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Oregon News
Oregon wildfires: Butte Creek Fire burns 1,776 acres in eastern Oregon
Statesman Journal | By Zach Urness
Oregon’s first major wildfire of the season, the Butte Creek Fire, has been mapped at 1,776 acres burning on the John Day River 9 miles north of Clarno in eastern Oregon as of May 28. Firefighters were suppressing the blaze with multiple crews, engines, dozers and aircraft. The fire is 20% contained.
POLITICS
Editorial: School funding should pay for students’ needs, not striking employees
The Oregonian Editorial Board
Oregon’s K-12 public school districts aren’t fat cat employers by any stretch. Dependent on state funding and facing increasing pension contributions and other costs, districts are already laying off staff as they try to preserve the most critical services for Oregon’s 550,000 schoolchildren.
Yet a bill headed for a vote in the Oregon House treats districts as if they print their own money and are putting the screws to employees.
Senate Bill 916, sponsored by a slew of union-friendly Democrats, would allow teachers, grocery clerks and many other unionized workers to collect unemployment pay when they go on strike for longer than two weeks.
Legislators who recognize the hypocrisy of claiming to support public schools while approving a bill that undermines them should reject SB 916. And Oregonians tired of seeing schools being forced to use education dollars on non-education costs should encourage their representatives – particularly Democrats, who will determine this bill’s fate – to vote “no.”
School districts are not moneymaking machines; they are public entities fulfilling an educational mission with state-prescribed budgets.
Gov. Tina Kotek announces new council to grow Oregon’s behavioral health workforce – chaired by her wife
Oregon Live | By Sami Edge
First Lady Aimee Kotek Wilson will chair a new task force aimed at fixing Oregon’s behavioral health workforce shortages, the governor’s office announced on Tuesday.
Kotek Wilson, a former social worker, will not be paid to chair the council, Kotek’s public affairs director Elisabeth Shepard said.
The new position builds on Kotek Wilson’s position as a surrogate for her wife on behavioral health policy. The first lady’s role in her wife’s office prompted intense scrutiny last year after three of the governor’s top staffers left their jobs after protesting Kotek Wilson’s growing role. The state’s ethics agency has said that Kotek Wilson is allowed to volunteer in her wife’s office and receive some staffing and equipment to help her in that role as long as she doesn’t benefit financially.
Legislators hear ODOT management review ahead of transporation bill
Statesman journal | By Anastasia Mason
A consultant-conducted management review of the Oregon Department of Transportation recommended that the department utilize more consultants for large projects and create a new committee to oversee those projects, in addition to other changes, to boost accountability in the agency.
The review found ODOT has issues with its organizational structure, cost estimating, contract administration, risk management and decision-making for major projects.
Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, requested $50,000 for the review. Legislative leaders tapped Starr to lead the creation of accountability measures for a major transportation package during the current legislative session, following a Statesman Journal investigation into the last multi-billion-dollar ODOT funding bill in 2017.
“This is not the end of this conversation related to accountability. This is kind of the mid-conversation,” Starr said May 27 during the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment. “I think that this committee’s got some additional work that we’re gonna need to do as we look forward to bringing, ultimately, change and reform to this agency.”
Report: 'Lack of oversight' at Oregon's Tourism agency
KATU | By Barry Mangold
A new report on the Oregon Tourism Commission found the "semi-independent" agency enjoys a "lack of oversight" in how it compensates its CEO, handles state money, and that some former employees accuse leadership of "management by intimidation."
Oregon Legislature passes bill to protect sexual assault survivors who speak out
Oregon Live | By Noelle Crombie
A bill that would protect good faith disclosures of sexual assault from defamation lawsuits passed the Oregon Senate on Tuesday.
Senate Bill 180, which passed the House last month, had broad bipartisan support.
Advocates argued that the threat of defamation lawsuits effectively chills disclosures of assault.
Oregon lawmakers vote to expand the state’s plastic bag ban
OPB | By Dirk Vanderhart
Oregon’s ban on plastic grocery bags will kick up a notch under a bill headed to the desk of Gov. Tina Kotek.
Beginning in 2027, Senate Bill 551 will ensure that retailers and restaurants can’t offer any form of plastic bags to customers at check out.
That’s already true for most single-use plastic bags because of a bill lawmakers passed in 2019. But the law left open the option that stores could offer slightly thicker plastic bags that are considered reusable — but that critics say are often tossed.
SB 551, does away with that loophole, making bags made of recycled paper the only option stores and restaurants now have. The bill does not impact grocers’ ability to offer plastic bags for bulk goods, raw meat or some other items.
‘At the grocery store, we’re looked down upon,’ say people who collect cans on Portland’s streets
Oregon Live | By Aimee Green
Oregon legislators say The People’s Depot is such a success that they want to make it an official “alternative” can redemption site — a place where anyone can go to redeem earnings and where “cannners” who collect cans on a daily basis are particularly welcome.
The People’s Depot, however, has been grappling with that considerable success. It’s been searching for a brick-and-mortar location out of the elements but hasn’t found a suitable one where surrounding businesses and residents would accept it.
Many worry redemption sites attract people who turn in cans for cash, then use the money to buy cheap street drugs, fueling drug dealing and open-air drug use in the immediate area.
Senate Bill 992 would not only endorse The People’s Depot but also a second new similar site. The measure passed the Legislature last week and is awaiting Gov. Tina Kotek’s signature.
Oregon loves its Bottle Bill, but is it dragging down Portland?
Oregon Live | By Aimee Green
Naughton is among a throng of Portlanders who cite Oregon’s beloved, first-in-the-nation 1971 Bottle Bill as a source of the problem. They say rock-bottom prices for street drugs that dip as low as $1 to $5 per hit and the ability to turn in $35 worth of beverage containers per day have enabled leagues of addicted Portlanders to rely on redemptions to fuel their addictions. Some people who live near the busiest redemption sites say it also has dragged down their neighborhoods in the process.
CRIME & PUBLIC SAFETY
Portlanders View Emergency Medical Response as Top Priority, Survey Shows
Willamette Week | By Aaron Mesh
As the Portland City Council weighed shifting $1.9 million from new funding earmarked for the Police Bureau to parks maintenance last week, elected officials on both sides of the issue pointed to polling as evidence that Portland voters shared their funding priorities.
In hearings, Councilor Angelita Morillo referenced polling that showed more voters approved cutting the police budget than cutting the parks budget. Mayor Keith Wilson, by contrast, sent a mass email citing new polling figures that showed most voters would support a requirement for minimum police staffing matching that of other major U.S. cities.
So one could find a bleak comedy in the latest round of polling results, which show neither police nor parks are the services Portland residents consider most essential. Instead, new figures from the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center show, those competing priorities rank behind emergency medical response, streets and sidewalks, and mental health care.
Family Sues After Heat-Related Death at Bend Senior Care Facility
Willamette Week | By Nigel Jaquiss
The estate of Celia Leonore Hess, who died after being left out in the sun at a Bend memory care facility on a blazing hot day last August, has filed a wrongful death suit against the facility’s owner, Dallas-based Frontier Senior Living.
Judge to decide if ex-West Linn doctor must answer questions in sex abuse lawsuit
Oregon Live | By Maxine Bernstein
Attorneys for more than 150 women and children suing former West Linn doctor David B. Farley on allegations of sexual abuse are urging a judge to compel him to answer specific questions as part of his deposition.
The pending civil lawsuit alleges that Farley spent decades using his position as a trusted physician to sexually assault countless girls and women under the guise of providing medical care at the West Linn Family Health Center that he opened in 1989.
Southern Oregon wildlife park owner arrested on drug charges; guns, $1.6M seized Oregon Live | By Fedhor Zarkhin
Nearly two weeks after police raided West Coast Game Park Safari, the southern Oregon zoo’s owner was arrested on suspicion of methamphetamine possession, manufacturing and attempted distribution, authorities said.
Man accused of hauling 270 pounds of meth from California to Oregon
Oregon Live | By Maxine Bernstein
A 29-year-old man is accused of hauling 270 pounds of methamphetamine from southern California into Oregon Saturday in a rented pickup truck, according to prosecutors.
Former corrections officer sentenced to 20 months for sexual misconduct
KATU | By Bobby Corser
Levi David Gray, a former corrections officer at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, has been sentenced to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of custodial sexual misconduct in the first degree.
In addition to his prison sentence, Gray will lose his Department of Public Safety Standards and Training certification and be barred from future employment as a corrections officer. He is also required to serve three years of post-prison supervision, undergo sex offender treatment and a mental health evaluation, and is prohibited from contacting the victim.
HOMELESSNESS & DRUGS
'A lot less trash, crazy going on': PPB ratchets up deflection referral
KOIN | By Ariel Salk
Over the course of 5 days last week, the police sent nearly 80 people to the Pathway Center, the deflection program designed to keep drug users out of the criminal justice system and in a place they can get addiction services and other support.
They also made more than 100 arrests, and confiscating guns, large amounts of drugs and stolen goods.
Last October Oregon rolled back parts of a voter-passed measure reintroducing penalties for possessing small amounts of hard drugs, giving some people a choice: Go to a deflection center or face arrest.
Multnomah County halts tent & tarp distribution to homeless
KATU
The new rule will allow direct distribution of tents only during severe weather and cold weather advisory events, according to County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson.
ECONOMY
Portland to hit residents with another new fee on top of historic water, sewer rate hike
Oregon Live | By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
Portlanders already facing the largest combined water and sewer rate hike in more than a decade will soon be on the hook for a processing fee as well.
City officials plan to slap a 2.95% surcharge on all customers who pay their utility bill with either a credit or debit card beginning June 3.
Ending hunger is more than just providing food – it’s about communities and a better economic future
Oregon Capital Chronicle | Commentary by Andrea Williams, President of Oregon Food Bank
Too many Oregon families are feeling the squeeze. Grocery prices are high — the price of eggs has skyrocketed — housing costs keep rising and too many parents are forced to make impossible choices — like whether to pay rent or put food on the table.
And some of us — our friends, neighbors and loved ones — face even more barriers. Immigrant families, who contribute tens of billions to Oregon’s economy, are excluded from food assistance programs like SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) which are meant to support the well-being of families and communities.
HOUSING
Home sales and building slump in the face of economic uncertainty
OPB | By Laurel Wamsley
Economic uncertainty has produced a double whammy for the housing market: sluggish home sales and plodding construction. Last month was the slowest April for existing home sales in 16 years — a sharp rebuke to hopes that this spring the housing market would recover after two very sleepy years.
The problem, as ever, is the cost of housing: Home prices are out of reach for many who would like to buy.
EDUCATION
Oregon’s school funding formula undercounts poverty, denying some districts millions. Lawmakers are poised to approve it anyway
Oregon Live | By Julia Silverman
According to state data, about 24% — roughly one in four — of Portland Public Schools students lives in a family that receives government anti-poverty aid or is homeless, is from a migrant family or lives in foster care.
But when the state crunches how much money to allot to school districts, the entirely different formula it uses pegs just 9% of the district’s students as high-poverty.
That makes the district eligible for a sizable per-pupil funding boost only for that smaller subset of students.
For districts, being funded for a lower percentage of students in poverty means — in theory — a difference of millions of dollars.
Changing that would require both direction and action from lawmakers, who have made no serious moves to do so this legislative session.
On the contrary, on Wednesday, the $11.4 billion state schools fund is due to move out of a key budget subcommittee, with the current poverty formula intact.
If the state were to give an extra $3,000 or so per student to the districts that educate all 177,000 or so children on food stamps or other forms of anti-poverty aid or who are homeless, in foster care or from migrant families, there would be significantly less money per student for the roughly 66% of Oregon schoolchildren who aren’t poor.
Still, national outlets have been scathing about the design of Oregon’s funding system when it comes to its neediest students, who graduate high school at far lower levels and are far more likely to miss big chunks of the school year than their peers from more financially stable homes.
A 2024 report by the nonprofit Education Law Center ranked Oregon dead last among 48 states for its regressive funding system’s impact on high poverty schools.
At the start of the legislative session, State Sen. Fred Girod, a Republican from Stayton, introduced a bill that would have increased the extra funding set aside for students experiencing poverty. The bill died in committee.
Shrinking Oregon school budgets mean layoffs for graduation mentors in this East Portland district
OPB | By Elizabeth Miller
Yet after the pandemic, graduation rates dropped, and have not recovered. The school’s graduation rate for the Class of 2024 was 70%.
This spring, David Douglas administrators decided to cut its four graduation mentor positions for next year. For almost 10 years, the grad mentors have worked with teenagers who have gone years without a good relationship with school.
Like many school districts, David Douglas faces a challenging financial future, caught between declining enrollment and higher costs.
Portland Election Results Show the Portland Association of Teachers’ Power
Willamette Week | By Joanna Hou
But as late ballots arrived, Sanchez Bautista, 18, a McDaniel High School student and community activist, narrowed the gap. At press deadline, La Forte led by 814 votes—enough to secure the seat, given how few ballots remained to be counted, but by a margin of only eight-tenths of a percent.
Sanchez Bautista’s showing might seem surprising. But he had the backing of the Portland Association of Teachers.
HEALTH CARE
Trump’s New Tax Bill Could Penalize Oregon for Providing Health Care to All Undocumented Immigrants
Willamette Week | By Nigel Jaquiss
On May 22, the U.S. House passed what it called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”—more than 1,100 pages of ideas President Donald Trump hopes will become law.
But a section of the bill—one that concerns providing health insurance to undocumented immigrants—pits the president and his supporters against a principle central to the ideals of Oregon Democrats. And if the bill passes the Senate in its current form, those values could prove extraordinarily costly to Oregonians.
The principle at stake: the commitment to the rights of undocumented immigrants, a cause for which some Oregonians regularly march through the streets, and to which lammakers in Salem have long provided far more than lip service.
In 2021, lawmakers took a step further, passing, on a party-line vote, House Bill 3352, which made Oregon the first state to offer free health care to all undocumented immigrants.
The cost of that commitment has, in just four years, risen to $1.5 billion for the 2025–27 biennium.
And if the Senate ratifies Trump’s bill, the state could see a loss of federal funds of more than three times that amount.
Oregon has long been one of the states most aggressive and creative in leveraging federal matching dollars through the Medicaid program, which provides health care for people with low incomes.
Currently, according to state figures, 1.45 million Oregonians get their health care through the Oregon Health Plan, Oregon’s Medicaid program. The program covers 34% of the state’s population and 59% of Oregon children. Federal funds provide more than two-thirds of the money for that coverage.
Oregon healthcare providers highlight gambling disorders as potential mental health issues
KOIN | By Jashayla Pettigrew
Kaiser Permanente Northwest has cited Oregon Health Authority data that found nearly 90,000 adults have moderate to severe gambling problems, while 180,000 adults are facing gambling disorders.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
After reaching historic lows, hydropower generation in the Northwest expected to rise in 2025
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Alex Baumhardt
After dropping to historic levels last year due to ongoing drought and high temperatures, hydropower generated in the Northwest is expected to rise slightly this year from much needed precipitation.
Hydropower in the region is expected to increase about 17% compared to last year, a welcome boost to growing energy demand, but will still be below the 10-year average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Overall hydropower generation in the U.S. is expected to rise 7.5% in 2025, which will also still keep overall hydropower generation below the 10-year average. Hydropower represents about 6% of the country’s electricity.
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