning a vote of the city’s design 32

review commission in the process–sends a clear signal to developers that they can’t rely on what’s written in city plans and policies. In this case, the developer may be forced to return to the drawing board, and submit an entirely new proposal–and again run the gantlet of public outcry, and again confront a largely subjective determination as to whether the development meets with Council approval. Other developers are likely to heed this lesson. As we’ve written at City Observatory, the city’s recently adopted inclusionary zoning law adds yet another layer of uncertainty. The law imposes a wide range of conditions on new 20-unit and larger apartment buildings, generally requiring that 20 percent of units be affordable, and that affordability be guaranteed for 99 years, and that the apartments be comparable in size and finishes to market rate units. The added cost of subsidizing such units is supposed to be made up by some combination of tax abatements, height and density bonuses, and parking requirement waivers. But since virtually no one has yet made their way through this process, it’s difficult (if not impossible) for developers to accurately assess how much time and money compliance will require. Again, this increase in uncertainty has a decidedly chilling effect on prospective investment. (New apartment proposals have come to a near standstill since the inclusionary housing ordinance went into effect a year ago.) There’s one more problem: no one sees the buildings that don’t get built as a result of these disincentives and uncertainties. In the case of the now denied Fremont Place, we can publish a an accurate rendering of what the building would have looked like, had it been approved, and tell you that 275 households will now be competing for other housing in Portland. But going forward, many potential housing projects won’t even advance to the stage of having drawings, or marching through the approval process, because of uncertainty. Like Conan-Doyle’s hound that didn’t bark, we won’t see the housing that doesn’t get built. But we will likely feel it, as the still growing demand for urban living presses up against a finite urban housing stock. http://cityobservatory.org/portland-doesnt-really-want-tomake-housing-affordable/ Southern Oregon Business Journal

We smelled the smoke. Now it’s time to wake up. https://oregonforests.org/node/539

In the summer of 2017, Oregonians woke up and smelled not coffee, but the pungent aroma of a thick haze of smoke that had descended across the state. After a mild 2016 wildfire season, following record seasons the previous two years, Oregon’s luck ran out. Despite the efforts of firefighting crews regarded as among the best for private and public lands, lightning and human-caused wildfires ravaged the state’s forests and rangelands, making 2017 one of the worst wildfire seasons on record. News headlines quickly captured the expense of

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fighting all those fires, but fire suppression represents just a fraction of the true cost of wildfire. There are huge impacts to air quality and health, school athletics, travel and tourism, employment and the economy, transportation, and iconic Oregon economic sectors such as the state’s wine and timber industries. No single state agency is charged with documenting these costs, so the Oregon Forest Resources Institute gathered what information is currently available from media reports, individual interviews and research. We released our 25-page report in

Air quality and health Wildfire smoke, a mix of particulate matter and gases, irritates the eyes, nose, throat and respiratory system, and can be inhaled into the deepest part of the lungs, according to the Oregon Health Authority. At high levels, it’s dangerous even for healthy people, but it is especially dangerous for those with chronic health conditions, people older than 65, infants, children and pregnant women. During the 2017 fire season, most of Oregon experienced hazardous levels of smoke, including 160 days that were considered Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (USG), compared to none of those days in 2016 and fewer than half that many at the USG level in 2015.

tourism industry employs about 110,000 people and generates $11.3 billion in economic impact for the state. In 2017, wildfires hit the industry with blazing force, keeping away tourists and the money they would spend in Oregon. According to the Oregon Employment Department, hundreds of tourism workers received early layoff notices. Among the high-profile impacts of the wildfire smoke that blanketed the state were:

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The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland canceled nine performances in 2017, a direct loss of $373,000. About 85 percent of its audience is composed of tourists. In an average year, the festival adds about $130 million to the local economy. It announced that it will trim 12 positions from its 2018 budget after last year’s revenue shortfall.

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Cycle Oregon canceled its annual ride, a premier cycling event for the state. The ride travels through different parts of rural Oregon each year, amounting to $450,000 spent in local communities.

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The Sisters Folk Festival was canceled. This annual community festival attracts 5,000 visitors to central Oregon and generates $1.2 million. The proceeds would have benefited arts education programs.

This led to a variety of impacts, including:

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Increased emergency room visits – 86 percent higher than expected in the first week of September, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Cancellations of high school sporting events. Oregon high schools canceled dozens of football and soccer games from August through October – more than four times as many as were canceled in 2016 and 2015.

Travel, tourism and employment According to the most recent figures, Oregon’s

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Transportation For nearly three weeks, all drivers were detoured off Interstate 84 when the highway was closed from Hood River to Troutdale because of fire danger. This translated to long detours for commuters and trucking companies – a hard economic hit. About 20 percent of the 28,000 vehicles that travel the highway each day are freight trucks delivering goods, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation. Longer travel distances meant extra time and cost. In central Oregon, U.S. Highway 20 experienced traffic congestion. In the Brookings area, Highway 101 was closed off and on during the fire season, affecting 18,000 vehicles a day.

How do we move forward? Wildfires caused by lightning and people wreaked havoc on Oregon’s forests and rangelands in 2017, and the impact on Oregon life was far-reaching.

Rural and social impacts The fires also impacted other areas of community life, including:

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Oregon’s timber industry and its workers faced reduced log supply at plywood plants, temporary mill shutdowns, restrictions on logging because of dry conditions, and losses of heavy equipment and timber due to fire.

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limits on recreational opportunities, with popular outdoor attractions and wilderness areas remaining closed because of fire damage.

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a drain on the resources of nonprofit organizations that provided support for Oregonians displaced from their homes by fires.

season in Oregon, some 8,000 firefighters were working to put out wildfires across the state. In total, it cost $454 million to fight all those fires.

It’s clear that, with 665,000 acres burned in 2017, the state lost timber that supports the wood products industry, as well as other forest benefits such as outdoor recreation, beautiful scenery, wildlife habitat and healthy watersheds.

Yet the costs don’t stop there. The blazes and the smoky air they produced also took a toll on people’s health, and on their ability to safely spend time outside. Event cancellations, highway closures and residential evacuations affected the economy, including significant losses to tourism, trucking and recipients of goods, among other industries.

It’s also obvious that fires are costly in terms of suppression efforts. During the peak of the 2017 fire

Oregon is not alone in suffering worsening fire

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seasons. In the western United States, the length of the average fire season has grown by 78 days since 1970, from five months to more than seven months. The questions loom: Is this the new normal? What economic and human effects did Oregon experience in 2017, and what similar impacts will wildfires have going forward? As a society we need to ask: How we co-exist with a fire-based forest ecosystem? What do we want from our forests in the future? Finding the answers will be hard and perhaps unpleasant, but the alternative of simply waiting to suffer through another fire season similar to 2017â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s would be kicking the can down the road. Are there options in the forest management toolbox to address some of the problems caused by wildfires? And if so, how do we overcome obstacles to

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effectively using forest management tools in at-risk communities and ecosystems?

This all begs one more question: Where

do we go from here? For the forest, Paul Barnum Executive Director

Is That Really a Good Idea? http://saveyour.town/

We have a new way to reduce risk: now individuals and unorganized groups can run quick informal tests and trials that tell us right away whether an idea is any good. We're going to have to adopt a new way of working together if we want to take advantage of our new abilities. If committees and organizations were the right way of working together in the typewriter age, what are the right ways of working together in the digital age? The answer is to become Idea Friendly. We use the Idea Friendly Method to work together in new ways. Back in my workforce development days circa 2003, I used this pair of diagrams with all the partnering organizations to illustrate the value of alignment:

The cloud and the big arrow were our workforce system. All the little arrows were organizations, officials, programs and pieces of the workforce system. We were definitely a cloud, not an arrow back then. If we could just agree on one common purpose to bring us all into alignment, we'd all be pulling together and the system would be bliss! It was a nice idea.

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We could apply those same diagrams to your community. The little arrows inside are all your organizations and officials. Right now, everyone is working on their own thing without much sense of common purpose. They all think they are headed the right direction. The result is an awful lot of working at cross purposes. That’s the cloud of chaos we're in right now. It’s a big drag on our efforts, wasting a lot of our work.

If we just had one common purpose to bring us all into alignment… I quit using these diagrams for small towns because I dislike the idea of one small group getting to decide what the goal should be for everyone. It’s a little too close to trying to control, decide, streamline and force. Too much Old Way, not enough New Way.

But Heidi Khokhar from RDI and I were talking about Idea Friendly, and a light went on for me. Heidi uses a similar diagram in her community vision process. She'll ask participants whether they think the chaos results in an inviting atmosphere. The response is almost always no with comments such as, “Who wants to get involved when you don’t know what it’s all leading to?” or “which action is really making a difference, where do you enter?” 38

Heidi was interested in my take on how Idea Friendly and all this new individual action doesn’t just add more chaos and more working at cross purposes in our towns. I'm actually a big fan of the chaos, in that no one is in charge. All ideas are good enough to test. But the answer to her concern was actually in something else she told me. Heidi also told me that when she helps a community with a vision, she could just about write it for them in the first session. It wouldn’t reflect them perfectly, but it would be close. A thriving rural community, or some variation of that, is what we all want.

All this chaotic action brings us into better alignment because it connects us. Consensus emerges from action because we Build Connections. When our idea doesn't work out, we know more about other ideas we can be part of. If I had to draw a diagram for us now, it might be something like many paths up the same hill. That hill is our thriving rural community goal. We don't have to march up single file. We can take the scenic route, or climb the hard slope. We can Gather Our Crowd and head up together with others who are excited by our idea.

But she doesn’t do that to them, short circuiting the process. As the people of the community continue to meet and gather and discuss, they become more aware of each other. They learn what others are thinking, and they become better aligned. Knowing what other groups and people are working on, they start to swing their arrows a little more toward alignment. And that’s where it gets closer to Idea Friendly. When we Build Connections we’re doing the same process, but through action together rather than discussion. You can do it with discussions, but let's be honest, those sessions are not very attractive to most people. It's great for reaching the people who are always at the center of things, but regular people are just not that interested in planning and visioning meetings. And people who have to work 2 jobs to get by usually don't turn out for them either.

And from the top of that hill, we can see further and keep moving towards progress. In fact, someone is probably already out there ahead of us, calling us forward. There's direction and movement, but not one set goal. Thanks, Heidi, for helping me refine this concept. We'll all keep working on it together, ok? Keep shaping the future of your town,

Becky

Community happens when people talk to each other, and they talk to each other when they do things together. When we cut down the barriers to entry, when we offer small but meaningful ways to Take Small Steps and be part of our big idea, we can draw diverse people in more easily. When we treat everyone's ideas (and I do mean everyone's) with the same Idea Friendly openness, we stop pushing people away with our formality and our slow progress. Looking back at my notes on that original cloud diagram from fifteen years ago, I see I wrote, "Many different pieces, not many connections." Exactly. When we Build Connections, we grow more aligned. Southern Oregon Business Journal

Becky

McCray believes small towns have a future. She watches the global trends in the economy, technology and society, then she delivers practical steps rural people can implement right now to shape the future of their town. Her advice is based on her real world experience as a retail store owner and cattle rancher. She makes her home in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a town of 30 people. She doesn’t just talk about rural issues; she lives them. 39

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