Nurse navigation programs have been proposed as one solution to overburdened emergency services systems. Instead of sending an ambulance, dispatchers direct low-level 911 calls to a team of nurses who can give advice or help callers set up an urgent care or telehealth appointment. The idea is to provide patients with the appropriate level of care while freeing up EMS resources to respond to life-threatening calls. Clackamas County recently launched a nurse navigation program, and Clark County has been operating its program in Southwest Washington for more than a year. Rocco Roncarati is the regional director for ambulance provider American Medical Response’s operations in Southwest Washington. Marlow Macht is the medical program director for Clark County EMS and an emergency physician at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center. They both join us to talk about how the nurse navigation program is going in Clark County

Some tenants in Southwest Washington and other parts of the state could face a predicament the next time they sign or renew a lease: either sign a nondisclosure agreement or risk eviction and having to look elsewhere in a tight housing market. The NDAs are being used to prevent tenants from disclosing to others, with the exception of immediate family members, how much they pay in rent, security deposits or other associated fees. According to reporting by The Columbian, the use of NDAs by landlords is raising concerns among tenant advocates that they could be used to discriminate against prospective renters, such as people who use Section 8 federal housing vouchers. Landlords could, for example, advertise properties with high monthly rents and security deposits while reducing those fees through NDAs in contracts they offer higher-income tenants.  Alexis Weisend, the affordable housing and homelessness reporter at The Columbian, joins us to share more details.  

The founders of SnoPlanks, a Bend-based snowboard company, decided to donate it to the Oregon State University Cascades campus. Now, students are running the show.  SnoPlanks Academy aims to teach students skills like marketing, sales and supply chain management with hands-on experience. Students also ran a booth at the Snowvana trade show in Portland earlier this month.  We learn more about the program from Caitlin Colgin, the president of SnoPlanks and a senior majoring in outdoor products in the college of engineering and Todd Laurence, an instructor and the executive director of SnoPlanks Academy at OSU-Cascades.

Under a waiver program, states can test new ways to offer Medicaid services.  For Oregon, that means some people on the Oregon Health Plan can get help with housing costs. Oregon is the first in the nation to roll out rental assistance as a statewide Medicaid benefit for eligible OHP members, according to the Oregon Health Authority.  People would need to have a qualifying risk factor to be eligible for the aid, which could include rental assistance for up to six months and help paying utility bills.  Steph Jarem is the 1115 waiver policy director for OHA. Andrea Bell is the Executive Director of Oregon Housing and Community Services. They join us with details of the program and what it means for Oregonians. 

Nationwide, the Democratic Party had little to celebrate this election cycle. Republicans took control of the Senate, the House and the presidency. But in Oregon, state Representative Janelle Bynum ran against 5th District Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer - and won. Her victory is also notable as she will become the state’s first Black Representative in Congress. We talk with Bynum from Washington D.C. where she's already prepping for office. Promo: 11/15 Nationwide, the Democratic party had little to celebrate this election cycle. But in Oregon, Janelle Bynum’s victory in the 5th District over the Republican incumbent flipped the script. Her win is also notable as she will become the state’s first Black Representative in Congress. We talk with Bynum from Washington D.C. where she's already prepping for office.

Kintsugi is the traditional Japanese art of repairing ceramics with lacquer and gold dust. The idea is to highlight the imperfections of a piece and celebrate its new form, rather than hide its chips and cracks. Artist Naoko Fukumaru wasn’t initially interested in kintsugi — as a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts and other institutions, she was focused on rendering imperfections invisible. But after the collapse of her marriage following her move to Canada, she began to appreciate the message of resilience and reinvention that are fundamental to the practice. Fukumaru’s first solo kintsugi exhibition in the U.S. is currently on display at the Portland Japanese Garden and runs through Jan. 27. She joins us to talk more about the exhibit and the message she hopes visitors take from it.

In October, Lane County signed a contract with Eugene-based Bulk Handling Systems to create a state-of-the-art recycling center unlike any other in Oregon. It will sort garbage and commingled recycling and produce methane from the organic waste, generating renewable natural gas. According to the county, it will be ​“the most technologically advanced waste processing facility in the country, diverting about 80,000 tons from the county’s landfill annually. That could extend the life of the county-owned landfill by 20 years, officials say, while reducing the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Landfills are a major source of methane, which can also be harmful to human health. Steve Miller, the CEO of Bulk Handling Systems, and Lane County Public Works Director Dan Hurley join us to explain how this project came into being, its environmental goals and the implications for other metro areas with similar waste issues.

Over 100 years ago, a Missouri-based lumber company built what became known as Maxville, a segregated logging town in northeastern Oregon. In September, archaeologists and students from Southern Oregon University dug to find artifacts from the town’s lost Black neighborhood. Now, the students are working to process and understand what they found. Mark Axel Tveskov is a professor of anthropology at Southern Oregon University who ran the dig this summer. His former student Sophia Tribelhorn was there, and is helping to catalog the finds. We are also joined by Gwendolyn Trice, founder and executive director of Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center, which manages the site.

The Federal Railroad Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is investing more than  $40 million in rail funding for Oregon. Projects span the state and include work in Linn and Lake Counties and Coos Bay.   Prineville is getting funding specifically allocated for rural communities. The grant will help the city restore its rail line and improve safety. Prineville’s railway has experienced its ups and downs. When the lumber business was booming in the ’60s, the railway was a major economic driver for the region.   In recent years, the railway has had to reinvent itself to stay in business. We hear more about the efforts from Matt Wiederholt, the general manager of the City of Prineville Railway.          

Marie Tosa, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University, spent two and a half years trapping and tracking the movements of western spotted skunks across thousands of acres in forests in the western Cascades, roughly 60 miles east of Eugene.   Little is known about the small, nocturnal carnivores which weigh between one and two pounds and burrow inside logs and hollows to avoid predators like bobcats and owls. Tosa’s field work unearthed new information about the behavior of these skunks, including a home range of up to 12 square miles they can cover while hunting for food. She also found that western spotted skunks may be vulnerable to extreme winters, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change, and the importance of old growth forests for their habitat. Tosa joins us to share more of her findings and remaining questions about their resilience to climate change.