Think Out Loud

When the Portland Baroque Orchestra’s artistic director of nearly three decades announced her retirement, the organization began a years-long search for a new leader. Starting this weekend, the three finalists for the job will perform in front of live audiences in a series of concerts to determine who will lead the early music orchestra going forward. Interim Executive Director Dave Pearson and interim Artistic Director John Butt explain why taking the audiences’ opinions into account is an important part of the selection, and what these three finalists will bring to the Portland institution.

How do you preserve the image of John Day? That’s the question on the minds of residents and the answer from mayoral candidates Ron Londbum and Heather Rookstool could decide who will win the election in November. Londbum has been John Day's mayor for 10 years and is a former owner of an auto parts retailer. Rookstool is a first-term city council member and is an educational assistant with Grant Union junior and senior high school. To break down how the race is shaping up and the issues that are defining it, we’re joined by Justin Davis, senior reporter for the Blue Mountain Eagle.

Last month, Central Oregon Community College in Bend launched a four-week-long training course for students to become certified peer support specialists. A peer support specialist is someone with lived experience and formal training to help others with recovery from substance use disorder or mental illness. According to a recent study by researchers at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, the number of certified peer support specialists would need to increase by nearly a third to meet the demand for substance use treatment services in Deschutes county alone.

This is the first peer support training course offered in central Oregon, according to COCC, and is aimed at helping to meet a growing need for mental health services and substance use treatment, especially in rural communities. Joining us are Jenny Cruickshank, an assistant professor of health and human performance at Central Oregon Community College; and Terry Rogers, who completed the peer support specialist training course and is the founder of Bible Street Ministry, a faith-based nonprofit helping people experiencing homelessness in Bend.

Oregon’s 5th Congressional district is freshly redrawn and stretches from Clackamas County to Bend. New geographical coverage has now led to candidates Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Jamie McLeod-Skinner finding themselves in an extremely tight race, garnering national attention. Chavez-DeRemer is the former mayor of Happy Valley and a small business owner in health care. McLeod-Skinner an attorney and a regional emergency manager.

Oregon had its own "father of rock & roll." Some have called Johnnie Ray, an Oregon farm boy turned 1950s teen idol, the musical link between Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. In the early 1950s, Ray’s songs, including “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud that Cried,” topped the charts. Ray grew up in the Willamette Valley. A documentary about his life aired this week on OPB TV and can be watched online. We learn more about the late artist and his musical legacy from OPB’s Kami Horton, a writer and producer for Oregon Experience.

Forest Service Employees For Environmental Ethics, an Oregon-based environmental group, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the U.S. Forest Service. The complaint alleges that the agency is in violation of the Clean Water Act by inadvertently dropping fire retardant into waterways. Andy Stahl is the executive director of Forest Service Employees For Environmental Ethics. He joins us with details of the complaint.

Earlier this month, Coos and Curry County came together to plan for the worst-case disaster scenario. They underwent a series of exercises to solidify roles for each county and get familiar with what to do in the case of a tsunami, earthquake or other emergency situation. Debbie Mueller is the Coos County Emergency Coordinator. She joins us to share how these trainings went and how Oregonians can be prepared for the worst.

This election, Multnomah County voters will decide whether to join the 50 or so other municipalities around the country that have adopted a system of ranked choice voting.
Multnomah County’s Measure 26-232 is different from the one on the Portland ballot that would change the city’s form of government, including a form of ranked choice voting.
The county measure would use a basic method of instant runoff ranked choice voting to decide contests for sheriff, auditor, and all the members of the Multnomah County Commission.

As a hypothetical example, 100 voters are choosing among Apple, Banana and Cherry. Banana gets 45 first choice votes, more than Apple or Cherry, but not the 51 needed to win. Another round of counting is done: Cherry had 41, and Apple had 14, so Apple is eliminated. All of Apple’s second choice votes are then counted, which in this theoretical election are evenly split -- with seven votes going to each remaining fruit -- leaving a final tally of Banana: 52 and Cherry: 48. However, if Cherry had gotten 10 of those Apple votes instead of seven, the outcome would have put Cherry … on top.
Minneapolis, Minnesota has been using this kind of instant runoff ranked choice voting since 2009. We talk with Aaron Grossman, one of the city’s election supervisors, about how it’s been working there and what he’s heard from voters over the years.

The Bureau of Labor and Industries oversees the rights of workers in Oregon. Two candidates are vying to be the state’s next labor commissioner, a nonpartisan role. Cheri Helt is a former Republican state representative and a former member of the Bend-La Pine school board. Christina Stephenson is a civil rights attorney who represents workers in employment disputes. Both candidates join us for a debate.

Wildfire smoke drove down the air quality significantly in many parts of Oregon this summer and fall. Many students were not allowed to play or take breaks outside because of the high levels of air pollution from smoke. The Oregon Health Authority provides guidance for people — and school districts — trying to figure out what level of exposure is safe. And even though rain has finally brought some relief, questions about how to respond to bad air quality are only going to get more urgent in the coming years.

Our guests are Molly Kile, professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University; Gabriele Goldfarb, manager of the Environmental Public Health Section at the Oregon Health Authority; and Carl Mead, Deputy Superintendent of Operations and Support Services for the Beaverton School District. We discuss the effects of smoky air on young lungs, and what goes into the decisions that schools and health authorities have to make.