Think Out Loud

Portland city officials are currently considering what to do with one of downtown’s largest venues. The Keller Auditorium is more than a century old and was last renovated in the 1960s. A 2020 analysis found that the building needs a seismic upgrade and a number of accessibility improvements to bring it up to modern standards. Some are arguing for an extensive renovation of the current space, while others are pushing for a new auditorium to be built on the Portland State University campus or as part of a redeveloped Lloyd Center. The City Council is expected to take up the proposals this spring. Brian Libby, a freelance architecture and design journalist, recently wrote about all of this for Oregon ArtsWatch. He joins us with more details on the pros and cons of each proposal.

On June 3, 2016, a train carrying crude oil derailed in Mosier, a Wasco County community in the Columbia River Gorge. Several rail cars caught fire and oil leaked into the Columbia River.  For some officials, the incident was a wake-up call. Trains carrying oil regularly pass through the Columbia River Gorge. In Oregon, agencies are coordinating with officials from Washington, tribal and federal governments to prepare for future oil spills. Chuck Thompson is the editor of Columbia Insight, a nonprofit news website covering environmental issues around the Columbia River Basin. He wrote about these efforts and joins us with details. 

With spring break around the corner, many students will be enjoying their time away from school work, but some may find themselves picking up jobs as babysitters. Margie House is the 4-H program coordinator at Oregon State University’s Extension program and runs a babysitter teaching program. She joins us to share more on the demand for the course and what students are learning.

After seeing an all-time high for gun violence at the end of 2022, Portland saw a 22% decrease in overall shootings last year. In late February, Mayor Ted Wheeler attributed this decline to a community-city partnership known as Portland Ceasefire. Marcell Frazier is the director of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention. Mike Myers is the community safety transition director. They have collaborated on Ceasefire and join us to discuss what gun violence currently looks like in the city and what is being done to address it

Inadequate state funding and the end of COVID-19 relief dollars have left school districts across Oregon with multimillion-dollar budget deficits. Portland Public Schools officials are planning to cut $30 million out of next year’s budget and administrators at Salem-Keizer Public Schools need to cut $60 million. The Bend-La Pine School Board recently voted to place a local tax levy on the spring ballot in an effort to close their funding gaps. And in Southwest Washington, Evergreen Public Schools is facing a $16-20 million budget shortfall, while Vancouver Public Schools is facing $35 million. OPB’s K-12 education reporter Natalie Pate joins us to share more about what’s driving the budget cuts and the impact they could have on students and families.

Every year, students across the country memorize and recite poems for the Poetry Out Loud competition. But for Deaf students, memorization isn’t the only challenge – they first have to translate the poem from English to American Sign Language. From there, they work to interpret the poem’s meaning and incorporate it into their performance in ASL.  Traiton Kramer and Brayden Olson are seniors at Oregon School for the Deaf. They both competed at the state Poetry Out Loud competition this year and join to tell us more about the process, along with Gayle Robertson, a curriculum specialist who coordinates the competition at the school. 

In 2017, Vancouver resident Lois Smith got the idea to put out a succinct print guide to resources and services for people experiencing homelessness. She’d been volunteering with Friends of the Carpenter, a faith-based nonprofit that runs a day center for people experiencing homelessness. She says the stories from the unhoused people she talked to stayed with her, and realized she could put something tangible into their hands to help direct them to services, shelter and other resources. She knew it had to be informed by the people she wanted to help and she wanted to be light, withstand rain, snow and heat.   Smith now puts out the guides yearly as an independent project that is funded entirely by donations. They’re printed yearly in different colors, making it easier to tell which one is current. She says she works with local officials, law enforcement, social service agencies, churches and many others to make sure the content is useful - and gets into the hands of people who need it. Portland’s Street Roots puts out a similar paper guide, though not a waterproof one. Smith joins us to tell us more about how the guides are used in Vancouver and Clark County and how she sees the idea spreading.

Within the last three years, there has been a 449% increase in children under the age of 6 being exposed to fentanyl, according to a new study from Oregon Health and Science University. Researchers looked at U.S. poison control data and found significantly more incidents compared to previous years. There were no reported incidents of fentanyl poisoning in Oregon in 2020, but by 2023, there were 16. Robert Hendrickson is the medical director of the Oregon Poison Center at OHSU. He joins us to share more on the increase and why it’s happening

Three college basketball teams from Oregon are competing in the March Madness NCAA tournament which started on Tuesday. Oregon State University women’s basketball team is a No. 3 seed and will make its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2021 on Thursday, when it hosts Eastern Washington University. The University of Portland women’s basketball team is making its second consecutive tournament appearance this year after winning the West Coast Conference championship game with a one-point victory over Gonzaga University earlier this month. The University of Oregon Ducks enter the NCAA men’s tournament as a No. 11 seed after winning their last championship game as a member of the Pac-12 conference. UO joins the Big Ten conference in the fall.  Brenna Greene is a sports anchor and reporter at KOIN 6. She joins us to talk about March Madness, including some in the women’s Sweet 16 and Elite 8 rounds that will be held in Portland next weekend. 

SafeSpace is a children’s advocacy center in Hood River that serves five counties in the Columbia River Gorge. It offers an array of services, including forensic interviews, medical exams and psychological counseling, to suspected victims of child abuse, maltreatment or neglect, as well as their family members. The organization also accepts referrals of suspected child abuse cases from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Police Department.  As reported previously by Columbia Gorge News, SafeSpace is holding an open house for community members this Wednesday at its new facility in Hood River, which it moved into in January. Executive Director Beatriz Lynch says the new space will allow the center to double its caseload and reduce wait times for children and their families. It will also include a new pediatric mental health care clinic for which funds are being raised to open this summer. Lynch joins us to talk about SafeSpace’s expansion plans amid a growing need for its services.