While some on Commerce City’s City Council are obsessed with things like gas stations, grocery carts, Suncor and residential development, residents of our beleaguered city are facing the daily reality that it is becoming increasingly more dangerous to live here.

Commerce City’s well-known crime problem is not just anecdotal. The numbers display very clearly what everyone – save a few on City Council – already knows; that crime is a growing problem with a severity that is unique to our community.

The figures, taken from the official data compiled by the state, are stark and don’t lie. The rate of violent crime in Commerce City has been on an upward trend since at least 2020. Last year, Commerce City recorded 620 violent crimes, comprising murder, aggravated assault, sexual assault, and robbery.

But the reality is clearly revealed when those raw numbers are compared to neighboring jurisdictions. Let’s consider the cities of Westminster, Thornton, Northglenn, and Brighton.

At its June 2nd meeting, City Council took up one of the most pressing issues facing our community, addressing a problem so egregious, that it is keeping citizens awake at night, making Commerce City virtually unlivable, and stopping growth and progress in its tracks.

Was this issue crime? Homelessness? Deteriorating infrastructure?

No, it was gas stations.

Yes, the principal issue taken up by Council was not what to do about the crime rate or the homeless problem (which two citizens during public comment showed up in person, pleading the council to do something about), or anything so trivial as that – but a proposal by Council Member Chacon to draft an ordinance imposing a moratorium on gas stations and convenience stores.

Faithful readers of Eye may recall the post we did resurfacing the video that Adams County School District 14 board member Lucy Molina took of herself having a meltdown over Commerce City council member Craig Kim’s attendance at an Adams 14 public meeting on April 16.

Well, that story has just gotten both weirder and worse.

By way of background, the whole thing started when Kim publicly raised objections to the district’s hiring of Tiffany Narcisse as the new Adams 14 Junior High School Principal. In an email to the Board, which he later made public in the interests of transparency, Kim raised reasonable concerns related to Ms. Narcisse’s previous job as a school administrator in Fairfax County, VA. Specifically, those concerns focused on a serious lapse of judgment over her reaction to the death of a student at the school, for which she was forced to apologize following an outcry from parents; as well as a damning financial audit of the school while she was principal.