Editor, Gazette-Journal:

After the Mickey Mouse discourse, the telling of which took up 24 column-inches in your paper, at the recent Mathews County Board of Supervisors’ meeting, having to do with the need to have enacted another layer of the permitting process for one to build a pier on one’s property with dismay, I am totally in agreement with supervisor Neena Putt when she asked the question: "Why are we adding another permitting process?" Mrs. Putt, are you the only one on the board of supervisors who displays any common sense?

It’s simple, Mrs. Putt. I can answer your question by affirming the truism that planning and zoning bureaucrats are seldom at peace unless they are adding more arbitrary obstacles to the use of one’s property, a process that could be construed as empire building. This is a permitting process that should be tabled, as suggested by Mr. Ingram, not until June, but to infinity … or after.

William M. Booker

Susa...