Think Out Loud

For some Oregonians, their medical needs are too high to be discharged from a hospital, but they also don’t need the emergency care that hospitals provide. They remain at the hospital while waiting for space at another facility that can provide the appropriate level of care. Oregon lawmakers created the Joint Task Force on Hospital Discharge Challenges to address the issue. Earlier this month, the task force approved its recommendations, after studying the issue for more than a year, according to reporting by the Oregon Capital Chronicle. We learn more about the proposed solutions from Jimmy Jones, the executive director of the  Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency who chairs the task force.

Last month, Amazon announced it had signed an agreement to develop four small-scale modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, along the Columbia River to power its data centers in Eastern Oregon. The e-commerce giant also touted nuclear energy as a “safe source of carbon-free energy” that would allow it to achieve its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2040. 

Energy Northwest, a consortium of publicly owned utilities, is partnering with Amazon on the development of the SMRs in southeast Washington. Under the agreement, Energy Northwest could build an additional eight SMRs that would generate enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 770,000 homes in the region. OPB rural communities reporter Antonio Sierra recently looked into this technology, its safety and how it differs from traditional nuclear reactors. He joins us to share what he’s learned. 

This week, Oregon’s new state economist, Carl Riccadonna, gave his first quarterly economic and revenue forecast. It projected Oregon getting nearly $950 million more in the current two-year period than previously estimated, and an extra $1.3 billion in the 2025-2027 budget cycle. Riccadonna, who was hired in September, based his forecast on an economic model that’s less pessimistic than the one his predecessor, Mark McMullen, relied on. It not only projects higher revenues from personal income and corporate taxes, it also aims to reduce the errors in forecasting that led to large kicker tax refunds, including a record $5.6 billion paid out to taxpayers this year. Riccadonna talks to us about Oregon’s economic outlook.

Hannah Glavor’s music used to lean toward singer-songwriter folk. But her newly released single, “Otherside,” shows an indie rock side to the Portland musician. She writes about loss and hope, and about darkness and the light on the other side. Glavor joined us in March 2024 for an interview and performance of songs from her then-upcoming album, “Hold On, Hold Tight,” which was released in September. 

Oregon has among the strongest protections for abortion rights and the fewest limits on the procedure of any state in the nation. Could Republican control of the presidency and both chambers of the U.S. Congress make things harder for abortion providers and seekers in Oregon, despite protective state laws? OPB health reporter Amelia Templeton fills us in.      

The Portland Bureau of Transportation is falling short of meeting some of its safety goals, according to a new city audit. Vision Zero is an international effort to completely eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The city of Portland adopted this philosophy in 2016, and while traffic deaths declined soon after, in 2021 they reached the highest they’ve been in the past three decades at 64. In 2023, those numbers are expected to be even higher, with early data standing at around 69 deaths. KC Jones is the audit services director for Portland. He joins us to share the details of the new audit. Dylan Rivera is the public information officer for PBOT. He also joins us to share the changes the agency will be making in response and the challenges of reaching Vision Zero.  
 

The Portland Trail Blazers are coming in hot with a three-game win streak after beating the Minnesota Timberwolves twice and another against the Atlanta Hawks. Their record now stands at 6 wins with 8 losses, moving them up in power rankings. Mike Richman is the host of the Locked on Blazers podcast. He joins us to break down the wins, losses and the hope for the future of Rip City’s beloved team.

With the days getting shorter and the rain setting in, many Pacific Northwesterners are already feeling the effects of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The disorder is thought to be caused by the body’s internal clock being disrupted by a lack of sunlight in autumn and winter months. Treatments include antidepressants and exposure to bright lights that mimic sunlight. As covered in OPB’s “All Science. No Fiction.,” researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new type of light therapy that could more effectively treat the symptoms of SAD.

Jay Neitz is the Bishop Professor of Ophthalmology at UW. He co-authored the study and joins us with more details.

A legal fight is brewing in Eastern Oregon where a coalition of timber interests is trying to block the sale of the only sawmill still operating in Grant County to Iron Triangle, a logging company in John Day. The Malheur Forest Fairness Coalition filed a federal lawsuit last year against Iron Triangle and the sawmill, Malheur Lumber, alleging that the two companies were conspiring to stifle competition. Although the suit was dismissed in September, it is currently being appealed, with the coalition threatening further legal action if the sale is pursued.   

As first reported in The Blue Mountain Eagle, Malheur Lumber, announced in July it was shutting down after more than 40 years. It cited a range of factors that led to the decision, including difficulty hiring reliable workers and a lack of housing to recruit them. The company’s financial woes are emblematic of the state of the timber industry in Oregon where seven mills announced their closures this year. Bennett Hall is the editor of the Blue Mountain Eagle. He joins us to share his reporting on this issue and how federal assistance could once again offer a lifeline to timber operations in Grant County and the region.  

The Salem City Council recently voted to censure two of its members, Councilor Deanna Gwyn and Mayor-elect Julie Hoy. The two potentially violated Salem’s city charter by participating in a land use vote involving a developer who donated to both of their campaigns. Sitting Mayor Chris Hoy brought the motion to censure, saying the councilors should have recused themselves from the vote after disclosing the financial relationship. Gwyn and Julie Hoy have said the censure is nothing more than an attempt to create division on council, while other councilors have said their failure to recuse themselves has created a conflict of interest.

Whitney Woodworth is a city reporter for the Statesman Journal. She’s been covering the censure and joins us with more details.

Nurse navigation programs have been proposed as one solution to overburdened emergency services systems. Instead of sending an ambulance, dispatchers direct low-level 911 calls to a team of nurses who can give advice or help callers set up an urgent care or telehealth appointment. The idea is to provide patients with the appropriate level of care while freeing up EMS resources to respond to life-threatening calls. Clackamas County recently launched a nurse navigation program, and Clark County has been operating its program in Southwest Washington for more than a year.

Rocco Roncarati is the regional director for ambulance provider American Medical Response’s operations in Southwest Washington. Marlow Macht is the medical program director for Clark County EMS and an emergency physician at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center. They both join us to talk about how the nurse navigation program is going in Clark County

Some tenants in Southwest Washington and other parts of the state could face a predicament the next time they sign or renew a lease: either sign a nondisclosure agreement or risk eviction and having to look elsewhere in a tight housing market. The NDAs are being used to prevent tenants from disclosing to others, with the exception of immediate family members, how much they pay in rent, security deposits or other associated fees. According to reporting by The Columbian, the use of NDAs by landlords is raising concerns among tenant advocates that they could be used to discriminate against prospective renters, such as people who use Section 8 federal housing vouchers. Landlords could, for example, advertise properties with high monthly rents and security deposits while reducing those fees through NDAs in contracts they offer higher-income tenants. 

Alexis Weisend, the affordable housing and homelessness reporter at The Columbian, joins us to share more details.  

The founders of SnoPlanks, a Bend-based snowboard company, decided to donate it to the Oregon State University Cascades campus. Now, students are running the show. 

SnoPlanks Academy aims to teach students skills like marketing, sales and supply chain management with hands-on experience. Students also ran a booth at the Snowvana trade show in Portland earlier this month. 

We learn more about the program from Caitlin Colgin, the president of SnoPlanks and a senior majoring in outdoor products in the college of engineering and Todd Laurence, an instructor and the executive director of SnoPlanks Academy at OSU-Cascades.

Under a waiver program, states can test new ways to offer Medicaid services.  For Oregon, that means some people on the Oregon Health Plan can get help with housing costs.

Oregon is the first in the nation to roll out rental assistance as a statewide Medicaid benefit for eligible OHP members, according to the Oregon Health Authority. 

People would need to have a qualifying risk factor to be eligible for the aid, which could include rental assistance for up to six months and help paying utility bills. 

Steph Jarem is the 1115 waiver policy director for OHA. Andrea Bell is the Executive Director of Oregon Housing and Community Services. They join us with details of the program and what it means for Oregonians. 

Nationwide, the Democratic Party had little to celebrate this election cycle. Republicans took control of the Senate, the House and the presidency. But in Oregon, state Representative Janelle Bynum ran against 5th District Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer - and won. Her victory is also notable as she will become the state’s first Black Representative in Congress. We talk with Bynum from Washington D.C. where she's already prepping for office.

Promo: 11/15 Nationwide, the Democratic party had little to celebrate this election cycle. But in Oregon, Janelle Bynum’s victory in the 5th District over the Republican incumbent flipped the script. Her win is also notable as she will become the state’s first Black Representative in Congress. We talk with Bynum from Washington D.C. where she's already prepping for office.

Kintsugi is the traditional Japanese art of repairing ceramics with lacquer and gold dust. The idea is to highlight the imperfections of a piece and celebrate its new form, rather than hide its chips and cracks. Artist Naoko Fukumaru wasn’t initially interested in kintsugi — as a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts and other institutions, she was focused on rendering imperfections invisible. But after the collapse of her marriage following her move to Canada, she began to appreciate the message of resilience and reinvention that are fundamental to the practice.

Fukumaru’s first solo kintsugi exhibition in the U.S. is currently on display at the Portland Japanese Garden and runs through Jan. 27. She joins us to talk more about the exhibit and the message she hopes visitors take from it.

In October, Lane County signed a contract with Eugene-based Bulk Handling Systems to create a state-of-the-art recycling center unlike any other in Oregon. It will sort garbage and commingled recycling and produce methane from the organic waste, generating renewable natural gas. According to the county, it will be ​“the most technologically advanced waste processing facility in the country, diverting about 80,000 tons from the county’s landfill annually. That could extend the life of the county-owned landfill by 20 years, officials say, while reducing the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Landfills are a major source of methane, which can also be harmful to human health.

Steve Miller, the CEO of Bulk Handling Systems, and Lane County Public Works Director Dan Hurley join us to explain how this project came into being, its environmental goals and the implications for other metro areas with similar waste issues.

Over 100 years ago, a Missouri-based lumber company built what became known as Maxville, a segregated logging town in northeastern Oregon. In September, archaeologists and students from Southern Oregon University dug to find artifacts from the town’s lost Black neighborhood. Now, the students are working to process and understand what they found. Mark Axel Tveskov is a professor of anthropology at Southern Oregon University who ran the dig this summer. His former student Sophia Tribelhorn was there, and is helping to catalog the finds. We are also joined by Gwendolyn Trice, founder and executive director of Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center, which manages the site.

The Federal Railroad Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is investing more than  
$40 million in rail funding for Oregon. Projects span the state and include work in Linn and Lake Counties and Coos Bay.  

Prineville is getting funding specifically allocated for rural communities. The grant will help the city restore its rail line and improve safety. Prineville’s railway has experienced its ups and downs. When the lumber business was booming in the ’60s, the railway was a major economic driver for the region.  

In recent years, the railway has had to reinvent itself to stay in business. We hear more about the efforts from Matt Wiederholt, the general manager of the City of Prineville Railway.        

Marie Tosa, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University, spent two and a half years trapping and tracking the movements of western spotted skunks across thousands of acres in forests in the western Cascades, roughly 60 miles east of Eugene.  

Little is known about the small, nocturnal carnivores which weigh between one and two pounds and burrow inside logs and hollows to avoid predators like bobcats and owls. Tosa’s field work unearthed new information about the behavior of these skunks, including a home range of up to 12 square miles they can cover while hunting for food. She also found that western spotted skunks may be vulnerable to extreme winters, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change, and the importance of old growth forests for their habitat. Tosa joins us to share more of her findings and remaining questions about their resilience to climate change.  

Democratic congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez defeated a challenge from Trump-identified Republican Joe Kent in Washington's 3rd District — despite the fact that Trump won that same district. Gluesenkamp Perez told the New York Times that result was because she refused to nationalize her local race and had solid support from working class voters, who she says her party needs to do a much better job representing. Despite a number of races around the country still too close to call, control of the U.S. House looks likely to fall to the GOP. With that party’s control of the Senate, Donald Trump re-elected as president, and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Republicans would have a lock on all three branches of government. Gluesenkamp Perez joins us from Washington, D.C. to tell us more about how she plans to represent her district and work across the aisle.

“Think Out Loud” is joined by the “Politics Now” podcast team on the air and on video livestream. Dirk VanderHart, Lauren Dake, Bryce Dole and Alex Zielinski join us to discuss the outcomes of key races and ballot measures across Oregon and Southwest Washington, what implications they may have and how they might affect the lives of Pacific Northwest residents in the year to come. 

Author Tim O’Brien is best known for his book “The Things They Carried,” about the Vietnam War. His latest book is a compilation of anecdotes and reflections on becoming a parent in late middle age, and what he wants his young children to know about him before he dies. This conversation was recorded in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival in the fall of 2019.

From homelessness to a budget crisis, Portland officials will have a lot to navigate as they take office. This year, Portlanders used ranked choice voting to decide the next mayor and council. And the city council has expanded from five seats to 12 across four geographic districts. We check in on how the election went and what’s next for the city with Alex Zielinski, OPB’s Portland city politics reporter.

On Wednesday, three Portland Commissioners - Mingus Mapps, Rene Gonzalez and Dan Ryan - decided to pull an ordinance they had filed to end the city’s 8-year partnership with Multnomah County to fight homelessness. The decision was made as Portland is poised to elect Keith Wilson, the owner of a trucking company as its next mayor, who opposes the city leaving the Joint Office of Homeless Services. The newly elected 12-person city council, along with the new mayor, will get to decide the fate of the intergovernmental agreement with the county in just two months.

In a letter she sent on election day, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said she was ready to work with Portland’s next mayor and new Multnomah County and Portland city commissioners on “solving the most pressing and challenging issues this community will face in the coming months and years.” Chair Vega Pederson joins us to talk about how new Portland city leaders might affect the future of the Joint Office on Homeless Services.