General notes:  April was generally pretty quiet.  So quiet, in fact, that I was able to take my first official week-long vacation since being hired by the City back in 2012.  I spent a week in the jungle in Jalisco, Mexico (about 20 miles south of Puerto Vallarta) to witness a close friend’s wedding.  If you’d like to see pictures, let me know…

In the absence of anything interesting to talk about in April, I’d like to give you an update on the NetCity broadband adoption strategic plan that some of you took part in back in 2012 – this process included city staff and NetCity folks meeting with three subgroups of citizens here in Sandy (Education, Digital Inclusion and Economic Development) to discuss our fiber-to-the-home project and how it might impact them. This afternoon I went down to the Business Oregon offices at the request of Chris Tamarin, our Business Oregon Technology specialist and SandyNet Advisory board member, and recorded part of a televised interview about the process for a new video that BO will be using to push broadband adoption throughout Oregon.  I ended up talking extensively about broadband from an economic development perspective – how SandyNet and the idea of broadband came about in Sandy, NetCity’s process, and what rewards (and new businesses and new residents) we hope to reap from the project in the near future.  Although I felt that I hadn’t had quite enough time to properly prepare because of my afore mentioned absence, Mr. Tamarin seemed very pleased with my input, and we actually continued the conversation after the cameras stopped rolling for quite a while.   As soon as the video is complete, I will post a copy to Google Docs for you to take a look at.  I hope I did Sandy proud…

To continue along these lines, Seth has asked me to look into any kind of available training classes that would help me learn more about business recruiting.  I have some ideas about how to put together a good 15 minute presentation that I could specialize to certain industries that we might want to attract (software development, video editing, film & media, architecture, engineering, etc.), but this is important enough to the future of Sandy that I will go to any class, anywhere, anytime to improve upon my skills in this area.  If anyone on the Council has any suggestions to this end, please get in touch with me.

Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):

Wong’s King/Golden Key:   The Wong’s King franchise has been sold.  The new buyers have been working diligently on preparing the new restaurant, and they received an approval to occupy by the Building Official on April 17th.  The Golden Key is currently open for business, but I have not yet had the opportunity to sample their offerings as of yet.  The new owners seem eager to promote their restaurant, and have stopped by City Hall amongst many downtown locations to distribute menus and promotional coupons.  This is a refreshing and encouraging sign.  Now if only we could get the other restaurants in town to follow suit….  🙂

Connect Wireless:  We are still waiting on building and mechanical permit applications from this company before wheels start turning.  We anticipate seeing some start to roll in sometime in May.

Blue Sky & Daydreams, LLC:  This is the corporate name of the coin-operated laundromat next door to Baskin-Robbins that has been a pain in the backside of everyone who answers the phones in City Hall.  Noryne fielded a call a few weeks ago from a gentleman who claims to be buying the laundromat from its current owner.  This person claims to have negotiated a fair price with the current owner, and says he will be replacing all of the machines in this business with brand new machines in the near future.  If true, this would mean the world to Sandyites that don’t have their own laundry facilities.

The reason this business currently generates so many ugly calls to City Hall is that the state of their facilities is a half-step above criminal.  The last time I checked on this business, 70+% of their machines were out of order in some way or another, (and that was only the machines that were posted – some just ate quarters but were not marked), the soap vending machine and the change machine were broken, and there were even missing tiles on the floor.  There was also a sign on the wall that listed the number to call for refunds, and someone had written on it with a Sharpie “DON’T BOTHER – NEVER F____ING CALLS BACK!!!!”  I called it on the spot, got voicemail and left a message.  Still waiting for the response months later.

My official position on this one is: skeptical.  So far, nothing has happened at the site that I can see.  Also, the person claimed to be aware of the new laundromat that Carl Jacobs is working on in the old Sandy Vac location, and says that his will never work because all of his machines are old.  Funny thing is, Carl hasn’t moved any of his machines to the site yet…so how would he know that?  In addition, Carl tried to buy this business a couple of years ago, and the owner’s price was “laugh-out-loud absurd” according to him.  And even if it is true, the current owner has poisoned the well so much with his customers that the moment they have an option to go somewhere else, they’ll take it.  So while it would be nice to think about this business turning around, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Starbucks:  The Starbucks takeover of the Sandy Jack in the Box location is starting to become a reality.  The Planning Department has plans from Starbucks Corporate on file now, and we are waiting for permit applications to begin rolling in at any time.  The store was originally scheduled to open in June, but I ran into the branch manager during a recent visit to the store, and she tells me that something is going on with JITB that is causing a delay.  I wasn’t able to get any solid details at the time, but she told me not to worry – although the grand opening has been delayed on the Starbucks side until August, she said that whatever the problem is, she has been assured by Corporate that the move is going to happen.  Period, full stop.  On the plus side, the plans look fantastic – a huge upgrade from their current layout.

Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce:  Dan Martin and the Chamber have come to an agreement on the old Edward Jones space, and we will begin the newest version of our revised lease on June 1.  The Chamber board is very excited to start moving into our new home, and we will probably begin moving prior to the deadline.  We also have one Sandy business that is very interested in moving into the Chamber’s current space – that business will remain nameless for the time being so as not to jinx the possibility.  They are currently speaking with Mr. Martin about that possibility.

On a related note, the Chamber had to part ways with our Member Services Manager, Andy Newman, last week.  Assistant office manager Khrys Jones will replace Andy as MSM and is now a full-time employee, and we are currently reviewing a couple of applicants for a temporary part-time position.  Please stop into the Chamber offices sometime soon and introduce yourselves to Khrys if you haven’t already met her.  She’s delightful and seems to be a natural fit for the position.

On another related note, Jerry Knowlton has been negotiating with Clackamas County Tourism and Cultural Affairs to try and get some extra funding out of them, and it appears that Jer has scored a goal for the SACC!  After inviting our CCT&A brethren out to “question” them about the concept of replacing visitor’s centers with electronic kiosks, our board pointed out to them that, although they planned to cut off our finding at the end of the fiscal year, they don’t plan to have a kiosk in Sandy until sometime in 2015 (so they say).  They tell us that this is because they can only afford to deploy one at a time, and they would like to deploy them to the sites that have the most traffic first.  That means that because we have the smallest visitor’s center in terms of visits we will be last on the list, and the first location to have a kiosk will be….wait for it….the Wilsonville Rest Area on I-5!!!  When we asked them how many people stopping at the rest stop would be looking for tourist information, we got some understanding nods and sympathy.  I have a feeling that staff at CCT&A agrees with the Chamber Board that this is an appallingly short-sighted decision and has made these same arguments to the Tourism Board and the Board of Commissioners, but those two entities seem to be only interested in cutting costs at the moment.  So it goes.

In any case, Jerry has been making the case that this is patently unfair to our community.  His argument has been, by cutting off funding here but making sure that the Wilsonville rest area gets their kiosk first, the county is essentially transferring our funding to the City of Wilsonville.  Fortunately for the SACC, his persistence in making the case for Sandy has paid off, as CCT&A staff has agreed to continue our funding for another quarter.  It’s only $2,500, but every penny counts in a down year.  Many thanks to Mr. Knowlton for being a pest!

Sandy Main Street:  Organizing continues for First Friday and the community visioning meetings that we will be hosting in June.  Our current list of priorities is a) First Friday (improving on what we have), b) the June visioning meetings (finding a facilitator, logistics), c) developing our committee structure so that we have two full committees when Aubrey leaves (Business, Promotions), d) our newly created Sandy Main Street newsletter (available online and at select downtown locations now!) and e) adding additional data to Downtown Diva.

Project work: 

• The Mayor’s “Business-Friendly” Task Force – Now that the“How to Open a Business in Sandy” Guide is complete, the task force has morphed into a regular monthly meeting between Administration, ED, Planning and Building, and this has so far turned out to be very beneficial to all involved.  We are currently discussing the recent changes to the A-frame sign code and how we can encourage businesses to come into compliance, the potential to include building owners in the fire/life safety inspection process, and current issues.

• Conferences/training:  [PGE Seminar: Better Lighting, Lower Costs – April 9]  This half-day free seminar put on by PGE and Clackamas County Business & Economic Development was basically a primer on LED lighting systems and how they can save an organization money through system efficiencies.  The seminar probably went into more detail than necessary for the average business owner, but it did provide me with some good information about LED lighting that I can use as a reference with regard to local businesses.

[ClackCo Practitioners Roundtable – April 17]  A quarterly meeting at the ClackCo B&ED offices in Oregon City to discuss economic development in the county.  This meeting involved a reminder about the County’s focus on industrial property development and an update on the County’s industrial property database tool.  I reported out on the pending start of the building of our fiber-to-the-home network, and plan to work with Joe over the next quarter to put together some kind of brief presentation to the other practitioners in the County of the overall project for the following quarter.

[ELGL#14 Planning Meeting – April 17]  Just a quick FYI….I am on the planning committee to put together the 2014 Emerging Local Government Leaders Annual Conference at the Kennedy School in Portland.  This is a group put together a few years ago by the Wyatts (Kent, Senior Mgmt Analyst in Tigard and his wife Kirsten, Assistant City Manager in West Linn) and is designed to focus on promoting the next generation in municipal governance.  More to come…