The Chicago Infrastructure Trust—a new, city-created non-profit that seeks to make possible private financing of public infrastructure projects—recently passed its bylaws.
Those rules include a provision granting the city Inspector General (IG) the authority to investigate actions of the Trust.
However, the Sun-Times editorial board argues this provision may be more show than substance because the actual city ordinance that created and granted power to the Trust did not grant the IG power to investigate it.
For instance, should a contractor or sister city agency refuse to cooperate with the IG, the ordinance outweighs the bylaws, thereby bringing the ability to enforce the bylaws’ IG provision into question.
In addition to sharing concern about the IG’s role in monitoring the trust, the BGA is also questioning the bylaws’ effectiveness in regards to following the Illinois Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act.
