Aldermen to vote on mayor's trust plan, but some want more protections

A handful of Chicago aldermen have launched a last-ditch attempt to secure City Council voting rights on every deal put together by a new board that Mayor Rahm Emanuel would appoint to try to attract private money for public-works projects.

The group of five holdouts stated their case ahead of Tuesday's special council meeting where the mayor's Chicago Infrastructure Trust measure tops the agenda.

The ordinance only calls for a council vote when city money, assets or property is involved. That leaves out projects involving city sister agencies, including Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Transit Authority and the Chicago Park District, all led by mayoral appointees.

Given that taxpayers could be on the hook if projects don't pan out, Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, said the measure "comes down to taxation without representation."

Allowing the council to consider such projects is among several oversight provisions the aldermen want Emanuel to add. The new proposal won quick endorsement by a host of good-government groups, but aldermen conceded they lacked the votes to win passage — leaving only persuasive argument or public pressure to sway the mayor.

"The city doesn't have the authority or the power to impose City Council authority on sister agencies," said mayoral spokesman Tom Alexander, who added that the mayor planned to move forward with his own proposal Tuesday.

Emanuel already has made several requested changes to the proposed ordinance, but critics say they are insufficient to ensure adequate oversight of an agency that could help shape the city's finances and image for decades to come by deciding how to spend billions of dollars.

Facing that criticism and a likely attempt by aldermen to delay the vote for up to two months, Emanuel last week maneuvered to put off the vote for just six days. The mayor also said he would issue an executive order calling for outside review of trust deals and finances.

A new version of the ordinance, crafted by the five aldermen and attorney Emily Miller of the Better Government Association, aims to ensure that the trust falls under the full force of state open meetings and records laws, that it's subject to the city ethics ordinance and that it falls under city inspector general oversight.

In an opinion requested by Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, Inspector General Joseph Ferguson wrote that the only way to ensure the trust falls under his office's oversight is to specify that in the ordinance.

"The ordinance simply is opaque," Ferguson said Monday. "These are things that should be addressed and clarified."

Ferguson also said city personnel rules, the city ethics ordinance and a federal prohibition on taking politics into consideration when hiring and firing workers "may well not apply to the trust" and it needs to be made clear that they do.

The administration late Monday countered one point with a new opinion from Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton stating that the trust would be subject to the ethics ordinance.

The five aldermen also want the ordinance to require outside experts to evaluate each deal and the trust's finances, something Emanuel plans to do through an executive order that could lapse on his departure from office.

"We feel like we've come up with exactly what the mayor wants, which is an infrastructure trust ordinance, but one that protects taxpayers," said Ald. John Arena, 45th. Joining Arena, Hairston and Waguespack were Aldermen Robert Fioretti, 2nd, and Toni Foulkes, 15th. They spoke to the Tribune editorial board about their plan.

Ferguson said the proposed changes would make "significant improvements" to Emanuel's ordinance.

"The remarkable thing about Chicago is that we are debating something that is just the norm in the rest of the advanced world," Ferguson said, who then referred to Emanuel's tenure as chief of staff for President Barack Obama. "You need look no further than the Obama administration from which the mayor came to see exactly how it's done."