Randy Leonard

Charles Randall ‘Randy’ Leonard (born 1952) is a politician in the U.S. state of Oregon. He was a member of the Oregon Legislative Assembly from 1993 to 2002 and served as a city commissioner in Portland (a member of the Portland City Council) from 2002 through 2012.

Career Prior to serving in Portland city government, Leonard served in the Oregon Legislative Assembly and was a lieutenant with the Portland Fire Bureau.

In 1985, Leonard was elected President of the Portland Firefighters Association. He was elected as the Portland Firefighters President four times, serving in that position until 1998.

In 1993, he was appointed to the Oregon State Senate to serve Multnomah County in District 9 by the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. In 1994 he was elected to the Senate for a four-year term. In 1998, because of term limits, Leonard became the first person in Oregon history to run for the Oregon House of Representatives while serving as a sitting State Senator. A Democrat, he served in the Senate and Oregon House of Representatives from 1993 through the 2002 special sessions of the legislature.

Leonard was elected to the Portland City Council in 2002, in a special election held to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of then-commissioner Charlie Hales. He was sworn in as a Portland city commissioner in front of the Smith Memorial Center in the South Park Blocks on November 26, 2002, by city auditor Gary Blackmer. He was re-elected in 2004 and 2008.

While serving on the Portland City Council, Leonard was the appointed by the Mayor to be the administrative head of a number of different city bureaus, including the Portland Fire Bureau. Leonard was the Commissioner-in-charge of the Fire Bureau during his final four years on the city council.

In 2011, Leonard announced that he would not run for re-election in 2012, and his final term on the city council ended on December 31, 2012.