The Bath City Council should be commended for reversing itself in asking for a deeper investigation into its secretive sale of a city-owned building for below assessed — and probably market — value.

After all, it made the deal; it could hardly be expected to probe it without bias.

The next step is to ensure the investigator has no ties to the buyer or the seller, since this person is the last bulwark against the lingering perception in the city that secrecy at best and cronyism at worst were at work when officials disposed of a building that appears to have been worth more than the $799,000 it collected.

The investigator also should have a working knowledge of real estate appraisal techniques and the local commercial real estate market, and should be reimbursed fairly from the city’s pre-approved legal budget.

The city also is crafting new rules for how it conducts property sales — another hopeful sign that Bath’s public officials are coming to terms with how to do the public’s business in public.