Ex-Trustee Phinney, Figure in Workplace Boy Porn Case, Pleas Guilty

Village of Shorewood ex-trustee Michael Phinney has entered a plea of guilty to federal charges of possessing child porn, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an item posted Friday, September 26th, 2008. Phinney, the co-owner of Phoenix Resource Group, resigned his village seat in April, 2008, immediately after Milwaukeeworld  broke the news that federal officials had been alerted in April 2007 to Phinney’s accessing sexual images of young boys at work. We wondered then what the gestation time was for prosecuting this crime. Things have sure sped up since then.

Phinney stopped showing up to work the day after agents seized his computer from the Third Ward offices of Phoenix: — on the eve of his reelection victory.

Before the revelations, Phinney’s demanding and pushy ways were already a source of strain at the telemarketing company. He forced an extraordinarily expensive telephone system on the business and made other cavalier decisions to the detriment of the firm. He had no roster of clients or particular skills. Plus there was that unpleasantness of him using his work computer during business hours to watch boys have sex. It’s hard enough to run a business as it is without all those shenanigans going on!

Phinney’s wife, Lisa Froemming, filed for divorce last month. She is asking Phinney for maintenance and support for the benefit of their two minor children, a boy and a girl.

Additional Mayoral Community Hearing on Budget Set

The neighborhood associations of the Third Aldermanic District will jointly sponsor an informational session and Q&A with Mayor Tom Barrett Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at the Miramar Theatre, 2844 N. Oakland Avenue. The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 5:30 p.m. and should run about an hour and a half, according to Cambridge Woods Neighborhood Association President Joe Klein, who arranged the event at the request of the mayor’s office.

The mayor’s staff will circulate question forms for the audience to express their concerns. I guess I’ll help out by emceeing the event, or at least that’s what Joe tells me. Klein says he thinks there is a good chance the theater — excuse me, theatre — will be filled to capacity. We’ll just have to see if the Brewers will be playing Game 5 of their series with Philadelphia that evening. Let’s hope will have already swept it in the first three games.

What could be more exciting? Post season professional baseball returns to town after a generation? Or a complete and thorough airing of economic policy? Don’t worry folks — the Miramar has TVs — and a bar! Have it both ways! Come for the debate, stay for the game! And Axel’s is just across the street. You think they don’t debate economics there? Guess again.

Milwaukee Piece in New York Museum Debut

Portrait of a Textile Worker, a 2005 Terese Agnew tapestry composed of clothing labels and inspired by a photograph of a young sweatshop employee, was in the debut exhibit of the Museum of Art and Design at 2 Columbus Circle in New York City last Saturday, September 27th, 2008. [See photograph above]. The monumental tapestry, 110″ x 98″, was composed of over 30,000 labels donated to Agnew, who had put out a call for them when she realized that while clothing labels celebrated recognizable names — Bill Blass, Calvin Klein, Yves St. Laurent, Halston, Ralph Lauren — the clothes themselves were made anonymously, often by very young children. The piece is one of many composed of nontraditional material in the museum, now located in what was a hideous Edward Durell Stone building that had defaced the southwest corner of Central Park for 40 years. (It’s been redesigned.) Among Milwaukeeans in attendance at the gig was Julilly Kohler, who said Dominique Paul Noth of the Milwaukee Labor Press was there taking pictures “with a really big camera.” I’ll have to see if he can share a pic with us, without getting him in trouble with the union bosses or copyright authorities.