I love Corvallis, but we are moving away from an enlightened community and more into an elite one. What do outsiders think of us? From the ones I have polled, it is not looking good. I think we spend so much time convincing others and ourselves that things are good, we run out of time to actually do anything productive. We are running out of bandaids. It’s time for surgery!

I would give John Sechrest most of the credit for what is productive in Corvallis, but not necessarily the chamber.

I love Corvallis for the same reason I love the United States; it is a great place to live, but we tend to think we are better than everyone else.

Do you think there is any value in aiding start ups and small traded sector business grow locally?

Would you rather see success stories? We’re limited by client confidentiality with a fair number of local companies that we work with, and all state referred recruiting is limited by confidentiality with the clients.

Improving the reporting is a continuous process, balancing the factors of staff effort, client success (often measurable months and years after offering assistance), and confidentiality. How much of the time and effort of the ED director should be spent making reports vs doing the work?

I have not found the monthly ED reports for the past nine months to be enough to base a fair judgment on. Your passion support of the Chamber is noteworthy, but its not fair to ask us to determine the value of the Chamber’s ED work based on your testimony.

Regarding the merger, we had an independent Economic Development Partnership that worked for years, struggling to reach critical mass while paying its overhead, without the tools needed to be effective. The EDP board saw the merger with the chamber as a chance to be more efficient, by reducing the overhead burden, and spending more on direct effort towards the work of Economic Development. We have successfully implemented that plan, while maintaining independence for ED activities. Since the merger, effectively the chamber has been generous in providing rent, telephones, internet, accounting systems, fundraising and more, all at very reduced rates or free, with no strings attached. In an ideal world, as a community, we could create and resource an independent Economic Development function adequately…but that hasn’t been in the cards, and I don’t see it in the community’s financial future.

If un-merging the organization is the only option offered here on this forum, I would ask for the commitment for the appropriate level of private funding for economic development from this group, and would also have to ask, where were they 3 years ago when by financial necessity we, as the EDP board, went this direction.

Chris, I disagree with your assertion that “the results are unsatisfactory for Corvallis”. This seems to imply that the work John and Aaron are doing doesn’t meet objectives, or is ineffective. They are getting an amazing amount done for very little. If what you are trying to say is that, with more resources and coordination, more could be done, I agree.

If we have to start fresh to get the results we need as a community, let’s pull out a fresh sheet of paper for the drawing board. From a staffing perspective, that may very well be whats needed- I’ll leave that discussion to the Chamber board.

As far as the game plan though, the PTF document seems to be pretty sound. Loyan and I had a conference call with the PTF consultant a few months back, and he felt like the plan was salvageable, given certain action items were prioritized.

One of the things the consultant called for was consolidation of the different ED organizations. Makes sense considering the efficiencies that would create, and the potential for great synergy and momentum.

Perhaps now is the perfect time to explore that, and take a fresh crack at executing the PTF plan as it was originally presented to us.