Murmurs: Prosper Portland Won’t Release Review of Loan Program

PROSPER PORTLAND WON’T RELEASE REVIEW OF LOAN PROGRAM: Late last year, the newly hired executive director of Prosper Portland commissioned two law firms to conduct a review of the agency’s loans, grants, policies and procedures. But the city’s economic development agency now declines to provide copies of those reviews to WW, citing attorney-client privilege. That’s notable because Prosper’s loans—which include smaller business loans but also larger loans of up to $5 million for new construction, renovations and building acquisition—are taxpayer-funded. And after a high-profile shoe manufacturing project that Prosper loaned $7 million in 2025 failed spectacularly—culminating in a unanimous vote by the Prosper board this summer to repossess the project’s buildings in lieu of foreclosure—the agency came under intense scrutiny from some Portland city councilors, who questioned its judgment, transparency and effectiveness. Prosper spokesman Shawn Uhlman says Cornell Wesley, the agency’s executive director, commissioned the reports “to get an outside perspective.” But the agency declined to provide any top-line findings from the reports, citing attorney-client privilege: “Any more selective description of a privileged work product risks waiving privilege entirely, so we’re declining to characterize the reports beyond Cornell’s high-level summary at Council.”

OHSU TOPS LIST FOR STAFFING FINES: Oregon’s hospital staffing law requires hospital management to abide by staffing plans produced jointly with workers. The law gets enforced when workers—say, a nurse or a respiratory therapist—tell the state that their employer didn’t make or follow the plan. Since fines went into effect last year, complaints have flooded in. Nowhere has this occurred more than at Oregon Health & Science University, which, according to state data reviewed by WW, had as of late June racked up more than $1.5 million in fines tied to the law, with hundreds more enforcement notices pending. (Two other Portland-area hospitals, including Providence Portland Medical Center, have also seen significant fines, while others, including large ones like Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, have faced practically none at all.) OHSU has formally contested some of the fines. A spokesperson notes the complexity of the staffing requirements, and says the institution is working “in earnest” to get staffing plans approved. Hospital leaders have complained that the Oregon Health Authority is enforcing the law unfairly—different than they envisioned it as members of the coalition that created the legislation. The result “rewards gridlock, punishes hospitals that are meeting statutory staffing requirements, and diverts millions of dollars from patient care to OHA—driving further affordability challenges,” says a Providence Oregon spokesperson. Union leaders find this rich. “If hospitals would follow the law and work with health care workers on staffing plans that meet the needs of patients and caregivers, they wouldn’t be required to pay fines, submit to investigations, and file paperwork,” spokeswoman Myrna Jensen of the Oregon Nurses Association tells WW. A spokesperson for a major OHSU union, AFSCME, says that “a clear pattern has emerged: OHSU would rather pay fines than adhere to sufficient staffing committee staffing plans.”

PPS FORECASTS ENROLLMENT DECLINE WILL SOON HIT MIDDLE SCHOOLS: Portland Public Schools is starting to see its ongoing enrollment loss extend past the elementary school grades. The school district has struggled with steep enrollment declines that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated. (Contributing factors include a declining birth rate and rising costs that have driven many families out of the city.) As the district looks to close up to 10 schools in the upcoming year, officials have released projections that indicate most elementary, K–8 and middle schools don’t meet enrollment thresholds that allow PPS to offer stable programming. In the past academic year, 27% of elementary schools were above 360 students, and 23% of K–8 schools and 40% of middle schools were above 500 students. (Those thresholds are based on prototypes from the state’s Quality Education Model.) By the 2031–32 school year, the district forecasts just 18% of elementary schools will serve more than 360 students. That year, 15% of K–8 schools will meet enrollment thresholds. But middle schools are expected to see the most dramatic drop-offs in upcoming years—projections show just 13%, or two schools, will hit the 500-student threshold by 2031–32. In an Aug. 4 School Board memo, Dr. Jon Franco, the district’s senior chief of operations, wrote that the district forecasts its enrollment declines will continue through the decade, though the rate of decline should slow down. “Elementary school populations will continue to shrink and the impact at middle grades will be pronounced,” Franco wrote. “The steep decline that we saw from the pandemic is working its way through the system.”

CITY RELENTS AND ALLOWS WATERSLIDE ON GRASS: Portlanders were outraged July 28 when WW reported that city parks officials had shut down a citizen-run waterslide, saying it could damage the grass at Brooklyn Park. The slide, a 100-foot strip of polyethylene film wetted with a garden hose, has been a feature of a summer youth program for the past five decades. But the tradition came to an abrupt end last month after city workers were called to the park and “discovered” the slide, now in its 49th season. The stated reason for the shutdown—that the plastic damages the grass—was roundly criticized online following coverage in WW. After three days of backlash, Portland Parks & Recreation told the citizen group Friends of Brooklyn Park that it may continue to operate the slide. Neighbors say the summer day program has waned in popularity in recent years but that the slide remains a free and fun use of public land and a small but important symbol of neighborhood tradition. The Brooklyn Park Summer Program runs weekdays except Wednesdays through Aug. 21. Enjoy the slide!