News
Salem man held in jail ‘on the idea of future crimes he might commit’
A 27-year-old Salem man with a developmental disability and mental illness has been held in the Marion County Jail for more than two months with no criminal charges against him. The case — which advocates are calling incredibly troubling — has little precedent and highlights the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Oregon’s long-struggling behavioral…
Clean & Safe, PBA exec quietly resigns, raising further questions about influence
As the Portland City Council considers extending a controversial multimillion-dollar cleaning and security contract with Clean & Safe for another ten years, the program’s top executive quietly resigned last month. Maureen Fisher is out as the executive director of Clean & Safe, the embattled private nonprofit. Fisher also left her role at the Portland Business…
Opinion
Editorial | Unity is not anonymity
A united Portland City Council announced a unanimous decision to sweep Laurelhurst Park a few weeks ago — a symbolically triumphant consolidation of a decision-making body that has regularly appeared disjointed and at odds, regardless of the new members seated in January. All it took for them to stand together was the July 29 removal…
Housing
Empty shell Britain: A family’s experience with furniture poverty
Anita Dance, a 40-year-old mother of two living in Buckinghamshire, never thought she would want a sodden foam mattress abandoned in the street. That is, until she did. “I looked at that mattress and I wished it was dry, I wished there was sunshine,” she said, “so I could just take it and sleep on…
Environment
Forest management not so clear cut
After forest fires burned 793,000 acres of Yellowstone National Park during a particularly dry summer marked by high winds in 1988, Tim Ingalsbee recalled how the whole nation seemed to expect crews to put out any woodland blaze after witnessing the catastrophe in the iconic park. Ingalsbee, who worked as a wildland firefighter in Oregon…
