Last month, Boston city officials took aim at a whimsical lean-to a local artist had spent two years building from the detritus people had left behind in Franklin Park.

Today the scene shifts to Post Mills, Vt., where officials apparently have nothing better to do than worry about a sculpture made from scrap wood.

“Vermontasaurus,” as one observer called it, is 25 feet high and 102 feet long. Brian Boland, 61, who operates the Post Mills Airport looked at a pile of scrap wood at one end of the property, invited volunteers to join him, spent nine days working on it, and the result was a more-or-less dinosaur.

Passers-by stop to gawk. Tourists take pictures. A lot of people think it’s pretty neat.

Except, of course, the bureaucrats.

The town of Thetford calls it a structure, and says it needs a permit; Division of Fire Safety said it might not be safe for people to congregate under (why would anyone do that?); the Vermont Natural Resources Board says it represents a “substantial change” to an existing development.

This all poses an interesting question. A random pile of scrap wood didn’t raise any concern. Put it together as a sculpture, and all kinds of alarms go off. Why?