Credit Union Founded by Rep. Gwen Moore Merged with First Service CU?

MILWAUKEE – So, what happened to the credit union that was founded by Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), the legislator who initially backed CURIA but then withdrew her support? According to several legislative tracking Web sites, Moore founded Cream City Community Development Credit Union while serving as a VISTA volunteer. According to an article in the October 2005 issue of Essence magazine, an incident involving “the exorbitant interest rates” from a local rent-to-own center “angered her enough” to “mobilize her community to march on banks” and organize a CDCU. It appears that credit union would go on to merge with First Service CU, said John Udvare, president/CEO, who said the merger took “place before his time” and suggested calling Bob Fouch, president/CEO of Corporate Central CU, who was CEO of First Service when the merger occurred. “We merged the credit union with us at the time but I can’t recall the details surrounding why,” Fouch said, adding he was fuzzy on the merger year. A spokeswoman from the Wisconsin Credit Union League said Cream City was a member back in 1987 but their records list it as Cream City Community FCU and it merging with First Service. A search on NCUA’s site produced no hits. According to Rafael Morales, communications officer at the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, there is no record of the credit union being a member. Suzanne Cowan, director of the Office of Credit Unions, Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, also checked back to 1965 but didn’t turn up anything. Udvare, who said he would have to go back and look at minutes to see if there were any details surrounding why Cream City was merged into First Service, did not have the information available by press time. Several calls to Moore’s offices over the past few weeks were not returned. [email protected]