I live in one of my city's ever-expanding historic preservation areas. I can't actually fix the front of my old house without permission. Or remove the nonsense

I live in one of my city's ever-expanding historic preservation areas. I can't actually fix the front of my old house without permission. Or remove the nonsense purely-decorative dormer because the city historian will only trust photographs and not evidence of moderns construction materials. The owner in the 80s needed a permit from the historic preservation board to add the dormer. It's the same historic preservation board I need permission from to remove the dormer. Ironically, the history board doesn't have any of its own records before the early oughts, so they don't believe they issued a permit. (I talked with the old owner back in ~1992 about the odd dormer and heard a lot about permits back then.) I would love to have that particular board of busybodies disbanded.