I never cease to be amazed at the extreme comfort our city and county government representatives seem to enjoy as they enact regulations that affect everything from what color a business's roof can be to what kind of plants can be put in its window boxes.

Not that I'm particularly opposed to laws that improve the quality of life and the value of property for everyone. That's what we elect our representatives for.

The source of my amazement, though, is the contrast between the local fathers' reaction to the above issues and their sudden squeamishness when the proposed regulations have a direct impact on our health and safety.

Local leaders chickened out on smoking, and now they seem a bit timid at the prospect of regulating extremely dangerous brick and stone mailbox supports.

The last time I checked, county commissions and city councils were charged with enacting laws that protect the public health and safety. And yes, that charge can be taken too far. They can start poking into our personal lives and passing laws that force businesses out of business without truly making any significant difference.

There is a federal agency that is charged with regulating large businesses, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and this group of bureaucrats does often go too far. Just mention OSHA to a business owner and you're in for an hour-long discourse on the evils of too much government, probably punctuated by a few unrepeatable epithets.

But there is such a thing as behavior that needs to be prohibited in public because it endangers the health and safety of others.

I don't particularly like to be around smoking in open spaces, but it's a minor irritant. In enclosed places, it's a health hazard. It's a simple, straightforward responsibility of government to regulate such a health hazard in public, in enclosed spaces.

I've ruffled more than a few feathers out there on the smoking issue, because about half of you smoke and you don't like the idea of being forced to refrain. And business owners don't like the idea of having to prohibit an activity when half of their customers are going to resent the intrusion.

But I've beaten that drum before. This column is not about smoking.

The other example I gave above is the mailbox supports problem, and I'm sure I'm ruffling even more feathers, because I'd bet about 70 percent of you have these structures in front of your houses.

Fayette has had a law in force since 1995 prohibiting those big monument-style mailbox supports. Now commissioners are talking about revisions.

Staff's approach is to look for new wording that will make the law more easily enforced, but some of the county commissioners want to do away with the restrictions altogether, while others are looking for ways to soften them.

The latter idea has some merit. There is logic behind the argument that the supports could be allowed in subdivisions, where speed limits are much slower and the likelihood of problems therefore much less, and prohibited on roads where the speed is higher and therefore the danger greater.

The reason we have a law in the first place is two-fold. First, the state won't pay for improvements to roads that have these structures on them. If the state pays to repave your road, you will have to take down your monument mailbox, and you won't be paid for it, and some of you will be really ticked off about it.

Second, there was a fatal accident a few years back when a car collided with a monument mailbox, and county staff members are understandably worried about liability problems.

Here's something you may not know. Your mailbox is not on your property it's on county right-of-way. In fact, it's not your property itself. It's the property of the U.S. Postal Service.

If somebody blows a tire and slips two feet off the pavement and wipes out on your mailbox, the county or the city may be sued as well as you.

We conservatives tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to any proposed regulation, but there is really nothing wrong with regulations that are necessary, enacted by the government that is closest to us so that we can help determine the degree of necessity.

Commissioners seem to be leaning toward the compromise position of adopting new wording that makes the ordinance easier to enforce, while simultaneously removing the restriction on streets where the speed limit is, say, 25 or below.

That seems pretty simple and pretty sensible to me. The only thing I can't understand is why it requires so much discussion. It has been on the agenda off and on for several months.