The Citadel project: someone please tell me we learned lessons here

There is a good and important article in the Star today, telling the details of just what the ill-fated Citadel Project on the East side ended up costing the city and where the money went (see link below). While it's good to know that not all the money--or even most of it--went to some crooked developer, the fact is, the city still took an expensive beating on it. In the end, it seems there are two things to consider from this ill-conceived mess. The first is the cost to us, the citiznes who have to pay for this: "The city will issue 20-year bonds for the $15 million, with debt service estimated at more than $1.2 million per year — tax dollars that could otherwise have been spent on basic services. The city hopes new revenue from future development can cover at least part of the debt service, but that can’t happen until something is built there." The 2nd important thing is that we learn from this. Hopefully the "takeaway" from this whole mess is that you do research, first, on any self-proclaimed developer so you know they're worth what they say they're worth and that they can then do what they say they can. Is that so much to ask, that we learn a good lesson here and avoid this kind of mistake in the future? Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/06/3356910/citadel-plaza-drags-to-an-end.html