Emanuel Names Infrastructure Trust Board

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 11, 2012 4:40PM

© 2011 City of Chicago, photos by Brooke Collins.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced his nominees to the board of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust today. The Trust is Emanuel's plan to rebuild the city's crumbling infrastructure using $1.7 billion in corporate funding Emanuel and city Budget Director Alexandra Holt said is necessary because of the mess that is the city budget, but opponents fear could lead to a lack of transparency because its status as a non-profit organization excludes it from Freedom of Information Act requests and Open Meetings Act requests.

Emannuel's nominees are James Bell (Chair), retired Executive Vice President, Boeing Corporation; Diana Ferguson, former Chief Financial Officer of Sara Lee Foodservice and Chicago Public Schools; former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman now a partner at Sidley Austin LLP; 10th Ward Ald. John Pope; and Chicago Federation of Labor president Jorge Ramirez.

Emanuel said in a press release announcing the nominees:

“Our nominees are professionals of the highest magnitude who will operate in a transparent fashion, and will bring to the board the strictest fiduciary and ethical standards. Their diverse experience will help ensure the Trust creates and undertakes projects that will be beneficial for taxpayers, while creating jobs and economic opportunity throughout the city.”

Bell told the Tribune he hopes the Trust's board can provide the oversight necessary to lure private investment to help rebuild the city's infrastructure.

"Getting the private sector to invest in municipal infrastructure is something that will have to be proved out. It will be looked at by people who are trying to see if this concept and innovative idea really works."

Ramirez touted the Trust as a jobs creator.

On paper, the Trust's board balances corporate fundraisers (Bell, Ferguson) with the interests of the city (Pope) and labor (Ramirez) represented, while Hoffman's experience as IG provides transparency, or at least the impression that the Trust will operate ostensibly on the level. Whether that translates to reality remains to be seen.