The Schmidt Show PDX

Mike Schmidt

The Schmidt Show PDX covers positive local news and happenings in and around Portland, Oregon. The podcast is hosted by former Multnomah DA, Mike Schmidt. www.schmidtshowpdx.com

  1. 4d ago

    Expose Yourself to Politics

    Two years ago, Liv Osthus, better known as Viva Las Vegas, put up a billboard telling Portland to “expose yourself to politics.” She then ran for mayor on the idea that the city’s top job should belong to its head storyteller. She’s a Lutheran preacher’s daughter, a longtime dancer at Mary’s Club, a single mom, and a fixture of Portland’s arts scene. She joins Mike to look back on that campaign and to take stock of where the city stands two years into its new form of government. The reunion starts with a swap. Mike still has the “Viva for Mayor” T-shirt Liv gave him on the campaign trail, and he returns the favor with a rare piece of his own: a shirt a supporter made for his election night that cheekily reads “Say Yes to the Schmidt Show.” They talk about what her dad’s ministry and her own have in common, the summer fight over no-parking signs outside Mary’s Club, and why she thinks strip clubs, schools, and the arts should be treated as neighborhood anchors. Viva also gives her read on Mayor Keith Wilson and the new City Council, and she and Mike talk about what Portland could learn from Mayor Mamdani’s “just get it done” approach in New York. She shares her endorsements in the 2026 races, including Shannon Singleton for Multnomah County Chair, and says whether she’ll run for mayor again in 2028. (She plans to decide by spring.) Before that, trash news correspondent Elinor Jones covers Trump’s plan to turn the White House press briefing room back into a swimming pool, the nicotine pouches that got Robert Pattinson into Primetime, and Roseanne and Randy Quaid’s self-funded doomsday-prepper show. Find Viva: On stage at Mary’s Club and on Instagram Liv Østhus Find Elinor: The Trash Report in the Portland Mercury, and @elinorjoneser on Instagram REMEMBER 💡🗳️🫡 Ballots are due November 3. Drop yours off early. Thanks to our Season 3 sponsor, Corbett Hill Wellness. Please support the sponsors that support this show!! If you liked this episode, please rate, review, subscribe, and tell a friend. 🙏 Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

  2. Oct 21

    Show Your Math

    Two weeks ago, Portland Public Schools put a list on the table: 14 schools that could close, including Maplewood, Buckman, Irvington, Sabin, James John, and Peninsula. Parents packed the board meeting so tightly they were pushing through the doors. Behind the list is a district that has lost 6,000 students since 2019, expects to lose another 6,000 by 2032, and faces a $65 million budget hole in the upcoming budget conversation. My guest has to vote on all of it. Rashelle Chase-Miller grew up in PPS, sends her two sons there, and serves as vice chair of the school board, representing North Portland. Two of the schools on the list are in her own zone. When she ran, she was adamant she would never support closures. “I was a better school board member before I was a school board member,” she told me. A year on the board changed her mind, and she explains why. We start with where she comes from. Her mother was among the first students to desegregate Boston’s public schools. Rashelle was an early childhood educator and is now a program director at SMART Reading. Then we get into the plan itself. Rashelle walks through the three scenarios: A closes 14 schools, B closes 11, and C keeps things as they are. The surprise for a lot of people: this isn’t about saving money. Oregon funds schools per student, so a half-empty school gets half the funding but still needs a principal, a custodian, and a front office. Fuller schools can actually mean smaller class sizes, because there are more sections to split kids into. Her strongest argument is the equity math. Today 24% of PPS’s historically underserved students attend fully resourced schools. Under Scenario A, that would rise to 80% within five years. We also cover the chaos at the last board meeting and why it scared her, the superintendent salary controversy (Rashelle argues Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong is underpaid, not overpaid), the $65 million in cuts ahead, and what could happen to closed buildings, from social housing modeled on Austin to senior housing and nonprofit leases. (Mike pitched 14 more McMenamins. The idea did not catch on.) Her ask for listeners: write to the board, be specific, bring solutions, and be kind. Form letters don’t move her. Thoughtful ones do. And call your legislators. Lifting Oregon’s special education funding cap, which reimburses districts for only 11% of students when most serve around 18%, is low-hanging fruit for the coming session. Also this week: Trash news correspondent Elinor Jones on Kelly Clarkson’s $15,000 animatronic bird standoff, Jane Fonda’s donation to the Kotek campaign, and Johnny 5 returning home to Astoria. Follow Elinor at the Portland Mercury Trash Report. Key dates: The superintendent’s final recommendation comes November 17, and the board votes in December. Go to a meeting, send testimony, or contact your board member. This season of SchmidtShow PDX is supported by Corbett Hill Wellness. Thank you for making this show possible. Please support the sponsors that support this show! Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

  3. Oct 14

    Pull Up a Chair

    On November 3, Multnomah County picks a new chair, and for the first time we’re doing it with ranked choice voting. The chair runs a roughly $4 billion government that handles the “people stuff”: homeless services, mental health and addiction care, jails, the health department, libraries, even the animal shelter. Whoever wins inherits a squeezed budget, a city-county homeless services agreement up for renegotiation, and a public that’s short on patience. This week I sat down with one of the three candidates, Commissioner Shannon Singleton. Shannon is a trained social worker who has spent her career inside the housing and homelessness system. She worked at Cascadia Behavioral Health and the Portland Housing Bureau, ran JOIN, advised Governor Kate Brown on housing and racial justice, served as interim director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, and in 2024 was elected to represent north and northeast Portland on the county commission. Here’s the twist most people don’t know: her District 2 seat is on the same ballot as the chair’s race. To run for chair, she had to give up the job she has now. In this episode: * The childhood memory that set her on this path, and how an accounting major ended up in social work * Marching from Philly to New York, and working with survivors in a small New Mexico town * The woman who lived at the SAFE shelter for nearly three years, and why Shannon fought the rules to keep her there * How a data nerd went from Housing First skeptic to believer * Why she gave up a likely reelection to run for chair * Her management philosophy: asking “what will it take?” instead of “why can’t we?” * Why HR 1’s Medicaid cuts scare her, and what the county can do about it * 720 deeply affordable apartments in the pipeline against a need of 36,000 * A positive vision for Portland: Preschool for All, the creative economy, and murals * Flipping the budget process so it starts with outcomes and the people served * What “progressive” means when everyone claims the label * The endorsement that means the most to her * Tales from the trail: doorknocks, forums, and the snack bin in her back seat Learn more: ShannonSingleton.org, where you can also sign up to knock doors or write postcards. Vote: Ballots go out October 14. Rank your choices and return your ballot by November 3. Missed our episode with former County Chair Deborah Kafoury? Go back and listen. It’s the perfect primer on what this job actually is. Thanks to our Season 3 sponsor, Corbett Hill Wellness. If your business or organization wants to support independent civic media in Portland, reach out. If you got something out of this episode, share it with a friend who’s still figuring out how to rank this race. Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

  4. Oct 7

    SOS: Drop it like it’s Hot 🗳️

    We’re less than a month from Election Day, and the headlines are worrying. The president is attacking vote-by-mail. The DOJ is threatening election officials. People are talking about ICE at drop boxes, and some Oregon ballots are likely to be rejected because the mail is too slow. So I went straight to the person running Oregon’s elections: Secretary of State Tobias Read, who at 6’7” is also the tallest guest in Schmidt Show history. What we covered: * The job you didn’t know he has. The Secretary of State is also Oregon’s auditor, and his office built a statewide risk map to decide where to look first. * Playing defense against D.C. Federal election-security staff vanished days into his term. Since then Oregon has faced an executive order trying to rewrite election law, the SAVE Act, and a push to use a flawed federal database to check voters’ citizenship. * “No, thanks.” The DOJ sued Oregon for its voter data. The judge tossed the case from the bench, and the feds are now 0-for-25 nationally. * Why late ballots are piling up. All of Oregon’s mail now gets postmarked at one facility in Portland, which is why 7,314 primary ballots were rejected for late postmarks in this years primary. * More drop boxes. About 20 new ones are coming, and BallotTrax text alerts are going statewide - sign up for BallotTrax when it becomes available in your jurisdiction. * The fraud myth. Over 19 years and 60.9 million ballots examined in Oregon, ONLY 38 cases of improper voting during that entire period. * Lightning round. What to do about ICE at drop boxes, the National Guard, hacking, a canceled election, or a refusal to certify. On that last one, Read’s answer: Oregon certifies its own results. Key dates 📆 * Oct 13: Register or update your address * Oct 14: Ballots mailed * Oct 21: No ballot yet? Call your county clerk. * Oct 27: Last day to mail safely * Nov 3: Election Day. Ballots are due by 8 p.m. The short version: Use a drop box. Any drop box in Oregon works. If you’re mailing, send it a week early or ask the post office for a hand postmark. Check your voter registration status at OregonVotes.gov. Your homework: Check your registration, talk to a neighbor, and don’t let fear keep you home. VOTE! Thanks to our sponsor, Corbett Hill Wellness. If you’d like to sponsor the show, reach out. And if you liked this one, leave a review, tell a friend, or share it. See you next week! Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

  5. Sep 30

    CEI Hub-Bub

    The next time you fill up your car or board a plane at PDX, ask yourself where that fuel came from. For about 90% of Oregon, the answer is a six-mile stretch of Northwest Portland along the Willamette, tucked below Forest Park: the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub. Hundreds of storage tanks, most built before modern seismic codes, sitting on dredged-up river soil that geologists expect to liquefy when Cascadia hits. For years this was an issue only emergency managers and neighborhood activists lost sleep over. Not anymore. City Council has deadlocked 6–6 on it more than once, Mayor Wilson had to break a tie to approve the sale of Zenith Energy’s terminal to Miami based I Squared Capital, and on Thursday, October 1, council takes up the rules that will govern how much fuel sits on that riverbank for the next decade. My guest this week has been in the middle of that fight. Marnie Glickman is an attorney, a fellow Lewis & Clark Law alum, a former Ralph Nader staffer, and the executive director of Braided River Campaign, a group founded by Portland teachers that has become one of the loudest voices on the CEI Hub. Here’s what we got into: What the hub actually is. Eleven tank farms owned by some of the biggest names in fossil fuels (Chevron, BP, Shell, Zenith), holding up to 350 million gallons on liquefiable soil inside the Portland Harbor Superfund site. The worst case is a Cascadia rupture bigger than Deepwater Horizon. The more likely case might be a fire at the foot of Forest Park. Why not just move it? Because nobody wants it in their backyard, and it’s tethered to the Olympic Pipeline. Marnie’s answer: reduce demand, don’t relocate the danger. The Zenith / I Squared fight. Braided River wasn’t trying to block the sale. They wanted council to use the ownership change to give Portlanders third-party enforcement rights under the franchise agreement. The six councilors and the mayor who voted no were persuaded by the city attorney that council lacked authority to add that term, which raises a bigger structural question: should Portland’s legislative branch have its own lawyer? Capacity vs. volume. The staff proposal from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability would cut storage capacity 20% by 2036. The catch is that tanks aren’t filled to the top, so shrinking the cup doesn’t necessarily reduce the coffee. An amendment package from Councilors Mitch Green, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Sameer Kanal, Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Olivia Clark would add annual volume reduction benchmarks and close a loophole that could actually let aviation fuel storage grow. What would really make us safer. Start with emergency planning. There’s a preschool in Linnton, inside the hub area, with no CEI Hub emergency plan. Then there’s demand reduction through building electrification, protected bike lanes, and protecting PCEF dollars. Dream big. Portland stopped the Mount Hood Freeway and turned Harbor Drive into Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Marnie’s vision for the “North Reach” of the Willamette includes a Superfund cleanup starting in 2028, public river access, housing, schools, shade, and a real neighborhood where the city’s biggest heat island now sits. Plus: Trash news correspondent Elinor Jones on celebrity baby announcements, Celine Dion’s comeback residency, and why her will is going to require her presence in the background of every future cultural moment. Take action before Thursday, October 1. Council will discuss the amendments that day. Submit written testimony, email your councilors, or better yet, call and leave a voicemail. Braided River Campaign has testimony instructions and talking points on its homepage. Links * Braided River Campaign * Braided River Gallery: now at SW 5th & Harvey Milk * Elinor Jones: “The Trash Report” in the Portland Mercury Thanks to our sponsor, Corbett Hill Wellness. If you want to support independent civic media in Portland, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a neighbor who drives Highway 30. Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

  6. Sep 23

    Chairing Is Caring

    Election Day is less than seven weeks away, and one of the most consequential races on your ballot is for a job most Portlanders couldn’t describe: Multnomah County Chair. The incumbent isn’t running again, so no matter who wins, the county is getting a new leader and a new direction. To help make sense of it, I sat down with someone who knows the job better than just about anyone. Deborah Kafoury spent 14 years on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, eight of them as chair. She guided the county through the COVID-19 pandemic, heat domes, wildfires, and more than 200 nights of protest. Before that, she served in the Oregon House, including as Democratic leader. She’s now chief of staff at Portland Public Schools. Deborah and I worked side by side through some of the hardest stretches in this community’s recent history. We had a candid, funny, and useful conversation about what the chair actually does and what voters should be asking the people who want the job. In this episode: * What the county chair actually does. Deborah’s shorthand for the difference between the two governments: the city builds physical infrastructure, and the county builds human infrastructure. She also explains why the chair acts as both a governor and a legislator. * Why management experience matters. Every county employee, all 7,000 of them, ultimately works for the chair. Deborah explains why voters should ask whether candidates have run a team before, and whether they did it well. * Her father’s rule for surviving public life: hire people smarter than you. * What’s waiting on the next chair’s desk: homelessness, affordability, and projected budget cuts. She also explains why she sees the budget as a moral document. * Working across the aisle. She tells how Republican partners made the Sellwood Bridge and the new county courthouse possible, and why the Republican House speaker threw her a baby shower. * The questions to ask at a house party. Deborah’s advice: ask about trade-offs, and ask candidates who they’ll spend their time listening to. * The red flags to watch for. Be wary of promises to end homelessness on a deadline, guilt-by-association attacks, and the idea that asking hard questions counts as getting things done. * Her new role at Portland Public Schools, and some good news: test scores are up. Plus, In the News: Our trash news correspondent Elinor Jones turns her attention to a group that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: men. She covers robots that can’t walk downstairs, Mitch McConnell’s return to the Senate, and Pete Hegseth’s testosterone plan for the military. Find more from Elinor in the Portland Mercury’s Trash Report. Your homework: Attend a house party, knock some doors, talk to your neighbors, make sure you’re registered, and get your ballot in. Season 3 of SchmidtShow PDX runs through Election Day. If you like what we’re doing, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave us a review. This episode is brought to you by Corbett Hill Wellness Center, offering chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, naturopathic medicine, and more. Interested in sponsoring the show? Reach out. We’d love to have you. Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

  7. Sep 16

    Lane Change

    SchmidtShow PDX — Season 3, Episode 9 Before she was a city councilor, she was Teacher Tiffany — sixteen years in Portland Public Schools, a union leader, a fourth-generation Japanese American, and the first Asian American woman ever elected to Portland city government. This week, Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane (District 3) joins the show to talk about her path from the classroom to City Hall, why she refused to sign an NDA on the Moda Center deal, what it actually means to be a Portland DSA member, and how she’s quietly built a string of unanimous council votes — including this month’s 12–0 vote renaming Cesar Chavez Boulevard to Campesinos Boulevard. We also discuss the new survey that found that only 31% of Portlanders feel represented by their council, down 10 points in a year. Only a year and a half into Portland’s new form of government - is that skepticism fair? But before we get into the meat of the episode, I’m joined once again by our trash news correspondent Eleanor Jones joins for “In the News”. With the NFL back - so are some of the ghouls of the league, like Aaron Rodgers and his mysteriously unseen girlfriend. We then pivot to the four-hour AI-narrated Elon Musk documentary, and whether AI executives warning us about AI is the most on-brand thing in the world. In This Episode From the Classroom to City Hall * Why Koyama Lane said no to running for office “probably close to a hundred times” before saying yes * What carries over from teaching to legislating — and what surprised her most The Moda Center Deal * Why she refused to sign the council’s NDA on the $600M arena renovation, and what it cost her * Her no vote on the 8–4 term sheet, and what a deal that earned her yes would have looked like On Being a Democratic Socialist * What DSA membership actually means to her, and where the “boogie monster” framing comes from * Her “three C’s” for tough votes: constituents, conscience, and council — a rule she credits to Secretary of State Tobias Read * Small-donor fundraising and why she says no single group controls her vote Building Unanimous Votes on a Divided Council * The behind-the-scenes organizing that got Cesar Chavez Boulevard renamed to Campesinos Boulevard 12–0 * Power-mapping her colleagues, debunking myths one-on-one, and bringing in validators like Kathleen Sadat * A second example: getting the whole council to unanimously recommit to Vision Zero, plus a 25% carve-out of the new transportation utility fee for traffic safety * What that survey — 31% feeling represented, 39% trust, 22% effectiveness — actually tells her, and what it leaves out Looking Ahead * Her proudest accomplishment so far: opening an in-district office and a Friday newsletter that reaches 10,000+ people * What a second term would focus on, including a domestic workers’ bill of rights * Where to find her and how to support her campaign Notable Quote “Public money deserves public accountability.” — Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane, on refusing to sign an NDA over the Moda Center deal Links & Resources * Follow Councilor Koyama Lane’s campaign on her website * More trash news from Eleanor Jones: The Trash Report, Portland Mercury Thanks to our sponsor Corbett Hill Wellness for making this episode possible. Interested in sponsoring SchmidtShow PDX? Reach out — we’d love to have you. And if you’re a listener, please consider supporting the sponsors who help bring these conversations to you. Like the show? Subscribe, leave a rating, and tell a friend — word of mouth is how this show grows. Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

  8. Sep 9

    Write the Wrong

    It’s back to school season, which means it’s also back to the annual drama over Portland Public Schools — superintendent contracts, building closures, classroom consolidations. But this week, Mike zooms out to the bigger issue hiding underneath all of it: Oregon currently ranks 50th in the nation in fourth-grade reading proficiency. To talk about it, Mike welcomes a guest who’s impossible to ignore — quite literally dressed as a two-foot pencil. J. Schuberth is the creator behind “Pencil for Governor,” a write-in campaign designed to force Oregon’s literacy crisis into the spotlight. Jay walks through how a joke among friends turned into a real campaign, what it’s actually like knocking on doors in a pencil costume, and why it took a mascot to get people talking about something this serious Together, they dig into what states like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee did differently to turn their reading rankings around — and lay out a five-step pledge for what Oregon could actually do about it. It’s part satire, part policy deep-dive, and a reminder that sometimes it takes something absurd to make people pay attention to something urgent. Plus: Elinor Jones returns for a back-to-school edition of “In the News,” covering celebrity balloon arches, Meghan Markle’s UK school controversy, and JD Vance’s stay-at-home parent stipend proposal. In this episode: * Oregon’s 50th-in-the-nation ranking in 4th grade reading proficiency * The origin story behind the “Pencil for Governor” campaign * What Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee did to improve reading outcomes * The five-step pledge for fixing literacy in Oregon * Pencil’s picks for governor-for-a-day: policy, press conferences, and photo ops * In the News: back-to-school culture wars, royal school drama, and the politics of parenting Thanks to our sponsor, Corbett Hill Wellness, for supporting this episode. If you or your business would like to sponsor SchmidtShow PDX, reach out — your support keeps this project going. Links: * You can read Elinor Jones at the Mercury Trash Report * You can learn more about Pencil’s run for Governor * Sign the Petition to build support for fixing Oregon’s reading outcomes! Schmidt Show PDX is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.schmidtshowpdx.com/subscribe

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About

The Schmidt Show PDX covers positive local news and happenings in and around Portland, Oregon. The podcast is hosted by former Multnomah DA, Mike Schmidt. www.schmidtshowpdx.com

Information

  • Creator
    Mike Schmidt
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    42
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Mike Schmidt
  • Show Website
    The Schmidt Show PDX

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