Am I missing something here? The Lenoir City council voted to put the sales tax hike on a special election ballot, the city expected to collect half of the taxes brought in by the hike, $2,000,000.00 per year, the schools the other half. I may have missed it somewhere, but I never heard anybody remotely suggest the schools would be paying for the special election. I did hear the mayor say, "HE" wanted the special election so the voters would understand what they were voting for. Well, his plan worked superbly, Aikens tax hike was defeated by a 68% margin.

It was a high stakes gamble on the part of the mayor. Spend nearly $20,000.00 for the special election, win and pick up an additional four million dollars per year in taxes for the city and schools. Lose, and the city would only be out nearly $20,000.00, tax payers dollars. Turns out for Aikens and the city, it wasn't such a big gamble after all. Aikens just sticks the school system with the bill.

The 236 YES votes cost the tax payers $76.00 per vote. Great use of tax payer money?

At best, each entity should pay half the bill, but in the land of Tony Bologna, somebody else always has to pay his bills.

Nothing will ever change in Lenoir City until something changes in Lenoir City.