I read Suzanne Lane’s editorial in last week’s Reporter with empathy and disgust.

The bureaucratic nightmare that it is to build something in our city, and our state for that matter, has become insanely ridiculous, cumbersome and expensive. And now with the reduced number of applications for permits, city officials are acting to justify their jobs by looking over every nook and cranny with a fine-toothed comb.

First it was the Growth Management Act, then it was the CAO, virtually robbing rural King County residents of the value of their property, and now it’s the Shoreline Management Act pushed on us by the Department of Ecology. The editor of this newspaper was right to lament how much money is being spent on the update of the SMA. Now just multiply that cost across all the counties and municipalities in our state. Not only is the cost of deriving the SMA exorbitant, but the cost of managing it and the cost of complying on the consumer side is even worse. This is my problem with government: There is very little concern with the cost of their goal. They’ve decided that it’s important and that’s that. In business, a cost-benefit analysis is performed. If the cost of the desired outcome is deemed too great, a more efficient alternative is sought. With government, they don’t care. The ends outweigh the means. They just ram it down our throat, despite any cost or efficiency considerations. And all this so migrating salmon can have a place to hide? Give me a break. There are plenty of places along the shoreline that aren’t covered by a dock. And what’s the scientific evidence of 4 feet vs. 8 feet? And grated or transparent? I swim along the west side of the Island in the summer, and I can always see fish hiding under the shade of the docks. Who is regulating the DoE?

I see this as government increasingly encroaching upon our rights and liberties. When are we going to stand up and say, “Enough is enough! No more!”

DJ Brooks