Mother, may I? Do you remember playing this game as a child? Someone played the “mother” who gave orders like take six steps and two hops forward. The “child” had to ask, “Mother, may I?” and if they didn’t, they were sent back to the starting line.

I see a huge similarity nowadays between the government and that game because government is controlling more and more facets of our everyday lives.

Unfortunately for the citizens of Windham, the Windham Code Enforcement Office is proposing higher and expanded fees so in the future citizens of Windham will be playing the same game, if they can afford to.

First off, the increased and expanded code enforcement fees are just a proposal and are not set in stone. The Windham town councilors had a workshop on those fees on Aug. 27 so it’s the beginning of the discussion on approval of those fees. Government scares me because sometimes our elected officials vote on items that they haven’t a clue about and the perfect example is the Affordable Care Act which is better known as ObamaCare or ObamaScare depending on how you feel about forced medical insurance by the government. Nanny Pelosi stated something to the effect of we need to vote for it first to see what’s in it, much like the voters of California did by putting her in office.

As citizens of Windham, we are at the bottom of the money well for the town, Cumberland County, State of Maine and the United States federal government. Unfortunately, all those entities above Windham force rules and costs upon us and also force us to pay for the enforcement of them as well. That is the biggest reason for the proposed cost increase in code enforcement fees and knowing how government operates, there just might be a little extra for the town hidden somewhere in the details. One might think that if many towns in a state belonged to a municipal organization, the towns might be able to tell the state government where to go or kiss something, just like our governor does.

I don’t have the space unless the kind editor would allow me the whole paper to go into detail about the increased and expanded fees proposed by the code enforcement officer although I have the strangest feeling the Windham town manager is connected to this as well, which is fully understandable. Windham’s previous code enforcement officer ensured taxpayers that the fees he collected fully paid for his office and staff. I have no problem with that because that is how government should operate. Instead of purchasing a brand new vehicle, he purchased a used vehicle, which is exactly what my wife and I have done since 1988. I fear that mentality is now gone from our town government.

I will go into just one or two details of the proposed increase because it is just a proposal at this time. The biggest proposed change I see is that an application fee would be required to obtain every permit plus the cost of the permit requested, and under this proposal there are many new permits required. The application fee would also be non-refundable which I have a huge problem with because one might ask and not receive the permit. I consider it double taxation without consideration. The cost of the applicant fee is proposed to be $75 per permit, which is totally ridiculous in today’s stagnant economy.

Some of the new proposed fees are for each electrical outlet and smoke detector along with just about the entire contents of a new home. The saddest part is the state of Maine is forcing this upon every municipality in Maine without adequate funding. We already know that the state reduced its share of funding for schools and municipalities as well. Government has become something far worse than King George of England ever was.

Lane Hiltunen believes government could teach the mafia how to steal.