Ald. Jason Ervin (28) put forward an ordinance to establish the Chicago Public Infrastructure Trust, an investment vehicle that would be designed to “acquire, finance, manage, operate and sell revenue-producing infrastructure assets for the benefit of Chicago residents, taxpayers and pension beneficiaries,” according to the alderman’s office. 

The budget chair’s proposal comes as the City Council mulls whether it should approve the sale of the rights to revenue from the city’s parking meters from the Morgan Stanley-led group Chicago Parking Meters, LLC to Stonepeak Partners, a New York City investment firm, for the remainder of a 75-year lease.  

According to the ordinance (O2026-0027464) introduced Wednesday by Ervin, the trust would be set up as an independent corporate entity that would manage public infrastructure assets and receive investments from certain city funds, including pension funds, and both public and private funding sources. It would target assets that are low-risk and “produce predictable cash flow” to help address structural city revenue shortfalls. Proceeds would solely go toward the city’s pension obligations. 

“Chicago has serious fiscal challenges, including persistent budget pressure and deeply underfunded pension systems,” Ervin said in a news release. “We cannot solve those problems with slogans or short-term fixes, so it’s time to try something new. I look forward to working with my colleagues to see if a Chicago Infrastructure Trust can be a new tool to address these long-term problems.”  

The ordinance would establish the trust and its governance. The day-to-day operations would be governed by a nine-member board of directors. Six people would sit on the board as ex officio members — the comptroller, city clerk, city treasurer and the chairs of the City Council’s finance, economic development and contracting committees. The remaining three members would be appointed by the mayor with council approval, and each would represent one of the South, West and North sides. 

The trust board would also include 14 additional board members without voting powers. The 14 would include the leaders of the city’s transportation, water management, fleet and facility management, planning and development and aviation departments; representatives from the city’s four pension funds and from certain sister agencies, such as the Chicago Park District, Chicago Housing Authority, Public Building Commission, Chicago Transit Authority and City Colleges of Chicago. 

The vote on whether to approve the parking meter rights transfer has stalled in the finance committee following a contentious June hearing in which some alderpeople criticized the mayor’s office for withholding key information from the body and others stood opposed due to Stonepeak’s ownership of a company that assists with federal deportations. The deadline to make a decision was postponed from July 24 to Sept. 30. 

Related: Alderpeople conduct contentious hearing on proposed sale of parking meter rights 

“If a Chicago Public Infrastructure Trust existed today, the parking meter debate would look different,” Ervin said. “The mayor and City Council would not be stuck choosing only between approving a new private purchaser or rejecting the sale without a clear alternative. We would have a public partner evaluating the asset whose only interest is the returns it could generate for Chicagoans.” 

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration covertly placed a bid on the rights to the meters last year. While the exact amount is not public, alderpeople were told at the finance hearing the bid was rumored to have gone up to $3.3 billion before the city backed off. 

Ervin’s ordinance would give the trust the power to purchase, sell or finance an acquisition of assets only with due diligence, transparency and council oversight. Independent advisors would be required to review and publish reports on proposed transactions, and the council would vote on the approval of transactions. The board would manage the other affairs of the trust. 

The independent reports would have to be delivered to alderpeople before a finance committee or council vote and would have to include “independent valuation, legal review, actuarial modeling and financial analyses,” plus a risk analysis, evaluation and comparison of the cost to the city government against alternative scenarios and an assessment of the economic benefit to the trust, the city and the pension funds, according to Ervin’s ordinance. 

The ordinance would also require opportunities for members of the public to review plainly written explanations of the proposed transactions and testify at public hearings. 

While Ervin stressed his proposal does not definitively call for the repurchase of the parking meter rights, he said the city should be better equipped to inquire about transactions like that.

“Responsible investors do due diligence and taxpayers deserve the same discipline,” Ervin said in his news release. “If the numbers do not work, we should say so. But Chicago should not refuse to even ask the question, especially when a valuable asset is changing hands.” 

Ald. Anthony Beale (9) on Wednesday used a procedural maneuver to send the proposal to the rules committee, where legislation often goes to languish indefinitely.