Governor Kitzhaber Meets Ashland Chamber LeadersBy Sandra Slattery, Executive Director of the Ashland Chamber of Commerce
Governor John Kitzhaber visited with members of the Ashland Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, Ex-Officio members and staff during his visit to the Rogue Valley for the gubernatorial debate on Monday, October 20, 2014. The Governor complimented Ashland on receiving the Google eCity Award for the second year in a row. Of particular interest to the Governor was learning of two of the Chamber’s newest and most innovative programs – the Ashland Map and the Ashland Business Resource portal.
The Ashland Map is the result of combining innovation with strong, effective collaborative relationships between the Ashland Chamber and numerous community partners. A partnership was created between the Chamber and the City of Ashland including the Fire Department and AFR, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, The Nature Conservancy and with technical assistance provided by Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service. As a way-finding map of Ashland streets, bike routes, public transportation, parks and trails through the Watershed and mountain lake region, the map is a much needed and in demand publication. It was created to tell the story of our Watershed, its history, the unique flora and fauna, the importance of our water source and to tell the story of the Ashland Forest Resiliency (AFR) project. All the photography was done by local photographers and the research, writing and graphics done in-house by Chamber staff. The GIS mapping was done by City employee, Lea Richards. Lea, on behalf of the City, recently won two awards, Best Public Service and Best Cartographic Design at the Northwest GIS User Conference for the new Ashland Map.
Governor Kitzhaber praised the map and suggested other areas of Oregon affected by their watersheds should consider doing something similar to help educate the populace on the importance of these fragile ecosystems. The Governor took a number of maps with him planning to share it with other community leaders in Oregon. The map is free to the public with information encouraging donations to be given to the AFR project to continue this important work.
The new digital business portal,
www.ashlandbusinessresource.com, created by the Ashland Chamber and launched at the Ashland Innovators Conference this past April, was demonstrated for the Governor. The portal is unique in Oregon as a one-stop shop for business information coupled with a story-telling format of video, business interviews, compelling photography and up-to-date economic data. Governor Kitzhaber was particularly interested with the economic data the Chamber Economic Advisory Team generated. Unique Ashland data is extracted from the larger valley data demonstrating how valuable this information can be to smaller communities in planning. The Chamber shared with the Governor that they recently met with Ruth Miles, the new Small Business Advocate for the Oregon Secretary of State to learn of the support for small businesses by the Secretary of State’s office and to share the portal. A similar meeting was held with Kate Brown, Oregon Secretary of State. Both the Governor and Secretary of State, complimented the Ashland Chamber on creating this innovative and ground-breaking program with the hopes that other areas in Oregon could adopt similar projects to help small businesses succeed in the rural areas and small towns throughout the state.
The meeting with the Governor concluded with the Chamber leaders thanking him for his support of developing the local governing board for Southern Oregon University. He expressed his appreciation to Representative Buckley (who was in attendance) for his leadership in helping to create the board.
