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Mid-Columbia Economic Development District is hosting an AmeriCorps volunteer through the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) program run out of the University of Oregon’s Community Service Center. Carrie Pipinich will be with the district working as the Columbia Gorge Sustainability Consortium Coordinator for an 11-month placement that started in September.

Last spring Pipinich graduated from the Portland State University with a master’degree in urban and regional planning. She has worked with regional, coalition based non-profits on transportation policy as well as managing the creation of a downtown redevelopment plan for a small town in Eastern Oregon. She said she is happy to be in the gorge learning about a new part of Oregon and enjoying the many opportunities to get out and explore.

Her work wi th the Gorge Sustainability Consortium will support regional agencies, their constituents, non-profits and service providers in their efforts to create places that balance economic vitality, the needs of the physical environment and strong, healthy communities in the Columbia Gorge.

These efforts will be furthered through collaborative, regional efforts to address some of the challenges and opportunities the gorge communities face.

Pipinich will support the group’s strategic planning effort to outline their upcoming work and direction.

She will also reach out to communities around the region to discuss the consortium’s work in order to ensure that the strategic plan reflects the needs and issues of the gorge communities. The Mid-Columbia Economic Development District serves Klickitat, Skamania, Hood River, Wasco, and Sherman counties by promoting the creation of family-wage jobs, the diversification of the economic base, and the growth, development and retention of business and industry.

Visit us at www.mcedd.org.

Michael Held will wear a lot of hats while he is in The Dalles. The West Virginia native will act as a RARE (Resource Assistant for Rural Environments) planner for the Port of The Dalles, working to address the community’s growing concern about wetlands laws many community leaders feel are inhibiting the city’s ability to grow within its own boundaries.

While he’s here, though, Held will also be assisting efforts at Home at Last Humane Society and working as a robotics competition referee.

Held earned his undergraduate degree in social work from West Virginia University.

“I focused a lot on communi ty development, macro-level projects,” Held said. A yen to work in public administration led him to the University of Oregon’s well-recognized, interdisciplinary master’s program.

Held became involved in economic development issues and updating the city’s information infrastructure during an internship at the City of Oakridge.

“RARE was always on my radar,” Held said. “I knew a lot of people who had gone through and had really good experiences.” And RARE offered a good opportunity between college and the job market.

“I’m making a change in career, going from social work to economic development projects, so I need to build some street cred,” Held said. “RARE hopefully will do that for me.” RARE planners have been regular additions to The Dalles over the past decade and more. Four are currently working with various organizations in the area (look for future stories in The Chronicle).

Held was the port’s first choice for the RARE post here, and The Dalles was his first choice, after interviewing for economic development positions in five communities.

His top priority will be wetlands.

“I’m trying to create a solution for development in both the short-and longterm,” he said. In that role he will collaborate with other agencies to develop a plan. He will also be working on industrial lands development projects in progress at the port as needed.

The third arm of his responsibilities shifts over to a community theme and a different location:He will be working with Home at Last Humane Society to develop a strategic plan for the nonprofit organization.

“After that, I will be working with volunteer recruitment, retention and strategy,” he said.

The shelter assignment is a good fit for Held, who brought his dog to The Dalles with him, and enjoys hiking with his fourlegged best friend. Held also enjoys mountain biking and the diverse recreational environment of the gorge.

“I am really excited to be in The Dalles,” Held said. “It’s a great place to spend a year, if not longer.

It’s a place I could see myself potentially settling.

“I see The Dalles as a place where everyone is working together toward a community goal of a great place to live and work,” he added.

Held is already getting involved in the community in other capacities. He has agreed to be the head referee at the Dec. 2 Lego Robotics tournament.

Business professionals involved in regional Stronger Economies Together planning over the next few months (see story, Jan. 10 front page) will likely meet Carrie Pipinich, Mid-Columbia Economic Development District’s RARE planner. RARE means Resource Assistance for Rural Environments and is a program administered from the University of Oregon. Its mission is to increase the capacity of rural communities to improve their economic, social and environmental conditions with the aid of trained graduate-level people who live and work in the communities for 11 months.

This year, The Dalles has four RARE workers in three local agencies.

Pipinich is serving as staff support for the Stronger Economies Together program, and coordinator for the Columbia Gorge Consortium.

‘This is a group of regional bodies that get together to help better coordinate their work for a couple of reasons: to make sure they are not missing out on opportunities because they are not hearing about them and to make sure, as the funding climate is shrinking, that they are making the most effective use of their dollars,” Pipinich explained. Among the organizations involved are Mid-Columbia Housing Authority, Mid-Columbia Council of Governments, gorge commission, the economic development district and Columbia Gorge Community College.

At present, the group is working through it s strategic planning effort, talking about organization, mission and goals. “Right now, there is such a big focus on organizations moving out of their silos, getting together more and a collaborative working environment,” Pipinich said. Collaborative effort can be more attractive to grant makers, she added.

Pipinich said one of the reasons the position at Mid-Columbia Economic Development appealed to her was the collaboration already at work in the community.

She grew up in Seattle and just finished her master’s degree at Portland State in urban and regional planning. She says her work here will help strengthen her knowledge of the economic development world.

As a city girl, Pipinich says working in The Dalles has been an eyeopening experience on rural issues.

“And the character of some small towns – they’re a great group of folks to work with,” she said. “I’ve been inspired to get to know some of the smaller communities in the area.” The RARE participants have been pulled into local activities, too. Pipinich helped referee the recent gorge robotics tournament.

“Just learning from a referee’s perspective was challenging,” she said. “There were so many things they could do and a lot of rules to remember.” On her own, Pipinich likes cooking and baking and is hoping the weather will soon allow her to explore some of the local hiking trails.

Canby Main Street is seeking nominations of two people who will switch on the Christmas tree during Light the Night Dec. 2

Who illuminates Canby?

Canby Main Street is looking for two people to switch the holiday lights on during Light the Night in Wait Park, which this year will be held Dec. 2 in conjunction with First Friday.

Canby residents will have the opportunity to select two community members who they consider “electric.”

“Our Light the Night committee member, Pam Thomas from the Place to Be Café, came up with this great idea to spice things up for the 10th annual tree lighting ceremony” said Annie Tran, Canby Main Street coordinator.

Nomination forms can be found in the Development Services Office at 111 NW Second Ave. or on the Canby Main Street website, www.CanbyMainStreet.com/events/19/FirstFridayandLightTheNight/. 
Click on the events page to get more details.

Nominations are due by Monday, Nov. 21. They can be dropped off at the Development Services Office or emailed to trana@ci.canby.or.us.

“This is a new fun twist to getting the community involved in the tree lighting ceremony and I think it will be exciting to see what fantastic nomination entries we get,” Tran said.

This year’s traditional tree lighting ceremony will happen during First Friday in downtown Canby Dec. 2. Select stores will be open for extended hours from 5 to 9 p.m.

First Friday businesses often have food and wine tasting as well as drawings for prizes. This year, participating downtown businesses will also be collecting food and toys for the Kiwanis Food and Toy Drive.

The Dec. 2 First Friday concludes the 2011 season. First Friday will resume in June 2012.
Light the Night’s annual parade begins at 6 p.m.. The parade route will start near the Canby Post Office and wind its way through downtown, ending at Wait Park just before the tree lighting event at 6:30 p.m. And yes, Santa will stop by for a visit.

“We are still looking for parade floats so if you are interested in being a part of the parade, please call me at 503-266-7001,” Tran said. “To get updates on Light the Night, type in ‘Canby Main Street’ in the Facebook search engine and ‘Like’ us.”

One of the opportunity areas for downtown-gown partnerships is in tapping local architecture and engineering faculty and students to help generate ideas and designs for adaptive reuse of underused buildings.

The City of Roseburg (OR, est. pop. 20,680) Community Development Department, for example, recently partnered with downtown property owners and engineering students to design conceptual plans for four buildings with vacant upper floors.

“We viewed it as a small jump start to redevelopment options downtown,” says Brian Davis, director of the City of Roseburg Community Development Department. “We’re not taking away work from architects and engineers, because what the students are doing are just very minimal sketches of what could be. The actual design and architecture would come later, and that would require professional assistance.”

Having said that, this three-way partnership has been a successful one, he says: “Downtown property owners receive free design work, college students receive cooperative work credits necessary to graduate, and the City helps both the students and downtown by paying [a portion of the students’) tuition and getting labor at a next-to-nothing rate (working out to be roughly $1.91hr).”

Help property owners mull ideas during this key time. The City’s rationale behind doing this was that currently, most downtown property owners are taking a “wait and see” approach to their buildings, waiting for the economy to recover before reinvesting in their properties, Davis says. Without this opportunity to receive design assistance, none of them would likely be hiring an architect to help them explore renovation ideas.

The program is administered by a fulltime intern, Virginia Elandt, who comes to the City through the state’s RARE program. For details on this program see the box on page 8.

“My intention during my internship here with the City was to find incentives and resources to redevelop vacant upper floor space in our downtown district. These olderbuildings have unique layouts and building code issues that need to be addressed if we were to upgrade them for residential use,” says Elandt.

“I’m no architect or engineer, so I called our engineering instructor here at the community college, and asked if he had any students who would be interested in doing something like that, to flesh out those building code ideas. Lo and behold, they have a community work experience program that’s a requirement of their coursework, and we were able to use those students to do job plans for various floors,” she says.

Conceptual floor plans exceed expectations. One of the expected products from the program was a single pilot project, or report showing potential floor plans and code impediments for one of the downtown buildings with a vacant upper floor. The City ‘s partnership with Umpqua Community College exceeded that goal, generating four pilot projects. The four plans that the students came up with were provided to the city council at a special presentation.

“It went surprisingly well. We had seven students and four buildings. The owners were happy with the work. The students were excited that they were able to have a little bit of creative reign over the layouts,” Elandt says.

During a kick-off tour, she and others from the City showed the students the four buildings they’d be addressing. “They had a lot of fun with it. They incorporated some green design, sky lights, roof gardens, balconies, and other things that would add to the character of the buildings,” she says.

Other property owners that expressed interest in receiving this free design work but could not be included in the first semester of the program have an opportunity to participate in the next round. It all worked out very reasonably for the City as well.

“The tuition was only for the cooperative work course, which was $125 for each student, seven students total, so it was not too expensive. The students were required to put in 105 work hours for the three-credit course (basically an internship with school credit). The City paid for this from its economic development fund,” Davis says.

The conceptual floor plans that the engineering students drafted were for market-rate housing, which the City has identified as being needed downtown. They were not asked to project expenses of their proposed renovation projects, only to “make it [physically] feasible and make it fit the code, and they made it work,” Elandt says.

“We already have a pretty good stock of low- and moderate-income housing in our downtown. The City would like to see a better mix, targeting single professionals and seniors who are still self-sufficient and enjoy the amenities that come along with being located in the downtown,” she says.

Design program is drawing attention to hidden potential. During this slow period for their businesses, the four property owners that received the free design work will undoubtedly be thinking about how much supplemental income they could be collecting each month from rent.

“Having these students come in to provide design assistance will provide downtown possibilities and options that otherwise would not have been on the drawing board,” Davis says.

Elandt sees value in this program in that “it gives a face to the downtown, and it really helps to get the conversation started, as far as the potential for these vacant upper floors. People are pretty excited about it.

“The two biggest reasons I heard from folks as to why they wouldn’t rehab that space were, one, the building code issues, which we worked around with the students, and the second would be funding. That’s the next leg of my program here, to look at funding opportunities for folks who want to pursue this further,” she says.

“We need to be more aware of our local resources and take advantage of those,” she advises. “This has been a very rewarding experience – for everybody involved.”

The town-gown partnership has also brought media attention to downtown’s need for more market-rate housing.

“Keep an open mind, and have a nice [working] outline for them,” Elandt advises in working with students. “Giving them the option of exercising their creative freedom was beneficial in seeing what all the opportunities could be. A lot of the students, after the first couple of weeks, came back with maybe six or seven different floor layouts,” she says.

Contact: City of Roseburg Community Development Department, Brian Davis, bdavis@cityofroseburg.org, and Virginia Elandt, veiandt@cityofroseburg.org, or 541-440-1177.

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In the tiny town of Dayville (pop. 138), the general store does a lot more than sell groceries. It’s a feed store, a liquor store, a variety store and-like many rural mercantiles-it also does duty as the community center. Mugs with their owners’ names scrawled on them hang on the wall, waiting for local residents to head to the back room for a little coffee and company.

It’s a reminder of how important food is to rural Oregon-not just the consuming of it, but its availability and distribution. At the same time, it serves as a reminder of how these food systems are at risk.

“That store has been for sale for as many years as I’ve been driving by it,” says Sharon Thornberry of the Oregon Food Bank. Thornberry travels to rural areas throughout Oregon for her job as community food programs advocate. “The owner drives to Bend to put produce in her store, and she has to go to Portland to stock her shelves.”

One of the big problems for rural communities is that the country is built around a food system designed to serve large populations. Food distributors must ship in bulk to make it worthwhile, unlike liquor, with its large profit margin, or cigarettes, which are cheap to transport. “When you can’t buy in large volume, the food stops coming to you-you have to go to it,” Thornberry says. That’s a problem, especially when high gas prices and low incomes are factored in.

Another issue is the inability of Eastern Oregon producers to sell in their own communities. Ranchers raise beef. for example, but can’t sell it locally because the number of USDA processors has steadily declined, and most of them are located west of the Cascades.

Food-system issues permeate all parts of the economy. Take low-income food assistance programs such as WIC and food stamps, which are designed to feed people while injecting cash into local economies-89 for every 85 in benefits. The economic impact is blunted when recipients have to travel great distances to buy the food, assuming they can afford the gas to get there.

‘It’s about the conversation’

Food-related issues like these are not new, but the hard work of local and regional food coalitions and statewide groups such as the Oregon Food Bank is bringing them to the forefront. The first step SPRING 2010 toward creating solutions is to build awareness of food issu.es through community meetings, food inventories and networking.

“Community food assessments can really be anything,” says Katie Weaver, an AmeriCorps RARE (Resource Assistance for Rural Environments) volunteer in her second year of conducting community food systems research. She is one of five RARE volunteers doing similar work in Oregon. “It’s just a broad-based approach to asking a lot of different questions about the food systems.”

Weaver, who works in Gilliam and Wheeler counties, uses a workshop model, where community members come together for a day. The information gathered from these meetings is used to create a report with specific steps to increase food security at local and regional levels. And, often, it’s used to educate residents about their own resources. At a Wheeler County meeting recently, “there were people sitting at that table who didn’t know there was a food pantry in Fossil. or a community garden at the school,” Weaver says.

“It’s about having the conversation,” Thornberry says. “Not just having it and whining, but having the conversation and saying, ‘Okay, what are we doing about this.'” Mobile farmers market The conversation often identifies opportunities. The Gorge Grown Food Network launched a mobile farmers market in Hood River after a community foods assessment. The market buys produce from farmers allover the Columbia Gorge area and trucks it to other communities. “There were 40-some people lined up in Dufur during one visit last summer,” says Thornberry, who watched a local Dufur woman set up her own booth next to the truck. “That is simple economic development, but it makes a difference,” she says.

In Tillamook County, the Food Roots organization manages a variety of programs with the goal of cultivating a healthy food system. The group’s outreach activities include administering two community-school gardens, providing start-up support and resources for 12 other gardens, and a vigorous youth education program.

Program Manager Shelly Bowe is betting that the youth element will pay dividends in the future, as students become familiar with the economic potential that food-related endeavors hold. Today, kids run the cash box at Food Roots’ table at the farmers market; in future years, they may be managing the market itself.

Despite the gravity of food systems issues, Thornberry is encouraged by what’s happening around the state. “Community gardens are a huge success, as are school gardens and the farm-to-school program,” she says. “The other bright spot in all of this is all of the food system coalitions that are working in rural areas.”

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WEDNESDAY MAY 6, 2009 Last modified: Sunday, April 26,20092:05 PM PDT
By Sean Hart
Argus Observer

ONTARIO: After years in the planning stage, Four Rivers Community Garden has finally taken root. Nestled between St. Matthews Episcopal Church and the Next Chapter Food Pantry on Southwest Fifth Street, across from Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, the new garden began as an idea generated in a leadership class sponsored by the Ford Family Foundation in the fall of 2007.

Creating a project that outlived the class was a requirement for graduation, so the members decided to cultivate the garden idea, which could provide food for the community, Jodi Agin-Batten, a member of the class, said during an opening day Ontario celebration and ribbon cutting Wednesday on Earth Day.

“We really believe in feeding the hungry, so this was a great project,” JoAnn Nichols, another class member, said.

Portions of all future produce and the spring greens, peas, radishes, strawberries and tomatoes that have already been planted in several raised beds will be given to the Next Chapter Food Pantry, the Southeast Oregon Regional Food Bank (SORFB) and the volunteers who work in the garden, organizer Katie Weaver, AmeriCorps, said.

Weaver said she was working with SORFB Executive Director Peter Lawson, who was a member of the leadership class, when she became involved with the community garden. Weaver helped with the transfer of management of the garden from the leadership class to Oregon Rural Action (ORA), a nonprofit organization to which she also belonged, she said.

“We’re doing our best to keep things moving forward. The intent is really to have this just be a community garden,” Weaver said, adding volunteers are needed from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. every Thursday. “If people are interested in doing something in it, we hope they come and join our group and get their hands dirty.”

ORA member Nancy Gledhill, an avid gardener who is spearheading the botanical side of the project, agreed community support was the backbone of the effort because it would help the garden while teaching volunteers horticulture.

“There are a lot of people who have little experience gardening,” Gledhill said, adding it’s not that difficult with training. “l love gardening, and I love teaching people about gardening. People coming and having a place to work together to grow food excites me.”

The property for Four Rivers Community Garden, Gledhill said, is being leased for $1 per year from the neighboring St. Matthews Episcopal Church, which had officials at the opening ceremony to bless the new garden.

Among the ideas in the prayer delivered by Jim Mosier, a deacon at St. Matthews and archdeacon of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon, were Four Rivers Community Garden’s goals: increase opportunities to network, learn and interact with one another and the greater community; provide access to gardening knowledge and resources that increases awareness and self-sufficiency while promoting a healthy community; and increase fresh fruit and produce to supplement the food supply for local agencies involved in creating a food-secure region.

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Written by Bill Rautenstrauch, The Observer    October 07, 2009 03:35 pm

Local efforts related to the Oregon Main Street Program will get a boost with the addition of an intern to the City of La Grande’s Community and Economic Development Department.

Jason McNeil, an intern from the University of Oregon’s Resource Assistance for Rural Environments project, came on board Sept. 21, joining a staff that includes Community and Economic Development Director Charlie Mitchell, Planner Mike Boquist and Planning Secretary Barbara Trick.

McNeil’s said his focus will mainly be on the Oregon Main Street Program, an initiative to improve the business environment downtown.

“The position is right up my alley,” McNeil said. “I started getting Oregon Main Street experience when I worked as an intern in Nyssa and Vale. I’m excited about La Grande because they’re at a stage where they’re starting to get things done.”

McNeil, 32, was born in Boston, but has lived in Oregon, mainly Portland, the past 11 years. In 2008, he graduated from Portland State University with a bachelor’s degree in community development.

While at PSU, he was active in the on-campus community development student group. He served one internship with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Development Services, and another in the City of Hillsboro planning department. He also wrote articles for the student newspaper, The Vanguard.
“I’ve always been kind of civic-minded, and I wanted a career where I’m involved in the community and making a difference,” he said.
He went to work for RARE after college, serving a one-year, combined internship at Nyssa and Vale. Following that, he decided to continue with RARE, applying for the La Grande position. His internship is funded by RARE, with a match from the city.
La Grande was one of 11 Oregon communities selected in 2008 to participate in the newly revamped Oregon Main Street program. The state program is affiliated with the National Trust Main Street Center, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.

The program’s approach encompasses work in four broad areas: organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring. Local committees are appointed to keep efforts moving forward in those areas.
In La Grande, those committees are working in concert with the Community and Economic and Development Department and the Urban Renewal Agency to revitalize downtown.

So far, efforts have yielded a facade improvement grant program, bike racks for downtown, surveys of downtown businesses and Eastern Oregon University students, and a downtown traffic impact study.
But much work lies ahead, and Mitchell can use some help. McNeil said he will be helping smooth coordination among the committees and between the committees and the city.

“There’s all sorts of little projects coming up,” he said. “I’m trying to keep things running smooth, so they move along a little quicker.”

He said the design committee is currently working on a streetscape plan, and a proposal has been floated to build a pocket park on Elm Street.

Another thing McNeil is involved in at present is creation of La Grande Main Street, a new group that is oriented toward Oregon Main Street program goals and activities.

La Grande Main Street consists of members of the former La Grande Downtown Development Association, and new participants in the Oregon Main Street initiative.

“They’ve come together as one organization,” McNeil said. “It’s an exciting merger. Ultimately Oregon Main Street will be operating on its own, without the city’s help, and this is a step in that direction.”
His internship is for 11 months. He said he likes living in La Grande so far.

“It’s a nice town,” he said. “It’s a little bigger and there’s more going on. I like to hike and ride a mountain bike, and the recreational opportunities are pretty good as far as I can tell.”

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