Capturing tourism dollars, increasing public input, Deer Creek meeting topics
From our weekly issue dated February 11, 2009
Increasing tourism and bolstering public participation in county commission meetings were among topics when the Deer Creek Association held its annual community meeting.
Held on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 28, the gathering at Selma Community Center drew a crowd of approximately 20 people. Roger Brandt, a valley historian and longtime community supporter, gave a “State of the Valley” address. He used it to promote the Website, highway199.org.
Brandt said that the Website could serve as a “marketing tool” for increasing tourism. It could do so, he said, by demonstrating the quality of life in the area and providing a “window” to tell stories such as that of Orville Camp and his “natural selection” forest in Selma.
“It really is an educational site,” Brandt said.
The Website divides Hwy. 199 into three sections: the Rogue River area, the Siskiyou Mountains area, which includes the Illinois Valley, and the Redwood Coast region. It provides links to maps and information about trails and stories about the region’s history.
Brandt said that the main goal of the Website is to attract people, who may be traveling the Hwy. 199 corridor, to visit multiple sites in and around Illinois Valley and spend money here to stimulate the economy.
“It’s really a strategy of slowing the traffic down,” Brandt said.
He said that kind of economic activity could lead the way for home-based entrepreneurs. He contrasted that with the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR), which he claims would only create one job per square mile.
“We can do better than that,” Brandt stated.
Tourists traveling the highway corridor spend around $135 per day, Brandt said, and those dollars could be spent in valley restaurants, motels and other businesses.
“It’s a really very healthy way of generating income,” Brandt said. “That’s what the BLM doesn’t look at.”
Kerby resident Guenter Ambron explained his recent push to have a series of sustainable economy workshops throughout the county.
Ambron said that his political involvement began with the Biscuit Alliance. It was formed to counter post-fire salvage logging after the 500,000-acre Biscuit Fire that nearly caused evacuation of much of the valley.
“I realized it was a national fight,” Ambron said.
Protests regarding the salvage logging led to formation of the valley-based Community Media & Education Center and subsequent workshops on biomass and the WOPR.
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Ambron said that his workshop concept was inspired by the Southern Oregon Resource Alliance and its successful efforts to petition the Josephine County Board of Commissioners to file a protest against the preferred alternative of the WOPR and its various administrative withdrawals.
“They’re only a small sector, basically, of all the businesses in the county,” Ambron said. “It’s a very narrow base of information that the commissioners get pounded with.”
To counter that influence, Ambron said, he has been trying to get more Illinois Valley residents to attend commissioner meetings.
Also during the meeting, Cameron Camp outlined roguevalleynetwork.com. He grew up in the valley; worked in San Diego; and has returned to the area.
Camp said that much of the traditional media is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission and that television news stations typically run stories in 30- to 90-second formats.
“Our story doesn’t really seem to come up much,” Camp said.
The concept of the Website is to create an outlet where users help determine the content, Camp said. People submit comments on events posted to the site, and content rankings are based on interest.
Ten people have been working on the site for approximately six months, Camp said, and a lot of money has gone into its creation. The site currently has a handful of videos uploaded to it, but Camp said that he hopes to add more soon.
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