Think Out Loud

Classes at Portland Public Schools begin next week and the district also welcomes a new superintendent. Kimberlee Armstrong began her career as a teacher in the Puyallup School District in Washington and most recently served as deputy superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver. Armstrong joins to share what she’s looking forward to in her first year overseeing the district and goals in her first year.

Nearly 20 years ago, researchers at Oregon State University began leading an effort to collect information about the structure and evolution of the North American continent using electromagnetic energy. That effort is finally complete. The new map can be used to protect the electrical grid during extreme solar storms and identify geohazards. It can also help target locations for tapping natural resources, including geothermal power and critical minerals. Adam Schultz led the effort at OSU and joins us to explain what we can learn from a better understanding of the Earth’s geoelectric properties.

Central Oregon poet, teacher and author Ellen Waterston began her role this month as the state’s official Poet Laureate. Waterston has won many literary awards, including two WILLA awards and the Obsidian prize for poetry. This year she received both the Holbrook and Soapstone award in recognition of her contributions to Oregon’s literary landscape. She began her own Writing Ranch in 2000 in Central Oregon to support and nurture writers, and she was instrumental in the genesis of the low residency MFA program at Oregon State University, Cascades, where she now also teaches. She often writes about the landscape where she makes her home and is currently working on a new collection of poetry that will feature a series of commissioned pieces that celebrate remote locations all over the West. We last talked with Waterston in 2020 when her nonfiction book “Walking in the High Desert” was published. She joins us to discuss her poetry, her teaching and how she plans to meet her self-appointed goal of “kindling creativity and community” around poetry throughout Oregon over the next two years.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation has made it clear, shared electric scooters are here to stay. Two new multiyear contracts with Lime and Lyft have recently been announced that would bring the citywide fleet to upward of 3,500 scooters. Millicent Williams is the director of PBOT. She joins us to share more on this expansion and micromobility in Portland.

A big shift took place over the weekend in the way people buy and sell homes in the U.S. The National Association of Realtors settled a lawsuit earlier this year that changed the way real estate agents get paid. Previously, a home seller would pay for both their own real estate agent and the agent representing the buyer. The two agents would split the commission, which was typically around 5-6% of the home’s selling price. But now, buyers either have to pay for their own representation or negotiate with the seller to pay their agent’s fee. Some agents say the new rules will mean more clarity for consumers, while others say they will drive agents out of the business. Ashleigh Fordham is the principal broker and owner of Windermere Real Estate in Salem. She’s also the current president of the Oregon Association of Realtors. Colin Mullane is a former president of the organization and the principal broker and owner of Full Circle Real Estate in Ashland. They join us to share their perspectives on how these changes are playing out in Oregon.

On Monday, the Oregon Department of Forestry confirmed that the emerald ash borer has been discovered in three new counties in the Willamette Valley. In the past month, the invasive pest was caught in traps set in Marion and Yamhill counties, and is also suspected of being in neighboring Clackamas County, pending confirmation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The highly destructive beetle, which is native to Asia, has killed over 100 million ash trees nationwide since it first appeared in the U.S. over 20 years ago. The state’s agriculture and forestry departments quickly mobilized to contain it when it was first spotted in Oregon in Forest Grove in Washington County two years ago. Those efforts included issuing a quarantine that’s now permanent to prevent the movement of firewood and other plant materials out of the county made from ash, white fringe and olive trees. State crews have also removed infested ash trees and have been treating healthy trees with insecticide near infestation sites. Lilah Gonen is a community assistance forester and the emerald ash borer coordinator for ODF. They join us to talk about the state’s efforts to slow the spread of emerald ash borer and the threat it poses to native Oregon ash trees.  

On Monday, the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago. It comes four weeks after President Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic party nominee. Harris quickly ramped up her campaign and won a majority of delegate votes to secure the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this month, and shortly thereafter announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Kien Truong is a delegate from Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, the chair of the Young Democrats of Oregon Caucus and is currently attending the convention. He is also a gay immigrant from Vietnam who became a U.S. citizen in 2021. He joins us from Chicago to share his perspective and efforts to mobilize young, diverse voters ahead of the November general 

Georgia Cloepfil spent six years playing soccer professionally in six different countries after she graduated from college. It was a lonely, physically demanding life that was also incredibly rewarding. Cloepfil’s new memoir, “The Striker and the Clock,” details that time, and the beauty and complexity of the game she still loves.

On August 24, 1949, work crews and bulldozers cleared out a neighborhood just outside of Eugene known as Ferry Street Village. The Lane County Board of Commissioners had voted to demolish the neighborhood just a month before, and some residents who hadn't gotten the news ran from their homes with as much as they could carry. The neighborhood was one of the only places near Eugene where Black people could settle. The Black Cultural Initiative is working with other groups to raise money for a monument to the neighborhood and the families that lived there. Talicia Brown-Crowell, the founder of BCI, joins us to talk about why it is important to preserve the history of this neighborhood.    

The Portland Votes 2024 Grant Program has awarded $210,000 to 11 different organizations to support education efforts about ranked choice voting. The adoption of a new city charter has changed multiple aspects of city government. One of the most prolific is that in November, voters will participate in a ranked choice voting process to choose city council members, which is different from how many people are used to voting. Direct voter education grantees including APANO, NAYA and Urban League of Portland will provide cultural and language-specific educational opportunities about the new system to the communities they serve, while other grantees will hold broader voter education efforts. Grace Ramsey, co-founder of Democracy Rising and the project manager of the grant program, joins us to share more about these educational opportunities.