ONE TOWN SENDS ANTI-BUREAUCRACY SIGNAL

So often, it seems, government bureaucrats make us do things we think are a waste of time or inappropriate, but, because it's the government, we do them anyway.

Not the tiny community of Lake Ozark, Mo.

Lake Ozark's city administrator, Herb Llewellyn, doesn't think much of a new Missouri law that requires law enforcement agencies to report the age, race and gender of every motorist or pedestrian police officers stop. The intent of the law is to develop data that would show if racial profiling is occurring.

First, Llewellyn doesn't think the police in Lake Ozark use racial profiling. Second, he thinks someone ought to pay for the cost of collecting the data and sending it in to Jefferson City.

So Llewellyn sent a bill to Attorney General Jay Nixon for the cost of the report. Nixon said he doesn't intend to pay, but he says he got the message.

Good for him. Perhaps if more Missourians sent bills for the time they waste complying with bureaucracy, others in the state capital would get the same message.