What's $80 Million In Debt Amongst Friends?

The Kansas City Star reports that a committee of financial experts is recommending that the City borrow an additional $80 million to deal with our infrastructure backlog. I find this interesting on many levels. First of all, the charter of this committee is "To work with the Citys Finance Department AND City Manager TO recommend TO the City Council the issuance scheduling OF the $3 million IN bond capacity the voters OF Kansas City approved ON April 6, 2004." Funny I don't remember a $3 million bond election? I'm hoping that's just a typo on the City website. I do remember a $250 million bond election. $3 million, $80 million, $250 million... Hey who keeps track? It's not like we're talking about a lot of money. Well, not a lot of money to some people. Another interesting thing about this committee. No conflict of interest statement is required from any of the members. Well that makes sense. How could there possibly be a conflict of interest if financial experts are recommending debt issuance? I'm sure there's no chance any of them would have the most remote connection to anyone in the financial industry. I mean come on! Financial experts? Connected to the finance industry? What are the chances?! Why bother with pesky formalities like disclosing any possible conflict of interest? Anyway, I'm not willing to concede that all these committee members are financial experts in the first place. I've said it over and over. Perception is 90% of reality. All I ask is some transparency in government. If someone is appointed to a board or commission their relevant qualifications should be published for all to see. As a taxpayer I want to know not only who the people are making the decisions for my city, but what qualifies them to do so? Don't you?