Vancouver is... Not-So-Bad

After a very late evening out (pretty much the whole class stayed out, not just me), we had a lovely small buffet breakfast at the hotel, then checked out of our rooms, put our stuff in our cars, and came back to the hotel's restaurant to a small semi-private room off of the bar. 

Also, in case anyone has forgotten or has never been there, the Vancouver Red Lion at the Quay has a ship-themed restaurant and bar. Like a galleon or pirate ship. It is SO AWESOME. The restaurant was actually quite popular for brunch; people were still heading in there for food until at least 2pm, at a pretty steady rate since we first got there around 8:15. The hotel rooms are in ok condition, but they kind of smell musty and the AC units are old. My room faced the river and I was awoken several times starting around 5am by barking seals. It did have a lovely view, though. There is a plan for the Vancouver waterfront which will probably cause the demolition of the hotel, so if you want to see the ship restaurant, you'd better do it soon! 

Best. Bar. Ever.

So! We all sat down in groups of 4-6 in this private room and settled in for the day. There were urns of coffee and a jug of water, and most of us had grabbed some sort of fruit at breakfast to snack on during the morning's speakers. The one door to the room had a chime on it, so every time someone entered or exited the room, there was a really loud bing-bong. Which was both hilarious and really inconvenient. One of the best parts of this group is that people don't automatically split into cliques and sit together; we don't make our way to the table where our "friends" are sitting. We just find a spot, sit down, and know that the people we're sitting with will be interesting, funny, and curious. This group (even out at the bars) is so interested in getting to know everybody, that it is very rare to see the same 5 people sitting together twice in a day/evening. It's amazing.

Our first speaker, Nan Henrikson, started at 9am sharp. She's probably my favorite speaker we've heard from so far, and it was her first time speaking to IDF. Needless to say, she'll be a mainstay of the Clark County portion of the program from here on out. She's in her mid-70's and is as fired up about local government now as any starry-eyed idealist in their 20's. The big difference is she knows what she's doing! Also, she was wearing the craziest bright multi-color blazer, which was amazing.

This lady is the best!

Nan was the mayor of Camas (1983-1992) during the downturn of the mill there, and she had to figure out how to keep Camas alive in a really awkward time; the mill was shrinking but the inhabitants of the town didn't want to change any of the sleepy bedroom community feel by bringing in any new employers. At the time, the mill was providing "high school graduation to retirement" family wage jobs, and was paying 70% of the property taxes in the area. Nan knew that if the mill went under, the town would, too. Unless they diversified.

Nan had a vision of a light industrial park in Camas - "a gem of an industrial park, the pride of Washington State!" in her words. The area was perfect for high tech industry - low silicate water, a great location, an airport 10 minutes away, plenty of housing for families moving in, and a great school system. So with this vision, Nan set about finding good corporate citizens to move in, who offered family wage jobs. She found Sharp Microelectronics and Labs, and others soon followed. You should have seen the spark in her eyes as she talked about this park. 

Eventually they got the park all filled up, and got to a point where the mill was only paying 10% of the property taxes. But that's not all Nan has been up to in politics. In 2013, Clark County was dissatisfied with the structure of their government due to some shenanigans from the county commissioners involving nepotism and negligence, so they called for a freeholder process to come up with a new form of government that would work better for them. Nan ran for freeholder and won her seat handily. The group of 15 freeholders then elected her Freeholder Chair. Once again, Nan took the reins and steered Clark County in the right direction.

The freeholders, 5 from each district. Look at Nan's awesome jacket! But not as awesome as the one she wore to talk to us.

They got their charter written and approved and Clark County is more functional than ever, thanks to Nan's pragmatism, mediation skills and get-it-done attitude. When she was talking about her industrial park dream, she said something that really stuck with me, (which is reiterated by almost every speaker we hear from, but her wording is my favorite) the three most important qualities for getting things done in government: "you have to have a clear vision of what you want to do, a strong belief in your ability to accomplish that thing, and fire in your gut!" Haha! I love Nan. Obviously, since I wrote pretty much an entire blog post about her. And a ship restaurant. A shipstaurant! More to come on the other 30 speakers from that weekend soon.

Had to post another picture of shipstaurant.

Portland Shmortland? - Day One

Where do I even begin?

I guess a quick schedule rundown is in order. We left Friday afternoon and spent the night in Vancouver. Saturday's programming was all in Vancouver, then in the evening we drove across the river to our hotel in Portland. We spent the night there and on Sunday ran literally all over town.

Did you know Portland is the only city to have more restaurants per capita than Seattle? Crazy.

So. On Friday I had arranged to get out of work early. Of course, then boss man went and got himself scheduled for two shifts at his parents' restaurant. I had texted about leaving before 4pm on Friday, March 6 two weeks prior. In any case, everything ended up working out OK. I left work at 4, went home, took care of Sam, got all my things together and left. Jonathan had been sick all week with a legitimate flu; fever, chills, horrible rattling cough, etc. So mid-week I had asked Jason, the program's executive director, if I could pay to have my own rooms this weekend so I wouldn't pass along the flu even though I didn't have it. I didn't get confirmation on our Friday hotel until that morning, so it was a good thing I hadn't booked myself a backup reservation. I did make one for our Saturday hotel, which I ended up needing. Everything worked out just right!

Everything except traffic. Somehow I managed to hit traffic at every turn; stuck by Kent. Stuck in a backup that started at Wild Waves and ended after Tacoma. Stuck again through Olympia. Three accidents on the stretch of I-5 that slims down to 2 lanes. I got to Vancouver and checked in to the hotel at 8:55pm. We had a brewery tour scheduled for 9, so I was in a bit of a hurry. The front desk gave me my keys and I headed straight for my room. I opened the door and was surprised to see a lamp on. Then I heard a voice say "hello....?" OMG the front desk person had given me keys to Jason's room! At least he was fully clothed. 

So I went back down and she gave me correct keys after a lot of laughter and jokes and apologies. I dropped my stuff off and ran into one of my cohort in the hall. We jumped in my car and headed for the brewery, since by this time it was already 9:15. Reiny, the programming director, had pushed the tour back to 9:30 since there were several people running late. Thank goodness. But the brewery had hosted an unannounced large party (larger than ours - 40 people to our 30) and had run out of food and blown 2 kegs. This meant that even though they had a month's notice that we would be coming and drinking a lot and eating a lot, they barely had enough beer to go around, and only had pretzels left in the kitchen. 

One of the owners was working and gave us a tour of their brewing operation downstairs, which was cool. Hearing about the differences between macro and micro brewing (he used to work for Miller) was very interesting. I have new respect for the macro brewers; turns out they make a beer that usually takes 25-40 days of aging in a week or less, and they do it at a scale and with a consistency that is a feat. So even though I don't care for lager, I am impressed by their methods. He talked about the differences in types of hops and whether breeding your own brewer's yeast was a worthwhile endeavor for a small operation. Then the train came off the rails. He started expounding on the difficulties of paperwork and taxes for a small business owner. Then we encouraged him with some follow up questions on his political views and poof! Our nice brewery tour turned into a Libertarian rant.

After we scuttled out of there (it was closing time anyway), we went out to a local bar/eatery and finally got that beer and food!