After Chicago barred the press from its 2025 investor conference, reversing a prior policy, the city's finance team told the leaders of excluded publications that "this specific and intentional effort to engage with bond investors is consistent with peer municipalities."
Information from finance officials across the country suggests the picture isn't so cut-and-dried. The Bond Buyer reached out to 10 cities in Chicago's league by gross domestic product, and could find no examples of peer municipalities that held investor conferences and closed them to the press.
Houston Controller Chris Hollins' first investor conference after taking office in January 2024 was not without controversy. It was prefaced by a bruising back-and-forth between city leaders. But the Oct. 22 gathering was open to the press.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire had
An Oct. 3 media advisory from Hollins' office touted moderated discussions with public finance experts and invited members of the press to RSVP.
"The investor conference is a specialized gathering aimed at bolstering financial obligations for capital improvement projects in Houston," the advisory said. "It serves as a platform for the city of Houston and its neighboring sectors to present their financial performance, growth strategies, and plans to a targeted audience."
Houston's investor conference has always been open to the media and to the general public, according to the city controller's office.
The Philadelphia treasurer's office said their last investor conference was in 2022, and it was open to the press. The city has no current plans for future conferences.
Oluwatona Campbell, senior press officer for the New York City comptroller, declined to criticize Chicago's decision, but said that New York has invited the press to its annual Bureau of Asset Management meeting.
Los Angeles held investor conferences
"At this time, we do not have plans to host an investor conference, but may do so in the future," said Ha To, Los Angeles' debt manager, who declined to comment on the Chicago decision.
In the Midwest, none of Chicago's peer cities hold regular investor conferences. But their best practices include public presentations and frequent engagement with the media.
Minneapolis CFO Dushani Dye said she and Allen Hoppe, the city's director of banking, investments and debt, have presented at a Minnesota Society of Municipal Analysts meeting. National Federation of Municipal Analysts Executive Director Lisa Good said MSMA events are open to non-members for a small fee.
Dye said she and her team also reach out proactively to media outlets, including The Bond Buyer, to raise awareness of debt plans.
Dye said they use their investor relations site to communicate regularly with the public, and "we cater the city's ratings presentations to respond to areas of interest for each rating agency by soliciting questions ahead of time."
Detroit held an investor conference in 2018 in partnership with the state of Michigan, said Stephanie Davis, communications manager for the office of the chief financial officer. The conference took place roughly four years after Detroit's emergence from bankruptcy. It was open to the press.
Davis said the best practices Detroit now follows include meeting with the rating agencies that rate the city at least once a year to update its ratings and giving a rating presentation every time the city issues bonds.
Their team also posts investor presentations to public disclosure websites. And they hold one-on-ones with any interested bond buyers that request a meeting.
"Our experience is that investors prefer one-on-ones to a large presentation since they don't like to ask questions in front of the other bond funds they compete with," she said.
St. Louis has not held an investor conference. But the city makes itself available for one-on-one calls with investors to discuss publicly available information, said Rebecca Perry-Glickstein, director at PFM Financial Advisors, the city's primary municipal advisor, responding on behalf of Comptroller Donna Baringer.
The city also maintains continuing disclosure filings on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA website, and stays in regular contact with market analysts and investors. It is in ongoing communication with rating agencies through rating requests for bond transactions and annual surveillance discussions, Perry-Glickstein said.
Chicago's move to uninvite the press is not technically unprecedented. During the administration of former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago once asked the press to leave an investor conference after an initial presentation, according to a reporter present then.
But the city has otherwise allowed the press to attend previous investor conferences as a representative of the taxpayers.
A report released during the Emanuel administration gave Chicago a failing grade on government transparency.
Other Illinois cities that failed the audit included Springfield, Champaign, Decatur, Bolingbrook, Des Plaines, Oak Lawn and Berwyn.
There are 10 basic metrics on which the think tank judges municipalities' level of transparency, according to LyLena Estabine, policy researcher at Illinois Policy. They are contact information, public meetings, public records, budgets, audits, expenditures, compensation, contracts, lobbying and taxes.
Today, Chicago's neighbor governments demonstrating best practices for transparency include the village of Orland Park, which shares fund summaries and a
Among local governments, certain key factors contribute to differences in levels of transparency.
A
Officials in Atlanta, which held an investor conference on April 23, did not respond to requests for comment. Officials in Chicago, Dallas and Miami likewise didn't respond by press time.
Robert Slavin contributed reporting.
