I just spoke with Commissioner Randy Leonard, to get more detail about his decision to withdraw his name from consideration for the Commissioner-in-Charge of the Police Bureau.

He says the past few months, since Mayor-Elect Adams asked him to prepare an assessment of the Police Bureau, and to consider whether he'd want to run the bureau, have been stressful, given the way Chief Sizer and her supporters (cough*OregonianEditorialBoard*Cough) have acted. Though he's always up for a challenge, "I was dreading going to work" more recently, he says. "I was having fun until this thing came up."

He says he told Adams "I just don't want to do it, I don't want to put myself through this anymore.... I wasn't making a snap decision, [my wife] Julie and I talked about it quite a bit."

He says Adams was upset about Leonard's announcement, but understood once he heard details about the "ongoing drama with no seeming end" that was happening behind the scenes (like chatter about Leonard's family, and--this is something the Mercury experienced--mud-slinging "tips" about Leonard that weren't newsworthy, unless you consider it news that some cops didn't want Leonard to head up the bureau). "Who could have ever imagined that Rosie Sizer would have gone out and done this stuff?" Leonard says.

The drama wasn't just affecting him: "[It was] putting a lot of stress on the bureau, on the rank and file in the bureau." And January should be "about this new exciting guy being the mayor," Leonard says, not about police bureau drama.

The thing is, what's most exciting about Adams as mayor is the goals he wants to tackle, like the abysmal high school graduation rate, and planning for Portland's growth. The whole point of his considering Leonard was to free up his own time to focus on those issue. But will Adams now head up the police bureau--the Oregonian editorial board, after all, maintains that this is a Tradition That Must Not Be Broken--and get distracted from those goals?

Leonard says he'd be "disappointed" if Adams loses sight of why he was looking for another Police Commissioner in the first place. "I would urge him to consider appointing it to one of the other commissioners."

I, for one, would urge Adams to consider giving it to Leonard. You're going to be the mayor, Sam. Tell the Police Chief to grow up, and learn to work with her boss--the boss you appoint.