News from CommerceNewsTODAY

News from CommerceNewsTODAY - Topics from February, 2010

Teachers to take 3 more furlough days

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Wednesday, February 10. 2010

Commerce teachers can look forward to three more days off without pay. Just as he did the first semester, Gov. Sonny Perdue has withheld the equivalent of three days’ worth of teacher salaries to all state schools for the second semester as Georgia’s funding crunch continues. That will force school systems to adjust their calendars for ... [Full Story »]

Those ordinary Americans

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CommerceNewsTODAY

Wednesday, February 10. 2010

By Susan Harper Along with my resistance to such politically overused phrases as “with all due respect” and “at the end of the day” — which seem to have an almost viral presence in public speech — I find that I have a towering and still-growing resentment of the new favorite buzz-phrase among politicians: “ordinary Americans.” ... [Full Story »]

Suspect: what do you think of my girlfriend

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CommerceNewsTODAY

Wednesday, February 10. 2010

A man arrested for public drunkenness seemed more concerned about the arresting officer's impression of his girlfriend than his pending visit to the Jackson County Jail. Commerce Police charged Ricky Divilard Beatty Jr., 27, of 133 Standridge Road, Jefferson, with public drunkenness after an officer found him lying in the mud near the entrance ... [Full Story »]

City offers extension on utility payment deadline

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CommerceNewsTODAY

Wednesday, February 10. 2010

Commerce residents whose cash flow makes it difficult to pay their utility bills on time could get a little relief under a new payment option. City manager Clarence Bryant, following up on a request made in January by mayor pro tem Keith Burchett, explained that residents whose monthly checks arrive after the utility payment deadline each month ... [Full Story »]

Former president says fraud helped bring bank down

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CommerceNewsTODAY

Wednesday, February 3. 2010

Community Bank & Trust, taken over by state and federal bank regulators Friday night and sold to Orangeburg, SC-based SCBT N.A. Saturday, was a victim of both fraud and bad loans, a former official insists. “There’s some people in our company going to jail,” said Elton Collins, who until Friday evening at 5:00 was president of Jackson ... [Full Story »]

Water and sewerage rate hikes likely

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CommerceNewsTODAY

Wednesday, February 3. 2010

Increased costs to retire bond debt appear to make rate hikes for Commerce water and sewer customers inevitable by spring. Just how much that increase will be remains up in the air, however. For the second consecutive month, the increase in debt service costs for water and sewer bonds was a topic of discussion at the Commerce City Council’s ... [Full Story »]

Local man bilked in mortgage scam

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CommerceNewsTODAY

Wednesday, February 3. 2010

A Commerce man who sought help in renegotiating his mortgage lost $2,500 in what appears to be a scam, according to an incident report filed with the Commerce Police Department. The victim, a 42-year-old male, told police that a friend advised him that Mortgage Negotiators, Huntington, PA, could “help him with his mortgage.” The victim ... [Full Story »]

On government finance

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CommerceNewsTODAY

Wednesday, February 3. 2010

By Willis Cook If you’re like me, the one thing you have heard all your life is that government deficits are unsustainable. Sooner or later a “day of reckoning” will come, whatever that means. But the strange thing is that we have been hearing this warning for a generation or more and we have had virtually continuous federal deficits ... [Full Story »]

Entries from February 2010