Doug Mouton / Northshore Bureau Chief
HAMMOND, La. -- Christmas sales tax numbers are in and Tangipahoa leaders said Monday, they couldn't be happier.
Sales tax revenues went up 6.7 percent in the City of Hammond in December of 2011, as compared to December of 2010.
"This was really great for us because what it did was put us a half million dollars over budget in terms of income for the first six months of sales tax projected revenues," Hammond Mayor Mayson Foster said Monday. "So, it was a really good day."
Mayor Foster believes Hammond has picked up some extra customers from everywhere. Efforts to get Tangipahoa residents to buy local have worked, he said, plus he believes his city is seeing an influx of shoppers from both Livingston Parish to the west and Tangipahoa Parish to the east.
"We're centrally located. It's a matter of the geographic base," Mayor Foster said, "We've put a lot of emphasis on infrastructure, you don't have the traffic backups here that you have in other places."
The City of Hammond passed a $15 million bond to pay for that infrastructure, much of it around the Hammond Square Mall. Mayor Foster calls it money well spent.
"You have to do it," Mayor Foster said. "You have to spend the money to make people come."
In December, people came to Hammond in record numbers, and locals noticed.
"It was really kind of hard, sometimes, to get up and down the street here and find parking spaces," Hammond's Donna Silessi said of the December traffic.
The infrastructure improvements have allowed City of Hammond to bring in more new retail outlets, which locals have also noticed.
"Compared to when we first moved to Hammond in '06," Hammond's Deborah Toregano said, "it's a complete makeover." Deborah Toregano called the available shopping choices 90 percent better than five years ago.
Those improvements have translated into sales in Hammond, and parish wide, sales tax collections were up in December. Tangipahoa Parish reports an increase of 8.6 percent from December of 2011 over December of 2010. Overall, parish leaders said, it was the second highest month for sales tax collections in Tangipahoa history.
