Think Out Loud

The train-related traffic delays in Portland — especially in the city’s inner east side — have gotten worse and more frequent in recent years. As rail transportation consultant Bill Burgel told Willamette Week, that’s in large part because the average length of a freight train has doubled. Trains used to be 7,500 feet, and now they’re commonly 15,000 feet or more. 

As a former employee of Union Pacific with 50 years of experience in the rail industry, and as a member of the city’s Freight Committee, Burgel pays close attention to these delays. And he has some structural ideas to solve or alleviate the delays that regularly last an hour or more. We sit down with Burgel to understand all the factors behind these mind-blowing delays and more about possible solutions.

Straddling Multnomah and Clackamas counties, the Willamette National Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Oregon for military veterans, their spouses and dependent children. Even though it won’t reach capacity for 15 years, The Department of Veterans Affairs is already planning for expansion by possibly acquiring roughly 300 acres of farmland southeast of Salem.

Per reporting by the Salem Reporter, the agency announced last September it was conducting an environmental assessment of the property, a functioning vineyard located in the unincorporated community of Macleay. Residents there have expressed concerns to VA officials about impacts on water usage, traffic and the rural character of their farming community.  

Earlier this month, Marion County Commissioners sent a letter to the VA echoing those concerns and urging the agency to find an alternative site. Gov. Tina Kotek has also now gotten involved by writing directly to VA Secretary Doug Collins to work with the commissioners to find a different location. 

The Salem Reporter’s Hailey Cook has been following these developments and joins us to share more details.

 “Failure to protect” charges are criminal prosecutions where one parent is accused of allowing another parent, or spouse, to abuse a child. For many, such as Deborah Albin, they may also be survivors of abuse, but are unable to raise that within their defense.

Albin’s significant other, Andrew Oaks, is facing second-degree murder charges for their daughter Opal’s death. Andrew had previously threatened to kill Deborah and was accused by Albin of physically assaulting her. Despite this, courts are not allowing Albin to bring these incidents in her defense. This is part of a larger pattern of prosecutions against women using “failure to protect” laws.

Kaylee Tornay is an investigative reporter with Investigate West and has been following Deborah Albin’s case. She joins us to share more.

 Eddie Bynum Jr., who raps professionally as Mikey Vegaz, is a very busy man. He just released a new track called Rose City Goats with Damion Lillard and Cool Nutz. And he’s just opened a new restaurant called “The EAST by Trap Kitchen in the central eastside. He’s also active in nonprofit work and community efforts, including Rose City Jam, a monthly basketball night for youth in partnership with the Blazers Boys and Girls Club. 

The original Trap Kitchen was started in LA by Bynum’s brother, Malachi Jenkins. He and a former gang rival, Roberto Smith went into business together in 2013 and later launched Trap Kitchen food carts in LA and then in Portland. That food cart turned into The EAST by Trap Kitchen. We sit down with Bynum to talk about his restaurant, his music, and his contributions to the larger community, including Rose City Jam.

The Infant/Toddler Mental Health graduate certificate is designed to help educators, social workers, counselors and other early childhood specialists foster strong connections between caregivers and their children during the earliest stages of life. Research shows that consistent, loving feedback from caregivers helps build neural connections that support communication and emotional resilience as a child grows up.

We talk with Melissa Williams, an early intervention specialist with the Multnomah Early Childhood Program, and Sally Guyon, the co-coordinator of the Early Childhood: Inclusive Education master’s program and an assistant professor of early childhood care and education at PSU.

 Early Tuesday morning, a chemical tank ruptured at a paper mill in Southwest Washington, killing at least two people and injuring eight more. 

At least nine more people are still unaccounted for as of Wednesday morning. Hundreds of community members held a vigil Tuesday evening to honor those affected by the tragedy. 

Recovery efforts were suspended yesterday evening due to the ongoing threat of corrosive chemicals at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company.

We’ll hear from state Sen. Jeff Wilson from Washington’s 19th Legislative District, which covers Longview. Wilson grew up in Longview and ran a private sector waste management firm before going into politics. 

He’ll share his experience of working as an environmental cleanup contractor at the Longview paper mill over the years

There is a lot that goes into a cup a coffee. From beans, to roast, to grind, to water and even temperature, it is incredibly difficult to make one cup of coffee the exact same as the next. But researchers at the University of Oregon may have found a way to make a cup of coffee more consistent. Chris Hendon is a chemist and associate professor at UO. His previous research illuminated how spraying water on coffee beans before grinding saves on waste and makes the espresso shots more consistent. Hendon joins us to share more about his work and the world of coffee.

A new map from the advocacy nonprofit Beyond Toxics aims to help people identify what kinds of pesticide have been sprayed in communities over the last decade. The nonprofit partnered with the University of Oregon Infographics Lab to compile notices of intent to apply pesticides on state, county and private forestland from 2014 to 2024. Users can filter by location, year, the type of chemical and whether it was applied aerially or on the ground.

Mason Leavitt is a GIS analyst and programs manager for Beyond Toxics. He joins us with more details on how individuals and community groups can use the map.

Portland’s Lloyd Center is scheduled to close Aug. 8 after more than 65 years in business.

The current owner, Urban Renaissance Group, plans to demolish the mall to make way for housing, businesses and a new music venue. Groups such as Save Lloyd Center Mall and the Save Lloyd Ice Coalition are holding out hope that a city hearing in June could prevent the mall’s closure, but it seems likely that the Lloyd Center is in its final days.

After its last anchor stores shuttered in 2021, the mall’s low rents and large usable space attracted a wide array of community groups and independent retailers. In its last incarnation, the mall became a hub for the kind of quirky community that Portland prides itself on.

We’ll listen back to three conversations that capture that recent era: Jason Leivian is the owner of Floating World Comics. We spoke with him in 2022, shortly after he relocated his store from Old Town to the Lloyd Center.

In 2023, we talked about a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” that was staged in a former Victoria’s Secret store in the Lloyd Center. It was put on by the Northwest Classical Theatre Collaborative, which aims to bring theater to nontraditional spaces. We were joined by director Patrick Walsh, the collaborative’s executive artistic director, and Portland actress Diane Kondrat, who starred as “Winnie” in the play.

Finally, Krista Catwood joined us last summer to talk about the Food Court 5000. That’s a 1980s-themed mall walk that Catwood leads every Sunday morning in the Lloyd Center.

Eliza Wilson is the chair of the Homeless Leadership Coalition in Central Oregon and the executive director of RootedHomes, an affordable housing developer based in Bend. Wilson says this has been the largest year-over-year decline she has seen in over 20 years of helping with the annual snapshot of people experiencing homelessness in the region. She attributes this unprecedented decline to opening new shelters and expanding shelter bed capacity in communities like Madras, Bend, Redmond and Prineville, while also providing rental assistance and case management to help people transition into stable housing. 

Wilson joins us for more details on the progress that’s being made in Central Oregon to tackle homelessness and the work that still needs to be done.

Oregonians overwhelmingly voted against Measure 120, a proposal meant to address funding shortfalls for the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Known as the gas tax, the measure would have increased the state’s gas tax by 6 cents per gallon, temporarily hike payroll tax, and double fees for registrations and titles. Without the tax, the agency only has funding to support core services until the end of 2027. Daniel Porter is ODOT's Finance and Budget Division Administrator. He joins us to share how he’s thinking about the future of the agency’s budget.

The housing crisis is worse than ever, and it’s one that many elected representatives and nonprofits have been working on for some time. Last month Gov. Kotek signed a package of housing related bills into law. They allow cities to expand their urban growth boundaries, protect existing affordable housing and provide financing to encourage the construction of new housing. Estimates put the need for new homes at 29,500 a year to keep up with population growth and the demand for housing.

Constructing new housing for middle income families is at the heart of the Oregon Community Foundation’s announcement of its $100 million “Building Hope Fund.” OCF says it’s a kind of down payment to spur even more investment from other sources to create a fund that will make affordable loans to developers so they can build middle income housing. OCF’s goal is 10,000 new homes built all around Oregon in the next 10 years.

Lisa Mensah is the President and CEO of the Foundation. She joins us to explain how she sees the loan program working and how it fits into their extensive and longstanding granting program for housing and other community needs throughout the state.

A recent study by Pew Research showed that half of U.S. adults under 50 get health and wellness information from influencers on social media and podcasts. One in five people surveyed said the information they get from influencers is different than the information from medical professionals. Ashley Hass is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Portland, who focuses on digital marketing, social media influencers, and the digital wellness of consumers. Jonathan Garcia directs the public health graduate program at OSU. He studies medical mistrust and misinformation. They join us to share more on the impact of the wellness industry on social media and its implications for public health. 

Some businesses have started receiving their refunds while others, including Portland-based Steven Smith Teamaker, are still waiting. As the Portland Business Journal reported last month, 90% of its ingredients are imported, making the company subject to volatile tariff rates that rocketed as high as 50% at one point last year. CEO Darren Marshall says that the company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in unanticipated tariffs, which its customs broker has filed on its behalf to recoup. Revant Optics, a Portland manufacturer of replacement lenses for sunglasses that launched its own line of sunglasses last June, is owed nearly $700,000 in duties it paid on imports from China and Taiwan, according to CEO and founder Jason Bolt. 

Marshall and Bolt join us for more details, along with Chris McKinney, president of Brownstone International. The Portland-based customs broker has filed claims for tariff refunds on behalf of Steven Smith Teamaker and dozens of other clients.

 Oregon voters resoundingly rejected a statewide ballot measure that would have raised the state gas tax from 40 to 46 cents and  doubled car title and registration fees to help fund road maintenance and other transportation projects. Measure 120 was widely expected to fail, especially as gas prices continue to soar in Oregon and across the nation.

Last year, Gov. Tina Kotek and Democrats in the Legislature approved a bill that included the gas tax and fee hikes, but Republican lawmakers succeeded in raising enough signatures to put the issue before voters. Democrats, however, countered by ensuring the measure appeared on the May ballot instead of in November, when Gov. Kotek is up for reelection. 

Gov. Kotek will now face Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan in a rematch of the 2022 gubernatorial race. On Tuesday, Republican voters selected Drazan to be their gubernatorial nominee over former Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley, state Rep. Ed Diehl and other candidates. 

OPB political reporter Lauren Dake joins us for more details about Drazan’s victory and the failed gas tax measure.

The Woodburn School Board has had heavy turnover the past year, since the prior board sparked community backlash after their management of the “Safe and Welcoming Schools resolution,” — causing many to lose their seats. District policies were already in place to protect students against ICE enforcement, but supporters of the resolution maintained it was an important step by school leaders to reaffirm and publicly support these protections in the largely-immigrant led community.

We’ll hear from Jason Levin, a union representative with the Woodburn Education Association and a Career and Technical Education teacher at Woodburn High School, as well as Woodburn School District Superintendent Juan Larios, and Debbie Ballweber, chair of the Woodburn School Board.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, there are nearly 170 Million employed civilians in the American workforce. However, that number may be an undercount because it does not include kids working at BizTown.

Junior Achievement’s BizTown gives kids in fourth, fifth and sixth grade the chance to experience working in a simulated city in various fields, including healthcare, construction, food service, journalism, banking and more. Kids are given jobs based on interviews they’ve done and BizTown money to purchase various goods and services in their make believe city.

Host Dave Miller and producer Rolie Hernandez spent a day at Biztown recently, talking to students at Boring's Hood View Adventist School and Vancouver's Columbia Valley Elementary to find out what a day of adulthood was like for students. They also spoke to the actual adult responsible for the exercise: Barbara Smith, CEO of Junior Achievement's BizTown.

 It was Lindstrom’s wish that any donations made in his memory go to the  Family Preservation Project, the organization that runs the “Mothering Inside” program.

To hear a longer excerpt that includes a participant in the program who was in conversation with Lindstrom and “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller, click the arrow below.

One of the most popular jazz albums of all time is still “Kind of Blue”, from trumpeter Miles Davis. Over the course of his career, Davis was pioneering in almost every major form of jazz, from be-bop to fusion. Early in his career, he recorded the compilation “Birth of the Cool” with nine other musicians, which is considered seminal to the era of cool jazz. KMHD and Portland trumpeter Noah Simpson will celebrate Miles Davis’ 100th birthday later this month with a performance of the classic 1957 album in its entirety.

Children in the foster care system are among the most vulnerable in Oregon. Their mistreatment was one of the key reasons a class action lawsuit was brought against the state. The 2024 settlement included a number of required actions to decrease the rate of abuse and improve the lives of children in the state’s custody. The state recently submitted its first settlement-mandated report of its progress, including increasing the number of kids placed with a member of their family. But the increase in abuse cases is noteworthy, says OPB reporter Lauren Dake, given the policy priorities of the child welfare system after the class action settlement. Dake joins us to share more about the latest numbers and what state officials say they’re going to do about it.  

As wildfires grow larger and more destructive across the West, state governments are having a hard time paying for response and prevention. Oregon lawmakers were called into an emergency session in December 2024 after the state’s most expensive fire season left the Oregon Department of Forestry with nearly $100 million in unpaid bills. They also created a new tax in the 2025 session on nicotine pouches, such as Zyn, to fund wildfire prevention.

Kyle Williams is the deputy director of fire operations for ODF. He joins us with more details about the state’s wildfire funding ahead of what could be a historic fire season.

The Oregon Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that Washington County can ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, including vapes and hookah. County commissioners passed the ban in 2021, but it’s been tied up in court since retailers sued to stop it in 2022. The decision came just days after the federal Food and Drug Administration, for the first time, authorized the sale of some fruit-flavored vape pods.

Gwyn Ashcom is a senior program coordinator at Washington County Public Health. She joins us to share more about the county’s plans now that the ban can go forward.