OPB’s First Look: East Portland’s seat at the table

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Good morning, Northwest.

East Portland isn’t used to robust representation in City Hall. In the city’s old form of government, citywide elections tended to favor candidates who lived in more central, wealthier and whiter neighborhoods.

Portland’s new government has geographic representation, and now three city councilors live in East Portland.

OPB reporter Alex Zielinski writes this morning on how door-knocking and weed-pulling are helping Portland District 1 councilors make inroads with their oft-ignored constituents.

We’re also continuing our coverage leading up to the fifth anniversary of Oregon’s Labor Day fires. Trees that didn’t burn in 2020 fires are starting to die off after the fact. New research explains why.

Here’s your First Look at Wednesday’s news.

— Bradley W. Parks

How East Portland’s new councilors are reaching their constituents

Since April, Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos has spent her Friday afternoons knocking on strangers’ doors. It’s a familiar activity for any politician on the campaign trail, seeking votes and donations.

But Avalos isn’t running for office. She’s just introducing herself to her neighbors and constituents — and trying to get to know them.

Avalos was elected in November to represent Portland’s brand-new District 1, which includes sections of Lents and 14 other neighborhoods east of Interstate 205.

With three councilors now living in East Portland’s District 1, tens of thousands of people who’ve felt ignored in City Hall may finally have a chance to be heard by city leaders. (Alex Zielinski)

Learn more

This is the third story in an occasional series about how East Portland neighborhoods are experiencing district representation in the city’s new government. Read the first two here:

• In East Portland, a light post offers hope for a change in City Hall representation

• A shopping center’s demise brings frustration to East Portland

4 things to know this morning

• Patches of green trees that survived the 2020 Labor Day fires are dying years later, researchers from Portland State University have found. Losing these islands of living trees could have major consequences for Northwest forests. (Jes Burns)

• Officials have not determined a cause for the Flat Fire burning in Central Oregon. At a community meeting in Sisters, they said the fire has destroyed four homes but that firefighters have preserved more than 800 others. (Kathryn Styer Martínez)

• Hundreds of union staff from Evergreen Public Schools rallied at three campuses around Vancouver yesterday. The strike is a first for the district’s classified school staff, and it marks stalled contract negotiations between the union and administrators that have been going on since March. (Erik Neumann)

• Negotiations over how mining company Knife River will monitor itself amid accusations of groundwater pollution in Crook County are expected to come to a head this week. (Emily Cureton Cook)

Headlines from around the Northwest​​​​​​​

• Lori Chavez-DeRemer hopes for Trump administration ‘crackdown’ in Portland (Bryce Dole)

• PPS superintendent talks cellphones, rebuilding Jefferson on first day of school (Riley Martinez)

• Washington lands commissioner moves 77,000 acres of older state forests into conservation (Emily Fitzgerald)

• Portland Book Festival will have 2 headliners: Rebecca Yarros and Stacey Abrams (Meagan Cuthill)

• Southern Oregon schools worry students may choose their phones over lunch (Jane Vaughan)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• Child care options increasing for Oregon preschoolers, according to OSU report

• Over-the-counter pill has improved access to birth control, OHSU study says

Woodturner Dan Tilden transforms blocks of wood into beautiful vessels in Ashland

Dan Tilden creates distinctive wood turned vessels in his studio in Ashland.He starts with a raw burl from a tree, often madrone (native to the Northwest), and chainsaws it into a workable block.

Then he turns it on his lathe to allow the distinctive colors and textures of the wood to shine through.

This “Oregon Art Beat” video from 2016 shows the process — and the stunning results. (Katrina Sarson and Lisa Suinn Kallem)

Learn more

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