Editor, the News-Herald:

I’ll vote NO on the sales tax referendum Nov. 5 for the following reasons:

1. The tax is paid by people who do not drive or use the roads, children and the very elderly. To tax diapers, toys, lawn mowers, video games, or sports equipment to support these highway projects is wrong.

2. The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission is not an elected body and should not have control of our tax dollars. This amounts to taxation without representation or recourse

3. Some of Suffolk’s elected and non-elected recommend we vote ourselves a tax increase. They did not allow us to vote on the increase in property taxes last year. They did not let us vote on the $15 million hotel issue. We did not get to vote on their pay raises or their $17,000 weekend retreat.

4. The state is responsible for roads and highways, and it is our elected officials’ job to fund these projects if needed.

5. The lottery money was supposed to go to education, and we approved it by voting for it, only to see the money diverted into that big pot in Richmond and disappear.

6. The sales tax increase of 1986 was to go into the transportation fund. The state removed $317 million to balance the budget, not build roads.

The solution is to vote NO on this tax increase and require our elected officials to do their job.

William H. Harward

Manning Road

Suffolk