re: St. Tammany DA tax voted down. Again.

By law the parish has to fund the DAS office. The question becomes what constitutes adequate funding. Overall St Tammany under Montgomery has a pretty good office as opposed to the previous DA in Walter Reed.

Part of it is the anti tax sentiment that pervades thinking in the Parish and probably most of it is that people did not know about the election. But if the Parish Council is underfunded the office, then the council and Parish President can be sued.

There is a large number of newcomers from the South Shore....mostly from the West Bank who don't believe in paying for the services that they get or more accurately don't realize how the population growth that they are a part of directly impacts the services that made St. Tammany so attractive in the first place

This goes back to the original funding tax to build the courthouse in covington years ago. A tax was voted on to build the courthouse. But it was large enough to build and operate the building as well. The tax was "temporary" though and once it ran its course, the parish council tried to renew it saying the original tax was meant for operations of the courthouse all along. They tried three times to renew, getting shot down each time. So the parish cute services drastically.

The next step to try and strong-arm parish voters to get more tax money was to cut DA budget and force Montgomery to raise the funding for his office himself by putting a tax up for vote. This was shot down yesterday.

If you recall the parish did the same thing years ago to the Coroner. He went and put a tax up for vote and got it. It was WAY more than was needed. A few short years later he was in jail with a huge coffer full of tax payer money he had misappropriated, to say it nicely.