SEATTLE — The mayor and City Council have each selected five of the 15 members of the city’s new Public-Private Partnership Review Panel. The 10 panelists hold their initial meeting next week to select the remaining five panel members and conduct other initial business. No projects will be reviewed at this initial meeting.

The panel is part of the city’s new process for reviewing public-private partnerships (PPPs). Panelists will provide expert review of public-benefits elements of certain public-private partnerships between the city and private or nonprofit entities.

The 10 panelists are:

• Maria Barrientos, Principal Partner, Barrientos
  Area of expertise: real estate development and project management
• Sue Cary, Vice President, AF Evans Development, Inc.
  Area of expertise: single-family and multi-family housing
• Paul Chiles, President, Chiles and Company, Inc.
  Area of expertise: commercial real estate services
• Bob Filley, Director, Center for Community Development & Real Estate,
  College of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Washington
  Area of expertise: commercial and real estate finance
• Jan Hendrickson, former Sound Transit Finance Director
  Area of expertise: public finance
• Robert Mahon, attorney, Perkins Coie.
  Area of expertise: state and local tax law
• Jackson Schmidt, attorney, Pepple Johnson Cantu & Schmidt
  Area of expertise: commercial and real estate litigation
• Rafael Stone, attorney, Foster Pepper & Shefelman, PLLC
  (Chair, Institutional Pensions Investing and Operations practice group)
  Area of expertise: real estate practice, international and national corporate
• Greg Sundberg, Managing Director Fixed Income Investment Banking,
  U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc.
  Area of expertise: public finance
• Scott Surdyke, Development Manager, Simpson Housing
  Area of expertise: urban residential development, urban planning

The panel was established in late 1999 when the City Council passed Resolution #30072. This legislation was based on the work of the Public-Private Partnership Task Force, a group of citizens convened by the mayor and then-Council President Sue Donaldson to propose a set of standards for the city’s public-private partnerships. The panel will be reviewing and commenting on a PPP’s public benefits at two different stages in a project’s development, and will present its comments at a project’s public hearing.

The panel’s first meeting will be held from 4 to 6 p.m., March 13, in the Mayor’s Conference Room (600 Fourth Ave., 12th floor). The meeting will focus on the panel’s initial business: orientation, selection of the remaining five panelists, establishing a regular meeting schedule for the full panel, and initial selection of subgroups for three projects waiting for review (the South Lake Union Redevelopment project, the Admiral Garage and the Aquarium Redevelopment Project). The goal is to have all 15 panelists selected by the end of March.