I would support this entirely. I was also impressed with Professor Becker. He appears also to be prepared to continue to do work on this issue for us without expecting a contract, so I don't think there's a financial issue. It's an extremely generous offer. He will need time, because he has a day job. I would urge that we move it forward now with some wiggle language toward the end that says “and any other conditions that strike us that don't slow down his work”.
If we tell him tomorrow that we really want him to do these, he could work all weekend. I think we're down to days that matter, and I'd rather let him know thumbs up that we appreciate his civic-minded brilliance and we like his composite Gallagher index, that we really want this work, and we may have another condition to tell him about later—if Nathan can live with that.