HAMMOND — For the second time this year, Tangipahoa Parish voters rejected a sales tax that Sheriff Gerald Sticker said was critical to boosting staffing and wages inside the sheriff’s office.

Saturday’s proposal, a three-quarter-cent sales tax that would have raised nearly $25 million a year for the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office, failed 57% to 43%. That margin was even wider than the perpetual tax increase voters turned down in March.

Election maps show support concentrated in the parish’s two largest cities. The strongest “yes” votes came from the Hammond and Ponchatoula areas, while the most decisive opposition came from rural communities, particularly north of Roseland and southwest of Hammond.

“It was a significant landslide,” WBRZ political analyst James Hartman said. “I

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