That's what happened recently when a contractor installing a solar panel water heating system in the home of Mayor Rocky Anderson applied for a building permit after the panels were installed.

Anderson says he hired a contractor to do the job and expected the contractor to take care of all the necessities, such as getting permits.

To make matters worse, Anderson lives in a Historic Landmark District, which requires extra approvals for renovations.

Anderson says he was just trying to do the right thing by conserving energy with a solar heating system. He now has the permit and everything is OK.

But city bureaucrats beware. Anderson says he was appalled to learn that when his contractor finally applied for a permit, albeit after the fact, he was told it would take up to three weeks to get the approval.

"That's not a very good way to serve the public," the mayor said.

Mix and match: When Onnie Lopez of West Jordan passed away about three months ago, her husband, Louie, was told by the mortuary that he could order a number of death certificates to keep or give to relatives.

He ordered 10 certificates, which are issued by the Salt Lake County Department of Health Services and passed through the mortuary, which sent them on to Lopez.

Eight certificates had the deceased's correct name and information. Two, however, were different names, but they were official death certificates. Lopez had no idea who those people were.

We have a winner: Currents is the quarterly publication of the Utah Historical Society. One of its regular features is a contest in which a picture of a historical structure in Utah is shown. Contestants mail in their guesses.

The winner gets a copy of Utah's Historic Architecture 1847-1940: A Guide, by Thomas Carter and Peter Goss.

The summer edition's contest features the picture of a bridge on Page 3 that contestants are supposed to identify. On Page 6 is a picture of the same bridge and a caption identifying it as the Swinging Bridge over the San Rafael River, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s and restored in 2004.

That was hard.

Need a refresher course? Utah first lady Mary Kaye Huntsman's Web page features her Summer Reading Challenge, encouraging reading to build literacy among youngsters.

"We are thrilled taht so many of you took the 2005 Summer Reading Challenge," the site says. Also, "Join the Huntsman family and sand together as readers."

The italics are mine.

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Paul Rolly welcomes e-mail at prolly@sltrib.com.