The Untouchable

Does this sound familiar? Tough-as-nails city official rounds up a crack team of vigilantes to clean up his fair city while politicians stand idly by. No, it’s not the plot of the latest Michael Bay abomination. This city official is Commissioner Randy Leonard, whose aptly named Housing Interdiction Team (HIT), is muscling business owners out of Portland and razing their buildings.

Some of you are old enough to remember the 1987 classic The Untouchables, based loosely on the life of G-man Eliot Ness. Ness, played by Kevin Costner, is a Prohibition agent fed up with the bureaucracy of both the police and local government and their inability to take swift action. Ness gathers a group of thugs with hearts of gold who work around the law and answer to no one.

Leonard must have watched this a dozen times. His HIT squad doesn’t include Sean Connery, but it does boast top specialists from the three departments directly under Leonard’s guidance, the Bureau of Development Services, and the Police and Fire bureaus. Like Ness and his men, Leonard targets businesses seemingly at random and proceeds to pick apart the owners, citing fire code violations and illegal construction, until there is nothing left but to file for bankruptcy. The HIT squad lists no official criteria for targets and is accountable to no one.

According to Willamette Week, Leonard has either bought out or demolished nine properties in downtown Portland. Among the rubble lies Cindy’s Adult Bookstore in Old Town, which was shut down after 25 years of operation. The most recent casualty is the Greek Cusina, (the one with the iconic purple octopus), which was shut down after 26 years. Owner Ted Papas told The Oregonian that he vows to take Leonard down in court, whom Papas feels is solely responsible for his forced foreclosure.

It pains me to say it, but I’m going to have to side with the commissioner on this one. Leonard’s statement on his blog maintains that Papas violated a reported 50 fire codes, had done remodeling without legal work permits and was accused of giving free meals to a fire bureau inspector to avoid getting the building up to code. Leonard and his team gave Papas over a year to shape up, and Papas refused.

The other buildings Leonard has targeted have been, as Obi-Wan Kenobi would say, “wretched hives of scum and villainy.” Willamette Week points out that Cindy’s bookstore was a known “den of drug dealing and prostitution.” The hotels the city shut down were run by cruel landlords and were dangerous for occupants. These businesses ran for decades without City Hall’s involvement and it took someone with the political clout like Leonard to take them out.

The commissioner is a bullying, arrogant kingpin and I respect the hell out of him. In a political climate that breeds indecision and obscure closed-door dealings, Leonard proudly displays his checkered political past and offers no apologies. He awarded government contracts to his brother, employs a number of family members and friends and is clearly targeting businesses he deems inappropriate. Willamette Week also reports that the Roseland, the Crystal Ballroom and the Silverado are under Leonard’s scrutiny at the moment. However, the commissioner works completely within the law and never admits any personal vendetta against owners, even if he personally oversees their destruction.

Regardless of how you feel about his politics, Commissioner Leonard is one of the hardest-working men in City Hall. There’s a reason why none of us can name another City Council commissioner. “Hands on” public service is an understatement. During last December’s Marysville Elementary School fire, Leonard donned firefighting gear and climbed atop the burning building, conjuring images of Lawrence of Arabia posing for photos on a recently derailed Ottoman train.

Leonard is not afraid to get his hands dirty and makes sure everyone knows it. His long fingers stretch from minor duct taping bans at the Rose Parade to major overhauls of police internal affairs. Leonard virtually eliminated graffiti by forcing shop owners to stash spray paint behind the counter. He has clawed his way up the ladder from a firefighter to the de facto ruler of the Fire Bureau and City Hall.

I began this article with the intention of exposing a bully, only to find that the bully has been protecting me all along. The commissioner’s shady ethics and intimidating tactics have done quite a lot of good for Portland and may be exactly what we need, at least for now.