Think Out Loud

On Monday, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson unveiled a budget for the city as it faces a massive budget shortfall. That deficit is $65 million if you don’t include the cost of the mayor’s ambitious plan to end unsheltered homelessness, or the city's new obligations to pay for homeless shelters that Multnomah County previously paid for. Mayor Wilson’s budget calls for staff layoffs and cuts to some programs and services, while also expanding staffing for homeless services outreach, Portland Street Response and Portland Fire & Rescue. In February, City Administrator Michael Jordan outlined the scope of the deficit in the city’s general fund that is due to a range of factors, from steep declines in property and business tax revenues to mounting overtime and healthcare costs. 

The 12-member city council has until June to approve a budget and has held budget listening sessions where it’s heard from constituents concerned about cuts to city programs and services. Joining us to share details about Mayor Wilson’s proposed budget is OPB’s Portland city government reporter Alex Zielinski.

On May 2, 2000, the U.S. government lifted restrictions that made GPS technology more accurate and accessible to the general public. This day became known as Blue Switch Day, and this decision inadvertently created a new outdoor hobby. Geocaching is an activity where participants use GPS and coordinates to hunt down hidden containers, known as geocaches or caches, often located in parks, forests and cities around the world. The first cache was hidden just outside of Estacada, Oregon, only one day after Blue Switch Day. Twenty-five years later, there are now more than 3.3 million caches hidden around the world.

PJ Hubbard is the treasurer for GEOregon, a nonprofit dedicated to creating a community for geocachers in Oregon. The group is holding a Block Party event in September at Champoeg State Park to celebrate this anniversary. Hubbard joins us to share more about the past, present and future of geocaching.

The late Pope Francis brought attention to the plight of refugees and immigrants around the world, as well as to the climate crisis. He also took a different view of the role of women in the church and a more inclusive approach to gay rights and many other social issues, compared with his predecessors. Nearly one and a half billion Catholics around the world revere the Pope, and address him as “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father,” but even among non-Catholic Christians and those of other faiths, the voice and role of the Pope is unique on the world stage.
As we look to the start of the conclave next week to choose his successor, we’ll reflect on Pope Francis’s legacy and how it might influence the future of the Catholic Church. We’re joined by two different Catholic leaders in Oregon. Suzanne Thiel is a Bishop ordained by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Frank So, a lifelong Catholic,  is the executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, which includes nearly 90 faith partners, including the Archdiocese of Portland, along with Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Baha’i congregations.

Big changes could soon be coming to the way college athletes can profit off their name, image and likeness, or NIL. Since NIL legislation was first passed in 2021, student-athletes have had to pursue deals independently of their universities. But under the terms of a legal settlement announced last year, colleges could devote up to $20.5 million in athletic revenue to directly paying athletes for use of their name, image and likeness. The agreement still needs final approval from a federal judge, but is expected to be resolved in the coming weeks.

Lauren Anderson is the director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon. She joins us with more details on the settlement and its implications for college athletic programs in Oregon.

A bill in the Oregon Legislature would set up a structure for social media companies to compensate local news producers whose content is shared on those sites. SB 686 is based in part on bills in California and New Jersey, as well as a law that recently went into effect in Canada. It was meant for the largest social media companies to compensate local news media organizations whose content is shared on the platforms — thus supporting news outlets, many which have seen advertising revenues plummet. But the law has had some unintended consequences, including Meta simply deciding not to allow news to be shared at all in Canada. 

Joining us to talk about the law's intentions, its unintended consequences and possible solutions is Ryan Adam, formerly the vice president of government and public relationships for the Toronto Star. He led efforts to pass the country’s Online News Act, also known as the C-18 law, and testified in Salem in April about Canada’s law. 

OPB is among the news media organizations that testified in support of the Oregon bill.

Washington lawmakers have ended their legislative session by sending a $78 billion budget to Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk. It includes nearly $6 billion in cuts and over $9 billion in taxes. Legislators also passed rent cap increases and a new gun permit system. Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joins us to share what the Washington Legislature accomplished this session. 

For the last year, Grants Pass has been at the center of a national conversation about where people who are homeless can stay. A lawsuit brought against the city by a group of homeless people had made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court: Grants Pass v. Johnson. Last June, the court released a six-to-three decision finding that it is not cruel or unusual punishment to penalize people for living outdoors even if they have nowhere else to go.But that ruling was not an end to legal battles about homelessness in Grants Pass or around the country. Earlier this year, after the city council closed one of its two sanctioned camp sites, a new lawsuit was filed, leading a judge to order another injunction -- and the city council to re-open one of those sites.Scott Nelson is the board president of MINT, a homeless services nonprofit. Susan Clark is the executive director of Mid Rogue Foundation, a nonprofit focused on housing. Indra Nicholas is a city councilor and small business owner.  Brock Spurgeon is a tile contractor and one of the founders of Park Watch Grants Pass. They joined us in front of a live audience to talk about homelessness at the Performing Arts Center at Grants Pass High School on April 29

Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half was on a lot of best-of lists in 2020. Though spanning the second half of the 20th century, the novel speaks to questions about race and identity that have been central to national conversations for the last two years. In that novel and her other writing, Bennett deals with the bonds of family, the importance of storytelling, and nature of identity. We spoke to Bennett about her essays and novels in front of an audience of students at Grant High School in Portland in 2021.

Jack Reacher may be one of the most iconic action book heroes of all time. Over 100 million copies of author Lee Child’s books have been sold. But the author who has taken over the series is perhaps a little less well known. Andrew Child, who also writes under the name Andrew Grant, is now carrying on the legacy of Jack Reacher for his older brother. He came to Portland for the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the 29th book in the series, “In Too Deep.” 

Amid the flurry of executive orders President Trump signed on his first day in office was one that called for a 90-day pause and review of all foreign assistance programs. Three months later, that has resulted in the cancellation of thousands of contracts and grants distributed through the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the gutting of the agency’s workforce. 

Portland-based Mercy Corps is one of the many organizations that USAID had awarded grants to for the delivery of humanitarian assistance around the world. Mercy Corps says 40 of its 62 programs that were funded through those grants have now been terminated, from a project that would have provided clean drinking water to 12,000 villagers in Afghanistan to health centers in Nigeria that provided lifesaving food and nutrition services to tens of thousands of young children and pregnant women at risk of starvation and malnutrition.

Mary Stata is the chief development officer of Mercy Corps. She joins us to share the scope and human toll of the terminated programs and the future of international humanitarian aid without U.S. government support.