This is a special episode as we have the esteemed Mayor of our fine city here to share his insights and vast experience with us, Joe Buck! Heather Graves Ramsey, owner of Coach to Brilliance who specializes in executive coaching and leadership development, is here with some fabulous questions for the mayor and as always, Chamber CEO Liz Hartman will have What You Need to Know in LO with insider information for the month of March.
New Chamber Office: 148 "B" Avenue (sharing space with Chamber member Phil Chek, Phil Chek | Lake Oswego Design & Construction
Ribbon Cuttings:
Friday, March 7 - 5 pm - The Black Wine Market - The Black Wine Market
Friday, March 14 - 4:30 - Ultra Physical Therapy Ultra Physical Therapy and Hand Center
Friday, March 15 - 5 pm - Gemini Club The Gemini Club | Bar and restaurant with music pool and food in Lake Oswego
Thursday, March 20 - 5 pm - Mad Sass Soap Natural, Clean, Handcrafted Bath, Body, & Skincare for Sensitive Skin
Third Thursday:
Thursday, March 20 - 4-6 pm - many downtown businesses
You can sponsor an episode of Business LO for $250 or sponsor an exclusive, mostly about your business episode for $500
Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce | Business LO Podcast
Lake Oswego Review - News | lakeoswegoreview.com
Mayor Joe Buck PO Box 369 Lake Oswego, OR 97034 Email Joe Buck: jbuck@ci.oswego.or.us
Joe Buck grew up in the Lake Grove neighborhood and enjoyed a childhood filled with memories of exploring Iron Mountain Park and riding bikes throughout town. He previously served as a city councilor from 2014 - 2017 and is now in his second term as mayor. He is actively engaged in policy making and in organizations that make Lake Oswego a healthy, sustainable community of belonging for everyone. Amongst other actions, he helped bring about the City’s first family affordable housing, created the Youth Leadership Council, has been a champion of the City’s Climate Action Plan, led dedicated funding for safe pathways for pedestrians and stands in strong support of the basic rights all residents to live a life free from hatred and discrimination. Mayor Buck is also engaged regionally as a leader amongst the region’s mayors. He represents the cities of Clackamas County on Metro’s Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) and serves on the Metro Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC).Mayor Buck is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard and operates several local restaurants. He’s an avid runner and fitness enthusiast and enjoys listening to the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments - past and present - while walking his dogs. Mayor Buck also enjoys receiving emails of new ideas from residents so please reach out!
LIZ HARTMAN:: [00:00:00] This is Business LO, a podcast by the Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce, which connects, educates, advocates, and champions our business community. We have nearly 500 members from international corporations to home based businesses, and we serve them all. Each episode of Business LO gives insider information to the local business community and the neighbors who support them.
And now let's talk business LO.
MICHELLE ODELL:: So we have a couple of wonderful milestones today. First, this is the 10th episode of a Business LO, which out of 4 million podcasts active around the world, less than 4 percent of all podcasts have. 10 or more episodes. And most importantly, we have the esteemed mayor of our fine city here to share his insights and vast experience with us.
We are going to be talking to mayor Joe Buck. Woo. [00:01:00] For the. Yay! For the record, today is Tuesday, February 25th, 2025, and this will be published on our usual first of the month, March 1st. Heather Graves Ramsey, owner of Coach To Brilliance, who specializes in executive coaching and leadership development, is here with us with some fabulous questions for the mayor.
And as always, Chamber CEO Liz Hartman will have what you need to know in LO with the insider information for the month of March. So Heather, Liz, let's talk to the mayor. This
HEATHER GRAVES RAMSEY:: is such an exciting day. So Mayor Buck. There's some magic that happens every year in January, they call it the sausage making where you get together and you work on goals and you help us with this whole goal setting process.
And we're just really excited to learn a little bit about what that process is.
MAYOR JOE BUCK: First of all, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I've been listening to it since it started and it's a [00:02:00] delight and a great way to stay connected with everything that's going on in our community. So thank you all for taking the time to put this on and produce it.
Yes. So every January, yes, we have the goal setting process. The council convenes on a Saturday morning. And we had a decent number of community members, there are people who will come and kind of sit through the day long process, which is great, but there's a lot of the team from the city there as well to help guide us, but in advance of the day itself, there's just a ton of preparation that goes into the annual goal setting and it's kind of A process that just takes place throughout the whole year, right?
Because we're always getting input from folks on ideas they have that would make the town even better that the council is absorbing. And then more, you know, directly related to the goal setting, we do a summit with our, all of our board and commission members. So we had done that just a couple of weeks prior.
We get together in a room and talk about the strengths of the community, different opportunities we see, [00:03:00] different threats on the horizon as well. And then, of course, we just do open solicitation with the community. We got over 200 just open comments on things people would like to see this year. Most of those comments were pickleball.
Okay,
Speaker 3: very important for this community, yes.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of, yeah, it's a lot of comments, but a few topics. Pickleball and then leaf blowers was the second, you know, and it was pretty, between those two things, that was about 99 percent of the comments. Wow. If things could be worse, you know, yeah, that's right.
And so then we take all that input and we formulate a defined set of kind of initiatives for the year ahead. And it's great because we have, you know, on the council, there's seven of us and we all bring different experiences, different perspectives, philosophies to the table. And it's all of us coming together.
You know, this isn't just one person's vision. One person's idea, like we have to compromise, [00:04:00] blend our different priorities. You know, things that may be something we wanna do. We have to give up and, and put to the side to advance something else that's important to other members of the, of the council.
So we really strive to make sure at least everyone, because everyone's bringing different perspectives, that everyone has something that they're really interested in, that they're able to, to move forward.
Speaker 3: You also mentioned at the Mayor's Breakfast from the Chamber that a lot of cities don't do this, right?
A lot of cities don't take the time to plan.
Speaker 4: Yes, there are a lot that just, just kind of operate by the seat of their pants. And what that leads to is just a lot of, you know, knee jerk reactions to whatever's just taking place, you know, that day, that week. And that can really send, especially for the team at the city, it just send them scrambling in all sorts of different directions.
It's very inefficient. You really end up getting very little done. So at the same time, it can. Also be frustrating because there are things that come up and of course if things do come up that are important We will address and we don't put them off to the next year But when people have ideas It requires them to kind of go through a process to talk to their [00:05:00] colleagues to talk to the community and really build Support to make sure this is something we're doing not just something we think one day is a good idea Then the next day we're talking about it on the council and we and sending the staff scrambling and we find out It's not really a great idea and then we've just wasted a bunch of time.
So this helps us keep Focused and we're able to accomplish a lot more
Speaker 3: And I love how you hone it down, because if everything's a priority, nothing is a priority. So this whole act of like just bringing it in, having set core goals, and then moving forward on those core goals throughout the year. It's awesome.
That's right. Help us with what this year. There's core goals for this year. What are some things that we might be interested to learn about?
Speaker 4: Well, we have we have eight strategic areas that are all working towards are what the council has kind of a defined vision, you know, future vision for the community that we've all agreed on.
And it's something I think most people in the town would agree on. And you know, just Talks about the quality of life, outstanding municipal services, like kind of Lake Oswego as a destination with innovative [00:06:00] businesses, premier schools, varied housing options, and then just talks about the environment in which we're set there along the, both the river and the, and the lake and the deep connection to the natural environment.
The arts and culture that we enjoy here. And so the eight strategic areas, you know, they've remained relatively unchanged. Although we updated a couple of those strategic areas this year, just to kind of redefine them, but for the most part, it's about safe community. It's about supporting business, business investment and job creation in Lake Oswego.
We have a goal around diversity, equity, and inclusion, which we reframed this year to make it more measurable and make it more reflective of really the work that we're doing. And that goal now states to attract or the strategic header is to attract and support a diverse population where all people have civic agency, the opportunity to thrive and equitable access to city services.
And I borrowed that language from our youth leadership council. Which in their own goal setting that they do, which they follow a similar process to the city council, [00:07:00] they really talked about folks having that sense of agency, really being able to participate in their city government. And, you know, that has to do with how we communicate with people, making sure folks have the information they're informed and something I can talk about a little bit later too.
And then work that we're doing around housing is to attract a economically diverse population, a population that is diverse and in all respects. Making sure that Lake Oswego is a community that's, that's open to lots of different types of families and, and individuals at all different life stages. And of course we have combating climate change and strengthening our community's resilience to climate impacts.
We have strengthening public trust in the city through continuous improvement, outstanding customer service, infrastructure investments, and fiscal stewardship. And we also have investing in our high quality parks, natural areas, and recreational amenities. This year we just completed Parks Plan 2040.
which is our strategic plan around how we'll invest in the parks in these next years to come. That includes Pickleball. So it's in there.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's in there. [00:08:00] It's in there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Improving transportation connections and then planning for growth and change. And that's That this plan for growth and change.
That's one that we changed this year as well. The title, it used to be preserve. It was both we're planning and we're preserving. And we thought, well, this is really, what are we doing? Are we preserving? Are we planning? Well, are we changing? It's a change oriented goal. So it was, it was challenging for the staff to interpret.
Well, what, what is the goal? Yourself. Right. So we are changing. Our community, you know, has always been changing. And so that's a given. So we're going to plan for that growth. We're going to plan for that change. We're going to focus on enhancing the community's quality of life and sense of place while we're doing that.
Yeah.
Speaker 3: And as a resident, I got to say, like, You do such a great job of thinking of all the different components that really make that so important, but here we're business LO. And so I think our businesses are probably curious which out of these most apply to the businesses here in Lake Oswego.
Speaker 4: We're doing some really cool things this year [00:09:00] with the business community.
So the past several years, the city has for the really, for the first time, since I've been involved, been engaged with our chamber of commerce with the business community, working on economic development type. work, business support work, and of course, a lot of that came from out of the pandemic. The city, you know, used to have an economic development department back in the day that was kind of disbanded as part of an effort at cost cutting and staff reductions within the city.
It was a different time. Now we've seen that left us rather flat footed with the lack of understanding about what types of businesses are in town, just not knowing some basic information that businesses needed as they were coming and looking to invest in our community. So the city and the chamber have been engaged in a.
partnership now, and we want to continue expanding that. And so that's one of our city's goals to continue expanding the city's partnership with the Chamber. Another goal that relevant to the business community is, is around the promotion of Lake Oswego as, as a destination to visit, place to experience the arts, dining, just our amenities here in town.
You [00:10:00] know, we've never really Done that in a big way as a community. We've never really taken our transient lodging tax dollars and business license fee and really reinvested those back into the community to continue to bring folks into Lake Oswego to let not only visitors, but prospective residents and folks know like a place they can go and see like, wow, here's what the city is really about.
You know, if you go to the. The city of Lake Oswego Instagram, you get lots of information about roads that are being worked on and closed and trees that are, you might think, Oh my gosh, what is going on? Is this an emergency every day in this community? But you know, that's kind of how they use their, their Instagram.
So there's not a place if you're really interested in living here or being a part of visiting the community where you can go and see. the types of parks that we have the different types of small local businesses that we have here. And so that's the kind of infrastructure we want to create. And we envision doing that, of course, in partnership with the business community with with with the chamber.
So that's another big,
Speaker 3: which makes complete sense. And of course, I'm a super fan of that because I do believe the businesses really do require [00:11:00] some of that help and some of that promotion to make sure that they can still thrive, right? They cannot survive just on the people that live here. We do need to bring people in.
That's right.
Speaker 4: And people love to come to Lake Oswego, you know, and as a business owner myself, I mean, I'm always people come from all over, you know, to come to our local businesses. And sometimes we think it's like, Oh, well, these, these folks almost must live in the neighborhood, you know, nearby, but people from the old surrounding region love coming to Lake Oswego.
I other city counselors in other cities come to recreate in Lake Oswego. And people say, Wow, I wish you know, our community had events like this. So it's been great to see. And it's just a really positive way to introduce people to Lake Oswego, who may not be as you know, familiar with it.
Speaker 3: Exactly. We've got to make sure to get that out there.
So I can assume how these goals are going to help the local businesses, but, you know, how do you see these goals really helping some of the businesses here?
Speaker 4: Well, we recently we updated our business license fee [00:12:00] structure. And in the past, you know, we had the business license fee and folks pay and it would just kind of.
Honestly, the fees would go to just collecting the fees, right? So we pay fees so that we have the infrastructure to collect the fees. And none of it was really being reinvested back into the business community. And then of course, we also collect a transient lodging tax from the hotels and motels that we have in town.
And that is also a chunk of that is supposed to be reinvested in visitor services, and it's gone to different things over the years in terms of public art and. Whatnot, but we've never really been that strategic about how we're investing those dollars. And so we're hoping that these efforts, our partnership with the chamber, investing in visitor services will lead us down a path that's seen businesses that are paying the license fee, that paying the transient lodging tax, just in general paying your property taxes, of course, to, to the city, that that's coming back to them in the form of, of support and not just through, through marketing and promotion, of course, but, you know, I think one thing the chamber has really excelled in is providing different resources to our small.
business community, a lot of [00:13:00] small businesses, especially don't have the resources and ability to provide different trainings, you know, and, and learn about the changing landscape, whether it's the, you know, the regulatory environment, we could really do a great job as a community of knowing that when you have a business here in Lake Oswego, it's not just a nice, safe community with.
the good customer base and folks that like to come here, but you can actually have access to a variety of programs that will help you grow your business, help your employees to grow and develop and thinking more holistically. And then also just opening the door to different types of businesses too. We see one challenge.
People love like the local businesses, right? They love small businesses, but that's becoming kind of a thing of the past. Unfortunately, as we see, like new development is very expensive. And people are less likely to take a risk on, on a local business. And so we see, and you see this all over the region, right?
A center opens up and it's kind of like the same businesses everywhere. They have the ones, these are, you know, [00:14:00] national and regional chains. They're. financially backed, and it kind of becomes a cookie cutter type situation. It's the same yogurt shop, the same hair salon, the same nail place. And it's just, you know, you put one of these and then they're done.
And I don't think that's what people really want, probably in any community. They definitely don't want it here. And so that, but that's a challenge, you know, and we don't necessarily have the answers there because again, the cost is high, you know, and the. The risk is high and, but are there ways that we could work with new developments to help them?
Cause I mean, there's lots of, God, there's so many really cool local businesses and entrepreneurs in Lake Oswego that are just doing amazing things in all different industries. Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I feel like the city and the chamber are really working to bring them like, Hey, here are those resources, like the new business meetings that we're doing together.
You have access to the people in the city, you have access to the people in your chamber and come together. You don't have to do this alone because doing it alone does not work. So lots of goals out [00:15:00] there, measures of success. I know this is a tough question, but what, you know, how might we measure the success of these goals?
This. coming year.
Speaker 4: So we keep up on our goals on a quarterly basis. The city manager is great about keeping us apprised of the kind of progress, you know, we're making and making sure that we're moving forward. We're going through the budget process this year as well. So, you know, our upcoming biannual budget will reflect the priorities that the council set through through these goals.
And so we definitely, these aren't, you know, set it and forget it type of goals. We make sure that we're accomplishing these goals, you know, crossing. Some of the items are ongoing, especially the ones I mentioned. And so I think just for this first year, you know, success will be, are we bringing together the right stakeholders in the community?
Are we moving these efforts forward in a concrete way? And our business has seen. And some of it's intangible. I think it's very difficult, right? You all in the marketing space, I think it's really difficult to measure success of different campaigns and they give different metrics like impressions on this and that, and you're like, okay, yeah, but how did that [00:16:00] translate into, and some of it's just a smart thing to do, you know?
And some of it's just like we're putting our best foot forward as a community. It's not the only thing we're doing, it's not the top thing we're doing, but it's just good to like roll out that welcome mat and make sure that, that we are in charge of, of our own image and brand as a community. Otherwise people.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, if you don't have a brand, they'll make it up for you. It will. You will have one.
Speaker 4: And you won't
Speaker 3: like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I, I picture, you know, we have this whole force behind our businesses and I, I hope that they know that there's all of these people really working to bring folks in for the businesses.
Help us with what do you need from the business community?
Speaker 4: The engagement is critical. And I mean, I go to the, whenever I'm at a Friday networking or a chamber event, I mean, we see. How engaged our businesses are, which is fantastic, but that's, that's critical in all respects, you know, people, it's real easy to sit back and just kind of let things happen, but being [00:17:00] involved on a, being on a chamber committee.
Going to the events, you know, going to the networking, I think Chamber has been a great thing. You can, you can, any level of participation is welcomed. If you just do one thing a year, that's great. If that's all you can do, you know, we get it. But if you can be more involved, you can sit on the Government Affairs Committee.
If you're involved in one of the area specific committees, like on the Lake Grove Business Committee, whatever it may be. It's really, that's just a chance to meet with your fellow. Business owners in town and other people hear how things are going and it just really helps to strengthen the fabric of of the business community and to bring more perspectives to the table and then it helps us to know who you are is we're always looking for people to get involved.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Committees and don't be a spectator.
Speaker 3: Part of what makes this community so special is the engagement. And I love that you said, like, do what you can, because we have different seasons in our business that we can do things versus not and in our lives. Right? So it's just step in and do what we can, when we can.
And it's a judgment free zone. If you can't, can't do it all. Sometimes we're [00:18:00] calling the members and like, Hey, we're just calling to thank you for being a member. It's like, I'm so sorry. I haven't been coming. It's like, it's okay. We just, we just want you to know, we appreciate you at whatever level you can do.
So what are you most looking forward to this coming year?
Speaker 4: One goal that isn't specific is to the business community, but I'm really excited about is we're taking a step more into the kind of public health realm. And ever since the, and I've talked about this as some other meetings we've opened up, but ever since we've gone through the pandemic, we've seen the important role that cities play in the health of the community.
And of course, this is intrinsic, you know, I mean, it's the development of parks. It's the preservation of nature, access to open space. I mean, we're and in all those respects, the building out of safe infrastructure for people to walk and ride their bikes and access to clean water, clean air. I mean, Lake Oswego is above and beyond, you know, there's people still working on the basics, trying to have clean water, trying to have enough trees, they have, you know, almost no trees.
So we're very environmentally healthy. We're very, we have lots of, we have great water system, one of the most resilient water systems, if not the most resilient in the [00:19:00] state clean air. I mean, people have the opportunity to really live healthy lives and thrive here. But at the same time, you know, there's behind the scenes suffering.
A lot of people are living now more in isolation than they used to. I just listened to the daily podcast this morning where people are, you know, they're falling in love with chat. bots. And that's strange to me. So they're having computer friends and the computer is their best friend. So that's not probably a great long term.
I don't know. I'm not a professional, but it doesn't sound like it's on the right track. So we want to, we're going to take our, we have a 50 plus advisory board. It's been in place forever because this is kind of the path they've been going down. And we're going to. rebrand them as the Community Health and Resiliency Advisory Board.
And we'll expand the membership, even though you don't need to be any particular age to serve on the 50 plus advisory board is typically was a collection of our more revered residents. But we'll open that up. We'll have some youth members on that board now. It's the only board that doesn't have youth members, but we'll have youth members and a wider [00:20:00] variety of folks and to really look at what what as a community, we do a really good job.
Putting all of our projects and investments through a sustainability lens and through an equity lens But we don't put them to a public health lens, you know kind of forming an action plan to know what kind of investment should we be making with the public health of our residents in mind and Even just different policies and programs, you know, what's best from a public health perspective?
And so that's something I'm really excited about.
Speaker 3: That does sound really exciting. And I love getting more engagement in it, but also having people help with that. And then we have our favorite question of what might be keeping you up at night as the mayor?
Speaker 4: Oh, gosh. I, you know, I think it's the, which is one reason why I appreciate you all like doing a podcast like this so much.
It's the information, you know, and that's another thing we're also looking at this year is looking at our communication strategy as an organization. You know, things have changed so much over just the last [00:21:00] decade. I remember when I first came on the city council, one of my colleagues, John Gustafson, who was city counselor, he had been the first person to ever use Facebook.
In a campaign for city council, which is 10 years ago. Okay. Yeah. So that was like, it was a brand new thing. Well, maybe a little over 10 and we have not really, you know, the city's evolved. They use social media and different channels, but we've never really sat down and thought about it over this time as things are changing.
And the other thing that's really changing is in regards to the local media, you know, that's become a real challenge to get really good local media is it's not like it used to be, there's been lots of consolidation. And lots of cost cutting and we're not getting the quality media and reporting that we used to.
And so that's opening the door for folks just to create their own stories and they're often not accurate and that is a problem. And then with, with nothing else to latch onto, people just take it as the truth and [00:22:00] misinformation spreads throughout the community. And so we're seeing a lot of our neighboring communities as well, create just general like FAQs for people to be able to go to the, even their city website and know like, what is the truth about this project?
Cause I'm hearing all these different things over here and on social media and. So, we're taking a look at how we're communicating with residents to make sure people have access. Not just, you know, access to information so they can participate and engage, because that's important, but just straight information.
You know, we want them to know what your council is doing. Like, everything we do is very public. Everything. It's a secret.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, if you really do want to know, you can find out, which is great. And you have access too. But you're right. If people don't know and then they make it up, they make up the worst.
But then also if there's like a speck of something out there, it just kind of can be dramatized. So yes. So good. Well, we're glad that we're helping you to sleep at night. Cause we need you well rested so that you can do your awesome things as the mayor. Just a couple more questions. Like we, sometimes I daydream about being a mayor and I'm like, this could be so [00:23:00] cool.
I could ride in the fire truck with the Easter bunny, or I could set off the lights at Millennium Park, which I did get to do with you actually. It was so much fun, but those are the fun things. What are some of the less fun things about being there?
Speaker 4: I find all of it kind of fun. But there is a lot of, you know, work involved in, in this.
Some of it can be kind of tedious and I guess it takes a certain personality. Like, cause we have to, I mean, there's things that we're really interested in, all of us on the council, and we have topics that we're just really. interested in, you know, personally, but we have to make decisions on all sorts of things.
And a lot of it is not interesting. And
Speaker 3: right. Right.
Speaker 4: Actually, most of it is rather, you know, it's rather pedestrian, but the the water system contracts, paving projects, and it can be different development applications and things. And, and I'll say that's the thing that I. really is challenging is when we have, we just had one and when folks make an appeal, you know, to us, and a lot of that has to do with development.
And a lot of that has to do with trees. And [00:24:00] that can be really contentious because people feel very strongly about these things. And we operate based on our code and we everything is kind of needs to be fair and even handed. And that's critical, right? We operate by the rule of law here. And so everyone understands the expectations.
And, but those are tough hearings, you know, when, because folks feel very strongly is often very local to them, changes in their neighborhood directly across the street. We're all humans, right? I mean, to listen to that emotion and not have to say, well, but here's what, what our code says is, is tough. And so that's probably the hardest part about serving on the council.
Speaker 3: What's the most fun part for you about being mayor?
Speaker 4: Oh, well, I, I get to work with these students. We have the Youth Leadership Council, which I'm very proud of. I started that when I was a city councilor, and now it's kept going. That's always a challenge, keeping it going. And the team at the city has done such a wonderful job with it.
We have continued to evolve and improve the program with feedback from the students. [00:25:00] I mean, the groups are always great. This group of high school students of it's a two year program. They learn the ins and outs of city government, how the water system works, public safety, city manager, what a city manager does.
So even an opportunity to explore jobs in local government, these are great jobs, great careers, and it's everything, you know, from being a firefighter or an engineer and everything in between, you know, lawyer, it's the way the city employs every pretty much everybody and getting to interact with them and hear what their.
Hopes are for the community, what their current struggles are, what they're facing is really priceless. And it's informed a lot of what we've done as a city. And I think they get a lot of, hopefully they get a lot out of it as well. And then each year we take them back to. Washington, D. C. for a big kind of a conference where they get to meet and interact with other youth leadership councils from all around the country and hear about what is going on in their communities, what they're excited about, what they're struggling with.
And there's a lot of, there can be differences [00:26:00] there, and there's also a lot of common ground. And I think it's good to unite people from across the country and different types of communities, big cities, small cities, urban, rural, in that way. And
Speaker 3: You're just preparing this next generation of folks who are going to take over, right?
And be able to make such a difference and an impact here. That's awesome. As a business owner, I appreciate that the council has so many business owners on the council as well, but help us with how you bring your experience as a business owner into being there.
Speaker 4: You know, my business is the restaurant business, and what I always like about the restaurant business is the variety of folks that get to work with every day.
People come from all different backgrounds in that industry, from all different corners of the globe. We speak a variety of languages in the environment, and we have to work. Together, pulling our different strengths on a daily basis to pull off what honestly kind of sometimes seems like a miracle, right?
Speaker 3: Right, right. You don't know what's going on back there, but it's all coming out nice here.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's It's a daily challenge [00:27:00] and and just such a great group of people to work with but that's helped me as mayor kind of a guide, but you let people be able to have their own direction as well. Like, there's no room for heavy handedness in these roles.
People think you're the mayor, it's a big, like, kind of strong position, and that's really not what it's about at all. I want to make sure that the folks on the council have their voice heard. They were all independently elected. They're all bringing an important and unique community perspective to the table.
The goal isn't, well, let's get a majority of us that share a perspective and let's just quash the other three that don't share our perspective. I mean, that's just no way, you know, to run a government. That'd be no way to run a business. And so I think it helps us all as business owners, cause it takes two to tango.
Right. So all of my colleagues, I think they share this philosophy and everyone works really well together. We understand that we're not always going to get our way. And we work to listen to each other's perspectives. And then for the most part, I mean, we always move forward on the same page cause we've honed things so that [00:28:00] everyone feels good about them and compromises.
It's all about and I think we're seeing that even, you know, now nationally, it's a big concern to people where there's just one or two people making a lot of the decisions for an entire country. I mean, that's not even how we do it locally. You know, we're only a town of 40, 000 and we're listening to everyone's perspective and compromising and it doesn't matter that no one ran against me.
Right? I don't say, Oh, well, well, that means they just agree with everything I say and disagree with what everyone else says. And so I'm just gonna, you know, run roughshod over this town. It's gonna be my way or the highway. Cause it's not how it works.
Speaker 3: No, and we just so appreciate you. You walk the walk when it comes to that.
You bring people together. You listen. Sounds like the mix of people are challenging each other on the council, but also moving things forward and love that you're bringing in the business aspect of that, of the diversity piece, right? That we, we all have to have different voices at the table and have them be heard in order for us to be amazing.
So, well. It's been so nice to get to know you even [00:29:00] more. And I just really appreciate you taking the time coming to speak with us. I would just put out there, Liz or Michelle, do you have anything else that you would ask or add?
Speaker 2: I appreciate how down to earth you are. You just care about everyone in the community.
I'm glad you're on our side. Let's put it that way.
Speaker: Yeah, we're very fortunate to have Joe. This is a gift to the city. Yes.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: It's been a lot of fun being here. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you for your time. We really appreciate it. So, Liz, now it's that time. Let's find out what we need to
Speaker: know in LO.
Oh, I am thrilled to tell you some of the business things that are coming up. Every first Tuesday of the month, the Lake Grove Business Group gets together. They're going to move towards a model where every quarter they have a special speaker coming in. But this Tuesday, we will be at Baba Kahan, which happens to be owned by the mayor, from 7.
30 to 8. 30. So that's the first Tuesday of every month. But we're also [00:30:00] reorganizing the downtown business group. So if there are businesses in downtown that want to get together, what we're looking for is a quarterly meeting to expose them to some of the things going on in the city and to start talking about what business is like.
So how did you do last year? How did you do this year? We were talking about some of the measures of the city. How are they going to measure how things are done if we know that business is picking up? We'd know that some of the things were working, but first we have to have a baseline. So that's what we'll be working with businesses this year, to get a baseline for future measures.
We'll also be looking at a, a Kruseway Business Group is what we're looking for next, and we've had some interest, I think a lot of people know Chad Marting from Bank of the Pacific, and Chris Foster from Buckley Law would like to be part of the organizing group, if we have others from out on Kruseway that would like to get together.
Again, we're looking at quarterly meetings for that group as well. The big news is that as of March, the Lake Oswego Chamber will be back [00:31:00] on B Avenue. Phil Cech has offered to share his space with us, which puts us on the main street. People who are brand new to Lake Oswego or want to know about Lake Oswego, it's been a little tough to find us on the second floor.
Even though it is the greatest office space in Lake Oswego Central has been a wonderful home for the chamber. It's time to get back on the main street. So we'll look forward to greeting people and maybe even do one of these podcasts right where you can look in the window and see people podcasting.
That's my goal. All right. We are prepping for Hop at the Hunt. You may have heard Heather talking a little bit about the mayor coming in on a fire truck, the bunny, and the dignitary, someone from the city or from somewhere in Lake Oswego, are the special guests for Hop at the Hunt. That is the LO Hunt Club.
We have sponsors this year. The Lakeside Heating and Cooling is a sponsor, as well as Grocery Outlet, and Dan Brown from Farmers Insurance. On point community credit union is also one of our co [00:32:00] sponsors and it is going to be a great day rain or shine
Speaker 2: Want to say something about third Thursday? We
Speaker: do want to say something about third Thursday because that is going to be one of the things that the downtown business group Will be talking about how to improve Third Thursday, how to keep moving people towards it.
And Glossy Babies said they saw great folks coming through. On March 20th, we're going to have a ribbon cutting over at Mad Sass Soap at five o'clock. So start at four o'clock, go up to the Arts Council or go to one of the stores, but stop in at five o'clock and see a ribbon cutting. Oh, we have ribbon cuttings in March.
March 14th at 4. 30 we'll be at Ultra PT Therapy and on Saturday, March 15th, 5 o'clock, Gemini Club, we'll be cutting the ribbon there. So, three ribbon cuttings in March. It's great to be welcoming businesses to Lake Oswego.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and you can always go on the Chamber website, which is so easy to navigate to.
You can go and you can find out about [00:33:00] all those ribbon cuttings and anything else that we talk about here on the show. Well, thank you so much, ladies. I enjoyed this conversation with the Mayor so much. Again, he is just such a Down to earth. Great guy. He even said earlier, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.
He will get back to you and his information will be on the show notes as well. Thank you. And remember, every day is a Chamber of Commerce day. Here in Lake Oswego, the
Speaker: Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce. Thanks you for listening to Business Lo. We would love to have you as a member so you can help Lake Oswego continue to be one of the best places to live, work, and play.
If you want to share an idea for a future episode or become a member, visit us@lakeoswegochamber.com and please like and follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for help with your business podcast, go to podcast [00:34:00] productions.com.