Speaking before the Woodburn Area Chamber of Commerce’s monthly forum, Derickson talked about moving Woodburn in a positive direction.

“On Monday night the council approved the formation of a committee to move forward in a positive direction to build upon and rebuild Woodburn’s business and family-wage job base.”

In that move, the council designated Derickson and Councilor Frank Lonergan to be a part of the startup of a major effort, along with Woodburn Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Don Judson.

“If I were to go around the room and ask everyone what is economic development, the answer would be high-paying jobs, everybody wants to hear that — everybody on the planet wants to hear that,” he said.

“And by the way, Woodburn will be competing with everybody else on the planet for the high-paying jobs.”

Derickson also said that some people will say that more government protection is needed to protect the quality of life and fewer regulations.

“How do we coordinate our efforts and our values in competing for those high paying jobs?” Derickson asked the crowd.

High quality education, affordable housing, child care, all contribute to being able to attract new jobs.

Derickson said that in the past three weeks, he has seen no coordinated effort for economic development, although the city, the chamber and other groups want the same general outcome.

“I think that we really ought to talk about what our values are in this community, what do we care about?” he continued. Noting that he had just left a community (Clatsop County) which wanted economic development, however, when confronted with the possibility of a liquefied natural gas plant and 60 high quality jobs, half the community opposed it and about half supported it.

“Whatever we do for economic development, it will not be successful, it will not work unless the values of the community are represented and there is buy-in by the public,” Derickson added.

He said that the city and the chamber are going to form a discussion group and “we think that we should have more outreach into the community,” noting that the city is nearing the end of the process for urban growth boundary expansion that will add nearly 1,000 acres to the available land for all uses.

Relating back to his experience in economic development on the north coast, Derickson said when local government gets into economic development, “Sometimes we will lose, and there has to be a tolerance for that. What do you have in your community that you can be competitive with?”

Education, work force quality and infrastructure are important in attracting new businesses and really successful efforts begin with private/public partnerships, according to Derickson.

One member of the audience asked about the permit process, to which Derickson reminded the audience that candidates for community development director will be in town on Saturday to meet the public from 10 a.m. to noon at the Chamber Loft at the corner of Front and First streets.

Derickson also expressed his frustrations with Oregon’s 1973 land-use system and stated a hope that the present land-use planning “Big Look” could produce a more updated system if the 2009 Oregon Legislature looks at it seriously.

He felt that the public sector’s strengths matched well with the private sector’s weaknesses and correspondingly that the private sector’s strengths complimented the public sector’s weaknesses well, thus, the great advantage of a public/private partnership.

“The closer to the decision-making process you are, the better the decisions you will get,” Derickson stated, supporting more local authority in land-use planning. He also made it clear that in taking a look at Woodburn and the job of city administrator, he found the city to be a success.

In building a base of understanding of all segments of the community and their values, Derickson stated that he wanted to conduct a sound community survey — a snapshot of what the people think, what they want to see in Woodburn in the future and what they don’t want to see.

In closing out his response to questions, Derickson reviewed the uses of a master plan and the various elements needed to develop support throughout the city or buy-in from the wide variety of groups in the city.