Mar 22, 2022
Tobias Read, Oregon’s current state Treasurer, is also a democratic candidate for Oregon Governor. In this extra long podcast episode, he tells us about his public service career, his work as Oregon's State Treasurer, and why he wants to be Oregon’s next Governor. The questions I ask include:
This is a time when the state is flush with extra COVID relief cash, but is that money getting out fast enough to those who need it most? To help alleviate homelessness and housing insecurity? To help education, and medical care?
We talked about the drought and wildfires. It’s March, already the drought’s sparking Governor Brown’s emergency declaration for Klamath County. Central and southern Oregon are in for a third consecutive year of drought, with some of the worst of it in the area that suffered one of the state’s most devastating wildfires ever, the Bootleg Fire, last fire season. According to NOAA: many of the areas most affected by drought would need 150 to 200 percent or more of normal precipitation over the next two months to ameliorate drought conditions, which seems unlikely.
We address another big crisis point in Oregon: shootings. 2021 brought Portland’s most ever shootings and murders, 1200 documented shootings, nearly 70 homicides with guns, larger numbers than San Francisco and Boston and double Seattle’s rate. Our suicide rate is also higher than the national average. What are his possible solutions to this?
And... Oregon’s dropping the mask mandate. Is this good or bad?
And his thoughts on this: We’ve seen current Oregon Governor Kate Brown, cope with really historic challenge after challenge, crisis after crisis: the pandemic, the wildfires, the months and months of protests and clashes with police, near shuttering of businesses, coping with the challenges of online education, record setting violence. Are you sure you want this job?