Think Out Loud

Joel’s Law in Washington allows a guardian, conservator or loved one to petition a court to force treatment for people who suffer from serious mental illness. Some supporters of the law have called it a lifeline for family members desperately seeking care for a loved one, but others have concerns about stripping away a person's civil liberties. The law has been in place for about a decade.
InvestigateWest, the Kitsap Sun and Gig Harbor Now recently co-published a deep dive into the law. Conor Wilson is a reporter for the Kitsap Sun and the nonprofit newsroom Gig Harbor Now. Moe Clark is a collaborative investigative reporter for InvestigateWest. Their positions are supported by the Murrow News Fellowship, an initiative of Washington State University that offers early-career journalists the opportunity to report on civic affairs in underserved communities. They join us with more on Joel’s Law.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a class of synthetic chemicals that have been used since the 1940s to manufacture a wide range of products, from nonstick cookware to firefighting foam, clothes and electronics. PFAS have also been described as “forever chemicals” because they easily disperse and persist in the environment, where they’ve been found in drinking water, soil, air and even the food supply.

This week, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality opened public comment on its proposed rulemaking to regulate six types of PFAS compounds, adding them to the list of more than 800 hazardous substances the agency already regulates. Exposure to certain levels of PFAS may increase the risk for some types of cancer, lead to developmental delays in children, among other adverse health effects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last April, the EPA designated two PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances and created the first-ever, national drinking water standard for six PFAS chemicals.

Sarah Van Glubt is a cleanup project manager for the Oregon DEQ. She joins us to share what the proposed PFAS regulations would allow for, including testing and cleanup 

Ashleigh Flynn is a long time Portland musician who was primarily a solo artist for much of her career. But that all changed in 2015 when a friend introduced her to Nancy Luca, who had an all-female cover band. She and Luca hit it off and drew other women into a new all-female band: Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters, an homage to Rosie the Riveter, the WWII-era icon of female power and can-do spirit. The band is celebrating 10 years of making Americana music that embraces joy and creativity as a facet of resistance with a new album called "Good Morning Sunshine,” which drops this week. The band will play a record release concert at Mississippi Studios in Portland on Saturday, April 5, before they hit the road on tour. Flynn joins us in studio with Luca and other members of the band to play a few songs and give us a sneak peek of the album.

In 2013, Oregon implemented a plan to expand access to home and community-based services for Medicaid recipients with intellectual, developmental or psychiatric disabilities. The goal was to allow more Oregonians to receive care at home rather than in an institution. While programs were established for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, no supports have been created for individuals under age 21 who require inpatient-level psychiatric care. Senate Bill 909 would require the Oregon Health Authority to establish criteria for that program and a pathway to services.

Jessa Reinhardt is a parent and mental health advocate pushing for SB 909. She joins us with more details on the bill and what it could mean for families with children who have severe mental health needs.  

Portland economist Joe Cortright says ODOT’s projects have a history of costing much more than initial estimates. He points to proposals like the I-5 Rose Quarter project which has been in the works for nearly a decade and is estimated to cost around $1.9 billion. The estimate in 2017 was $450 million. A Statesman Journal investigation found that ODOT’s projects were over budget and the agency was unable to track some of its funds and how they were spent. Cortright, the director of City Observatory, an urban policy think tank based in Portland, joins us with details of his concerns.

In a statement, ODOT writes:
Transportation agencies across the state face a structural revenue issue. This issue is driven by three causes: flattening and declining gas tax revenues as cars become more efficient, consistent inflation that eats away at the purchasing power of each dollar, and legal restrictions that prevent ODOT from using available dollars to fund maintenance and operations.
While the Legislature increased the gas tax in recent years, revenues are now at their peak and are expected to flatten and decline in coming years. When you account for inflation, the buying power of that revenue source is set to dramatically decrease.

ODOT’s major projects in the Portland metro area, supported by city, county, state, Metro and community leaders, have seen costs grow in recent years. However, the funds dedicated to these projects are specifically directed by the legislature to construction projects and cannot be used for day-to-day maintenance and operations of the highway system. We are forced to cut back on critical efforts like plowing snow and fixing potholes independent of funding these popular projects. The public and our partners have consistently told us they want us to do both.

We take our responsibility to provide safe travel for all Oregonians very seriously. The last thing we want to do is let the system we built fall into disrepair. But because of how our funding is structured, we are increasingly forced to do so.

We are focused on achieving sufficient and sustainable funding for maintenance and operations in this legislative session. We are increasingly optimistic that the legislature will take this opportunity to break the pattern of past legislatures and robustly fund the maintenance, operation and preservation of our transportation system.

Shortly before the fall of Saigon in 1975, roughly 3,000 children were flown out of Vietnam in an effort dubbed Operation Babylift. The children went on to be adopted by families in the U.S., Australia and other countries. An initiative of the Ford administration, the operation was billed as a humanitarian effort to rescue Vietnamese orphans – many of them fathered by American servicemen – from advancing communist forces. However, the program has also faced criticism for removing children from their homeland and potentially separating them from living relatives.

Thuy Williams and Jodi Willis were both airlifted out of Vietnam as children and adopted by families in Oregon. They join us to talk about the legacy of Operation Babylift 50 years later.

Attorney Julia Olson founded the nonprofit public interest law firm Our Children’s Trust in 2010 in Eugene. Five years later, she filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kelsey Juliana and 20 other youth activists in Oregon and elsewhere. Their contention was simple on its face: youth have a right to a stable climate, just as they have a right to clean water and clean air. It used the public trust doctrine in a novel way at the time. Since the suit was filed in 2015, Juliana v. U.S. has been in and out of district and appeals courts and was cleared to go to trial in 2023. But last year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the federal government's motion to dismiss the case. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to intervene, but dismissed the case “without prejudice,” enabling the case to potentially be filed at a later time. Olson joins us to talk about what the last decade has shown her and the "Juliana 21" about the most effective ways to challenge climate change policy in the U.S. today.

For more than 30 years, Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been in place for situations that don’t need an armed police response, like mental health crises, overdoses and homelessness. The program has gotten a lot of national attention, and the model has been an inspiration for cities across the country, including Portland. But last week, White Bird Clinic, which runs CAHOOTS, announced that the hours of service in Eugene city limits will be reduced to just one shift per week — down from 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Amée Markwardt, interim executive director of the White Bird Clinic, joins us to discuss their funding challenges.

The biggest determining factor in whether someone will become homeless is if they have ever been homeless. Keeping children out of homelessness, so they won’t become homeless as adults is one of the big reasons the Portland-based nonprofit Path Home exists. And as Oregon has the highest rate of children experiencing unsheltered homelessness, the need for the kinds of services the nonprofit provides is greater than ever.

Executive director Brandi Tuck says the nonprofit is committed to the “housing first” approach to solving family homelessness, which includes providing trauma-informed temporary housing to families and connecting them with services and individual support they need to stay successfully housed. She says with the housing shortage and high cost of housing, it’s also important to note — especially during budget shortfalls — that housing whole families can be far less expensive than many kinds of shelters, which can run thousands of dollars a month, per person. We talk with Tuck about Path Home’s mission — and its evidence-based approach.

There are 19 local programs across Oregon that recruit, train, supervise and support volunteers who serve as Court Appointed Special Advocates for foster children and youth. The programs operate independently with their own budgets and are funded through a mix of state dollars, private donations, philanthropic grants and community fundraising. 

This fiscal year, they were also expecting to get a one-time allocation of $1.7 million from the federal government, which was earmarked for community project funding in Oregon. But last month, the Continuing Resolution that Congress passed stripped this funding, which would have been disbursed through the Oregon CASA Network to each of the local programs, based on the number of foster children and youth in the counties they serve. 

Jennifer Mylenek, the executive director of CASA of Jackson and Josephine Counties, and Mary Collard, the executive director of CASA of Eastern Oregon, join us to talk about how they’re coping with the impact of the loss of these funds within their rural communities.