The Eugene program CAHOOTS is receiving national recognition and has become a model for police response to mental health crises in other states. Instead of sending police officers to mental health crisis calls, CAHOOTS sends a crisis worker and a medic. CAHOOTS now responds to nearly 20 percent of emergency calls in Eugene and Springfield. We talk to Tim Black, the operations coordinator for the program.
We sit down with Oregon state Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon (D-Woodburn). She won her first re-election bid in November, part of the Democratic wave that resulted in the party’s supermajority. León is the first formerly undocumented immigrant in the Oregon House, and we’ll talk about her personal story and her priorities for the 2019 legislative session.
Last spring, biologist Scot Loring discovered a new mushroom species in southern Oregon near Soda Mountain. The fungi is about “8 centimeters tall, convex caps with a mix of brownish tones, white margins, a white veil, tan gills, and a whitish stem that tapers to the base." Loring, who is also a mycologist, will work with Friends of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument on naming the new species. We’ll speak with him about the discovery.
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