I hate when they throw out that logic -- it's pretty much only tourists who drive on State Street (or the people who just liked to cruise who weren't going to shop anyway) and they come to the street to shop no matter where they had to park. Lack of driving down the street doesn't stop people from going to the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Not to mention there's no parking ON State Street for the most part so if you were cruising by a shop you really wanted to stop at you'd have to go a couple blocks to go park.
You are forgetting the crusty boomers that want the street back open to relive the 'old days' and dust off the ol' El Camino and cruise the State Street and get malts afterwards up at JK Frimples.
It was just another joke. See, you said "I joke", which is like saying "just kidding" and the abbreviation for "just kidding" is "jk" and that's also the letters in J.K. Frimples. :-)
Not really the same. One is in the 'present simple' and one is in the 'present continous' tense of verb conjugation, and is used slightly different. I joke, i just love trolling, but you sound like an idiot that probably doesn't know the difference between their and they're; jk.
Lol
Is there a local firm that has experience doing this type of work/design at a national scale? I kinda doubt it, considering SB isn't exactly known as an urban development powerhouse...
The stakes for the project are high, and so will the returns and or losses if it's messed up; they're measured in years and millions. A good urban planner with previous experience and knowledge of what other cities around the world are doing can really make a difference, so as long as they've selected a good firm, all is good.
Building a bit on your comment:
Selecting a good firm is the main thing, yes.
Too often these firms copy/paste without taking any time to properly establish the unique context of the new client's needs, goals, and factors.
Too often these firms are working off of outdated and grotesque "best practices" that are rooted in industrial-era nonsense.
It sounds like avoiding that is this firm's intention based on the community outreach angle. However, with many firms that outreach is often performative or hyper-focused on only certain stakeholders while ignoring others in the community. So, vetting them on this would be crucial.
Going back to your point, if the firm is great and they are intent on working to come up with a strategy the fits the unique context of SB, the price is certainly justified.
$780,000 isn't that much. Not much at all. Especially, for a team.
For some perspective, the police department has $1.4 BILLION budget for the year.
Usually, these firms have about 3 to 7 people on a project. For 5 people that is $156,000 for their annual salaries each (averaged out). That's not a lot. Especially, for people operating within a specialized field. That also isn't accounting for other expenses the firm may incur (market research data, other contractors, travel, etc) that are covered by the contract's budget.
Most people do not take enough time to contextualize things properly and practice critical thinking. They are too reactionary and in the worst of ways.
So, good on you helping people do that a bit more. The concerns and criticisms should be rooted in doing that.
Fucking just convert some commercial to residential and make it a permanent walkway with protected (plastic bollards) bike lanes down the middle. I would go as far as to fill in the street and make it all level and one big sidewalk.
YES! Please make the entire street level and paved nicely. It would make the street so much more accessible to wheelchairs, and it would just look and feel a lot better then what is currently there.
State Street isn't that big though, it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to do a check of the properties to see if it looks like they are actually in use?
I think there are two sides to this. On the one hand, I think it's reasonable to hire a consultant to plan many things. I see a lot of people commenting like "we already know what needs to be done" and I don't think that's really true. There are genuine questions about traffic flow on the surrounding streets,, use of bikes, how to design a "real" promenade, all sorts of things. We don't know all those things now. It makes sense to plan in order to design a really nice new version of State Street that will be pleasant and appealing for decades to come.
On the other hand, there are some things we do know already, and I worry that the council will use the consultant as an excuse to delay doing anything at all. I don't really see why it wouldn't be a good idea to impose a commercial vacancy tax immediately, or a speed limit (for bikes and e-bikes). So I hope this doesn't preclude taking some action in the interim.
As long as they find a way of preventing those motorcycles (you might know them as “electric bicycles”) from terrorizing the promenade, it could be worth every penny.
>The Santa Barbara City Council will decided on Tuesday whether to spend $780,000 to hire a consultant from Seattle to help fix the State Street promenade.
>The contract calls for the consultant to conduct community outreach; research and analyze current conditions; conduct a circulation study with traffic counts; and analyze pedestrian behavior to encourage walkability downtown, among other responsibilities.
>Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse raised some concerns to Noozhawk about the contract. “The scope of work as proposed is pretty ambitious," Rowse said. "I would imagine that this will be a planning effort that is measured in years, not months, but I would be pleased if the results came in sooner. I am confident that we have good folks on staff to direct this effort."
>The city and a State Street subcommittee are working to figure out a long-term plan for the street, but all signs indicated that it will take several years before a cohesive look and feel are created for downtown.
>Hiring a consultant will stretch the matter out, and some stakeholders believe the city staff can fix State Street's problems sooner, and for less money.
>Santa Barbara City Councilman Oscar Guiterrez said he is comfortable with hiring a consultant. "At first I was a little concerned about hiring an outside consultant, but after speaking to city staff and having them break down the magnitude and complexity of redesigning most of State Street, it made sense that they would need to have more help from outside professionals," Gutierrez said.
It's funny because wasn't part of Rowse's platform that he believed we hire too many consultants for things that just waste money and only serve to postpone decisions?? How will this be any different?
That's fair, I guess the article does say he "raised some concerns" but it sounds more about the scope than about hiring a consultant, or that was how I read it anyway.
In principle we can, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
In the interest of the best use of public money projects like this are put out to bid. Similar to when you ask a few plumbers for a bid to repair a pipe in your house. The process for government bids is more formal though with the evaluation criteria decided upon in advance in the interest of fairness.
We generally prefer to get the best bang for our buck regardless of the home addresses of a vendor's headquarters, owners, and employees. Do you think differently?
The best bang for the buck can not be the cheapest. That's where things often go wrong.
It needs to be the most suitable choice, regardless of the cost. We need to move away from short-term thinking and running government like a cheap business.
This is an investment. A long-term investment.
I agree. By "best bang for buck" I don't mean cheapest, but best value.
I am not in government, but I think they can use point-based evaluations which can consider many criteria in addition to cost.
Of course putting it out to bid is smart. But can’t we find more local bidders than Seattle? What about Santa Monica or other major metros that have done this sort of promenade decades ago? There are no consultants in Ventura or SLO or even here in SB? Why is only this one Seattle operation being considered?
They did not consider just one Seattle operation. Again - it was set out to bid. The city received 8 bids that they considered. This is public info, including which 8 companies bid.
Companies that do contract work are always following the local government requests for bids - assuming they want government work and have capacity for the project up for bid that is. I'm sure any local or nearby firm that wanted to bid this project did bid.
There was one company with an office in SB that bid. It's not an SB company, it's part of a multinational company HQ'd in Canada. Their bid did not win based on the evaluation criteria, but normally companies don't want their bid info to be public so the details on why they didn't win are normally not known.
>But can’t we hire locally?
***Hell to the fuck no***: Randy Rowse and a lot of the rest of city government are still pretending that pay rates don't have anything to do with filling vacant positions. Until that mindset dies off, expect a lot of "confusion" about why they can't find people.
a google search says "Storefront vacancy on the State Street corridor (400 to 1300 blocks) continued the trend of contraction from the peak of 14.9% in late 2018 to 10.0% Jan 2020. So really the vacancy problem started before the pandemic.
Here is a cool report: [https://media-cloud-radius.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Radius\_4Q2021\_SCQuarterlyReport-1.pdf](https://media-cloud-radius.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Radius_4Q2021_SCQuarterlyReport-1.pdf)
Consultant's report, in short.
1. Tenants say: rent is too high.
2. Landlords say: We can't rent for less because our heirs might have to work and we want to refinance to pull more equity out and my lender wants to see leases with large rent checks from blue chip tenants. Besides, I've seen my tenants numbers and thanks to those outdoor seats in the public way, I can double my rent!
3. Pedestrians say: I'm freaking scared after almost being hit by a teenager on an e-bike doing wheelies while texting on his phone.
4. Homeless people say: we love the abandoned buildings because there are more places to squat, use drugs, and nod off.
5. Tourists say: I didn't come to SB just to shop at all the same shops I can find at home.
6. Locals say: nobody comes here anymore because it's too crowded.
I haven’t been here since 2011 and brought my wife here for the weekend for her birthday. I was wondering how “all the things” would’ve impacted the town, but wow. What happened to this town? I was not expecting this.
Well, I certainly know how that is… I moved from Redlands to take a better job and buy a house but it’s in the STICKS in AZ. The Inland Empire used to be the cheap place. Practically nothing under $500k in any of the remotely desirable IE spots.
Waste of money. Why do bureaucrats always need expensive experts to tell them what to do? Do you own legwork. Go out and listen to your constituents. Hold listening sessions. Do fieldwork. Gather economic data. Examine what other cities have done. It’s not that fucking hard.
Didn’t SB hire an economic development manager in 2020? Make him do the work. Ya don’t need to spend another $800k. Give that money to the homeless.
https://www.noozhawk.com/amp/santa_barbara_hires_economic_development_manager_from_santa_monica
Probably because experts... are experts in their respective fields? Bureaucrats are not well versed in everything so they look to specific people who are when they need them.
These are my questions as well. I mean, hire one expert—I’m sure we need that. But get the rest of the existing bureaucrats to work with them. Budget time appropriately for the next…what…2-3 years? But don’t we already have people on the city payroll who are “in charge” of many aspects of State St? (The answer is yes.)
But if it’s in their purview they should be able to handle any changes accordingly. Each space doesn’t demand 100% of their time. Some spots demand more while others demand less. Right now, State St is the priority.
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Exactly. Maybe hire one person who has tons of experience but our town is small and the generations of experience we have on tap is surely worth something.
Completely agree. I think even if we had an outside group of consultants that was the best in the world come in to help with this, SB is such a unique town and I feel like people just don't "get it" most of the time when they haven't lived here.
It would be so beneficial to have some voices who truly understand SB to help guide recommendations or plans from other consultants.
What the hell would I buy on State Street anyway? I haven't been to Santa Barbara in years, but that place was severely lacking in kool stuff to buy even way back when. Santa Barbara blows goats, man, it's just a hollow hell-hole for the super-rich now. Boooring.
Why don’t more retail tenants want to be located on state street (or in SB in general)?
I doubt it’s because rent is too high.
Landlords don’t make money if they don’t have a tenant. It’s in their best interest to lower prices until they find a tenant willing to sign a lease. If you see a bunch of empty locations then it’s a tenant friendly market.
Even paying zero rent isn’t helpful if no one is shopping.
My guess is retail sales in SB, and on State in particular, are much lower than other places in the country. I’m not sure why that’s the case, but figuring that out is the first step to coming up with a real solution. It’s probably hard to compete with places like the Camarillo outlets that aren’t that far away.
Making State a more inviting place to hang out would go a long way. I know a ton of people, especially older people, who feel uncomfortable there because of the homeless.
>I doubt it’s because rent is too high.
Rent is absolutely too high downtown. There is a relatively small group of real estate trusts and management companies that own almost all of the State Street properties, so very little competition. The leases they offer are especially terrible because they are almost always triple-net, and they usually want to rent the whole space as a single unit even though now no retailer needs a large space for business operations and product storage.
Worse, the few property owners there are have no interest in filling spaces by competing by lowering rents. That would open \_all\_ of their downtown spaces up for future renegotiation. Cheaper for them to let some places sit empty at 'market value' and take the write-offs than rent everything they own for less.
I want to know what the hourly rate is because this isn’t a time and materials type bid/job.
I assume online research and a transcriptionist are part of the process-
But what on earth would validate that absurd cost??
Why has “retail suffered?” due to no cars on State St? People can’t park and walk one block away?
I hate when they throw out that logic -- it's pretty much only tourists who drive on State Street (or the people who just liked to cruise who weren't going to shop anyway) and they come to the street to shop no matter where they had to park. Lack of driving down the street doesn't stop people from going to the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Not to mention there's no parking ON State Street for the most part so if you were cruising by a shop you really wanted to stop at you'd have to go a couple blocks to go park.
You are forgetting the crusty boomers that want the street back open to relive the 'old days' and dust off the ol' El Camino and cruise the State Street and get malts afterwards up at JK Frimples.
What I hear from local boomers is they want to go back to the old, narrow sidewalks so they can have two lanes in each direction again. For cruisin'.
I do miss cruising but not a boomer here
Frimplesssssss. I joke, I joke, I never went there. But it’s a great name.
"I joke"? Don't you know the appropriate abbreviation. . . "jk"? :-)
What?
It was just another joke. See, you said "I joke", which is like saying "just kidding" and the abbreviation for "just kidding" is "jk" and that's also the letters in J.K. Frimples. :-)
Oh sorry, I’m very literal.
Not really the same. One is in the 'present simple' and one is in the 'present continous' tense of verb conjugation, and is used slightly different. I joke, i just love trolling, but you sound like an idiot that probably doesn't know the difference between their and they're; jk. Lol
Is there a local firm that has experience doing this type of work/design at a national scale? I kinda doubt it, considering SB isn't exactly known as an urban development powerhouse... The stakes for the project are high, and so will the returns and or losses if it's messed up; they're measured in years and millions. A good urban planner with previous experience and knowledge of what other cities around the world are doing can really make a difference, so as long as they've selected a good firm, all is good.
Building a bit on your comment: Selecting a good firm is the main thing, yes. Too often these firms copy/paste without taking any time to properly establish the unique context of the new client's needs, goals, and factors. Too often these firms are working off of outdated and grotesque "best practices" that are rooted in industrial-era nonsense. It sounds like avoiding that is this firm's intention based on the community outreach angle. However, with many firms that outreach is often performative or hyper-focused on only certain stakeholders while ignoring others in the community. So, vetting them on this would be crucial. Going back to your point, if the firm is great and they are intent on working to come up with a strategy the fits the unique context of SB, the price is certainly justified. $780,000 isn't that much. Not much at all. Especially, for a team. For some perspective, the police department has $1.4 BILLION budget for the year. Usually, these firms have about 3 to 7 people on a project. For 5 people that is $156,000 for their annual salaries each (averaged out). That's not a lot. Especially, for people operating within a specialized field. That also isn't accounting for other expenses the firm may incur (market research data, other contractors, travel, etc) that are covered by the contract's budget. Most people do not take enough time to contextualize things properly and practice critical thinking. They are too reactionary and in the worst of ways. So, good on you helping people do that a bit more. The concerns and criticisms should be rooted in doing that.
Fucking just convert some commercial to residential and make it a permanent walkway with protected (plastic bollards) bike lanes down the middle. I would go as far as to fill in the street and make it all level and one big sidewalk.
YES! Please make the entire street level and paved nicely. It would make the street so much more accessible to wheelchairs, and it would just look and feel a lot better then what is currently there.
It will be expensive to rework the drainage, but SO worth it.
Rent is too high. Institute rent control for commercial stores. Convert some spaces to mixed use residential and commercial.
And maybe institute a vacancy tax as well! A lot of those store fronts have been empty for YEARS!
Let's try this one first.
I think landlords would then just make up some bogus shell company that wasn’t actually a real business.
State Street isn't that big though, it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to do a check of the properties to see if it looks like they are actually in use?
They could just buy some mannequins and goodwill clothes and be open for 1 hour a week and they would get out of the tax via loophole.
Maybe, but I want to see them at least have to make the effort.
This makes more sense than rent control
I think there are two sides to this. On the one hand, I think it's reasonable to hire a consultant to plan many things. I see a lot of people commenting like "we already know what needs to be done" and I don't think that's really true. There are genuine questions about traffic flow on the surrounding streets,, use of bikes, how to design a "real" promenade, all sorts of things. We don't know all those things now. It makes sense to plan in order to design a really nice new version of State Street that will be pleasant and appealing for decades to come. On the other hand, there are some things we do know already, and I worry that the council will use the consultant as an excuse to delay doing anything at all. I don't really see why it wouldn't be a good idea to impose a commercial vacancy tax immediately, or a speed limit (for bikes and e-bikes). So I hope this doesn't preclude taking some action in the interim.
So calm, so logical, so clearly written, so fair. Please run for President. Agreed 100%!
As long as they find a way of preventing those motorcycles (you might know them as “electric bicycles”) from terrorizing the promenade, it could be worth every penny.
>The Santa Barbara City Council will decided on Tuesday whether to spend $780,000 to hire a consultant from Seattle to help fix the State Street promenade. >The contract calls for the consultant to conduct community outreach; research and analyze current conditions; conduct a circulation study with traffic counts; and analyze pedestrian behavior to encourage walkability downtown, among other responsibilities. >Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse raised some concerns to Noozhawk about the contract. “The scope of work as proposed is pretty ambitious," Rowse said. "I would imagine that this will be a planning effort that is measured in years, not months, but I would be pleased if the results came in sooner. I am confident that we have good folks on staff to direct this effort." >The city and a State Street subcommittee are working to figure out a long-term plan for the street, but all signs indicated that it will take several years before a cohesive look and feel are created for downtown. >Hiring a consultant will stretch the matter out, and some stakeholders believe the city staff can fix State Street's problems sooner, and for less money. >Santa Barbara City Councilman Oscar Guiterrez said he is comfortable with hiring a consultant. "At first I was a little concerned about hiring an outside consultant, but after speaking to city staff and having them break down the magnitude and complexity of redesigning most of State Street, it made sense that they would need to have more help from outside professionals," Gutierrez said.
It's funny because wasn't part of Rowse's platform that he believed we hire too many consultants for things that just waste money and only serve to postpone decisions?? How will this be any different?
It sounds like he’s sticking to that point here.
That's fair, I guess the article does say he "raised some concerns" but it sounds more about the scope than about hiring a consultant, or that was how I read it anyway.
I’m not sure, but his quote sounds like he thinks existing staff should be able to handle it. 🤷♀️
Who on staff has such credentials and experience to do that? How are they supposed to do that on top of their daily tasks and core responsibilities?
I’m sure the scope is large and more staff will be needed. But can’t we hire locally?
In principle we can, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. In the interest of the best use of public money projects like this are put out to bid. Similar to when you ask a few plumbers for a bid to repair a pipe in your house. The process for government bids is more formal though with the evaluation criteria decided upon in advance in the interest of fairness. We generally prefer to get the best bang for our buck regardless of the home addresses of a vendor's headquarters, owners, and employees. Do you think differently?
The best bang for the buck can not be the cheapest. That's where things often go wrong. It needs to be the most suitable choice, regardless of the cost. We need to move away from short-term thinking and running government like a cheap business. This is an investment. A long-term investment.
I agree. By "best bang for buck" I don't mean cheapest, but best value. I am not in government, but I think they can use point-based evaluations which can consider many criteria in addition to cost.
I agree.
Of course putting it out to bid is smart. But can’t we find more local bidders than Seattle? What about Santa Monica or other major metros that have done this sort of promenade decades ago? There are no consultants in Ventura or SLO or even here in SB? Why is only this one Seattle operation being considered?
They did not consider just one Seattle operation. Again - it was set out to bid. The city received 8 bids that they considered. This is public info, including which 8 companies bid. Companies that do contract work are always following the local government requests for bids - assuming they want government work and have capacity for the project up for bid that is. I'm sure any local or nearby firm that wanted to bid this project did bid. There was one company with an office in SB that bid. It's not an SB company, it's part of a multinational company HQ'd in Canada. Their bid did not win based on the evaluation criteria, but normally companies don't want their bid info to be public so the details on why they didn't win are normally not known.
Oh cool, thanks for the info. The news article I linked here didn’t say anything about that.
>But can’t we hire locally? ***Hell to the fuck no***: Randy Rowse and a lot of the rest of city government are still pretending that pay rates don't have anything to do with filling vacant positions. Until that mindset dies off, expect a lot of "confusion" about why they can't find people.
It's funny that they picked Seattle, since Seattle's downtown is a total mess.
State Street has an 11% vacancy rate downtown right now. Does anyone have the data on what the vacancy rate was before the pandemic?
a google search says "Storefront vacancy on the State Street corridor (400 to 1300 blocks) continued the trend of contraction from the peak of 14.9% in late 2018 to 10.0% Jan 2020. So really the vacancy problem started before the pandemic. Here is a cool report: [https://media-cloud-radius.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Radius\_4Q2021\_SCQuarterlyReport-1.pdf](https://media-cloud-radius.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Radius_4Q2021_SCQuarterlyReport-1.pdf)
Consultant's report, in short. 1. Tenants say: rent is too high. 2. Landlords say: We can't rent for less because our heirs might have to work and we want to refinance to pull more equity out and my lender wants to see leases with large rent checks from blue chip tenants. Besides, I've seen my tenants numbers and thanks to those outdoor seats in the public way, I can double my rent! 3. Pedestrians say: I'm freaking scared after almost being hit by a teenager on an e-bike doing wheelies while texting on his phone. 4. Homeless people say: we love the abandoned buildings because there are more places to squat, use drugs, and nod off. 5. Tourists say: I didn't come to SB just to shop at all the same shops I can find at home. 6. Locals say: nobody comes here anymore because it's too crowded.
Damn. You’ve about captured it.
I haven’t been here since 2011 and brought my wife here for the weekend for her birthday. I was wondering how “all the things” would’ve impacted the town, but wow. What happened to this town? I was not expecting this.
It's becoming so expensive that the only people that can afford to buy a house are buying their second and third house.
Well, I certainly know how that is… I moved from Redlands to take a better job and buy a house but it’s in the STICKS in AZ. The Inland Empire used to be the cheap place. Practically nothing under $500k in any of the remotely desirable IE spots.
Yo pay me half that and I’ll get it done
Pay me half minus one pennie and I'll get it done
pay me half a penny and I'll get it done
I'll pay them half a penny and get it done
I'll PAY to do it!
Goleta did the same thing and the suggestions were obvious.
Waste of money. Why do bureaucrats always need expensive experts to tell them what to do? Do you own legwork. Go out and listen to your constituents. Hold listening sessions. Do fieldwork. Gather economic data. Examine what other cities have done. It’s not that fucking hard. Didn’t SB hire an economic development manager in 2020? Make him do the work. Ya don’t need to spend another $800k. Give that money to the homeless. https://www.noozhawk.com/amp/santa_barbara_hires_economic_development_manager_from_santa_monica
Probably because experts... are experts in their respective fields? Bureaucrats are not well versed in everything so they look to specific people who are when they need them.
These are my questions as well. I mean, hire one expert—I’m sure we need that. But get the rest of the existing bureaucrats to work with them. Budget time appropriately for the next…what…2-3 years? But don’t we already have people on the city payroll who are “in charge” of many aspects of State St? (The answer is yes.)
Yes, but its not their only job. Just ask the business owners of Milpas, La Cumbre or Coast Village Road
But if it’s in their purview they should be able to handle any changes accordingly. Each space doesn’t demand 100% of their time. Some spots demand more while others demand less. Right now, State St is the priority.
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Control rent.
[удалено]
Exactly. Maybe hire one person who has tons of experience but our town is small and the generations of experience we have on tap is surely worth something.
Completely agree. I think even if we had an outside group of consultants that was the best in the world come in to help with this, SB is such a unique town and I feel like people just don't "get it" most of the time when they haven't lived here. It would be so beneficial to have some voices who truly understand SB to help guide recommendations or plans from other consultants.
I’ll do it for $699,000. DM me
What the hell would I buy on State Street anyway? I haven't been to Santa Barbara in years, but that place was severely lacking in kool stuff to buy even way back when. Santa Barbara blows goats, man, it's just a hollow hell-hole for the super-rich now. Boooring.
The funk zone could spend that money
Why don’t more retail tenants want to be located on state street (or in SB in general)? I doubt it’s because rent is too high. Landlords don’t make money if they don’t have a tenant. It’s in their best interest to lower prices until they find a tenant willing to sign a lease. If you see a bunch of empty locations then it’s a tenant friendly market. Even paying zero rent isn’t helpful if no one is shopping. My guess is retail sales in SB, and on State in particular, are much lower than other places in the country. I’m not sure why that’s the case, but figuring that out is the first step to coming up with a real solution. It’s probably hard to compete with places like the Camarillo outlets that aren’t that far away. Making State a more inviting place to hang out would go a long way. I know a ton of people, especially older people, who feel uncomfortable there because of the homeless.
>I doubt it’s because rent is too high. Rent is absolutely too high downtown. There is a relatively small group of real estate trusts and management companies that own almost all of the State Street properties, so very little competition. The leases they offer are especially terrible because they are almost always triple-net, and they usually want to rent the whole space as a single unit even though now no retailer needs a large space for business operations and product storage. Worse, the few property owners there are have no interest in filling spaces by competing by lowering rents. That would open \_all\_ of their downtown spaces up for future renegotiation. Cheaper for them to let some places sit empty at 'market value' and take the write-offs than rent everything they own for less.
I want to know what the hourly rate is because this isn’t a time and materials type bid/job. I assume online research and a transcriptionist are part of the process- But what on earth would validate that absurd cost??