Murmurs: Fancy Mental Health Care Tracker Underwhelms Key Lawmaker

FANCY MENTAL HEALTH CARE TRACKER UNDERWHELMS KEY LAWMAKER: Early this year, WW wrote about frustrations with the Oregon Behavioral Health Coordination Center—a data project to centrally coordinate mental health and addiction treatment statewide that, millions of dollars in, has coordinated little actual care (“Command and Control,” Jan. 28). Though the Oregon Health Authority moved to force residential treatment providers to send it their real-time bed capacity data early this year, a recent hearing before lawmakers showed providers consulted the center to place patients extremely rarely. The data center reported that in August, for example, its staff coordinated three placements, one of which was canceled. “I’m not going to hide my shock and disappointment at this,” said state Sen. Lisa Reynolds (D-Portland) after Oregon Health & Science University officials presented their work to the Senate Interim Committee on Early Childhood and Behavioral Health. She pointed out the center has about five staff. “I know there’s been quite a bit of money allocated to the system. I’m just not seeing the there there.” OHSU tells WW that activation data is not the full picture. Activations, spokeswoman Sara Hottman says, “happen as an effort of last resort” and “are a very small part” how the system gets used. It is primarily an “operational tool meant to provide real-time system insight for providers and those placing individuals into care.” Hottman says the data center sees about 38 total log-ins per day from such providers. The real-time data is not available to the general public, another point of contention. So is the fact that OHA routes some capacity information to another database, run by Lines for Life, for outpatient care. “I just don’t understand why we have these silos,” Sen. Reynolds said.

COUNCIL DEBATE DEVOLVES INTO ANTISEMITISM ACCUSATIONS: The Portland City Council’s discussion this month about revising the city’s investment policy turned acrimonious. A handful of moderate councilors accused several of their leftist colleagues of antisemitism. “There has been a fixation since before we took office on things that this council could do to send an anti-Jewish statement,” said Councilor Eric Zimmerman. The leftist councilors responded with equal force, saying the moderate councilors were engaging in their own form of antisemitism by conflating Jewish identity with support for Israel. “I am profoundly disappointed that a colleague would level such a heavy, horrific and painful accusation,” Councilor Angelita Morillo said, “when we are trying to do something to the benefit of a lot of people.” At issue was potential restriction of the city’s investments, including in industries such as military aircraft, defense, armored vehicles and tanks, munitions, missiles and naval ships. The discussion—which took place at the Finance and Governance Committee of the Whole—is just the latest example of the council’s propensity to stray from debating the merits of policy and instead enter the choppy waters of race, religion and identity.

ANALYSIS CONTRADICTS BORDER PATROL ACCOUNT OF SHOOTING: After a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot two immigrants in East Portland this past January, federal officials said he had good reason: He feared for his life because he was in the “direct path” of the immigrants’ Toyota truck, and he believed the driver was trying to kill him. A forensic consulting firm that analyzed the incident has come to a different conclusion: The vehicle was not headed toward the agent when the agent opened fire. “When the shots were fired into the side of the Toyota, the shooter was not in a position to have been run into or over by the Toyota,” said the firm’s report, which was made public in a recent court filing. The report by the consulting firm Talbott Associates was submitted to the federal public defender’s office, which represented the truck’s driver, a Venezuelan man named Luis Niño-Moncada. In its own court filing, the federal government said the report missed key context, pointing out that the incident in question happened within seconds, a period in which Niño-Moncada had dramatically rammed the truck against federal agents’ empty vehicle several times and put multiple agents at risk of physical harm. The briefs were submitted as part of sentencing recommendations that ultimately reached the same conclusion as to what should happen to Niño-Moncada. In line with an agreement forged months ago, the parties agreed he should receive credit for time spent in jail since the incident and be released at sentencing. The sentencing agreement reflected a notable retreat for federal prosecutors, who had originally accused Niño-Moncada of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon—a crime that could have resulted in a long prison sentence.

TITLE I SCHOOLS DISPROPORTIONATELY UNDERENROLLED: As the Portland School Board considers closing as many as 20 elementary, K-8 and middle schools, each of its seven members has asked Portland Public Schools to consider various factors as it determines which buildings go on the chopping block. Yet all have called on the district to prioritize equity in its process. There’s a reason they share that concern: School districts nationwide have often shuttered low-income schools and schools that serve higher percentages of students of color. And data PPS was scheduled to present to the board on Sept. 15 indicates that, indeed, its Title I schools largely have lower enrollments than schools that draw from wealthier families. Title I schools—which have a higher share of families receiving government assistance—have struggled to sustain the enrollment thresholds that the district says are required for robust programming (360 students or more for elementary and 500 or more for middle schools). For example, while 35% of the district’s non-Title I elementary schools met enrollment thresholds last year, just 18% of Title I schools did. In the 2031–32 school year, the district projects 25% of its non-Title I middle schools will meet thresholds, but none of its Title I middle schools will. Gabrielle Haber, on behalf of a parent coalition giving voice to Title I schools throughout the district in the closure process, says low enrollments at such schools are the consequence of “underinvestment, redlining, and special exceptions that have privileged better-off communities,” adding that PPS has an opportunity to right that wrong this time around.