Daley Replaces Aide Tied to Parking Meter Lease

Paul Volpe heads to CTA as budget director

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, while claiming to have continued confidence in the man, has replaced the aide who engineered the city's controversial parking meter lease deal.

Daley heaped praise on Paul Volpe as he announced Thursday that he was ushering him out the door after just over a year in the post.

Replacing Volpe next month is Raymond Orozco, who has serviced as the Executive Director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications since July 2008.

Daley acknowledged that both he and Volpe share blame for the parking meter snafu. 

"All of us bear it. I’ll take it myself. First and foremost me -- not anybody else," the mayor said.

The 75-year deal that privatized Chicago's 36,000 parking meters has caused consternation among Chicago motorists.

Privatizing the meters have come with rate increases requiring motorists to carry dozens of quarters, in addition to broken and frozen pay-and-display boxes and improperly calibrated meters.

Volpe, whom Daley called "an incredible public servant" heads to the Chicago Transit Authority, where he will be budget director.

Orozco spent 29 years as a Chicago firefighter and the last two years as fire commissioner. In July, 2008, he brought new leadership to an 911 center racked by allegations of hiring and contracting irregularities, the Chicago Sun-Times explained.

Daley, who has had at least a dozen chiefs of staff since taking office in 1989, denied that Orozco, 50, a longtime city veteran, was being put in place to steady the ship before any 2011 re-election effort, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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