Mayor Marvin's Column: Bureaucracy and Regulations Suffocating America

Upon the recommendation of Village Administrator, Harry Porr, I added the book, “The Death of Common Sense” by Philip K. Howard to my summer reading list.  Though written in 1994, I believe its thesis that laws and regulations are suffocating America is more apropos than ever.

From my vantage point, I agree with Mr. Howard that we have replaced intelligent thinking and discretion with rules and bureaucracy that are the antithesis to good judgment.  And most importantly, these rules and regulations do not work. 

Mr. Howard uses the OSHA regulations as a prime example.  Passed in 1970, the Occupational Health and Safety Act was to ensure the safety of every worker to the “maximum extent feasible.”  There are over 4,000 detailed regulations covering everything from “how much a plank can stick out from a temporary scaffold (no more than 12 inches).”

Several hundred billion dollars were spent by industry to comply with OSHA’s rules, yet safety in the workplace is about the same as in 1970.  Howard points out that trying to make everything idiot proof is in itself dangerous.  Workers do not have to think and bosses get tied down with nit-picking regulations.

After spending millions on OSHA compliance with no appreciable change in accident rates, one company instituted safety contests offering prizes and cash to the safest departments.  Creating a culture of safety worked.  The 4,000 OSHA rules did not. 

And just last night I saw a news story about FEMA regulations that exemplifies why Americans have lost faith in their government’s ability to make the right choices using the standard of a “reasonable man.”

After the devastating tornados in Alabama that destroyed dozens of schools, FEMA built shelters on school grounds for temporary classrooms that can withstand 250 mph winds.  However, according to FEMA regulations, the school districts must now buy these shelters which no district can afford.  As a result, they are renting flimsy portable classrooms.  In true irony, FEMA said according to regulations, the shelters must be torn down but school districts will get the necessary Federal funding to have the brand new shelters destroyed and the rubble carted off school property.  When asked for a logical reason by the network, FEMA sent a copy of the regulation.

Closer to home, I can attest that we waste hours every week trying to sort through regulations and then recovering from the delays and chaos that ensues.

The following are just a few examples:

Due to the red tape and myriad of approvals required, the Village is “still in the running” for flood grant monies we applied for in the weeks after the 2007 storm that have yet to be awarded. 

The Civil Service Commission informed us that they thought some of our high school summer clerical help were illegally doing jobs that required a high school diploma and they would investigate.     Having heard nothing definitive as yet, the young ladies involved are about to graduate from college.

We had to wait almost a year to hire a police officer candidate because per civil service rules the top three scorers must be hired by somebody before anyone else can be offered a job.  The sole criteria is a written test, not the applicant’s character or the interpersonal skills and good judgment needed to be a police officer.  Liking candidates who scored one point less, we had to wait for months until they were allowed to be considered.

When audited by the State Comptroller’s Office, the Village was criticized for not hiring the cheapest lawyer that submitted a proposal.  The fact that he did not have expertise in the area of law in which we needed advice was deemed irrelevant.

Per New York State law, we are not allowed to publish notice of our Village meetings in the three electronic papers that Villagers actually read.  Rather, we pay thousands of dollars per year to notice in weekly papers.  The reason being that State elected officials will not challenge the strong lobby of the print media.  The idea of reaching the most residents possible in the most timely and cost effective way so they can participate in government and be informed is lost in the equation. 

Just this month with much fanfare and self-congratulations, the Department of Transportation scrapped a new Federal regulation that would have required every municipality to change every street sign at local expense to meet a new reflectivity and lettering height regulation.  Had it been required, Yorktown estimated it would cost them more than $200,000 and for Yonkers, it would have been in the millions.

And finally, my favorite – the Census Bureau, using their own rules and methodology, determined that 40 homes were demolished in our Village in the last ten years, when in fact only one home was razed.  Many of you are living in the homes that do not exist anymore!  A simple call to our Building Department when this odd calculation appeared would have solved the problem at once.   Now we have to undertake a time consuming and costly process to participate in a complicated appeals system to prove the obvious.

Sadly, instead of doing the people’s work, we spend far too much time mired in tasks that create no benefit to the citizens we are elected to represent.