Think Out Loud

The lack of public restrooms remains an issue across the country. In Portland, there are about 17 public restrooms per 100,000 citizens, according to some estimates.  When the city placed more than 100 red portable toilets around town in 2020, some residents vehemently opposed their arrival. In 2023, only about 16 of the toilets remained, according to KGW.  Public restrooms offer a low barrier place for people to use the bathroom and wash their hands. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends carefully washing your hands with soap and water after going to the bathroom and changing diapers to prevent shigella infections. The bacteria causes inflammatory diarrhea.      In Multnomah County, shigella infections have been on the rise, according to The Oregonian. In 2023, a similar cluster of cases occurred as well.  Merilee Karr is the president of Phlush, an organization that advocates for better public sanitation. She joins us with more on why Portland and other cities would benefit from more public toilets. 

Measure 114, which was narrowly approved by Oregon voters in 2022, bans the purchase of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and requires a permit for anybody purchasing a firearm. The measure never went into effect after it faced a number of legal challenges, but on Wednesday the Oregon Court of Appeals declared the measure constitutional. This overturns a 2023 decision from an Eastern Oregon judge who ruled it violated Oregon law. OPB reporter Conrad Wilson joins us to explain what it all means.

As a 9-year-old boy, Javier Zamora traveled over 3,000 miles to be with his parents, who had fled El Salvador to live and work in the United States. Zamora traveled with a group of people who were initially strangers and the various people they paid to help them survive the two month journey. Zamora’s memoir about the experience, “Solito,” is the choice for Multnomah County’s ‘Everybody Reads’ program in 2025. We talk to Zamora in front of students at Portland’s McDaniel High School.

Portland author David F. Walker and illustrator Marcus Kwame Anderson have worked together before - on a 2021 graphic novel about the Black Panther Party. This time they’ve teamed up on something a little different: an update of the classic American novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In their version, the escaped slave Jim is more than just Huck’s companion; he’s a fully imagined character. Walker joins us to talk about the work of updating an American classic.

Portland artist Arvie Smith is known for colorful, larger-than-life oil paintings that explore oppression and injustice against Black Americans through symbolism and visual tropes. He’s also a professor emeritus at Pacific Northwest College of Art after a 35-year tenure. His murals can be seen on buildings in North Portland and at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Center, where he spent time teaching art to incarcerated youth. Despite being in his mid-80s, Smith is far from retired — just last year, he received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. The work he created during that fellowship is currently on display in Chicago. Titled “Crossing Clear Creek,” the exhibit explores Smith’s childhood memories and experience of race in rural Texas and Los Angeles. Smith joins us to talk about his life and work.

One of the many training programs the Portland Police Bureau requires before officers go out into communities on their own is a simple exercise called Talk A Mile. Police officers are paired with high school students of color and sent off to walk around the track together with four different topics on a note card for each of the four laps in a mile. Justin and Erika Fogarty started the program with a pilot in 2022, which their teenaged son Liam participated in. The Bureau immediately incorporated Talk A Mile as part of the curriculum for officers in the advanced academy as part of their probationary period. We talk with the couple, along with past participants high school junior Elija Graham and Portland Police Officer Danielle Wilson, to hear more about the program’s intentions and outcomes.

Lawmakers in Olympia are considering a proposal that would create tougher regulations around youth labor in Washington. HB 1644 would set minimum penalties for youth labor violations and prohibit companies with multiple serious safety violations from hiring minors.  In 2023, a Washington teen lost both of his legs working on a construction site through a school program. An investigation by Cascade PBS found that public officials and the construction company disregarded safety rules leading up to the injury. Lizz Giordano is an investigative reporter at Cascade PBS. She joins us with details of the bill and her reporting.   

Oregon lawmakers are once again debating how best to allocate education funding to improve attendance, graduation rates, test scores and other key metrics of success. Meanwhile, parents and educators are pushing to remove restrictions on the amount of money school districts can receive for students with special needs. Lawmakers are also considering a bill that nearly passed last year that would block schools from removing certain books from libraries and classrooms.  Natalie Pate is OPB’s K-12 education reporter. She joins us to talk about all of those efforts and more.

There were two gun-related homicides in Gresham in January 2025. That's two too many, says Gresham Police Chief Travis Gullberg. Gullberg is one of the people involved in the city’s new Ceasefire initiative, which brings together community-based organizations, city leadership, law enforcement and public health experts to reduce gun violence through focused outreach. Gullberg joins us, along with Marcell Frazier, violence prevention and community partnerships coordinator for the City of Gresham, to explain how the program will work.

Clark County Jail in Vancouver recently became the first jail in Washington state licensed to provide methadone on-site through a treatment program for opioid use disorder. A team of specialists at the jail also administer buprenorphine, another medication approved by the FDA to manage withdrawal symptoms and the cravings associated with drugs like fentanyl.  More than half of the jail population in Washington has an opioid use disorder, according to researchers at the University of Washington. Last year, Clark County Jail installed a vending machine in its lobby that dispenses free fentanyl test strips and naloxone to reverse potentially fatal overdoses. Joining us to talk about these harm reduction efforts and the opioid treatment program at Clark County Jail are Anna Lookingbill, the jail transition manager, and Matt West, the addiction medicine medical director at the jail’s Comprehensive Treatment Center, which is operated by Acadia Healthcare.