General notes:   Now that the holidays are over, we anticipate a little calm before the storm of the beginning of the budget process.  The next few weeks should be a good time to tie up loose ends and start thinking about goals for 2015.  With that in mind, it’s probably a good time to inform you of the future of Main Street.

When Jennifer started with us in September, Sheri Stuart (Main Street Director, State of Oregon) came up to Sandy to sit in on a meeting with the 3 remaining Sandy Main Street executive committee members (George Hoyt, Julie Snell from CCB and Counselor Coleman) to try to determine the future of Main Street.  All three board members had previously expressed a desire to formally step away from the organization due to general burnout caused by the contentiousness involved in the EID process.  However, since an executive board is a necessity in the non-profit model, the staff of Sandy Main Street was tasked with finding 7-9 new executive board members to steer the organization for the intermediate future.

I developed a list of 25 different potential candidates based on their interest in community involvement and their passion for seeing Sandy grow.  I have reached out to almost all of them now, and I am sad to say that only one has expressed a desire to serve.  In discussing the organization with my fellow Sandyites, there did not seem to be any shortage of praise for Sandy Main Street and our efforts – quite the contrary.  However, the most common reason given for declining to serve has been that these people, bless their hearts, simply don’t have the time to serve due to their service with and for other Sandy non-profits.  Almost everyone I spoke to was an active board/committee member from AntFarm, Kiwanis, the Historical Museum, VFW, the Chamber of Commerce, the Action Center, the Ford Family Foundation, Guide Dogs for the Blind, loads of different sub-groups associated with either the OTSD or private schools in the district, and a million different churches in Sandy and in the surrounding area.  Throw in family and work responsibilities, and….well, it’s amazing to me how much this community gets done in its spare time.

Unfortunately for us, this means that staff will most likely recommend that the City of Sandy dissolve Sandy Main Street at the end of the biennium due to lack of a functioning executive committee.  Ms. Stuart is in agreement with this, having stated last time I spoke to her that “now is probably not the right time to try to revive SMS”.  Titus Tomlinson, the person who manages the RARE program (AmeriCorps program that I got Aubrey and Jennifer from) reluctantly agrees as well.  The plan is to keep the portions of the program that are popular by transferring First Fridays and the Trick or Treat Trail to the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce and the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony to direct control by the City.  The rest of the work that SMS was responsible for (new business assistance, filling vacant properties, etc.) will continue through the office of Economic Development.  Perhaps in a couple of years, with the bitterness of the EID process completely past us, we can try to re-launch the program.

This was not an easy decision to come by, as I am a big believer in the Main Street model.  I have seen this program transform the downtown core of cities and revitalize struggling communities.  But this model requires robust public involvement to work correctly, and we are nowhere near having the appropriate amount of volunteers to run SMS effectively.  And quite frankly, the City of Sandy has gotten really good at downtown revitalization (Main Streets are starting to use façade programs like ours very successfully, but ours has been around for so long time and has been so successful that we are running out of buildings to upgrade!), making a Main Street program somewhat moot.

This is, of course, just an “executive summary” of the story as I have glossed over some of the detail in the interest of time.  If you would like a more detailed version of the story, just give me a call…

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

One World Chinese Buffet:  The Chinese buffet has been open for business for about a month now.  I can report that the quality level of this restaurant has definitely increased.  Better variety of dishes and noticeably higher quality — this is definitely an upgrade for Sandy’s restaurant community.

O’Reilly’s Auto Parts:  I delivered the certificate of occupancy to the store manager in person during the final days of December, and he tells me that the store will be open for business on Saturday, 3 January and that dealing with the City throughout this process has been quite painless.  Terre tells me that the inspection process went very smoothly with this company, and no major problems were identified.  It certainly helps that corporate chains like O’Reilly’s have the resources to dedicate teams to do nothing but open brand new stores.

Legends of Lore/Artistic Impressions:  I ran into Jonathan Soriakoff from Legends of Lore card shop last week, and can proudly report that he is already expanding.   Artistic Impressions (the photography studio next to Grant’s shop) will be moving out of the building in January, presumably to become a home business.  This has opened their ground floor space up, and Jonathan has already signed the lease to move in.  The size of his shop will increase by a factor of 3, and he will now have a much more retail-friendly layout complete with storage and a back office.  He is a bit nervous about the increase in rent, but fairly confident in the market capacity of his store and of his product (Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards mostly).  Gonna be fun to see how this plays out – I personally think this could be a potential gold mine if he does it right.

All Ways Towing:  Last month – This company has submitted plans for its new facility over by Fred Meyer and has gone through design review.  Our planning director gave them 6 action items that we are requiring to be completed prior to approval, and these are to be included in a new updated building permit.  They need to submit a revised plan, apply for a building permit, and complete improvements.  We are now waiting for the submittal of the revised plan and the new building permit.

This month – There was one meeting between Tracy and the principals of this company in late December.  We are still waiting for the submittal of the revised plan and the new building permit.  Nothing else on this project has moved forward.

Jody Argue property:  This project continues along at a normal pace.  Roofing is complete; crews now focusing on on-site parking/landscaping.  Façade grant phase has not started yet.  Ms. Argue seems satisfied with project progress to this point, and doesn’t seem to have any major grievances with current project requirements.  Win-win.

Old La Milpa property (Maiden):  Two of the three lots that made up the old La Milpa factory have been dedicated to Hans Wipper’s “JJ Jump”-type business.  Hans has signed a letter of intent to lease the property, and Mike is currently configuring it for him.  Mike has also stated that there has been some level of interest in the other lot as well, although nothing has solidified yet.  Watch this space…

Beaverbrooke Dental:  As a follow up to last month’s entry on Beaverbrooke Dental, we had an opportunity to meet with them to discuss the parking situation in more detail.  We had several options laid out for them, the first of which was to talk with Ernie at AEC about possibly purchasing some of the spaces in his parking lot that AEC employees (for some strange reason) are not using.  Much to our surprise, Ernie beat us to the punch and offered them 8 parking spaces in his private lot for their exclusive use.  I have thanked Ernie immensely for being a good neighbor and corporate citizen for taking it upon himself to help craft a solution, and Dr. Claggett and the BB staff are very happy with this solution.  Problem solved.  Thanks Ernie!

As for SandyNet Fiber, we are currently crafting a quote for them that Scott Brown is fairly confident he will have complete by January 2.  It’s probably a 50-50 chance that we sign them considering that cable TV has to be part of the package (their ceiling TVs), but they have expressed a willingness to work with us because of our approachability and “business-friendliness” regarding the parking matter and probably wouldn’t have considered us at all earlier.  It’s funny what you can get started by chatting with your dentist about business while getting a cavity filled.  J

Tamale Factory:  This restaurant was actually closed down for a couple of business days in December by the Clackamas County health inspector.  Upon inquiry into the matter, apparently the check Mr. Paez wrote for his health inspection bounced due to a bank error.  He offered to pay cash to settle the issue, and this approach must have worked because we got a call shortly after this from Ms. Leben stating that the matter had been cleared up and Tamale Factory was approved to open for business again.

Sandy Main Street:  The Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will be the last Sandy Main Street event held until April of 2015.  If you would like an update on what Sandy Main Street is planning for the next 6 months, give me a call at 503-489-2159.

Project work:  We are currently scheduling the 3^rd annual presentation to Professor Jim Hough’s (former city manager of Banks and Warrenton, retired) Public Works Management class in the MPA program at PSU.  Over the past two years, the PW management team has been very gracious to donate an evening to our future city managers and department heads in the MPA program to discuss topics like street and road management, GIS, water and sewer systems, and the like.  Last year, after a Mike Walker presentation on the Bull Run Intertie and tank construction project, the evening was opened up to student questions.  Every single question we got was about our fiber to the home project, which was interesting because a) we never mentioned fiber, and b) Jim never mentioned fiber.  Ever.  1 solid hour of questions about fiber.  We were absolutely stunned.

So this year we have decided to go with the flow and present about FTTH, its impacts on Public Works and how PW and IT work together to make gigabit fiber happen.  Joe Knapp has graciously agreed to go with us and give the IT perspective, and I anticipate a very fun evening hanging out with the next generation of local government leaders.  Mayor King/Councilor Pietzold – the class is at 6:40 on February 24^th at the Urban Center on PSU campus.  If you would like to join us, Mike, Thomas, Joe and I will be catching a MAX train down there about 5:00pm that afternoon.  If you have the time, we would love for you to join us and give the kids the council perspective on this project.

Conferences/training:    Next scheduled conference is the OCCMA NW Manager’s Conference in late March at the Portland Red Lion.

General notes:   A quick update on the City Christmas tree in Centennial Plaza….we have been preparing for the Tree Lighting Ceremony on December 5^th (6-8pm) for several weeks now, and this year has been a tremendous headache to all involved.  Due to the number of wind and severe weather events we have had over the last 12 months, we had less than 5% of the lights on the tree turn on when we plugged them in for the first time at the beginning of November.  Trying to repair this situation has proven much more difficult than anyone had anticipated.

First, we called PGE to see if they were planning on sending out personnel to help us again this year, as the bucket trucks and linesmen they sent out last year were a complete surprise to Main Street.  We were told by a PGE customer service rep that this was “absolutely not going to happen”, so we started to look at other arrangements.  Two days later and much to my surprise, Jeff Ulmen from PGE called to let me know when his crew was going to arrive, although he didn’t sound very enthusiastic about the job itself.  Then we found that the equipment PGE had reserved for the job was so big that it would have required blocking off Hoffmann Street for the duration of the job, which was understandably not possible because it would have caused us to have to re-route the entire transit system for half a day.  There was no other equipment available due to the ice storm that was taking down power lines throughout the region, so we had to bid PGE adieu.

I then called Konell Construction, and Andy was able to scrape together a two man crew and a 50’ lift for us, and even offered to comp the labor (god bless him!)  The Konell crew was professional and quick, and managed to get the bottom 2/3 of the tree lights repaired and operational – the problem was that they couldn’t reach the top 1/3 of the lights due to the limitations of their equipment.  I then called in Rich’s Tree Service, and he was able to bring a 70’ lift and a climber out on Sunday 11/30, albeit for a substantial price.  Unfortunately the sun was shining bright on Sunday morning making it virtually impossible for either of us to tell what was working and what wasn’t.  Fortunately he was able to get half of the remaining lights lit – unfortunately the top of the tree is still dark.

I am still trying to find a solution to this problem, but everyone I have called thus far that has the equipment to do the job seems to be booked out through at least mid-January.  If we do have to go forward on Friday as is, it will probably be OK – things look pretty good.  However, I’m still holding out hope for perfect.  We’ll see…

Update (12/3):  We have achieved ‘perfect’.  Andy Webber from Konell came through for us again on short notice, acquiring a 75’ lift and sending his 2-man crew back to Centennial Plaza on the afternoon of Dec. 2^nd to complete the job.  They were able to repair all unlit lights on the tree.  I am extremely grateful for his dedication to this project, and have thanked him on behalf of the City almost to the point of harassing him.  If you happen to run into him at the ceremony, please pat him on the back for me…   [please god, no wind between now and Friday!!!]

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

One World Chinese Buffet:  The Chinese buffet has officially changed hands.  They are open for business pending a final building inspection.  Our primary challenge with this new business so far has been language issues – the new owner does not speak any English, and his wife speaks very limited English.  However, I think we have overcome that barrier and we do not anticipate any problems associated with the final inspection (most issues have to do with getting their fire suppression system tested and approved).  Very eager to see if the quality level of the food will improve here….watch this space.

O’Reilly’s Auto Parts:  This project continues to progress normally – although the vast majority of the work on this property is complete, the primary building permit has not yet received final approval pending Terre’s final inspection.  All other permits are complete, and the store has been approved for stocking and training activities but not public access.  They have not yet applied for a business license, but we are anticipating that we will receive that application shortly.  In other words, we are exactly where we should be with this process, and this business should be operating very soon.

Jody Argue property:  We seem to have hit our stride with Ms. Argue recently….the remodeling project continues with a bump in the road here and there, but I have interacted with her on several occasions over the last couple of weeks, and she seems genuinely happy with how things are going.  She has not had the building permit issued yet as she has applied for façade grant funding – that application is currently in-process – but otherwise all is well.  I have also introduced Jody to Sean Drinkwine (owner of Whitney Signs in Estacada) and have hopefully started a discussion between the two of them about Whitney Signs potentially moving into this building.  He is in the planning stages right now, but he has some level of interest in either opening a second store here in Sandy or just moving the business here outright.  I will drop in on him when this project is close to completion to reassess his interest.

All Ways Towing:  This company has submitted plans for its new facility over by Fred Meyer and has gone through design review.  Our planning director gave them 6 action items that we are requiring to be completed prior to approval, and these are to be included in a new updated building permit.  We are now waiting for the submittal of this new building permit.

Beaverbrooke Dental:  Seth, Kelly and I will be meeting with Beaverbrooke Dental on Dec. 9^th to discuss their concerns with the new parking district (see previous departmental report for October).  We have already outlined half a dozen potential options for satisfying their concerns, most of which involve free market solutions that will not require the City to make any substantial changes to the new district.  Several of these solutions involve renting existing spaces from other business/building owners who have an excess of parking spaces at their disposal.  Watch this space.

Two Bros. Mexican Restaurant:  This restaurant has not closed – their projecting sign simply fell off of its perch during the last wind storm.  They are having another one made as I type this.

Tillson Law LLC:  Kevin Tillson Esq. has moved into this office formerly occupied by Jeffery Crook Esq.  Different lawyer, same office.  Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Sandy Main Street:  We are diligently working on the tree lighting ceremony right now (see above), and that remains our number one priority.  We have also added our collective elbow grease as an organization to the Kiwanis Gift Basket program and are currently helping to gather canned food for the effort, so please remember to bring a few cans to the ceremony on Friday, or drop it off in our collection boxes around the downtown area (City Hall lobby, Beer Den, Chariteas, etc.).

The Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will be the last Sandy Main Street event held until April of 2015.  If you would like an update on what Sandy Main Street is planning for the next 6 months, give me a call.

Project work: 

Nothing at the moment

Conferences/training:    Nothing between now and the end of the calendar year.  We will be focusing our efforts on the tree lighting/food drive for the remainder of 2014.

General notes:   A quick update on the Ford Family Foundation’s new cohort, otherwise known as Highway to Hood version 2.0.  They have chosen their project recipient, and it is the AntFarm.  The project concept is to improve the facilities at the Leather’s lot (paint and a new roof for the shack, construction of farmer’s market booths and new equipment for their bottle & can recycling program, etc).  In discussing this with Nunpa, I discovered that his next project is to find a way to create a farmer’s market in this lot, and the FFF project dovetails nicely into this.  He said he understands that the lot can be sold at any time, which is why he is trying to direct most of the funding to pieces that can be removed from the property if necessary (everything but the roof – the paint should be provided by MetroPaint and the labor will be volunteer, so the paint job will be of minimal cost).  He would like to work with the City (Tracy and myself) as well as other businesses (Organic Sandy, local farmers, Thompson Farms, etc), the County (grant funding) and anyone else that wants to be a part of it.  More as this develops…

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

Amarin Thai/Try My Thai:  I have been getting some feedback about this restaurant now that the new owners have taken over, and it is overwhelmingly positive.  The general opinion is that the food has improved so much (not that Amarin was particularly bad or anything….just a bit pedestrian) that TMT has possibly overtaken Thai Home as the best Thai restaurant in Sandy.  I have now had lunch there a couple of times, and I would say it’s a tie!  The general quality level of Sandy restaurants moves up a notch…huzzah!

Beaverbrook Dental:  I stopped into Beaverbrook for my annual cleaning and x-rays last week, and ended up in a conversation with their front office manager about a number of City-related issues.  First, they are interested in business fiber, so I am efforting to put together a meeting with Dr. Claggett, myself and Scott Brown to see how we can get them service.

Her primary issue, however, is with the changes to the downtown parking district.  With all of the slots around their business being limited to 2 hours, they are very concerned that their employees will have no where to park without risking a parking ticket.  Some of their customers have complained as well, stating that some of their procedures require more than 2 hours to complete.  I told her that I helped put together the parking study, and that this is what downtown businesses told us they wanted, primarily because employees of neighboring businesses were parking in front of their businesses all day long.  She said she didn’t know anything about that.  I told her that there was a free public parking lot 2 blocks away (the one behind 2 Bros) that was well lit and frequently patrolled.  She said she absolutely would not use it, claiming that walking to that lot in the dark would be dangerous.  I told her we had never had an incident with that lot that I know of.  She didn’t care and reiterated that she would not use it for safety reasons.  I asked her what she would do if, hypothetically, the business relocated to downtown Portland, because there’s no way she would have free parking 2 blocks from her place of employment.  She said “well, that’s not as big of a deal because there are more people around at night.”  I said “And that makes it safer somehow?  Are you sure about that?”  She didn’t have an answer for that, but was still not having any of my argument.  I asked her if they had considered talking to Ernie at AEC about purchasing some space in his private lot across the street.  They had already taken that step, and Ernie offered 1 space to Dr. Claggett, but this does nothing for the other 10 employees of the business.

They want this policy changed, and already have an appointment scheduled with Seth to discuss it.  I told them that changes to policy would have to be brought before the Council and approved by that body, so it would be in their best interests to attend a Council meeting and state their case as well.

There is one other variable to this problem that might help ease this issue along.  AEC employees seem to be taking up all of the untimed spaces in Pioneer Parking Lot during regular business hours, even though Mr. Brache has gone to great lengths (and personal expense) to expand his private AEC lot across the street.  A certain percentage of his employees simply won’t park on the other side of Pioneer under any circumstance.  I have asked Ernie on a number of occasions to please ask his employees to use the private AEC lot, and he is always happy to do so.  He sends out a company-wide email, and in the past his employees have obeyed him….for a week or two.  They seem to be outright ignoring him at this point.  If we could figure out a way to politely ask Mr, Brache to be a little more…um….assertive with his staff, we might be able to head this off at the pass.  If any counselor has any suggestions as to how to do that, I’m all ears.

Whitney Signs (Estacada):  Sandy Main Street will be getting our highway banner for the Tree Lighting Ceremony altered with WS shortly, so I will use this as another opportunity to check in on them.  The construction project over at Jody Argue’s place continues – new roof should be getting installed as I type this – so that property keeps moving closer to economic productivity.  Watch this space.

Starbucks:  Yes, it’s open.  If you haven’t been in yet, stop by.  It’s impressive.  And the employee count has literally doubled (from 11 to 22).  No word yet on what will go into the old Starbucks space – the manager from Phillips Edison (complex property manager) said that Starbucks is still under lease at their old location, but that they will probably buy out the lease shortly.  There have been no inquiries into the availability of this space so far…

Barbara Sah Properties:  Unfortunately, our rock hound business has already petered out….Barbara Sah tells me that they backed out a number of weeks ago citing lack of funds and a need to do more research.  There is a 50-50 chance that they will revisit this idea later in 2015 when they become more established in town.

We have also started the discussion with the Sahs about wiring their building with gigabit fiber this afternoon.  Scott Brown has committed to providing them with a quote for gigabit fiber within the next several weeks.    We have not settled yet on the exact approach to take, but there is the possibility that we can keep Barbara out of it and just bill her tenants directly for the service with her approval.  This would allow us to charge each business a discounted rate and keep the Sahs from having to deal with collecting payment and other housekeeping chores.   It would also eliminate the need for the Sahs to be involved in dealing with service and performance issues, as they are not particularly tech-saavy.  It would, however, allow them to market the existing spaces in their building as “gigabit-fiber ready”, which they would be.

Frontier Properties/46&2 Properties LLC:  With Peak Mortgage (large office) and Legends of Lore (a Magic the Gathering card shop – small office) taking over the two spaces left unoccupied by the departure of ITZetta and Boring Properties LLC occupying Lori Ryland’s old space, this building is now full.  Ribbon-cutting ceremony for Legends of Lore occurred last week, and I was pleasantly surprised to see dozens of people show up for this event.  This appears to be a very interesting (and potentially lucrative, judging by the turnout) niche market that I will enjoy watching in the coming months.  If proprietor Jonathan Soriahkoff plays his cards right (sorry, I couldn’t resist), he is well on his way to a comfortable profit.  The only housekeeping issue left on the table is to “encourage” Boring Properties to apply for a business license, which they should probably do sometime soon considering they are up and operating.

Sandy Main Street:  I have been continuing with my mission to ask locals who are “connected” in Sandy to consider accepting a position on the executive board of Sandy Main Street to reconstitute the program.  So far, of the 25 people I have identified as being potential candidates for these 9 positions, I have received 12 responses.  They have all been negative, with the primary reason for turning the position down being “I am already over-committed with (kids, family, church, Kiwanis, Lions Club, City committees & boards, County committees & boards, the Chamber of Commerce, AntFarm, the Action Center, 4-H, Sandy High School, etc.)”.  I will continue to ask until I have exhausted the possibilities, but for now it looks I will be recommending that the City cease funding Sandy Main Street at the end of the biennium due to lack of community commitment.  Sadly, there is an abundance of support for the underlying principles of the organization and the community largely has a positive view of it.  However, community development organizations need extremely dedicated volunteers to plan, administer and fundraise properly in order to be successful.  It seems to me that our dedicated community volunteers are already full to the brim with other responsibilities at the moment.

Trick or Treat Trail:  Another smashing success!  We had roughly the same number of kids as last year (600-700), but the traffic patterns were different.  Last year we had a huge rush of people at the 3PM to 4PM hour, and very little in between.  This year the flow seemed very steady from beginning to end.  We had about half a dozen business participate this year that did not participate last year, and 95% of the feedback was extremely positive.

The only complaint I heard was from two separate business owners with the same complaint:  they didn’t understand why we advertised the event in the Oregonian, because that goes out all over the region, and while they enjoyed the event, they didn’t want to pay for candy for kids who “weren’t from this community” whom they felt were taking advantage of them. (!) My response to this Scrooge-ish complaint was this:  “The purpose of this event is not to give candy to kids – it is to promote downtown businesses by getting those kids’ parents to understand that there are retail stores downtown.  If the parents of these “not-from-Sandy” kids decided they wanted to purchase something in your store, would you turn them down?  Of course not, right?  So why would you have a problem giving their kids a $0.10 piece of candy?”

Some people need to work on their holiday spirit a little bit, it seems….

Project work: 

Nothing at the moment

Conferences/training:    [Clackamas County Practitioner’s Roundtable – November 6^th]  Our regular quarterly meeting at the Red Soils campus in the OC.  I introduced Jennifer as our new “Aubrey” to a warm welcome, and reported out on the following:

• New City website:  people were checking it out on their phones while I was speaking.  So far I have gotten several “attaboys” and one request for information about EvoGov.  We might have just found them another customer…perhaps our illustrious city manager can finagle a discount out of them if that comes to fruition.  I hear he’s good at that.  🙂
• Fiber:  after speaking about this project at length at these meetings over the last 2 years +, I could finally report out the number I’ve been waiting for all this time – number of customers lit.  Thanks to Joe K. for giving me “up-to-the-minute” numbers to report.  We are the envy of the County.

General notes:   There has been quite a bit of movement in the non-profit world since my last report, so here’s a quick update on some local changes:

• The Sandy Community Action Center has a new, part-time executive director, and it’s someone we all know and love.  Dawn Loomis has accepted this 3-day per week position and is already at the SCAC making changes.  So far, so good.
• Meanwhile in Estacada, the newly hired executive director of the Estacada Downtown Association is Sandy’s very own Nancy Hoffman!  Nancy started a couple of weeks ago, and Jennifer and I have already run into her at the 2014 Main Street Convention in McMinnville.  She seems to be enjoying her position so far, but Terra Wilcoxson says her first real test will be how she reacts to the owner of Fearless Brewing storming into the office yelling about god knows what.  Keep calm and carry on, Nancy!
• AntFarm has been struggling for awhile now with the departures of Samara, Susa and recently Wesley.  However, Damon is back from his hiatus and doing well, Shauna has been taking over much of the supervisory work and Nunpa is looking for ways to get more involved with the business community and developing his work crews.  They are struggling financially, but not as much as the recent Post article would have you believe…

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

Amarin Thai/Try My Thai:  This business is under new ownership as of a couple of weeks ago.  The new ownership family is based in Gresham, and will largely keep the menu the same for now with a couple of minor tweaks.  They are delightful people, very friendly and outgoing, and are very interested in taking part in Trick or Treat Trail and next year’s First Friday events.  They already have a brand new projecting sign up, and it looks very bold with a bright red background and gold/black lettering.  These folks seem very interested in joining Antonio of the Tamale Factory in breaking the Sandy restaurant mold and actually putting some effort into self-promotion.  Bravo to them, and I will help out in any way I can.

Whitney Signs (Estacada):  I have been speaking with the owner of this business for a couple of weeks now since finding out he is interested in the possibility of opening a store here in Sandy.  He is interested in either opening a second store here, or selling his house and his store in Estacada and moving his entire operation here, and it sounds to me like one of these two things is almost certainly going to happen.  I took him over to Jody Argue’s property very recently and introduced the two.  He was familiar with the property from back when it was a Rieglemann’s, and did state that it would be an acceptable property for him (right size, plenty of parking, capable of taking fiber, good visibility both ways, etc.).  We’ll see how the project comes along, and I will stay in touch with him until we have a sign company in Sandy.

Starbucks:  Here’s the latest on Clackamas County’s coolest Starbucks…they will close their current store on the 20^th of October, then spend two full days moving stock and equipment.  They will re-open in their new location on the 23^rd with a few new employees, better lighting, a ton more room and a drive-thru.  Meanwhile, we lose a high visibility fast-food joint.  Everybody wins.  🙂

Barbara Sah Properties:  Our 2014 façade program improvements to this building have already borne fruit!  The old Reel Tackle space has been rented by a local Sandy-area couple that would like to start a retail store for rock hounds.  They will have several rock saws and a few polishers here, but will also provide classes on rock hounding and fossil hunting, rock and petrified wood identification, and other related topics.  They both have solid day jobs and this will be mostly a hobby for them for awhile.  However, this is a unique business that won’t step on the toes of any business already here in town.  They also tell me that many people that own businesses like theirs are retiring and that young people don’t seem to getting into the business side of it much, although general interest in the topic doesn’t seem to be waning at all.  Watch this space.

Also, Barbara is now interested in building out fiber to her building.  I am currently in the process of connecting the SandyNet boys with her to work out a building reseller arrangement with her, where she pays the $250-350/month and then charges her individual businesses a discounted rate for service.  I think we can make this work, and I know for a fact that Trail Pals is licking their collective chops at the thought of it all (last time I asked, they were with Frontier and told me they had 5 outages over a 2-week period, which seriously impacted their business)

Coleman Building:  Peak Mortgage and a trading card shop (Magic the Gathering?) have taken over the second floor space previously occupied by ITzetta.  Only space left in this building is the former Lori Ryland Studios space on the ground floor (which would be perfect for a Jamba Juice….just sayin!).  Hats off to Brian Coleman for keeping his building full and proving once again that if you maintain a decent building and offer a fair price for rent, good things will happen!  (and having gig fiber doesn’t hurt either!)

Tamale Factory:  Good things continue to happen for our friend Antonio.  He is doing much better than projected at his Sandy store, and now has a couple of employees trained up and running the store smoothly.  I have also made an appointment to introduce him to Luis Corral at La Milpa because I’ve just simply got to get these two guys together.  Luis is going to start making tortilla chips on a new production line in a couple of months, and Antonio is trying out homemade salsa in his stores.  I thought it would be fantastic to try out that salsa with locally made chips, and maybe even get Antonio to be his first chip customer!  In speaking with Luis about another matter, he suggested that maybe he could provide masa (corn flour) to Antonio at a better price than his current supplier as well as he buys it by the pallet.  Antonio is very intrigued by this.  Hopefully this will be yet another “economic gardening” success….more to come shortly.

Sandy Main Street:  Jennifer Marks has slid into Aubrey’s position and is acclimating very well.  If you have not had the opportunity to meet her yet, stop by the office and say hello.  She is ahead of schedule for the Trick or Treat Trail (Oct. 25^th, rain or shine) and the Xmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, and is a very fast learner.  I am currently enlisting her help in my attempts to staff the SMS executive committee, so we will see what her powers of persuasion are like.

First Friday: The final First Friday of the year was a big success.  October is traditionally the best attended FF of the year, and 2014 did not disappoint.  Dita’s, the Library, AntFarm, Sparky’s, and the restaurants all reported good turnouts.  Lori Ryland’s studio was absolutely buzzing all evening with the showing of all of her students work, and she even sold quite a few pieces to boot!  Also, special thanks to the Future Farmers of America for providing the petting zoo over at the Museum.  We had a lot of parents come down to that end of town specifically for the petting zoo, and the kids from FFA were spectacular!  The young man that owned most of the animals was a senior at SHS, and he couldn’t have been more professional or informative.  We look forward to doing this with them again next year.  The only disappointment of the evening was Chariteas – she had multiple vendors including Bunsenbrewer and Rescue Dogs, and still had a poor showing.  Fortunately, Charity and Aaron took it in stride and the three of us brainstormed how to change this pattern for next year.  We’ll get it figured out eventually.

Project work: 

Nothing at the moment

Conferences/training:    [Oregon Main Street Conference (McMinnville, OR) – September 10-13]  Not a ton of usable information at this one, but it was good to get Jennifer out to meet all of the other RAREs in the state for networking purposes.  She has already developed a couple of good contacts around the state, including Saira Siddiqui in La Grande, who has developed a thriving Main Street program there despite limited community support.  If there is any hope for keeping Main Street going in Sandy past our June 2015 deadline, it will be found in relationships like this.  Did meet a couple of good vendors that specialize in different aspects of retail design (product placement and display, coloration, lighting) and am exploring the possibilities of bringing them out to Sandy for a SACC Brown Bag or a Sandy Main Street function.  Our retailers could certainly benefit from their expertise…

[Emerging Local Government Leaders (#ELGL14) – October 17th]  Getting very close to the conference date, and all appears to be going well.  I will be staying at the conference site on the 16^th to help set up for the event.  City of Sandy attendees include myself, Jennifer Marks, and Kelly O’Neill.  Seth was planning to come, but unfortunately had a last minute issue that will keep him from attending.  Joe Knapp will be a conference presenter along with former city manager/author/professor/Sandyite Scott Lazenby – their break-out session is entitled “Fiber,Fiber, Fiber” (see below) and will contain lots of juicy information about the status of our current project.    Expect a run on affordable housing here shortly thereafter as word of the availability of gigabit fiber in Sandy spreads…

General notes:   So far this month, I have been getting by about as well as can be expected.  We are properly prepared for First Friday now, as I have hired Aubrey as a consultant for one day to help me tie up all of the loose ends with this event.  She was able to catch about a half-dozen minor errors of mine, and was instrumental in getting materials distributed to the participants, leaving me to work on higher level details like the beer garden at Chariteas (all set up) and working on getting Crawlers/Mad Dogz to participate (can’t do it this year, but next year for sure).  I will hire her for one more day during the week that Jennifer starts so Aubrey can help train her from the front line perspective.   And for the record, Aubrey was offered and has accepted a position with the Nature Conservancy in Portland, although rumor has it that another prolific Sandy resident is in the running for the Executive Director position with the Estacada Downtown Association.  I can’t tell you who it is yet as the position has yet to be offered, but it’s someone you all know and respect.  Watch this space…

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

Ox & Marley:  If you haven’t heard yet, Ox & Marley has departed Sandy.  They have relocated to the Monticello Antique mall in SE Portland where they will share a space with 4 other antique dealers.  This was a pure business decision that was based primarily on the fact that the walk-up business that they were projecting at their Pioneer Boulevard location simply didn’t materialize, whereas they will have orders of magnitude more customers at their new location by default.  The only real complaint they voiced to me was the choice of businesses that their building owner occupied the rest of the building with….they got along with most of their neighbors but frankly were somewhat frightened by what they saw happening in the parking lot behind the building after hours.  This was not a deal-breaker though – they just found a better retail space for their business and took it.

Thrifty Dollar:  Just had an informal chat with Will Runnels (one of the owners), and business seems to be going OK.  Not making a lot of money, but they are profitable.  They would be interested in expanding into the shop next door if it becomes available and is currently keeping an eye on the possibility (neighbor’s lease runs out in Oct, but no idea if he plans to move on or not).  The fact that the SCAC is expanding their food bank capacity at the expense of the second hand store seems to be helping business at the TD, but it’s hard to say how much.

Dolly’s Pet Shoppe:   The latest: Marlene is now out of the hospital and in an assisted-living arrangement for the time being as she begins what is sure to be a grueling physical therapy regiment for the next several months.  We at the Chamber have been keeping close touch, and several directors have been out to see her over the last couple of weeks.  Anna (aka “Dolly”) wanted me to let everyone know that our visits and cards are helping Marlene to maintain her sanity, and she is very grateful for that.

Jack in the Box/Starbucks:  I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that JITB is gone, and that a “coming soon” sign with the Starbucks logo is up at this property.  Local Starbucks management tells me that an early-October grand opening is being planned, and that the current location will close a week early so that they may properly prepare.  SACC has been notified of a potential ribbon-cutting opportunity here as well.  Get ready for the coolest Starbucks in the county!

Barbara Sah Properties:  2014 façade program improvements to this building are complete and looking fantastic.  Kudos to Tracy for getting this property on the façade program list – I’m told that the overall cost to do this was fairly low, but the end result is a huge improvement.  If that doesn’t help some of these properties fill up, I don’t know what will.

Wheatland Building:  2014 façade program improvements to this building are also mostly complete.  It looks like the only thing that remains to be done is the finish painting, which is happening as I type this.  Again, a huge upgrade, and one that Dominic Giusto is very happy with.  With the rental of the old Peak Trophy office by a medical products distributor, this building is mostly occupied – only a couple of the Jackson-Hewitt-owned offices in the front are available.

Tamale Factory:  The turf war between Clackamas County Health and the Oregon Department of Agriculture has reached a conclusion.  Antonio has told me that he intends to switch over to ClackCo Health because their regulations are a little less burdensome on his operation.  He also let me know that he is doing quite well in this location, and is astounded that the local restaurant community is doing so little to promote their respective businesses (preachin’ to the choir, buddy).  He is currently keeping an eye out for a location with a kitchen as he may want to expand sometime in the near future, and is also a little concerned that the Muffs have put his building up for sale and that he may be forced to move soon.  I let him know that, while it’s good to keep those things in mind, the chances that the Muff properties will sell immediately are pretty low.

Crawlers:  Finally, this business is up and operational.  Terre completed his final inspection on Friday, and they were waiting for the ClackCo health inspector to show for their final with her, which I’m told went well.  They did have quite a few questions for me when I stopped in to check on them, most of which were around signage.  I told them that the SACC was doing a brown bag later in the month specifically on signage, and asked Khrys over at SACC to send them an email invitation to that meeting, which she did.  Looking forward to getting a lot of input about signs from a new business…

Sandy Main Street:  While waiting for Jennifer Marks to arrive, I have hired Aubrey as a consultant to get a few things done.  She has committed to one day here to help me with the final arrangements for the September First Friday (which I desperately needed to insure that the event goes off smoothly) and one day in the second week of September to help me with training Jennifer (she will be able to train Jennifer on the specifics of website maintenance and event publicity better than I as she was the one who managed the day-to-day operations of SMS).   At $12/hr, this should be a fairly modest expense since the total number of hours should not exceed 20.  However, Aubrey’s help will keep me from going mental as I try to run Main Street and the Ec Dev office by myself this month…   🙂

First Friday: Gearing up for the September FF, and with Aubrey’s help it is coming together.  Preliminary reports on the weather look promising (preliminary reports say mid-80’s and clear with a low of 56), and we are promoting our Safari Bingo! contest a little more heavily than the Poker Hand contest last month.  This month’s event of note: Chariteas will be hosting home-town brewery Bunsenbrewer for an outdoor biergarten in her side yard complete with finger food.  Stop by and meet Aaron Hanson (owner of Bunsenbrewer), learn everything you ever wanted to know about the brewing process and sample some local suds!

Project work: 

Nothing at the moment

Conferences/training:    [IEDC Training Course – Economic Development: Marketing & Attraction – Atlanta, GA – 8/13-15] – after-action report:  This course was as advertised.  I am very impressed with the IEDC so far, as this course covered business recruitment quite well.   I have 2 two-inch 3 ring binders full of course material that I will need to revisit and condense into a more usable format in the near future.  However, this will have to wait until my new RARE is settled in and trained and I return to a more normal schedule.  Expect to see a more detailed report of what I learned in September or October’s departmental report.

As I told you last month, the IEDC (Intl Economic Devl Council) is the professional organization that certifies economic developers, and I’m not exactly sure that I want to go the certification route just yet.  However, there are a few more courses that they offer that would be beneficial to my continuing education.  We’ll see how the rest of the year (and my budget) pans out.

[ELGL#14 Planning Meeting – June]  Did the walk-through at Kennedy School for the 2014 ELGL Annual Conference, and it looks like we’re on target for our October 17^th conference date.  Planning meetings have been happening fairly regularly via teleconference.  Kelly O’Neill attended this with me last year, and I will be encouraging other city staff to get involved with this organization by attending this conference.  It is open to anyone who is in the beginning stages of their local government career, and is a great way to network with other staffers in the same stage of professional development in other cities and counties.  More on this event as we get closer.

General notes:   From last month’s report – Sandy Mountain Festival.  Music Fair and Feast.  Summer Sounds.  Shakespeare in the Park.  Wine in the Woods.  The Brewgrass Festival.  Hood to Coast.  Fiber contractors trenching through people’s yards.   Hiring a new RARE coordinator.  Oy!

So here’s how it all played out, to the best of my knowledge:

• Sandy Mountain Festival:  I have not seen any actual numbers from our friends on the Mountain Festival Committee, but everything I have heard unofficially seems to indicate that turnout in 2014 was not as robust as 2013.  Part of this had to do with the 90+ temperatures over the weekend of the festival, but the rest is a mystery as the Festival Committee did plenty of advertising both in and out of the area.
• Music Faire and Feast:  Our preliminary numbers showed that we were off just a hair (<5%) from last year’s numbers, and we believe the weather was the primary factor in this.  However, while we were off quite a bit on Friday night, Saturday night turned out to be our saving grace.  We did have two food vendors (the noodle lady and the shave ice guy) leave during the day on Saturday in violation of their contract because they believed that Saturday was going to be as slow as Friday and they didn’t want to be bothered.  The remaining food vendors (including Bunsenbrewer, who was there promoting and selling food only – we are working to see if he can sell beer next year) cleaned house Saturday night, and those two vendors that left are now barred from all future events for proving themselves to be unreliable even while under contract.  The lack of foresight displayed by some of these vendors is truly jaw-dropping.
• Shakespeare/WitW/Brewgrass:  All three of these events showed growth in attendance from last year according to unofficial counts by Nancy Enabnit, Katie Murphy and Carol Cohen.  Wine in the Woods had over 200 people – by far the biggest growth shown by any event so far this year.  The Brewgrass Festival was also the rollout of new lighting in Meinig Park paid for by Clackamas County Tourism & Cultural Affairs’ Community Partnership Grant.  This is the same grant that paid for the Otto’s Ski Shop/City of Sandy mountain bike rental program.  Please notice the new lighting at the park entrance and on each of the small non-profit gazebos facing the main stage – these downward facing fixtures will provide lighting on the stairways and the ground around the gazebos so people can make their way around the park more safely in the dark.  Also, there are 3 new 500-watt canned lights shining on the stage, adding 1,500 watts to the 600 watts already there.  This makes the performers much easier to see (especially from a distance) and improves the overall quality of the stage.
• Hood to Coast:  Coming to a state highway near you on August 22-23.  Last year was markedly better than years previous with regard to team behavior.  According to Sandy PD there were no major incidents last year and only a couple of minor ones.  Let’s hope this keeps up!
• Fiber contractors trenching through people’s yards:  Can’t wait ‘til they turn it on!  SandyNet techs tell me that people are still complaining about the paint on the ground, but considering that the law requires this of anyone planning to dig in a ROW, not sure what they can do to calm people down.  Time will tell, I guess…
• Hiring a new RARE coordinator:  Just heard back from RARE, and it appears that our number one choice will in fact be our next coordinator.  Jennifer Marks will be doing some training with RARE, and is planning to be here the second week of September.  Meanwhile, Aubrey is leaving us on the 13^th of August, so stop by and bid her farewell.  A little birdie told me that she has an excellent chance of becoming the Estacada Development Organization’s new executive director in the near future.  Watch this space…

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

Dolly’s Pet Shoppe:   As you have probably heard by now, Marlene DePaolo was injured in a car accident on Bluff Road last week and was LifeFlighted to Emmanuel Hospital in critical condition.  She has since been stabilized, but has about a dozen major injuries to her body (mostly broken bones).  Dolly’s owner and daughter Anna was planning on holding a second grand opening over the last weekend, and was understandably distraught enough over the situation to consider closing up shop for awhile.  The Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce and this office sprang into action to help – I convinced Anna to stay open and to focus on the grand opening to keep her mind off of the situation, and her suppliers donated a ton of product to raffle off.  Khrys Jones at the Chamber, myself and most of the SACC board has stopped in at various times and helped her setup, stock shelves and generally keep things moving.  The 2^nd grand opening went very well, and although she has not done the numbers yet for the event, she knows business was very brisk over the weekend.

The latest on Marlene is that she continues to improve, and is now out of the ICU.  Recovery time is estimated at 1 year.  So if you have a free minute and happen to be downtown, stop in and give Anna some words of encouragement.

Barbara Sah Properties:  Barbara is not quite ready to rent out her remaining properties.  A couple of them still need bathrooms or bathroom ADA upgrades, and the ADA was not a variable she had to deal with when she last owned the building.  Short-term financing seems to be the issue, but she has no interest in borrowing.  She is, however, at least interested in learning more about how to become a fiber reseller to the tenants in her building.  This is something that I need to discuss in more detail with SandyNet staff when they are available to speak with other city employees again, which I’m told will probably be sometime in 2017.

Mike Maiden Properties:  Still need to talk to Mike.  Later in the month, most likely.

Jody Argue Properties:  Moving forward with construction of the interior of the building.  Have met with Jody and Terre a couple of times, and this seems to be coming along.  Still don’t know what her plans are for the space, but has hinted toward general retail.  More to come…

Tamale Factory:  There appears to be some sort of turf war going on at this business between the Oregon Dept of Agriculture and Clackamas County Health.  Apparently Antonio’s ODA certification is in question, and Ms. Leben with the County’s Health Dept is trying to become the certifying authority.  I have been trying to get a hold of Antonio to find out what’s going on, but he hasn’t been in the Sandy store much lately and my schedule has been a bit loaded as well.  I am also looking to get a more detailed answer to the Mayor’s question to him about what exactly was “difficult and expensive” about setting up shop here.  I have a feeling his concerns revolve around the grease trap that was required for his business, but I don’t want to put words in his mouth.  More to come….

Crawlers:  This business was given a temporary business license last week pending final inspection of their plumbing permit.  Last I heard, the deadline for this final was 8/11, and Terre had not heard a word from the contractor working on this business.  Terre was really hoping that he didn’t have to shut them down, as the problem seems to lie with the contractor and not the business owner.  This is not the first time the contractor has let them down, I’m told…

Sandy Main Street:  We have a winner in the contest to find Aubrey’s 2014-2015 RARE replacement! Our top candidate, Jennifer Marks, has accepted the assignment and will be joining Sandy Main Street as our new coordinator during the second week of September.  As Aubrey is leaving us on August 13, that means I’m going to be on my own for a month, so I ask for your patience and understanding over the next handful of weeks as I try to run this popsicle stand by myself.  Aubrey is looking for work and has to this date put out almost 50 resumes, some of them for some impressive organizations (Greater Portland Inc, The Nature Conservancy, etc.)  I have no doubt that she will be either running for Congress or running the Oregon Food Bank one day…

First Friday: August’s event was, unfortunately, one of the slowest on record.  Part of the reason for this was daytime temps in the mid-90’s, which seemed to scare away a lot of our younger participants (didn’t see too many kids this time around)  The one business that seemed to be going gangbusters was Dolly’s Pet Shoppe, as they planned their 2^nd grand opening to coincide with First Friday.  We are still tabulating the winners from the Best Poker Hand contest, but we only had 19 participants overall.  The bottom line here though is….sometimes you can do everything right and still fail due to variables outside of your control.  If only we could control the weather…  🙂

Project work: 

Nothing at the moment

Conferences/training:  [OEDA Summer Conference – Redmond, OR – July 27, 28]  Another grand summer conference….this time with the Oregon Economic Development Association.  Only a one-day conference, but there were some good resources on economic data, urban renewal and how to use UR funds for downtown renewal, and a great tour of downtown Redmond and how they are rehabbing a lot of their old art deco buildings for current use.  Also used this conference to build a stronger relationship with Estacada and Woodburn ED departments….relationships that may come in handy somewhere down the road.

[IEDC Training Course – Economic Development: Marketing & Attraction – Atlanta, GA – 8/13-15]  I found this business recruitment course while researching the Council’s request to train me up on business recruitment.  The IEDC (Intl Economic Devl Council) is the professional organization that certifies economic developers.  Once you complete their series of courses and pass a fairly brutal exam, you get a professional designation of CEcD (Certified Economic Developer) and a lifetime of knowledge in economic development.  Whether or not I pursue this course in my ongoing training is an open question, as the courses are not offered locally very often and are reasonably expensive.  However, this training seems to be EXACTLY what I need right now.  I will give a detailed report of my experience in next month’s report.  I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this trip….  🙂

[ELGL#14 Planning Meeting – June]  Will be getting together with this group after Atlanta to do a walk-through of the conference site, and have been tasked with putting together a Pinterest site for the conference.  Not exactly sure what that entails, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough…

General notes:   Sandy Mountain Festival.  Music Fair and Feast.  Summer Sounds.  Shakespeare in the Park.  Wine in the Woods.  The Brewgrass Festival.  Hood to Coast.  Fiber contractors trenching through people’s yards.   Hiring a new RARE coordinator.  Oy!

With all of the activity that is going on in Sandy right now, I’m going to take a hiatus in the general notes section this month so I can focus on getting some things done.  There is nothing currently “on-fire” with regard to Economic Development right now….just a lot of reporting that needs to be completed.  If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please don’t hesitate to call or email me.

There is one exception to this, and it’s just an FYI.  I was informed last week that Firwood Designs is going to be hiring another engineer in September.  This is great news for Firwood and for the general economy, as it shows that the local economy continues to improve.  However, it also means that Sandy Main Street (and yours truly) is going to have to find a new home by the end of September.  We have paid our rent through this period, and Kelli Grover has been very hospitable by giving us 90 days to figure this out instead of the typical 30 days.  The most promising new home for SMS is probably our old home — sharing the space in the Wheatland Building with SandyNet.  However, considering the growth of SandyNet and their space needs during this fiber rollout, that might not be an easy transition.  Seth and I are currently discussing our next move, so if you have any suggestions for other sites to conisder, please let us know.

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

Dolly’s Pet Shoppe:   Anna and Marlene have settled nicely into their new storefront and are currently working on improving their signage and other exterior issues.  Last week they removed the wooden Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce sign on the west wall of the building and have replaced it with their old teal backlit sign (which is no longer backlit).  I also asked Public Works to remove the sign outside on the old B of A property advertising for the Visitor’s Center and Sno-Park permits, which they did last week as well.  They are now looking into having an awning company make some covers for the awnings covering up the SACC verbiage and replacing it with Dolly’s verbiage, thereby eliminating the last clues that the Chamber was once there.

Barbara Sah Properties; Mike Maiden Properties; Jody Argue Properties:  I will be meeting with Barbara next week to discuss the remaining vacancies in her building, including what we can do to help market them (like putting them on the City’s Commercial Properties database).  If available, I will take Scott from SandyNet with me to possibly discuss wiring the building for fiber and setting Barbara up as a reseller of those services, an idea that she has been surprisingly open to in the past.

I understand that Mike Maiden has a couple more spaces available over in his metal pre-fab building complex on 362^nd.  Last I spoke with him, he was looking to lease to a local group contemplating a distillery in one of his two vacant properties.  I will contact him this week to get those properties (if still vacant) on the commercial properties database.  Also, Jody Argue (owner of the house on Pioneer across from Berkshire Hathaway) has requested a meeting with Terre and I to discuss what is necessary for moving forward with the needed construction on her property, indicating that she has likely either found some independent financing or has found someone willing to finance the work in exchange for rights to lease the space.  Either way, good for her….hopefully this means another leased property by the end of the year.

Sandy Organic:  Had a productive meeting about collective marketing ideas with Jennifer Davis, Khrys Jones and Cindy Bloomer (SACC Board President) this week.  Came up with some good ideas, including pooling local food related businesses’ resources and buying ads through the SACC (non-profit discount) in certain publications to try and get skiers and other recreators to stop in Sandy to “supply-up”.

Sandy Main Street:  We will be conducting interviews the week of July 14^th for Aubrey’s 2014-2015 RARE replacement.  We currently have four prospective participants on the schedule of the five that we were given; we had a bad phone number for the fifth, but have corrected this and are currently awaiting his return call.  The interview panel currently consists of myself, Seth, Aubrey, and Councilor Exner (our current Business Committee chair).  Councilor Coleman, as a foundational member of Sandy Main Street you are welcome to participate in any of the interviews if you wish; an invite will be extended to George Hoyt as well.  The interview schedule is as follows:

• Thursday, July 17^th

o   2:30 pm – Jacqueline Flores – in person interview, City Hall conference room

o   3:30 pm – Jennifer Marks – in person interview, City Hall conference room

• Friday, July 18^th

o   2:30 pm – Mariah Dodson – phone interview, SMS office

o   3:30 pm – Keaghan Caldwell  – phone interview, SMS office [pending]

o   4:30 pm – Katelynn Essig – phone interview, SMS office

First Friday will return in August after taking our official July hiatus.  The theme for August will be the Best Poker Hand contest, September will be Safari Bingo, and October will be a Downtown Harvest Celebration (where we hope to have, amongst other sub-events, a petting zoo in Centennial Plaza put on by FFA)

Project work: 

• Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce – First of all,I would like to take a brief moment to thank City staff for their understanding, their flexibility and for just generally helping out with the preparations for Music Fair & Feast.  Special thanks to Julie Stephens and all of the SAM drivers at Transit for helping out with moving the bus stops and helping with the barricades, Kevin at Public Works for providing the temporary barricades after hours and being present while we were setting up, and Joe Preston for cleaning the square prior to setup.  Setup actually went very smoothly this year due to this extra level of cooperation, and we didn’t have to threaten to tow anyone from the Plaza.  Kudos all around!

Music Fair and Feast was a mixed bag this year.  We are still tabulating the numbers, but preliminary reports say we were very slow on Friday (most likely due to weather conditions) and insanely busy on Saturday.  From my perch at the beer token booth (which I volunteer for every year) Saturday night, we seemed to have a few more people than last year, so with Friday’s slow numbers I’m going to assume that we did close to the same numbers as 2013.  One thing our contractor (Kristy Wheeler) did mention to us was that we had a lot of difficulties working with the Sandy Mountain Festival Committee on a number of issues this year.  We were treated with an entitled and surly attitude from some of their contacts, and one of their members badmouthed our organization directly to some of our food vendors which contributed to two of them leaving MF&F in the middle of the day Saturday before the rush started.  This caused us to have to scramble to fill that vacuum, and has resulted in those two vendors being barred from any future events with us.

Conferences/training:  [Oregon City/County Manager’s Association summer conference – July 8- 11]  Another OCCMA summer conference has come and gone, and this year’s was just as good as years past.  Seth and I shared a room at Mount Bachelor Resort, and the programming was superb.  There was one 2 hour presentation that they referred to as “speed coaching” where we went around the room and met with different senior managers to run some of our ongoing problems by them to see if we could get a different perspective.  I used that time to try and get answers on my two perpetual problems – getting business recruitment training, and the “Sandy Syndrome” – and got some GREAT ideas from some very interesting people.  Regarding business recruitment, I actually got a huge list of different organizations to check out from Steve Bryant (senior ICMA adviser, former Albany city manager) and Michael Jordan (no, not that one….Director, Oregon Department of Administrative Services) that I plan to pursue vigorously.  Regarding Sandy Syndrome, I had a long talk with Joe Gall (city manager, Sherwood; former Fairview city manager) about what we might be able to do about that, and will be talking with Seth about our conversation at our next one-on-one….Joe’s ideas might involve a little funding, but if it leads to just ONE of our build-to-suit properties being developed downtown, it would be sooooooo worth it.

General notes:   The build-up for July 2014 is beginning in earnest, and this year July will be even bigger than it normally is.  Preparations are starting at the Chamber for Music Fair and Feast, and the Sandy Mountain Festival Association is going full-bore to get ready for the Festival.  The entertainment has been selected for the Summer Sounds concert series and Movies in the Park, the Public Market is up in Centennial Plaza on alternate Saturdays, and Urban Renewal is beginning work for this year’s Façade Program recipients.  Business as usual.

In addition, this year Sandy Main Street will be hosting its Imagine Sandy visioning meeting on June 23^rd to collect input from citizens, downtown business and property owners, and other interested stakeholders (see below) regarding the future of downtown Sandy.   The Public Market will also have some competition, as both AntFarm and Organic Sandy will be offering their version on alternate Fridays in July as well.

With regard to the suggestion that I look into some good training classes related to business recruitment:  Seth, Lisa and I have completed a review of my budget, and there does in fact seem to be some existing funding available for such an endeavor.  I have potentially identified a good 2-day IEDC (Intl Econ Devl Council) course in Atlanta in August – you can take a look at the agenda by clicking below:

http://www.pe.gatech.edu/courses/iedc-economic-development-marketing-and-attraction

This will be the first attempt to educate myself to become the City’s marketing guru, but certainly not the last.  As always, if you hear of a good resource on this topic, please forward it on to me!

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

Dolly’s Pet Shoppe:   Finally!  After (literally) years of looking for a new building to relocate to, Anna and Marlene finally signed a contract on the best space they could have possibly hoped for: the old Chamber space!  Anna and I have been talking about this day for well over a year now, and it will finally become a reality on June 15^th when their contract expires with their current landlord.  The new location is almost twice the size of her current store, and the space is badly needed – she says she has about 300 square feet of displays and product sitting in the living room of her house because she has no space in her store to set them up.  Plus, it has better visibility, off-street parking (and a virtual loading zone outside the side door on Pioneer), lighting, and proximity to the downtown core of activity.  This will also put Dolly’s in a better position to participate in Sandy Main Street events like First Fridays and the Trick-or-Treat Trail, events that Anna has told me she would like to become more involved with in the future.

If you have pets, stop by and see her new store when it opens during the 3rd week of June.  She has a lot of quality product lines and, after 9 years in business, really knows her stuff.  Way, way better than PetSmart!

La Milpa Mexican Foods:  Luis Corral and company are finally starting the process of moving their factory from their current home in Mike Maiden’s complex to the former home of The Eclectic Institute.  This represents a very positive move for La Milpa – the new factory floor is twice the size of their current one, which will allow them to start manufacturing a few new products like tortilla chips and tostada shells.  Fire/life safety inspection didn’t turn up any serious problems with the building, so the move should proceed over the next 3 months or so.  Senor Corral and his business partner are excited to finally be expanding, as they have been contemplating this move for about 2 years now.  Once they get ready to test out their new product line, I will introduce them to Antonio Paez – perhaps the Tamale Factory can be their test lab! (I know Antonio is thinking about adding chips and salsa to his menu, and I’m pretty sure he would be interested in a local supplier – “economic gardening” in action!)

Blue Sky & Daydreams, LLC:  a.k.a. the Laundromat from Hades.  I stopped by at lunch the other day to see if any of the work rumored to be done here has actually been done on this space.  To no one’s surprise, the place is actually in worse condition than the last time I stopped by.  The number of missing tiles on the floor seems to have multiplied, and it looks like someone tried to jack the change machines, which have wires sticking out now where the dollar bill accepters used to be.  The vandalized sign referring customers to a phone number for refunds has been removed and replaced with nothing.  Number of customers present: zero.  So sad.

All-Ways Towing: Terre, Tracy, Don Patty and I descended upon the All-Ways site for a fire/life safety inspection, and it seemed to go very well.  No huge problems were detected, and we got a little bit of insight into what they’re planning.  Other than that, it was a fairly routine inspection.

Sandy Organic:  Had the ribbon cutting for their Friday market concept on May 23^rd.  Many thanks to Mayor King for presiding, and for the strong presence at the event by both Council and staff.  The event drew a fair number of people, and provided a great photo op for this new business.

Sandy Main Street: Believe it or not, Aubrey’s term of service with us is almost up!  I completed the application for our new RARE student earlier in the week, and we will be conducting interviews the week of July 14^th for Aubrey’s 2014-2015 replacement.  RARE is estimating that we will have between 3 and 5 interviews to conduct, most if not all of which will be via Skype or telephone.

Also, we will be putting on Imagine Sandy, our visioning meeting for Sandy’s downtown core, on June 23^rd at the Community Center.  You all have invites in your City Hall mailboxes, and we would really, really love your participation if you have the time to spare.  This event will be similar to the Prescriptions for ED event that Dr. Lazenby and I put on in 2011, but will be moderated by Sheri Stuart, our Oregon Main Street supervisor.  Sheri has done tons of these types of visioning meetings, so it will be a delight to have someone with so much experience running the show.  We will share the results of this meeting with the community at a shorter follow-up event in August, and with the Council at a future Council meeting (probably in late July).  If you have any questions, contact Aubrey – this is her show!

Project work: 

• The Mayor’s “Business-Friendly” Task Force – Meetings are now weekly and ongoing, and staff is finding them very beneficial in getting all city departments on the same page when dealing with issues.  Topics of discussion this time around were: next steps regarding the boarding house, the pending La Milpa move, Imagine Sandy, and a site visit at the Cool Printing Building to discuss ADA/safety upgrades with Cyndi McCool (which went much better than expected).
• Bicycle Rental Program, part Deux – I don’t know if Council is aware, but Andreanne Rode of Otto’s Ski Shop applied for and received an additional grant from Clackamas County to put together some mountain bike events up on the mountain this year.  Part of the grant money was to purchase a bicycle trailer capable of carrying a dozen bikes so she could take equipment with her on the road.  The County requested that the bike trailer be purchased and owned by the City of Sandy (like the initial mountain bike purchase) to avoid looking like they were favoring a particular business over others.  This has now occurred, so we now own a bike trailer (currently being stored in the PW yard) which we are free to use for our own events as well (CornCross!!!).  Thanks Clackamas County Tourism & Cultural Affairs!
• Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce – The Chamber moved into its new home in May, substantially cutting our overhead for the next 5 years.  We also hired a new part timer to help give Khrys a little bit of breathing room.  Currently consumed with planning for Music Faire and Feast.  So far, so good.

Conferences/training:  [NetCity promotional video for Business Oregon – May 13]  Although this did happen in May, I spoke about this in last month’s departmental report so I’ll spare you all the rehashing of old news.  I am waiting with some anticipation to see the final product, which I will share when completed.

[ELGL#14 Planning Meeting – May 15]  Ongoing, but nothing of significance yet other than developing a theme for the conference (Telling Stories – How We Communicate).  We have some very interesting options developing for keynote speakers, but I don’t want to jinx anything just yet.  More to come…

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…