Think Out Loud

 Portland’s own junior ice hockey team, the Winterhawks, commemorate their 50th anniversary playing on the ice this season. With over 15 divisional championships, 13 conference titles and more than 135 alumni now playing in the National Hockey League, the team is the second-oldest professional team in Portland after the Trailblazers - and one of the best teams in the Western Hockey League’s U.S. Western Conference. Mike Johnson is the general manager of the team. Griffin Darby plays defense for the team. They both join to talk about how they're celebrating the team’s anniversary and their hopes for the future of the team.

A once popular teacher at St. Helens High School pivoted his career to communications, becoming a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Education and the Department of Human Services. In now-public allegations, two former students say he sexually abused them when he was a teacher. OPB reporter Joni Auden Land joins us to lay out the investigation.

Many of Oregon's county health officials are asking for a little extra consideration from lawmakers this year as they decide where to allocate funding. Two counties, Wallowa and Curry, have no public health staff and rely solely on the Oregon Health Authority to meet their needs. With the fifth anniversary of the initial COVID-19 lockdown this week, perhaps nothing is a bigger reminder of the need for a stable funding source for public health infrastructure. Sarah Lochner, the executive director of the Oregon Coalition of Local Health Officials, told OPB that not only is the state not ready for the next pandemic, counties are in dire need of stable funding just to deal with the everyday public health needs of the communities they serve — from vaccinating against whooping cough and measles, to providing needed treatment for alcohol and substance use disorder, to preventing HIV, hepatitis C, syphilis and other communicable diseases.  Jackson county public health worker Tanya Phillips said because grants are often available only when the health of a particular population declines, the system sets up a kind of unreliable boom and bust cycle for funding, which does not support healthy communities long term. Phillips and Lochner join us to share the impact that unpredictable and insufficient funding is having in Jackson County and around the state.

 If you could eliminate a memory from your mind completely, would you do it? And what would that kind of erasure mean at a societal level? These are some of the questions at the heart of Portland writer Karen Russell’s latest novel, “The Antidote.” The book opens on Black Sunday, the dust storm in April 1935 that swept thousands of tons of topsoil into the air over the Midwest. One of the central characters, a "prairie witch" known as The Antidote, can remove people’s memories and store them in her own body. As she and the other main characters' lives intersect, they learn more about the value of those memories and the history of the land and the people who came before them. And filling in those holes in the past enables them to see alternate futures. Karen Russell joins us to talk about the book.

A new resolution centered around protections for undocumented students passed unanimously by the Evergreen Public Schools board last week. As first reported on by the Columbian, the vote was initially planned for early February, but with testimony from more than 20 students, parents and community members, the vote was postponed. Students within the district provided input and helped shape the new resolution that eventually passed. Caiden Mizrahi-Boyarsky is a senior at Union High School and president for Students Advocating for Equity. Isabella Garcia and Sarah Barrios are both seniors at Mountainview High School and are senior representatives for the Latino Club. They join us to talk about their testimony and how they helped shape the new resolution.

A new study led by researchers at Washington State University showed that butterfly populations in the U.S. shrank by more than 20% from 2000 to 2020. More than 100 butterfly species declined by more than 50% during this period, including nearly two dozen that plummeted by more than 90%.The findings are based on more than 12 million observations of hundreds of butterfly species recorded by citizen scientist volunteers and biologists during surveys conducted in the Pacific Northwest and six other regions across the continental U.S.  Cheryl Schultz is a professor of conservation biology at Washington State University and a senior author of the study. She joins us to share more details and how the public can help with butterfly conservation – including  species like the Fender’s blue butterfly which is native to Willamette Valley and was reclassified from endangered to threatened status in 2023.  

In 2023, Oregon was awarded more than $58 million in federal grants from the Inflation Reduction Act to plant and maintain trees. The availability of much of those funds remains uncertain.  Earlier this month, the Oregon Department of Forestry, city agencies and nonprofits told Inside Climate News that at least $40 million dollars in grant reimbursements to boost urban tree canopies in Oregon remain unpaid.  Last week, several U.S. farmers and nonprofits sued the Trump administration for withholding grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.   Vivek Shandas is a professor of geography at Portland State University and a member of the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council. He joins us with more on the future of the state’s tree canopies and what they mean for Oregonians.

Indigenous tribes in what is now the northeastern U.S. and Canada have played lacrosse for millennia. Similar stick-and-ball games were played by tribes across the Southeast and Great Lakes region. But according to NCAA data, less than 1% of college lacrosse players are American Indian or Alaskan Native, and more than 80% are white. Pacific Northwest Native Lacrosse is trying to change that. As reported in Willamette Week, the organization recruits Indigenous lacrosse players from across the PNW to participate in tournaments, youth camps and clinics. JD Elquist is the founder of PNWNL. Bilįį Blackhorn is a senior at South Eugene High School who’s played lacrosse for 10 years, including with PNWNL. They join us to talk about the importance of emphasizing the sport’s Indigenous roots.

Liability waivers have been a hot topic in Oregon since a 2014 court ruling made them difficult for places like ski resorts and climbing gyms to enforce. Recreational business owners say their insurance rates have soared as a result, but trial lawyers say the waivers discourage operators from keeping their facilities safe.  House Bill 3140 would allow recreational businesses to require customers to sign a release for claims of “ordinary negligence,” making it harder for customers to sue. Operators say they need the additional protection from frivolous claims, but attorneys say Oregon law already protects against spurious lawsuits. Jim Zupancic is the board president of the Oregon Health & Fitness Alliance, which represents gyms, exercise studios and health clubs across the state. Gretchen Mandekor is the owner and lead trial attorney at Mandekor Law Firm. They join us to offer differing perspectives on this legislation.

Todd Prager was a planning commissioner for the city of Lake Oswego in 2011 when he discovered that  the body of water that defined their community was in fact not a private lake, but rather a navigable public waterway. He says no one seemed to want to act on this information. The city went in the opposite direction, passing an ordinance in 2012 that barred the public from “trespassing” to the water from the three lakeside public parks. That’s when he decided to file a lawsuit. He and co-plaintiff Mark Kramer said that the lake should be accessible, just like other navigable bodies of water in the state. After more than a decade in and out of five different courts, a Clackamas County circuit judge ruled that Prager and Kramer were correct, and ordered the city to provide access to the lakeshore Millennium Plaza Park. The Lake Oswego Corporation, which represents the interests of many owners of high-value homes has said it will appeal the decision granting access. For its part, the City of Lake Oswego has said it will take a “deliberate and thoughtful approach in assessing next steps” and will hold a meeting to gather public comment on March 31 at 6 p.m. Prager joins us to tell us why he’s persisted in this legal battle for so many years. We’ll also hear from Jeff Ward, the general manager for the Lake Oswego Corporation about what he thinks is at stake in the case and why the company is appealing.