CREDC: At the Quarterly investor lunch Bill Dudley, Chair of the Columbia River Economic Development Council (CREDC) Board, announced the organization is officially in the public phase of a Capital Campaign. The goals of the campaign include doubling the number of investors in the CREDC and raising $5.5 million over the next five years. Funds raised will be used for the ongoing programs and services of the organization in large measure owing to the recently completed Clark County Economic Development Strategic Plan which the CREDC is charged with overseeing.
Dudley reported to the group, owing in part to the generous pledge by Sterling Bank of $25,000 annually for five years, the campaign is already at 60% of the goal with over $3.2 million committed. Dudley invited those who aren’t yet investors to find out what the CREDC has planned and to join them in bringing economic vitality to the county.
Learn more about the CREDC and the Opportunity Clark County Campaign as reported September 7, 2012 in the Vancouver Business Journal.
Lower Columbia College: A ground breaking this Friday at 3:00 PM at their Longview campus will be held for the Health and Science Building. Billed as the home for Science and Healthcare Training for the Future the building will house all Lower Columbia College health and science programs under one roof. The building is designed to include modern equipment and technology enabled classrooms to prepare students for careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Nursing and other Healthcare fields. The ceremony takes place at the construction site located on Maple Street next to the Main Building followed by a reception in the Alan Thompson Library. Email your RSVP to attend, lclark@lowercolumbia.edu
PeaceHealth: The Keynote Speaker at the CREDC luncheon yesterday was Alan Yordy, CEO and Chief Mission Officer of PeaceHealth. Yordy address an audience of about 230 relating the decision making process that brought PeaceHealth to relocate the corporate offices to Vancouver. Yordy said site selectors ranked the list of possible locations, all in Washington State, with Vancouver ranked first among the sites and Tacoma ranked second. Their plan to open in January of this year with about 200 employees happened on schedule but Yordy said they are well ahead of the plan with 350 already on staff in the county. He expects double the anticipated workforce of 800 in the next five to ten years. Yordy also shared briefly about the decision to form a partnership with Catholic Health Initiatives, an Englewood, Colo. based system with seven facilities in Oregon and Washington, by mid-2013. Yordy said the speed with which it appeared to be happening has everything to do with the ever changing landscape in healthcare.
Alan Yordy’s presentation slides can be viewed here.
Proposition 1 attracting much attention: Last week Just Business reported Identity Clark County, while in favor of the bridge and light rail, is not in favor of the plan, a sales tax increase, to fund the maintenance and operation of the light rail portion of the Columbia River Crossing. Over the weekend the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce released a similar position statement saying they believed other funding either was available or could be developed. Parker wrote in part, “Our member businesses told us that they do not support an increasing sales tax, especially if it exceeds the amount needed for project at hand, and your Chamber agrees with this principle.” Read the entire letter from Chamber President Kelly Parker. The Columbian also withheld their editorial support from the ballot measure over the weekend concluding they are “worried about unresolved CRC uncertainties, and we’re too troubled by the lingering recession to consider a tax increase for this purpose.”
On the same issue, Congresswoman Jamie Herrera Beutler in a letter released last week is viewing the vote on Proposition 1 as a statement by her constituents as to whether or not they are willing to pay for light rail maintenance and operation. Herrera Beutler has maintained for some time that the residents of southwest Washington should have the final say as to the form the mass transit component of the Columbia River Crossing takes.
