The Schmidt Show PDX

Mike Schmidt
  • 4.0 (23)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Weekly

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. 2d ago

    The Reluctant President

    SchmidtShow PDX, Season 3, Episode 2 This week I sat down with Portland City Council President Jamie Dunphy — the “compromise president” who emerged after 13 deadlocked votes — to talk about running a fractured council, the real math behind the Moda Center deal, and what Portland might learn from New York. In this episode The reluctant presidency — What it means to hold “all the responsibility, none of the power,” after 13 deadlocked rounds of voting and a brand-new form of government with no precedent to lean on. The serial communications law — Why Jamie calls it “crippling”: councilors can’t work out policy one-on-one before a public vote, manufacturing gridlock rather than preventing corruption — while the legislature exempted itself from the same rules. The budget, in plain numbers — The city’s budget has grown from $5.8B to $8.6B since 2020, but the real battleground is the $1B general fund, which just absorbed a $170M gap — the largest structural shortfall since the 1960s. Police staffing and the Clean Energy Fund — Jamie pushes back on the proposed staffing-ratio ballot measure and the narrative that PCF has “excess funds,” pointing to a five-year, publicly accountable spending plan already tied to East Portland priorities. Small business, from experience — Lessons from opening Love Cup in the middle of the 2008 crash, and Jamie’s pitch for a real how-to-manual and single point of contact for new business owners. Music as infrastructure — Why Jamie ran on treating music as economic development and public safety strategy, not an arts “nice to have.” The Moda Center, in detail — The heart of the episode: the city’s original $1 acquisition, the 3-to-1 state/county match, the remaining $75M gap, opening the operator contract to competitive bid, a public split at 49/46, and the August 12th term sheet vote. What Portland could learn from New York — A candid take on the Mamdani moment and what’s actually transferable to Portland’s council-manager system. Music trivia lightning round — The FBI’s real obscenity investigation into “Louie Louie,” presidential campaign anthems, and a closing pitch to make it Portland’s official city anthem. 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. Jul 9

    You Shall Not Stagnate!

    SchmidtShow PDX — Season 3, Episode 1: Mike sits down with Curtis Robinhold to unpack the Oregon Prosperity Council’s just-released report: 66 listening sessions, 25 communities, 400+ pages, and a mandate to figure out why Oregon’s business climate isn’t competitive — and what to do about it. About Curtis Robinhold Curtis Robinhold is the Executive Director of the Port of Portland, where he’s overseen major projects including the newly completed PDX airport terminal. Earlier in his career, he worked in BP’s renewable energy business in Europe and served as chief of staff to Governor John Kitzhaber. This spring, Governor Kotek tapped him to co-chair the Oregon Prosperity Council alongside former Intel president Renee James, leading a six-month, statewide effort to diagnose what’s holding back Oregon’s economic competitiveness and chart a path forward. He’s also an award-winning environmentalist, a longtime soccer fan who’s lived in Germany and London, and the youngest of three brothers. In this episode * Curtis’s path from Eugene to BP’s renewable energy business overseas, to John Kitzhaber’s chief of staff, to nearly a decade running the Port of Portland (and overseeing the newly finished airport terminal) * How the Prosperity Council came together with co-chair Renee James (former Intel president) and why they deliberately stayed narrow in scope * The bad news: Oregon ranks 49th in job growth, has a tax burden that surprises people once you look at the data, and a permitting/regulatory environment that businesses say is harder to navigate than neighboring blue states * The “spaghetti” of Oregon’s workforce development system — and why community college credits don’t even transfer between community colleges * Real stories from the road: Hill Meats in Pendleton, Salt & Straw’s Kim Malik on why she’s not expanding in Oregon, and Fort George Brewing’s infrastructure struggles in Astoria * The land use debate — Senate Bill 100 at 55+ years old, and whether it’s time for a “grown-up conversation” about adjustments * A Hamiltonian-vs-Jeffersonian detour on centralized power, abundance politics, and why big public projects (like the airport) get done when insulated from election cycles * Cap-and-invest, statutory vs. rules-based climate policy, and why Curtis thinks it’s time for the legislature to act instead of the executive branch * Oregon’s real strengths: food and beverage, athletic apparel, mass timber, semiconductors — and the “second paycheck” of quality of life * Rapid-fire World Cup predictions: France over Argentina in the final, Mexico over England in the quarters (whoops!), and strong opinions on Pilsners Where to find the full report: Oregon Prosperity Council recommendations, released end of June 2026. 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. Jun 24

    In The News...Moda Center

    Tonight I read Shane Dixon Kavanaugh’s piece titled “Portland mayor lambasts critics of Moda Center deal as county questions investment”. Worth the read - but here’s a quick synopsis: Mayor Wilson sent out a letter doubling down on the city’s $120 million pledge and going after the councilors and critics who’ve raised concerns about the deal. Less than two hours later, Multnomah County held its first public hearing on its own $100 million-plus ask — and commissioners spent most of it asking a questions to nobody because Representatives from Dundon and the Blazers couldn’t be bothered to show up. It’s NBA lottery night after all! Preamble before my reaction: I want the Blazers to stay. I’m willing to support spending public money to make that happen. But the price tag is closing in on a billion dollars, for a team a ne’er-do-well billionaire just bought for $4.25 billion, and three things from Tuesday tell me the people pushing this deal don’t think it can survive public scrutiny. 1. Dundon is treating elected officials as an obstacle to manage, not a partner to convince. He's headlining the Chamber event the day after skipping the county meeting where actual accountability questions were on the table. That's not a scheduling accident — it's a strategy of applying donor-class pressure on commissioners rather than answering Singleton's, Moyer’s and Brim-Edwards' direct questions. You don't avoid the room with the hard questions if you think your case can survive them. 2. The information asymmetry is the real scandal, not Krolewicz’s presence. The only published numbers on this nearly billion-dollar deal come from a volunteer with no government access, while the city, county, state and team — the parties with the actual financial models — have offered nothing comparable. Wilson’s energy should go into rebutting Krolewicz’s analysis if it’s wrong, not attacking him for filling a vacuum nobody else would fill. 3. Personal attacks on a critic are a tell, not a rebuttal. When an elected official with a strong factual position gets challenged, the move is to show the math. Wilson reaching for “Brooklyn-based tech bro” instead of “here’s why his numbers are wrong” suggests he doesn’t have a confident answer to the substance — and it’s beneath the office regardless. Here’s where I land: if the case for this deal is good, somebody please make it, with numbers, in public, to the people asking. Sell it. Show us what we’re missing. Lead - don’t lash out at people who are honestly skeptical or who are asking the same questions we would expect of them for any deal of this magnitude. (Source: Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, The Oregonian, “Portland mayor lambasts critics of Moda Center deal as county questions investment.”) 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

    In The News...Moda Center

  4. May 27

    Season 2 Finale: The Rebuttal

    Earlier this season, Portland Metro Chamber Executive Vice President of Public Affairs Jon Isaacs sat across from Mike and made his case: the DSA is bad for Portland, bad for business, and bad for the social programs progressives claim to care about. It was the most downloaded episode in Schmidt Show history. This is the rebuttal. City Councilor Angelita Morillo — First term District 3 representative and proud DSA member, comes into studio to respond. She doesn’t just push back on the argument. She makes her case, point by point, with data, personal experience, and insight into the day to day of actually doing the work. This is our Season 2 finale. 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. May 20

    Certified Organic Journalism

    What if clean information is as essential to democracy as clean air is to public health? That’s the question at the center of this episode — and it’s one that today’s guest has been thinking about longer than most. Ryan Haas spent more than 20 years in journalism, including 12 years at Oregon Public Broadcasting, where he served as Managing Editor of News. Last year, he left OPB after watching what he describes as a broader pullback from ambitious, investigative reporting — a pattern he sees playing out across institutional media. He and his co-founder Leah Sottile launched The Western Edge, a reader-supported investigative outlet focused on the communities — rural, small, and underserved — that legacy media has all but abandoned. In just a few months, they’ve already broken news no one else was touching, including a deeply reported story on worker deaths at Amazon’s Troutdale fulfillment facility. Mike and Ryan get into all of it: * Why Ryan left OPB — and what the slow retreat from investigative journalism looks like from the inside * The Western Edge’s mission — bringing long-form, narrative investigative journalism to communities outside Portland that have been left in a media desert * The Amazon story — what it took to report it, why long form investigative journalism is not at risk of being replaced by AI - and the depth of nuance that actually communicates more than “just the facts” * What Mike saw as DA — salacious headlines with the more mundane story hidden behind the paywall, editors promising cover stories for take down quotes from sources, and the real-world policy consequences of gotcha journalism on our public institutions * The “right to clean information” framework — why Mike argues that the same logic behind clean air and clean water standards should apply to the information ecosystem * Solutions worth taking seriously — an organic certification model for trusted journalism outlets, a bar-like licensing framework for journalists, media vouchers, and Ryan’s proposal for an AmeriCorps for journalism * AI and the threat to accountability reporting — including the Peter Thiel-funded “Objection AI” tool being used to discredit independent journalists * What media literacy actually requires — and why the collapse of local news isn’t a left or right problem - it impacts us all Ryan’s closing line says it all: Scroll less, savor more. Subscribe to The Western Edge at thewesternedge.media. Reader support is how investigative journalism survives. And if you enjoyed this show, subscribe and follow for more, tell a friend, share it on social media. Help us get the word out so more people can consider and engage with the issues that Portland is talking about. 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

    Certified Organic Journalism

  6. May 13

    Hit Record

    Show Notes 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. May 6

    For the Campesinos

    The Schmidt Show PDX | Season 2, Episode 14 Some fights you don’t choose. They choose you. On March 19th, 2026, a New York Times investigation alleged that Cesar Chavez had sexually abused girls in the farm worker movement and assaulted Dolores Huerta, his own partner in the struggle. For Portland’s Latino community that had fought a multi year battle to rename a street in his honor — a community that pushed through the racist attacks, broken promises, and a brutal bureaucratic process — the news landed like a gut punch. And almost before they could process it, elected leaders were calling for the street renamed - to come down. This episode is about what happens next. Today I sit down with Marta Guembas and former Portland Mayor Tom Potter, two people who understand in their bones what it means when a community has to fight just to be seen. Marta was co-chair of the original Cesar Chavez Boulevard campaign. Mayor Potter shepherded that effort through a bruising, years-long political battle beginning in 2007. Together, we dig into the history that most Portlanders don’t know — the false starts, the broken promises, the commissioner who changed his vote, and the three years of pain it took to turn 39th Avenue into Cesar Chavez Boulevard in 2010. And then we talk about how the original committee has been forced out of retirement to organize once more: to come back to the arena, tired and grieving, and how they found something extraordinary in the hard work of separating an icon from an ugly truth. A new name. Campesinos Boulevard. Not a name that can be taken back. A name that honors not the man but the movement — the farm workers, the families, the hands in the fields and the voices in the streets who built everything. Mayor Potter put it simply: when he heard it, he thought it was brilliant. So did I. In this episode: * Marta describes the moment she realized the NYT report was true — and the deeply personal process of taking down a framed portrait of Chavez she’d kept for years, eventually cutting it into 39 pieces * Mayor Potter reflects on navigating the original renaming battle and what he’d tell today’s city council * Why the community felt immediate calls to rename the street were disrespectful — and what they needed instead * The story behind Campesinos — and why it may be the first street in the United States named for farm workers collectively * Which local organizations have already come forward in support, and how you can too. Take action. This one matters. The community has spoken. Now it’s Portland’s turn. 📖 Read the full story — OPB’s deep dive on the renaming effort and the community behind it: Portlanders consider the future of Cesar Chavez Boulevard 📞 Call your City Council representative and the Mayor’s office. Tell them you support a swift, dignified resolution — one that honors a community that has already waited long enough and fought hard enough to be seen by this city. ✍️ Support Por La Causa and their petition to rename the street Campesinos Boulevard. This effort is being led by community members, not politicians — exactly as it should be. Enjoying the show? We are so close to hitting 100 Substack subscribers — and when we get there, we are planning something special to celebrate. If you’ve been on the fence, now is the time. Subscribe at Substack, like the episode, follow the show, and tell someone else about it. This kind of storytelling only reaches as far as the people willing to pass it along. As always — keep showing up for Portland. 🌹 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. Apr 27

    Cheap Seats

    Portland has a new billionaire in the building — and he brought a $600 million ask with him. Tom Dundon closed his purchase of the Trail Blazers just weeks ago, and the early headlines haven’t been about basketball. They’ve been about cost-cutting, lobbying campaigns, and a demand to commit north of a billion dollars in public money to renovate an arena the public already owns. Two guys with a website and zero budget noticed — and built a case that’s now showing up on KGW and landing in city council chambers. Jonathan Pulvers is a lifelong Portlander, hardcore Blazers fan, and co-creator of RipCityNotRipOff.com. We sat down the day of Game 3 — Jonathan was taking his six-year-old to the nosebleeds — to dig into whether Portland is on the verge of the worst arena deal in NBA history. What we get into: * The relocation threat is a bluff. The NBA just expanded to Las Vegas and Seattle. There’s nowhere to go — and the math doesn’t work anyway. Dundon would face a $400M relocation fee, hundreds of millions in litigation, and would walk away from whatever subsidy he’s already been promised. * The real price tag is $1 billion. State bonds + City of Portland’s $400M + Multnomah County’s $88M. Dundon’s contribution: zero. No rent, no naming rights, no private capital. * Nobody knows where $600M came from. The Blazers’ own consultants produced the number. No independent review. Comparable renovations have run $150–200M. * The love bomb era that wasn’t. Two weeks in: no playoff t-shirts, the team masseuse had no hotel room, two-way players were left home, and staff waited in lobbies because checkout had to happen by 12:30 PM. What happened to dinner and a drink first? * Co-owner Mark Saar runs Blue Owl Capital, which recently sold a warehouse in Pennsylvania to ICE. Reported in the New York Times. Portlanders can weigh that. * What a real deal should look like: $150M+ private capital contribution, 30-year lease, meaningful relocation penalties, PILOT payments, naming rights revenue share, free TriMet to the games, street pricing, community benefits, and labor standards. All of it exists in other NBA deals. Portland is the only city being asked to give everything and get nothing back. We close with a live round of Would Dundon Cut It? — the game show built for this episode. Find Jonathan: ripcitynotripoff.com · @RipCityNotRipOff on Bluesky · Reddit Pro-deal? The invitation is open — come make the case. Enjoying the show? Subscribe on Substack and consider chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the mics on and the conversation independent. A personal note from Mike: This episode was taped just hours before our heartbreaking Game 3 loss — and I have to give Jonathan credit for nearly nailing the exact final score. I’m posting this having just come home from Game 4, which was its own kind of heartbreak. Things looked so good in the first half. And then the better team showed up in the second half and reminded us where we are in this rebuild. That’s okay. It stings the way playoff losses are supposed to sting — but underneath it, there’s something genuinely impressive about what this team just did. They overperformed. They fought. And the future, assuming it doesn’t get squandered, is looking bright for this young squad. Also — Wemby is just unreal. I don’t know what else to say about that. Photo credit: me. I was there. I hope you enjoy some of the shots. 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
    29
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Mike Schmidt
  • Show Website
    The Schmidt Show PDX

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