NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
A3
John Day approves funding for Grant County Coworks
Shared workspace
for educational,
entrepreneurial pursuits
provides internet access
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
While internet connectivity is
being addressed at Humbolt Ele-
mentary with a project to connect
the school to John Day’s fiber line,
another facility is looking to provide
an outlet to help the county over-
come the trials of broadband while
providing access to many resources.
Didgette McCracken, the Open
Campus Coordinator at Oregon State
University Extension, presented
Grant County Coworks — a shared
workspace for educational and entre-
preneurial pursuits and technology
— during the John Day City Coun-
cil on Aug. 25.
Coworks will be a workplace
where members will be provided
with coaching and mentorship to pro-
vide one-on-one advising to help find
funding, create a sustainable busi-
ness strategy and launch their ven-
tures, while providing local students
with access to the technology, tools
and mentorship necessary for online
education, according to McCracken.
Desks, computers, printers, phone
charging stations and other items will
be provided.
“We have this rural community
that’s very isolated, so how can we
be doing what we do every day in a
Eagle file photo
Didgette McCracken is the Oregon State University Extension Open Campus
coordinator for Grant County, working out of the John Day office.
different manner,” McCracken said.
“I think this is something that can
help break that barrier and help fill
that need.”
McCracken talked about educa-
tion, arts and culture and COVID-
19 resiliency as the three barriers to
overcome in the county that Coworks
is planning to tackle to enable learn-
ing and accelerate innovation.
She said education was the first
barrier she saw and added that
there are adults and kids trying to
do distance learning with limited
connectivity.
“It’s hard to do because you don’t
have (internet) access at your home,
you might not be able to afford a lap-
top... it’s a huge issue for our com-
munities,” McCracken said. “For
people to better educate themselves
or try to advance their degree, it is
very difficult here and, of course,
now with COVID that’s on another
level. Education is just not some-
thing easily obtained here and this
will help address that need.”
Rod Ray of Canyon Mountain
Consulting, which focuses on pub-
lic-sector and nonprofit consulting,
added that, along with education,
this will help create an environment
for people to start companies around
peers and other people trying to do
the same.
“In addition to the education part,
this will also be like a catalyst to
start little remote companies that are
appropriate to that area,” Ray said.
This will be a three-phase project
with Phase 1 focusing on providing a
facility in John Day, Prairie City and
Seneca. Phase 2 will expand to new
locations while improving the cur-
rent facilities, and Phase 3 plans to
provide a multi-purpose technology
and education center with many ame-
nities for students, artists and entre-
preneurs of Grant County, according
to McCracken’s presentation.
Phase 1 of the project will cost
$278,075 with the project costing
$124,025 for the first year in John
Day, $78,275 in Prairie City and
$75,775 in Seneca. Rent, furniture,
scholarships and seed funds, equip-
ment, general office supplies, inter-
net and software are some of the
items needed to start the first year of
the facility.
Rent, scholarships, administra-
tion and computers are some of the
big startup costs, and McCracken
said this project will most likely need
multiple funders to cover the project.
“We know that some folks don’t
have a computer at home for a rea-
son so they’re probably not going
to maybe afford a membership to a
site like this, so we can give scholar-
ships to some students or new busi-
ness owners or folks that are get-
ting up and running,” McCracken
said. “That’s a big piece that we put
in here because we purposely looked
at that and how we can make this
successful.”
Ray said they have been looking
for funding from Sen. Ron Wyden,
the Ford Foundation, the Oregon
Community Foundation and local
donors.
John Day City Manager Nick
Green said the first phase will be
evaluated after a year to see if the
facility is being used. He said there
is a need for a facility like this due
to problems with broadband and dis-
tance learning.
“With the possibility and maybe
the probability that schools are going
to close, there’s going to be a lot
of people who are disadvantaged
because of their broadband access,”
Green said.
The city council approved giv-
ing $15,000 from their COVID-19
relief funds from the state to Grant
County Coworks, which will cover
the cost of rent for the facility in John
Day. The Grant County Digital Net-
work Coalition also approved up to
$30,000 for Coworks, going toward
rent and utilities in Seneca, website
creation and branding for the John
Day and Seneca locations.
While a specific location was
not announced during the meet-
ing, McCracken said Main Street
in John Day will provide opportu-
nities for space that will be usable
and visible.
With $15,000 provided from John
Day, McCracken said the next step
is to obtain the rest of the funding to
complete Phase 1 to open and operate
three sites while gathering local and
regional stakeholders in the process.
They will also be presenting at
the Prairie City City Council meet-
ing in September, as well as Sen-
eca. McCracken said there has been
a positive response so far from their
representation.
This project is a group effort led
by Allison Field from Business Ore-
gon, Ray, McCracken and Stephanie
LeQuieu from Oregon RAIN.
John Day council establishes priorities for recreation and tourism
The principles will
guide discussion
during the RERC
Summit in
September
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
The John Day City Council
established guiding principles
for investing in the city’s rec-
reation and tourism economy
to lead the discussions during
a virtual Recreation Economies
for Rural Communities Summit
in September.
The Environmental Pro-
tection Agency announced in
October that John Day was one
of 10 communities nationwide
to be selected for the RERC
planning grant.
While there is no dollar
value associated with the grant,
John Day City Manager Nick
Green said in February that the
city will receive help from a
planning team to consider chal-
lenges and opportunities for
the recreational activities pri-
oritized and develop an action
plan.
The five guidelines the city
agreed to focus on are: cre-
ate a sense of place; redefine
main street as end-to-end within
their business corridor; priori-
tize infrastructure investments
in recreation, tourism, the arts
and culture; create policies and
programs that drive spend-
ing increases in tourism; and
recreation and market with a
purpose.
“These guiding principles
are my attempt to capture many
conversations that we’ve had
The Eagle/Rudy Diaz
The Eagle/Rudy Diaz
John Day City Manager Nick Green talks during a council meet-
ing on Aug. 25 about the five guiding principles for investing in
John Day’s recreation and tourism economy.
Councilor Elliot Sky talks about the importance of John Day developing an online presence for
tourism at a city council meeting.
with the councilors, city staff
and various advisory commit-
tees and trying to set the tone
for the type of things we want to
discuss at the summit,” Green
said.
Councilor Shannon Adair
said she feels strongly about
including more businesses and
not limiting Main Street to a
couple of blocks.
“Our town is too small to
separate Main Street into a
couple of blocks, and I think it
needs to include and go all the
way through downtown and get
all the businesses involved,”
Adair said.
Green said the new Dol-
lar General store and a possi-
ble new bowling alley will help
attract people to travel to the
west side of Main Street.
For creating policies that
drive spending, the city wants
to focus on ATV use on the
state highway, guided tours
for regional destinations and
improved maps, wayfinding
and placemarkers in town.
“What we’ll walk away with
at the end of the summit is a set
of prioritized actions and a plan
that we can implement,” Green
said.
The steering committee that
participated in the discussions
had different individual focuses
in the city that highlighted the
recreation economy, health and
wellness, fishing and wildlife,
education, arts and culture and
regional opportunities.
In other city news:
• Officials discussed a possi-
ble digital marketing campaign
to improve John Day’s online
presence and create video con-
tent that could attract poten-
tial visitors to their website and
community.
Straw to Gold, a Port-
land-based firm helping clients
grow their reach through online
and print marketing material,
and Frontier Unlimited, an
Oregon-based outdoors show
that airs in the Pacific North-
west, Canada and the United
Kingdom, were two organi-
zations presented to the coun-
cil that could help in creating
high-quality content such as 4K
video.
No decision was made, but
it will be discussed again in a
future council meeting.
• The Oregon Department
of Transportation’s sidewalk
enhancement project along
Highway 395 will be delayed
due to right-of-way acquisition
needed for stormwater manage-
ment. Bidding will now begin
in fall 2021 with construc-
tion in 2022, according to the
agenda.
Happy 66 th Wedding Anniversary
September 9, 1954
John and Diane Aasness
Congratulations!
Jim and Andi, Mike and Billie, Matt and Teresa,
Wes and Terry and families.
S207172-1
Now in John Day, Oregon!
Virginia McMillan, DDS
150 Ogilvie Dr., John Day | 541-575-0550
S207291-1