Emerging to the forefront as hot sellers this holiday season are board games, said Dave Campbell, background, of the Hobby Habit in La Grande. - The Observer/PHIL BULLOCK

With less than a week to go in the 2007 holiday shopping season, merchants in Union and Wallowa Counties are upbeat, with most seeing their sales match — and in some cases, exceed — those of last year.

It can't hurt that the State of Oregon refunded $1.1 billion to taxpayers this month. The kicker checks fatten the average person's wallet by about $600, and that's a fine holiday windfall in anybody's book.

The Union County Economic Development Corp. recently made a bylaw change that will significantly affect the makeup of the board of directors — and maybe help to smooth over a long-running argument with members of the La Grande City Council.

Currently, the UCEDC board includes four appointees from the City of La Grande, four from Union County, and four from the La Grande Industrial Development Corp., also known as the "ID Board."

GENERAL MANAGER: Ben Henson, initially a Community Smallwood Solutions investor, now runs the plant for Upstream 21. - The Observer/BILL RAUTENSTRAUCH

If that's true, then a minimum of 28 people in Northeast Oregon have forest-related jobs thanks to Community Smallwood Solutions, a busy little post-and-pole mill in this small and economically troubled Wallowa County city.

"As long as the shift is running well, we can put out four loads of hops poles a week," Ben Henson, the mill's general manager, said during a recent tour of the facility.

ENTERPRISE — The ninth annual Holiday Shopping Bus Tour is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 1.

The tour will depart from the La Grande Town Center at 8 a.m. with pick-up stops at the Imbler Post Office at 8:15 a.m. and Elgin Community Bank at 8:30 a.m.

Tour tickets are $14 per person and can be reserved by calling tour coordinator Sondra Lozier at 541-426-3271 or 888-323-3271.

PROUD OWNERS: Rich and Lori Daniels, pictured above with one of their loft models, started Rich's Portable Cabins as a home-based business. Recently, they moved their operation into a brand new, 12,000-square-foot building in North Powder. - Observer photos/BILL RAUTENSTRAUCH

Rich's Portable Cabins, as they are called, are roomy, homey, fully equipped and attractive. But they're more than that.

They're a product designed and manufactured in North Powder, and marketed to the world. They represent business and industry in a little Union County town that hasn't had much lately.

There wasn't much disagreement over whether economic development is lagging in La Grande. But at the end of a La Grande City Council work session Oct. 29, the question remained: What to do about it?

Discussed during the well-attended meeting at the Cook Memorial Library was Mayor Colleen Johnson's highly publicized proposal to hire an economic and community development director for the city.

BUILDING SUPPORT: Jack Johnson, local liaison for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, passes out ESGR hats during a luncheon held to honor employers.

Jack Johnson, chair of Oregon Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve's Region 6, and Bob Elliott, executive director of the Oregon ESGR Committee, praised employers for the sacrifices they make to help keep citizen-soldiers in uniform.

A tourist attraction that brings visitors in year-round is better than an event that brings them once a year.

That seemed to be the consensus at the Union County Tourism Summit, an event held for business owners and community leaders last Wednesday at the Eastern Oregon Fire Museum and Learning Center.