This is neither the first time nor the last time that I quote Willie Nelson from his song, "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth", in reference to the Tangipahoa School Board.

"How much is a liar's word worth"? The answer, in Hammond, is 9 mills, $2.1 million a year.

Tuesday night the school board will consider closing Nothwood Prep and shipping the hundreds of north-end students there to Crystal Street in Hammond. Presumably, they plan to reopen the long-closed Crystal Street Academy after all.

To refresh the memories of you voters in Hammond, who appear to suffer from financial and political amnesia, you trusted the school board years ago with a 3-mill tax specifically to fund Crystal Street. As soon as you passed the tax, they shut down the school.

Where was the outrage?

For years, you Hammond saps have been paying a tax for a school that was closed. Did any of you suckers complain, or did you just pay it?

More recently, the school board started a magnet school in Hammond. The first dose of cocaine was free. Then they suddenly demanded 6 mills for your fix to continue. Then they upped the price to 9 mills, and you Hammond suckers gave it to them again. Never mind that 9 mills in Hammond is an enormous amount of money, equivalent to 45 mills in Ponchatoula, where the school board promised to start another magnet school. Never mind that at Amite Elementary the magnet program is FREE, and actually provides art and music to the entire student body of almost 1,000 students.

Do any of you Hammond patsies care that the school board's arithmetic doesn't add up?

Apparently not, because last month's election brought double-talk to a whole new level.The ballot was WRONG! And you passed it anyway!  The claim was that if Hammond voters approved 9 mills for three years (as the ballot was actually worded), the school board would only collect 7.5 mills for one year, and quit collecting the 3 mills for Crystal Street.

All of which brings us to Tuesday night's school board meeting.

All of a sudden, out of the blue, Crystal Street must be reopened. The 3 mill tax in Hammond is badly needed now to educate all the at-risk kids from Kentwood and Amite. How can one set of taxpayers in Hammond pay to educate kids from outside of Hammond?

Do I need to explain it to you again, or should I give you people in Hammond a few minutes to get a cup of coffee and wake up, for a change?

By definition, from the beginning, the magnet school has included students from all over Tangipahoa Parish. 50% of the student body comes from outside of Hammond, while only Hammond pays the 6 mills, or 9 mills, or 7.5 mills or whatever they decide to collect. Some of you suckers in Hammond pay the tax while your kids can't attend because there's no room.

Do I also need to again explain that the whole Hammond School Taxing District was bogus, that the people paying the 3 mills and the 6 mills, in many cases, couldn't even vote in the tax elections? HELLO! IS ANYBODY AWAKE IN WOODBRIDGE SUBDIVISION!?

Actually, you Hammond voters should be offended that the school board had so little regard for your intelligence that they actually told you that if you pass a tax INCREASE they would DECREASE your taxes. Do I really need to spell this out? IF the school board would actually get LESS money with the passage of the magnet tax than without it, why would they put a referendum like that on the ballot? Why not just let the status quo continue?

"How much is a liar's word worth?" $200 million and growing.

Three years ago the school board renewed an existing one-cent sales tax early, and extended it for 35 years. The stated purpose was to be able to bond-out the proceeds and fund construction without a tax "increase". Like with Crystal Street, as soon as the tax passed, all promises were forgotten. Not a single solitary new classroom has been built. The bonding capacity of the school system is now over $200 million. Coincidentally, $200 million is the amount of construction included in the school board's BIG tax package set to go before the voters in April of next year.
 
"How much is a liar's word worth?" 34 mills and another one-cent sales tax.

Also on Tuesday's agenda, the school board will hear the complaints of Loranger residents who have discovered that the school board's $250 million "desegregation " plan has been changed to their detriment. No vote of the school board was necessary, no public notice, just vote "yes" next April.

I have a suggestion. Since the voters in Hammond don't seem to care what they pay, why not assess the entire $250 million on them?

I must admit that I didn't attend the latest tea party rally in Cate Square, although i had covered the previous two. I just couldn't bring myself to listen to people in Hammond complain about unfair taxes only a couple of weeks after they passed another school board tax.

I'll say it again. If Hammond voters had killed the magnet tax there would be no more talk of the BIG tax hike for next year. The school board would have had a wake up call and realized that they need to change direction. Instead, Hammond voters are the ones who need a wake up call.