Cities oppose public scrutiny of bond expenses

Interesting item in Friday's Whirled: The Oklahoma Municipal League and "others involved in Oklahoma's $1 billion-a-year municipal bond industry" are seeking to eliminate the requirement for local governments to report legal fees and other costs related to bond issues to the state's bond oversight council. The requirement has only been in effect for a year, but its detractors call it burdensome and intrusive. Seems to me that such information would serve as a resource for citizens to compare the bond issue arrangments made by different local governments to see which cities are making the most efficient arrangements. It could create pressure for more local governments to open the bidding on bond-issue services, as I urged last fall, rather than give sweetheart deals to politically-connected firms. I can't understand why the Oklahoma Municipal League would oppose that kind of reform.