Owning a Business in Tacoma

When I started by business, Crossfit Tacoma, 3 years ago I knew nothing, I mean nothing, about how to properly run a business.  My general habit was to wait until I recieved a terse letter in the mail telling me to file whatever report with whatever arcane obscure department, which required me to submit information I barely understood, much less has the foresight to actually collect ahead of time. 
The worldview of a novice businessman is pretty much focused on whatever is currently on fire and threatens to burn him down.  If it wasn't screaming at me, it got put last on the to-do list.  This is not a good policy for successful entrepreneurship, nor is it a good way to stay out of trouble.  So needless to say, I used to get a lot of red envelopes and letters with big headlines shouting about last notice. 
When I could ignore it no longer, I would make my way down to City Hall and shuffle in, feeling like a kid reporting for after school detention.  To my surprise, the clerks were always helpful.  Maybe not always friendly, but let's not get carried away, I'm trying to pay a bill, not make a friend.  More than once I had penalties waived, interest reduced, and extensions on deadlines to give me time to get the information I needed.  I never left feeling like a chastened teen who didn't turn in his homework. 
What I found even more surprising was that the common widsom is that governments just hamstring businesses.  I expected to find some cone-headed bureaucrat looking down at me, but found the opposite- a city government that wants me to survive and is willing to cut me some slack to do so.  They also hold free quarterly workshops for businesses in the city, and provide tons of other helpful services for free.  It's enough to make you want to go shoot the whiny anti-government-business-apologists in the face.