It’s fascinating, to say the least, observing how the game of politics/governing plays out.

It was May 2017 when Butler County commissioners first proposed adding a $5 fee to state vehicle registrations. This would raise nearly $1 million a year for road and bridge repairs, Republican majority commissioners Leslie Osche and Kim Geyer said. They abandoned the proposal in the face of public outcry against yet another nuisance tax.

But the county still had a problem: deteriorating roads and bridges, and a highway budget that demanded every dollar for maintenance, leaving precious little for badly needed improvements.

The proposed $5 fee was resurrected 14 months later, this time with a clearer picture and added sense of urgency: The commissioners would use the revenue to leverage state and federal matching grants for specific highway and bridge projects. Osche and Geyer said they had a verbal commitment suggesting as much as $25 million from federal transportation officials, along with the assistance of a project manager, appointed by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, to help with the application process and, ostensibly, to enhance Butler County’s chances for eligibility.

The primary target of the BUILD grant application will be to reconstruct and straighten the 2.4 mile section of state Route 228 between Mars Area Senior High School and Route 8. Osche and Geyer intimated as much in conversations a week ago about their meetings with senior transportation officials in the Trump administration, most notably Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and her staff.

But that $5 fee represented a commitment by the county — “some skin in the game,” Geyer called it. Geyer and Osche say the officials in Washington insist the fee sends the right signal — it definitely enhances the county’s application. So will a stack of accompanying letters of endorsement from businesses located along Routes 228, 8 and 68, each including statements of estimated volume of goods each business transports on the highways, and how the volume might increase with significant highway improvements.

No doubt, it was the project consultant who helped compile these testimonial letters, along with other materials that comprise the application package now on its way to Washington.

It’s impressive that each letter of endorsement shows unified support for badly needed highway improvements within the county — something we all know but have trouble articulating clearly among the ranks of other counties in competition for the same federal dollars.

Democratic minority commissioner Kevin Boozel has given his qualified support, too — meaning, he’ll be first and loudest to squawk if the county doesn’t get the federal funding — and he’ll have every right to do so. That’s one of the minority commissioner’s duties.

Meanwhile, there remain some critics, mostly of the social media variety. And we defend their right to protest. Let’s not forget that Pennsylvania leads the nation in gasoline tax and turnpike toll rates. Even so, it’s noteworthy that nobody attended the commissioners’ meeting on Wednesday to protest the widely reported fee prposal, as they had the first time it was proposed and voted down.

We respectfully remind the voices of opposition that Osche and Geyer — and Boozel — shelved the proposal in May 2017 with the knowledge that it left a problem unresolved. At the time, they asked the public for alternative suggestions. Fourteen months later, no suggestions or alternatives have surfaced.

It was time for them to move on the registration fee, and move decisively they did.