Posted by John Byrne at 5:22 p.m.
Ex-city Fleet Commissioner Michael Picardi, suspended by City Hall this year after an embarrassing contracting mistake, has landed a new $129,000-a-year job with the Chicago Police Department.
As a deputy director, Picardi will oversee the police department’s general support division, which includes the city auto pound, equipment and supply, and document services and graphics, according to police department spokesman Roderick Drew.
The new gig comes after Mayor Richard Daley suspended Picardi without pay for three months in January for contracts involving Central Auto Body in the Logan Square neighborhood. The shop’s owner, John Szybkowski, was convicted nearly 30 years ago of faking work orders on police department vehicles and giving kickbacks to city workers. Yet that didn’t stop him from getting a new city contract.
At the time of Picardi’s suspension, Daley said that "someone should have had knowledge" about Szybkowski’s earlier conviction.
Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said today that she isn’t certain why Picardi changed jobs shortly after his suspension ended.
One of Picardi’s main tasks with the police department will be to look for efficiencies and implement them, freeing more officers to work on the street, Drew said. The police department expects to hand over administration of the auto pound to the Department of Streets and Sanitation within the next few weeks, Drew said.
This isn’t the first time Picardi has switched city jobs amid criticism. Daley moved him from commissioner of Streets and Sanitation to the head of Fleet Management last year, shortly after a city report found Streets and Sanitation’s leadership "does not fully appreciate the importance" of abiding by hiring rules meant to keep politics out of personnel decisions.
Streets and Sanitation also was criticized over garbage pick-up and snow removal while Picardi was in charge, but Daley said Picardi had done a good job in the position.
Tribune reporter Annie Sweeney contributed.