Posted on 01/28/2013 7:19:23 AM PST by Kaslin
Some Good Samaritans wanted to clean up some trash in a neighborhood near me in Northern Virginia, and they ran into a brick wall of bureaucracy. I happened to notice this write-up on a neighborhood blog.
If you aren’t convinced yet that there is too much government bureaucracy in America, then this article is well worth reading. Here are some highlights:
Kay Cooper and Nancy Vorona, residents of Lake Barcroft, would like to see the Seven Corners area cleaned up.
…Government officials agree the area needs to be cleaned up. Yet nothing is being done. Cooper is beyond frustrated at the lack of action. “We spent hours on this and got nowhere,” she said. “It’s been like pulling teeth to get any information from anybody. It’s like they don’t really want to help us.”
Nearly a year ago Cooper and Vorona, in a spirit of neighborhood activism, started organizing a community-wide cleanup to occur on June 23, focusing on Leesburg Pike… They knew they needed approval from [the Virginia Department of Transportation] VDOT, but didn’t think that would be an insurmountable problem. Boy, were they wrong.
A member of Mason Supervisor Penny Gross’s staff helped Cooper and Vorona file the paperwork, Mason District Police officers agreed to lend their support, and they began rounding up volunteers. But then William Dunlap of VDOT told them in May that the road use authorization form they had submitted was the wrong form. According to Dunlap, they had to submit four separate land use permit forms, including an application, work zone certification, note of permittee liability, and erosion and sediment control contractor certification. They were also told they needed to purchase $1 million worth of liability insurance, hire a private contractor to provide security support, and set up “changeable message signs” two weeks in advance to warn the public about the clean-up event. Dunlap also told them VDOT preferred having the event scheduled on a weekday, even though that would make it more difficult to recruit volunteers.
Dunlap also told Cooper that local police, and not VDOT, are responsible for removing illegal signs, even if the signs are in the VDOT right of way. Meanwhile the Fairfax County Police Department said they’re not authorized to remove signs in the VDOT right of way.
The path to Statism.
All politics is local. And local politics stink.
I will be leaving my company of 31 years at the end of the week. All good.
I have run into the local bureaucracy in my own hometown before...but now that I will have time, I intend on being much more of an active voice. I can see them eye-rolling already. Game on.
People need to say screw the bureaucracy and just do it.
A few months back I picked up about a half truckload of trash along the road in the state land near here. It took it to the DNR field office and asked if I could toss it in the dumpster. The guy told me that I wasn’t supposed to but he let me dump it anyway. He said it was the responsibility of the county but they would let it lay there for months.
Now you know why Juarez and Tijuana look like they do. No money for the beaucrats no workie.
"Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission."
Years ago, as a computer programmer, we discussed ways to cut the amount of stuff we were printing. A proposal was made to ask recipients of a report (we printed 40 copies) to reply if they actually needed to receive it. Figuring it would be a hassle, we just decided to stop printing the report and then do it for those who asked, estimating maybe 10 or so would do so. Not one complained.
If you pay taxes, then don’t the government employees work for you? We have things turned around. The government employees have forgotten who they work for. They think they work for the union and the Democrat party. They work for us.
As federally funded local government folks and their NGO relatives all over America shut remaining businesses down with regulations and robberies preventing new, domestic manufacturing competition, they scheme to take small private properties and run property owners back to the cities. Watch. They’ll be cruising around, stopping here and there, watching you, as the weather warms.
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