By U-T San Diego Editorial Board

Is Mayor Jerry Sanders’ administration about to again turn down a generous offer from an expert that could save hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Last year, Jason Hughes – one of the principals in Hughes Marino, a tenant representation firm – volunteered to help the city for free as it pursued three new multimillion-dollar leases for hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space. It was a role he’d previously handled for the city.

The city turned him down. Now, it still hasn’t settled on a real estate business to help with analysis and negotiations. Hughes has offered to do the work for $1. But he still seems likely to be rejected.

Why? The only reason that makes sense is that Hughes exposed the shaky numbers the mayor’s staff used to justify building a new $293 million City Hall, helping to doom the project.

That’s not a very good reason, so perhaps the mayor should punt this to his successor. We suspect a different decision would result.