LAWTON FORECLOSURE ACTION EXPLAINED

Dear Reader --

Thanks for visiting Milwaukeeworld, which has been a busy place since the folks at wisopinion.com linked our site to theirs to include the story of Sen. Luther Olsen and his potentially lucrative ethanol connections. If you haven't read that post, just keep scrolling down, after you read this stuff.

Today I note that a foreclosure suit was brought against the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin and her husband. Of course, it was just a mistake in paperwork that could happen to anybody. You know how sloppy banks and real estate lawyers can be!

Then it is off to the Milwaukee Public Library to see how things are circulating there. If you are a minor who likes to use the library for hanging out in chat rooms, I have some bad news for you. It looks like you'll have to go somewhere else to communicate with your peers -- or, as news reports about child chat rooms might have it -- perverts pretending to be teenagers. Then, since a lot of you like to read about art news, it appears that a Milwaukee art figure is changing his plea to "guilty" in a celebrated case that includes as a figure, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Star Power!

Milwaukeeworld also points you in the direction of the Daily Reporter where Sean Ryan broke an as-yet otherwise unreported story about a no-bid $5.2 million contract to tear down the courthouse annex. Scott Walker is on the job, you can be sure.

Thanks for visiting,

Michael Horne

1 414 978-8039

horne@milwaukeeworld.com

LAWTON FORECLOSURE ACTION EXPLAINED

"Mistakes in paperwork" blamed

By Michael Horne

It is not often that a foreclosure action is initiated against the Lieutenant Governor of a state, but then there is Door County Circuit Court Case 2003 CV 00263 , also known as “Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corporation vs. Charles A. Lawton, et al.” for “foreclosure of mortgage.”

The “et al” is Barbara Lawton, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin and the female wife of Charles A. Lawton, a male.

Under Wisconsin law, a male and a female may contract to do business as “husband and wife,”in a union called "marriage," a status which is denied to same-sex couples.

The Lawtons took advantage of the special privilege the law grants married couples to hold property jointly, and Chase Manhattan sued them.

So, what’s the story? I thought Barbara Lawton and her husband Charles A. Lawton were loaded.

A mortgage foreclosure is usually a rather serious thing – and a long, drawn out process. In the Lawton’s case, the foreclosure case was initiated in November 2003 and dismissed on December 22, 2003. Lightning quick!

According to Ben Nuckels, the campaign manager for Lawton for Lieutenant Governor, “This took place when Lieutenant Governor Lawton and her husband, Cal, were selling their home in Green Bay. There were initial mistakes made in the paperwork that were fixed in progress and the case was dropped.”

Oh, so it wasn’t a foreclosure then ---.

LIBRARY CHAT ROOMS TO BE OFF LIMITS TO MINORS

Calling all juveniles! If you want to visit on line chat rooms where you can talk to adults who are pretending to be fourteen-year olds, you might have to find somewhere other than the Milwaukee Public Library to do your visiting.

According to Kelly Hughbanks, Coordinator of Children’s Services at the Milwaukee Public Library, in a December 15^th 2005 memo to Kathleen M. Huston, City Librarian, “The Milwaukee Public Library currently offers open access to all chat rooms for adults and children. The library is proactive in posting safety tips for children on our web page. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that children will follow our safety tips.”

Among “potential dangers and risks of chat rooms for children,” Hughbanks notes that children “often forget admonitions about revealing personal information” such as name, address, phone number, and photographs. Offensive language and adult conversations may occur in non-monitored chat rooms; sexual solicitation may occur; and the “anonymity of chat rooms has been used by sexual predators to entice or harass children.”

Hughbanks ends her memo by saying, “The Milwaukee Public Library strives to provide a safe and secure learning environment for children. As a safety precaution, we do not allow adults unaccompanied by children in the children’s section of our libraries. Due to the potential dangers to children in chat rooms, it is recommended that we extend the same safety precautions to Internet access and eliminate access to chat rooms for children (under 18) beginning Jan. 3 2006.”

The board of trustees decided to direct this matter to a committee for further discussion.

In other library news, the 2006 budget for books and materials was raised from $1,330,000 to $2,042,452, a healthy 54 per cent increase. Central Library will close at 5:30 p.m. on Thursdays in addition to Fridays and Saturdays, but will remain open until 8:30 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The heat at all library buildings will be set at 68 degrees to conserve energy.

Overall, the patron count was down 7.27% for all libraries as of November. Central Library drew 545,964 visitors year-to-date as of the end of November, compared with 586,965 the year before.

WALKER GIVES NO-BID CONTRACT TO DEMO COURTHOUSE ANNEX

Sean Ryan in the Daily Reporter wrote a most damning article on December 19^th about County Executive Scott Walker’s decision to award a no-bid $5.2 million contract to demolish the courthouse annex to an Illinois firm.

The decision was made using the emergency authority the County Executive holds, according to the article. The “emergency” seems somewhat manufactured, since calls for demolishing the building have been going on for some time.

LORD COPS PLEA

It appears the criminal case of State vs. Michael H. Lord will end with Lord entering a guilty plea on February 20^th. As has been reported here many times in the past, convicted felon and erstwhile art dealer Lord was most recently charged in Milwaukee County with a charge of theft in a business setting. He pled not guilty, but that is to change, according to court documents.

The theft involved Lord’s failure to compensate a River Hills doctor for the funds Lord received for selling a Matisse drawing. To add sexiness to the story, the drawing was sold by Lord to Allen H. “Bud” Selig, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, who paid way too much for it anyway. Lord did work-release time for an earlier charge of theft from the estate of a great-aunt, and we’ll see what his prospects are after his sentence is imposed.

Well, for raw, straight-from-the-street outsider art, nothing quite beats the scribblings on the wall of a prison cell, so Lord will probably have something to study in the upcoming months.

There has been some noise that Lord is attempting to set himself up as an art buyer in the Chicago market, but the most recent charges would seem to augur against that.

Furthermore, Bruce Murphy has an article in the January, 2006 Milwaukee Magazine as a follow-up to an article in that magazine I helped research in 2004. I haven’t seen it yet, but it is said to be devastating.

PEG'S FUNDRAISER

Darn! I missed it. While other politicians have cookie exchanges and other innocuous entertainments during the holidays, leave it to our Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager to host a holiday event at the Avenue Bar in Madison, December 19th. Something's got to put the "lager" in Lautenschlager, and it was the Avenue Bar's turn.

--Michael Horne