'Hamister says the lack of government assistance made the decision easy. Public funds aren't going to come in, so after getting four extensions on deadlines to try to submit a bid, Hamister and Berman decided to call it quits, realizing that nearly 40 million dollars in public assistance from state, county and city government would not become available. Hamister said, "Certainly we know about hard fiscal times. The economy is not as good and budgets are not as good as they use to be."'