Lamb, Dowd pushing for investment experts to bid for city
business  Share with others:  Print Email Read Later  Pittsburgh
wants to cut its debt. Financial pros get big bucks to arrange
debt deals. City Controller Michael Lamb and Councilman Patrick
Dowd want those pros to bid against each other for the right to
handle $45.3 million in public money that's now socked away for
future debt payments.  Both officials endorsed that idea
yesterday, after the state-picked Intergovernmental Cooperation
Authority board met and announced that it was close to an
agreement with the city on the much-discussed debt fund. The
agreement isn't expected to go into detail on how the money is
managed -- but maybe it should, Mr. Lamb suggested.  "There will
be fees," he said, and the way to minimize them is through
competitive bidding. "Open it up to all comers."  ICA Executive
Director Henry Sciortino did that one better. Why not invite the
firms that have made much money from handling city debt deals to
do the work pro bono? "We