LEAD: Eva - Cube Space Owner, and Policy Wonk Extraordinaire

Twitter: @evacatherder Blog: http://catherder.wordpress.com

Advisory to City Council's Portland Development Commission PDC is City economic development arm. Loans, grants. Up until recently purely a real estate redevelopment entity. 50% Done with Economic Recovery Plan in conjunction with Greenlight Greater Portland

Unfortunately, NO emphasis on small companies. SBA designations includes 50M and plan only mentioned the largest. Erin Flynn - new staff in PDC. Software Development, and Open Source not mentioned, this was a huge oversight. But Eva has gotten attention for small business and open source in the next 70% draft.

There is an oversight in economic figures: Sole Proprietors are not counted in economic census, a large number of small companies are more robust economically than a few large ones.

Portland and Multnomah counties are relativity efficient but trapped for funds.

For VC funds and westside tech focus see Steve Morris - OTBC - Beaverton's startup program, also Economic Gardening.

Oregon Tax structure: No Sales tax, High Property tax, Constitutional limits on spending Tax Changes in the works: Sole proprietorships seem to be protected from changes but Corporate kicker may be / should babolished.

Oregon Investment Fund - NO working with small bootstraps. Hired CSFB to manage fund, a few direct investments. Has brought some attention to Oregon start-ups. In end, Oregon start-ups have to compete with ROI in California start-ups.

Oregon growth account - 1M/yr over 3 years in Oregon Angel fund, 250K investments in their model. Would be great if we could expand similar programs.

New category of business B Corp - socially responsible C corp like entity. Another type is L3L - Low Profit Liability company to fill gaps in LLC type entities. Allows them to invest their corpus in responsible causes. Vermont is first to pass, 6-7 states have passed, currently in Oregon Legislature.

What YOU can do: