Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has submitted to the City Council his nominations for the new Chicago Infrastructure Trust.
The trust was created earlier this year to leverage private investment in some special projects.
The mayor's choices for the inaugural board represent a mix of financial, legal, political, development and labor backgrounds.
The nominees are James Bell, retired executive vice president at Boeing Corp.; Diana Ferguson, former chief financial officer for the Chicago Public Schools and former CFO for Sara Lee Foodservice; David Hoffman, a partner at Sidley Austin LLP who formerly held the post of city inspector general; Alderman John Pope; and Jorge Ramirez, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Bell would serve as chairman of the board.
The trust is expected this year to kick off its work by crafting a deal using private investment for $220 million of energy-efficiency upgrades. The energy savings will repay private investors.
The city created the trust to parlay funding from private partnerships, union investment and foundations to help complete transformative projects and to complement more traditional financing methods such as tax-exempt borrowing.
A group of private banks and investors have committed to consider financing up to $1.7 billion of projects with defined revenue streams.
