Everyone on Vashon has heard about the K2 problems. It’s the NIMBY big government culture. They tag teamed against business startups for 40 years. Not just at K2, but everywhere, and then when the zoning changed at K2, the bureaucrats got involved. Many levels of bureaucrats and they must be obeyed and paid so much no one can afford to start a business there. The reality here is that most islanders don’t like or trust any dirty business people unless they know them. That “tax the hell out of business not me” attitude. That “businesses all dirty the environment” idea. That “we need big government to take care of us so we don’t have to” plan.

Big mistake. Plays right into the bureaucrats’ hands. All bureaucracies have one labor force working and two labor forces retired to pay for, and we are their pigeons.

This is a lesson about big government with it’s lavish ways, extreme taxes, regulations and heavy-handed enforcers. Government and regulations kill progress.

There are professional NIMBYs stopping everything they can. That NIMBY culture is now bureaucratized and makes doing business almost impossible. Seventeen thousand dollars to the bureaucracies and four months delay just for permits and fees to open a small business isn’t worth it. No wonder the consumer doesn’t have any disposable income. Family-wage jobs have been regulated out of existence. Remember more regulations and bigger government mean less jobs. Bureaucrats are not an asset to the economy; they are liabilities that cost too much. We can’t keep going down this path. Business people are made to feel dirty and unwelcome by the population and taxed to death by the government. This needs to change. Shrink government; help businesses start up free and stop taxing them and everyone else to death.

— Bill Rowling