Think Out Loud

There were two gun-related homicides in Gresham in January 2025. That's two too many, says Gresham Police Chief Travis Gullberg. Gullberg is one of the people involved in the city’s new Ceasefire initiative, which brings together community-based organizations, city leadership, law enforcement and public health experts to reduce gun violence through focused outreach. Gullberg joins us, along with Marcell Frazier, violence prevention and community partnerships coordinator for the City of Gresham, to explain how the program will work.

Clark County Jail in Vancouver recently became the first jail in Washington state licensed to provide methadone on-site through a treatment program for opioid use disorder. A team of specialists at the jail also administer buprenorphine, another medication approved by the FDA to manage withdrawal symptoms and the cravings associated with drugs like fentanyl.  More than half of the jail population in Washington has an opioid use disorder, according to researchers at the University of Washington. Last year, Clark County Jail installed a vending machine in its lobby that dispenses free fentanyl test strips and naloxone to reverse potentially fatal overdoses. Joining us to talk about these harm reduction efforts and the opioid treatment program at Clark County Jail are Anna Lookingbill, the jail transition manager, and Matt West, the addiction medicine medical director at the jail’s Comprehensive Treatment Center, which is operated by Acadia Healthcare. 

Portland’s Aurora Chorus is an inclusive, non-audition women’s chorus that formed in 1992 with the goal of elevating women’s voices through the art of choral music. Led for much of its history by renowned composer and conductor Joan Szymko , the chorus also emphasizes female conductors and composers as well. Rebecca Parsons has directed the chorus for the last few years and says one way this group is distinct from others is the simultaneous quality of the music and the community the women create together. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day concert is “Undivided” and focuses on the mental health of young women. Parsons joins us, as well as soprano Jae Douglas, who has sung with Aurora since 2018.

Libraries worldwide broke digital lending records last year as Overdrive, the company that operates Libby and Sora, recently reported seeing more than 739 million borrows of audiobooks, e-books and digital magazines — a 17% increase from 2023. But while many library card holders may be enjoying the latest bestseller at no cost, the bill public libraries pay to provide this service grows just as much as demand. Public libraries do not purchase digital books, but rather the license to distribute them. That licensing needs to be renewed regularly, making audio books and e-books up to four times more expensive than a physical copy. Some states, including Washington, have asked lawmakers to step in to try to make digital more affordable. Currently Oregon has no bill or law around digital books, but libraries across the state report seeing growing demand. Stephanie Chase is the executive director of the Libraries of Eastern Oregon and governing board member of the Oregon Digital Library Consortium. Le Button is the collection development librarian at Deschutes Public Library. They both join us to share what demand has been like for digital books in recent years and how libraries balance buying physical copies versus digital ones.

Federal DOGE layoffs and hiring freezes continue to hit Oregon as local offices of the National Weather Service are down to about 30% to 40% of its workforce, the Statesman Journal reports. The NWS plays a critical role in monitoring, predicting and delivering expected weather conditions, as well as issuing warnings about potential weather-related dangers. The NWS isn’t just relied on by the general public, but also by the Columbia River Bar Pilots, an organization responsible for helping navigate ships, cargo and crew through the treacherous waters of the Columbia River Bar. Dan Jordan is an administrator for the bar pilots. He joins us to share more on how federal layoffs could affect thousands of ships in the future

The bipartisan Arts and Culture Caucus in the Oregon legislatures has a slate of bills it’s pushing for this session. One proposal would merge two major arts funding organizations: The Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust.  Another bill would help owners of historic buildings by lowering their assessed tax, while others would allocate funds for grants to artists, art programs and organizations along with money for museums, festivals and arts districts. Democratic Representative Rob Nosse co-chairs the caucus, created in 2023. He joins us to share the progress the caucus has made since it began and what he sees as the biggest challenges and opportunities for the arts in Oregon in the current political moment.

On March 4, 25% tariffs on imported goods from Canada and Mexico, our nation’s largest trading partners, are expected to go into effect. China will also be hit with an additional 10% hike on its goods entering the U.S.  We hear from a broad range of business owners and representatives from different industries in Oregon about the impact tariffs may have on them and consumers. Joining us are Tyler Freres, vice president of sales for Freres Lumber Company; Jeff Stone, executive director of Oregon Association of Nurseries; Bob Wymore, president and CEO of Diamond Fruit Growers; Jason Barbee, an owner and brewer at Level Beer; Michele Kenny, co-owner of Goose Hollow Flowers and executive director of Pacific Northwest Florist Association; and Bitty Egan, owner of Bolt Fabric Boutique. 

The Quadraphonnes, Portland’s all-women sax quartet, will perform the music of the eccentric artist Moondog at the Alberta Rose Theater on March 7. Moondog was a blind street musician in New York City who worked with some of the biggest names in music in the mid-20th century, including Philip Glass, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman. We’ll hear more about the show and get an in-studio performance from the quartet: Mieke Bruggeman on baritone saxophone, Chelsea Luker on alto and soprano saxophone, Michelle Medler on tenor saxophone, and and Mary-Sue Tobin on alto and soprano saxophone.

It’s been eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Grants Pass v. Johnson, which determined that cities can punish unhoused people for sleeping outside, even if they have nowhere else to go. Since then, Grants Pass officials have restricted public camping to two city-owned lots, one of which closed earlier this year. The city council recently voted to reopen the site after Disability Rights Oregon filed a lawsuit alleging that the city’s restrictions violated state law.  Amid the back-and-forth, homeless services providers have continued to provide aid to the city’s unhoused residents. Scott Nelson is the board president of the Mobile Integrative Navigation Team, or MINT. He joins us to share more about what providing services in Grants Pass has been like since the Supreme Court decision last summer.

In Europe, dogs have been used for centuries for their keen sense of smell to locate prized black and white truffles which can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars a pound depending on their variety. In Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, using dogs to sniff out truffles is relatively new and growing in popularity. There are even training classes and an annual truffle dog contest held at the Oregon Truffle festival.  Oregon has four varieties of gourmet edible truffles, but there are hundreds of species of these mysterious fungi growing on the roots of conifer and oak trees across the state. So what if you could use a dog’s nose to home in on the odor signatures of all sorts of truffles, not just the commercially valuable ones, for a better scientific understanding of truffle biodiversity? That’s the goal of Heather Dawson, a doctoral student in the biology department at University of Oregon. She trained her golden retriever, Rye, to detect dozens of different kinds of truffles in the Willamette Valley alone. She joins us to share her work and the attention it’s attracting among other scientists and forest foragers.