White House announces members of Puerto Rico Oversight Board
We finally know who will essentially govern Puerto Rico for the foreseeable future, after the White House released the names of President Barack Obama’s appointees to the Oversight Board established by PROMESA. Here are their names from a Dow Jones Business News report:
The legislation requires the oversight board, selected by Mr. Obama from lists of candidates submitted by congressional leaders, to approve fiscal plans submitted by Puerto Rico’s governor. Four selections are candidates submitted by Republicans, while three are from Democrats.
The Democratic-sponsored appointees include Arthur Gonzalez, the former chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, who presided over some of the most famous corporate bankruptcy cases, including Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and Chrysler LLC. The other appointees are Ana Matosantos, California’s finance director from 2009 to 2013, and José Ramón González, chief executive of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.
The Republican-sponsored appointees include Carlos Garcia, a private-equity executive who previously served as president of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank; Jose Carrion III, an insurance executive based in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrew Biggs, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington; and David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
With these appointments, the pieces are in place for Puerto Rico’s new, unelected Oversight Board to take office and begin operations, beginning with approving a fiscal plan to be submitted soon by Governor Alejandro García Padilla.
