Having been a public official your adjectives for the public official in this case made my hackles go up for a moment, but you're also absolutely right. The hid

Having been a public official your adjectives for the public official in this case made my hackles go up for a moment, but you're also absolutely right. The hidden assumption in those sorts of statements is that it's all good for volunteers to try to help, but one day "authorized" people will be able to do that work, but only if we are allowed to raise your taxes. Sigh. The problem is, not all bureaucrats are evil, but all bureaucracy begins at neutral and tends towards evil, so there's a sad inevitability involved. And my hackles went up because even I, who consider myself pretty self-aware, ended up in some horrible conversations where I know I preferred the town having authority over something volunteers had historically done. We are all part-nazi, some of us just have more authority.