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Thanks to a seasonal influx of property tax revenue, the Commerce Board of Education paid off its bank loan and is operating in the black. The board reported a positive net fund equity balance Monday, Jan. 14. The current equity of 369,846 is in sharp contrast to the minus-$1,459,217 posted at the end of November. The school system has received ... [Full Story »] 

Should Commerce institute a two-percent “excise tax” on energy used in manufacturing to offset a state waiver of sales taxes on that energy? Meeting Monday night, the council took no action on the issue after city attorney John Stell briefed the council on the effects of the new law passed last year. Essentially, the law eliminates the ... [Full Story »] 

Two female domestic partners who had what one of them called “a bitch fight” as they motored on Interstate 85 last Saturday were each charged with simple battery, according to the Commerce Police Department. They were identified as Katherine Linsey Marie Funes, 32, and Stephanie Marie Howard, 37, both of 3 West Sable Court, Greenville, SC. ... [Full Story »] 

For the second year in a row, 56 percent of the cost of funding the Commerce Fire Department will not come from the city. Instead, residents of the East Jackson Fire District will pay $177,000 of the Commerce Fire Department’s $272,323 budget for the current fiscal year, in spite of the fact that during 2012 only 17.2 percent of the ... [Full Story »] 

While Commerce police reported only three incidents during the first week of the year, it appears that swindlers are trying to get off to a fast start in 2013. A 37-year-old white female called police to her Crossing Place residence to complain about harassing phone calls from employees of the “Cash Advance Fraud Department” who claimed ... [Full Story »] 

The Commerce City Council’s first voting meeting of 2013 appears to have a light agenda mostly of housekeeping details. The council will meet at 6:30 p.m. in the Commerce Room of the Commerce Civic Center. It had been scheduled to vote on a recommendation of the city planning commission to amend its zoning ordinance to allow bakeries under ... [Full Story »]