Cayla Catino discusses the sequence of events that will lead up to the group’s planning their dream downtown on Thursday night in the Oakridge Museum.
By GEORGE CUSTER/Editor/The Herald — A first meeting of a workshop that was held in the Oakridge Museum was well attended. Also in attendance were key persons from several of the area’s volunteer groups. The group’s reps got together for the idea of inviting the workshop to Oakridge’s Uptown District. The Theme: Build Your Own Dream Downtown.
What should the Uptown District look like in the future?
Lynda Kamerrer welcomes the crowd that hopes to ultimately plan a future for the Uptown District.
Lynda Kamerrer, representing the Uptown Business & Revitalization Association (UBRA), opened up the meeting
Cayla Catino speaks to the participants at the first meeting of Build Your Dream Downtown.
with introductions and an explanation of the purpose for the workshop. The meeting was then turned over to Cayla Catino. Cayla represents Rural Development Initiatives or RDI, who puts on the workshop as a free service to communities. As a program manager, she facilitated what would be the first of two sessions with the goal of determining what the participants believe to be their idea of the perfect downtown moving into the future.
Each of the groups sitting at the six tables were asked by Cayla to brainstorm ideas for elements of what each person thought their perfect downtown should include. This section would be developing the small group action from each tables input. Looking for similarities after all of the tables had posted their ideas would help to see a theme coming together.
A second meeting will coalesce the ideas into a plan of action
These reoccurring ideas would be the used during the next meeting to refine and be developed into an action plan. With a plan in hand, ways to accomplish these “dreams” will drive funding needs and tasks that can be attainable.
This segment of the program began once dinner, catered by the Middle Fork Bistro, was served. Funding for the catered meal was provided by Regional Accelerator & Innovation Network, commonly referred to by its acronym RAIN.
Dinner was provided by Jules, owner of the Middle fork Bistro. The dinner, drinks, and desserts were all scrumptious according to comments by those in attendance.
The next meeting of the BYDD is set for Thursday, May 9 at 4 p.m.
George Custer lives in Oakridge with his wife Sayre. George is a former smokejumper from his hometown of Cave Junction, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. and ran a construction company in Southern California. George assumed the volunteer duties as the Editor of the Highway 58 Herald in 2022. He loves riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, building all things wood, and playing drums on the weekends in his office.
