Think Out Loud

By Oregon Public BroadcastingSociety & Culture News Arts

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Think Out Loud episodes

April 13 Portland proposal to raise pay for Uber and Lyft drivers opposed by business lobbying group, ride-hailing companies
Portland city councilors are discussing a proposal that would raise take-home pay for Uber and Lyft drivers by limiting how much money the companies can take from each trip. Councilors are considering a limit of 20% for the portion that Uber and Lyft can take from a driver. Currently, the amount isn’t fixed, and can sometimes be over40%.

Uber and Lyft have threatened to leave Portland over the proposal. Uber claims it would force the company to raise its rates or operate at a loss for most rides.

The Portland Metro Chamber and the “We Play for Portland” Coalition, which includes the Portland Trail Blazers, the Oregon Symphony, Portland Art Museum and other Portland sports and arts organizations are opposed to the city council's draft proposal. The groups warned city council in a letter they released that if rideshare companies decrease their services or leave Portland, it could greatly affect audience turnout at Portland events.

We hear from Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guinea, as well as Jon Isaacs, the Executive Vice President of Public Affairs for the Portland Metro Chamber of Commerce, about the draft proposal and what it could mean for the future of rideshare services in Portland.

28 min
April 10 Cochlear implant helps Portlander make new music after losing hearing in one ear
Portlander Sean Wolfe has been making electronic music off and on under the moniker Salvo Beta for more than three decades. During the pandemic, he started experiencing hearing loss in his right ear and other symptoms such as balance problems and tinnitus, or a ringing sensation in the ear. Wolfe was diagnosed with a kind of rare, noncancerous tumor that left untreated can lead to permanent hearing loss, facial paralysis and worse.

So in October 2024, Wolfe got surgery to not only remove the tumor, but also get a cochlear implant, an electronic device affixed behind the ear that directly stimulates the auditory nerve. Although the surgery was a success, he had months of rehabilitation and adjusting to a new sonic environment. That includes difficulty hearing certain kinds of sounds and experiencing shifts in sound frequencies.

Wolfe says his cochlear implant has opened new creative doors musically. He contributed two new songs to an album of remixes that will be released later this month by Chicago indie rock band Still Machine. Wolfe wants to compose music specifically for people who are hard of hearing, and he’s finishing work on an album of new, original material. He joins us to share his journey as a musician with a cochlear implant.

26 min
April 10 Industry groups raise concerns about Oregon's Climate Protection Program
Oregon’s Climate Protection Program was established in 2021 to place a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels throughout the state. The program hadn’t gone into effect for most natural gas customers until November 2025. Natural gas users must use less natural gas, or face higher costs.

Many environmentalists are happy with the program and its progress towards reducing carbon emissions, but many policymakers view the program as flawed. Nigel Jaquiss, the senior investigative reporter at the Oregon Journalism Project, has been looking into this program, and how the climate policy is affecting businesses throughout the state.

Editor's note: This description and headline has been updated to more accurately describe Oregon's Climate Protection Program's impact on industrial and commercial users of natural gas.

17 min
April 10 Vancouver’s housing construction not keeping pace with city’s expected growth
By 2045, Vancouver’s population is expected to grow by more than 80,000 new residents – a roughly 40% increase. According to Vancouver’s 2025 Housing Report, the city will need to develop 2,500 new units a year to meet housing demand. But the city is falling well short of that goal for both market-rate and affordable housing projects, as OPB recently reported.

City officials point to a range of factors for the slowdown. That includes rising construction costs, high interest rates, the ongoing effects of tariffs and the difficulty of accessing state funds to develop multifamily, affordable housing units.

Meanwhile, Vancouver is close to finalizing a new comprehensive plan to guide the city’s growth over the next 20 years. The draft calls for updating zoning codes to ease higher-density housing development in neighborhoods, for example, which would align with new state requirements to boost housing development.

OPB’s Southwest Washington Bureau Chief Erik Neumann joins us for more details.

11 min
April 09 Students at two Portland high schools organize climate justice summit
On Saturday, a climate justice summit will take place at Lincoln High School in Southwest Portland. The event is free, open to the public and is being organized by students at Lincoln’s environmental justice class and students at Ida B. Wells’ Eco Action Club. It’s the first time students at the two PPS schools have collaborated to create a climate justice summit, according to Tim Swinehart, a Lincoln social studies teacher who launched the environmental justice course in 2016.

Lincoln and Wells students will moderate a panel discussion at the summit and present workshops such as one on lobbying and giving testimony, which they did at the state legislature in Salem earlier this year and last December during a Portland Planning Commission meeting. The students also invited advocacy groups such as the Braided River Campaign, Sunrise Movement and Neighbors for Clean Air to give workshops on how to organize a protest and other topics.

Lincoln High School senior Leah Almeida and Ida B. Wells High School junior Emma Lopez join us, along with Swinehart, for a preview of Saturday’s activities.

17 min
April 09 What the reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service will mean for the Pacific Northwest
The Trump administration announced a massive reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service last week. The agency’s headquarters will move from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah, and its regional offices will be replaced by 15 state-based offices. Additionally, more than 50 research stations will close across 31 states, including one in Oregon and two in Washington.

Christine Peterson is a freelance reporter covering wildlife, the environment and outdoor recreation. She wrote about the reorganization for High Country News and joins us with more details.
12 min
April 09 ‘Price of Justice’ report says rural, low-income and BIPOC Oregonians suffer disproportionate financial burden in court
The Oregon justice system imposes fees, fines and restitution on people found guilty of a wide range of crimes. These different kinds of financial penalties are having a severe and disproportionate impact on people of color and those in low- income neighborhoods and rural communities, according to a new report called “The Price of Justice in Oregon.” The broad look at jurisdictions all over the state was years in the making and resulted from the combined efforts of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, the Policy Advocacy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law, and the Portland-based CLEAR Clinic, which provides free legal services to Oregonians. We get more details and the report’s policy recommendations from Portlander Gus Patel-Tupper with the UC Berkeley School of Law.

24 min
April 08 Jackson County nonprofit health provider rolls out new mobile health clinic
In February, a bright blue, 38-foot-long, custom-built mobile health clinic rolled into Jackson County. Five days a week, it provides an array of free or low-cost services in Medford and Ashland that range from filling medications and running lab tests to dental exams and wound treatment. The mobile health clinic is operated by La Clinica, a nonprofit that for nearly 40 years has been helping meet the health care needs of primarily low-income residents in Jackson County.

This is La Clinica’s third mobile health clinic and the first time it has been able to provide these services in nearly three years after an arson fire destroyed its previous mobile clinic just a few days after it began seeing patients. Roughly 160 patients have already visited the new mobile clinic during its stops at food pantries, campgrounds, apartment complexes and other sites, according to Zulma Larios, La Clinica’s field-based care manager. The patients include Latinx residents afraid of visiting hospitals and clinics because of increased federal immigration enforcement, unhoused people and former adults in custody reentering society. Larios joins us to share more details about the impact the mobile health clinic is having.

19 min
April 08 OHSU program helps children on Medicaid prepare for kindergarten
Access to preschool in Oregon remains limited, with more than half of the state’s school districts reporting that demand has outpaced available slots. The deficit could leave many children without the early literacy and math skills they’re expected to bring into kindergarten.

The Kinder Coaching Program at Oregon Health & Science University aims to incorporate school readiness into medical care. During a routine visit, medical providers can refer children on Medicaid to a team of community health workers who help them develop the cognition, communication and social-emotional skills they need for kindergarten.

Jaime Peterson is a pediatrician at OHSU and director of the Kinder Coaching Program. Isha Syll is a certified community health worker and one of the program’s “kinder coaches.” They both join us to talk about the importance of providing early learning opportunities for low-income families.

16 min
April 08 Nurses say patients at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem still at risk
The Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the state’s only public psychiatric hospital, is facing multiple lawsuits alleging retaliation against those who have formally raised serious issues about the way it is treating — or failing to treat — its patients.
OSH has been out of compliance with federal standards in recent years, and it has been found in contempt of court for not admitting mentally ill criminal defendants quickly enough.
Last year, Lindsey Sande, the deputy chief nursing officer at OHS was so concerned she made a formal complaint. But she says nothing was done, and the patient died 9 days later. She says she was demoted shortly thereafter, along with two other whistleblowers.
We’ll talk with Lillian Mongeau Hughes who covers homelessness and mental health for The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com. And we hear directly from Sande about how she sees OSH patients being cared for and how employees who speak up are being retaliated against.
19 min