Sean C. Morgan
Communications Supervisor Penny Leland has passed the 40-year mark in an extraordinarily long law enforcement career with Sweet Home Police Department.
More than 40 years ago, Leland became a volunteer at Sweet Home Police Department, something that soon turned into a part-time job. Leland had been interested in dispatching since a junior high field trip to the fire department in Redding, Calif.
Her former husband had been a sergeant at SHPD. Albany Police Department hired him in April 1981, but she was offered a part-time position and started working at SHPD on April 28, 1981. She marked the occasion April 28 of this year, joining city and department staff for lunch and cake.
She has worked for four police chiefs, Ed Savage, Gary David, Robert Burford and Jeff Lynn, and through all of them she has happily returned to work daily for four decades, fueled by unpredictable variety.
“You never know what might happen,” Leland said. “Never bored. If it’s a slow day in dispatch, I have so many other things to keep me busy. My favorite is stats. The teamwork between dispatch and patrol is great. This is especially true in the past 30 years.”
She has enjoyed seeing a community that stands behind its police force, something that has only grown stronger, Leland said. “I’ve always felt there has been community support of the PD, but never as much as the overwhelming support we have received in the past year.”
Over a 40-year career, there are a lot changes in any business. The Police Department has become more digital in that timeframe. Crime rates everywhere are more or less half of what they were when she joined SHPD.
But the most striking change during her career is in police officer recruitment, Leland said. “In the mid-90s, when we recruited for police officers, we would get over 100 applicants. By 2005, it was half that, at 40 to 50; and recently, it’s half that again. The minimum requirements have not changed from the 90s until now.”
“Penny is really the central hub of our department,” said Police Jeff Lynn. “She manages and coordinates massive amounts of information, financial transactions to records and scheduling, while covering many dispatch shifts and other odd jobs around the building. Penny is a wizard with digging up and collating data that informs where and how we put our efforts and keep the public informed.”
“As a reporter here for many years, I asked for a lot of stats, weird stats sometimes,” said Community Services Officer Sean Morgan. “It was usually when Penny was off. (Retired) Chief (Bob) Burford and Chief Lynn were always very good at letting me know I could have the stats whenever Penny gets back to work.
“She recently combed through our mountain of calls to identify folks we contact frequently for mental health issues. That’s not an easy statistic to uncover since many calls involve mental health even if they aren’t classified that way in the system.”
“We’ve been able to use that information to partner up with professionals from the Linn County Mental Health and begin regular outreach to get these folks help they can use to improve their lives and the lives around them,” Lynn said. “It remains to see how effective it will be, but already in the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen a couple of bright spots. Penny’s data is key to guiding the effort.”
Lynn and his staff might like to keep Leland around many more years, but that is not to be.
“I’m looking forward to retiring in a couple of years,” Leland said.