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Things to celebrate…
Last week, Kausha from the Chamber and Rebecca from OEI traveled to Valley City to present the findings through a program called Community Impressions that was developed by NDSU Extension. Back in November, these two, along with Shana Ulmer and Nicole Cline, spent a day in Valley City and observed as much as they could about the community. They toured the community, interacting with businesses and the people that worked there, inquired about how to spend a day, shopped in the local shops, and generally, assessed how welcoming Valley City is and aesthetically appealing it is. The presentation shared the observations made that day along with some ideas for suggested improvements. This opportunity came to Oakes because Valley City chose Oakes to do this exchange with. Their team will visit Oakes soon and a similar presentation will happen after their visit. It’s neat to be asked to participate in something like this with another town near us. Anytime we can learn more about our community through an outsider’s perspective, the more we can continue to improve. Thank you to OEI for sponsoring this program for Oakes.
News to know…
OEI has contracted with Hometown Housing, a housing group located in Iowa, to help us crack the challenge of rural housing. This team is comprised of several disciplines, including construction, finance, legal, and city planning and all of their work is conducted in rural communities. The team will be in Oakes on April 4 to begin the process of meeting with local employers and employees to get a better handle on not only what kind of housing people want, but what kind of housing they can afford. We are excited to work with a group that has the knowledge and experience this group does. More to come as the work continues!
Ideas to spread…
If you’re the kind of person who immediately throws up all the ways things can go wrong with an idea immediately upon hearing it, you might be what we lovingly refer to as a “constraint-led” thinker. On its own, this isn’t all bad, but leading with constraints often isn’t helpful. It’s important when vetting a new idea that you spend more time in the dreaming/scheming/vision part of the process before starting to articulate all the ways it won’t work. To be sure, all constraints and obstacles will have to be addressed eventually, but if that’s all we discuss early on in the project, energy gets stalled and spirits dampen. Once enough people can rally around the vision of where we’re headed with something, then all the constraints simply become problems to solve. And very rarely, are there ever problems that just cannot be solved.