Please be advised of an upcoming announcement from Van Eaton & Romero at a press conference on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 10:30AM at City Club at River Ranch, Lafayette, LA.
Special guests will be available for interviews and video/photography.
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| Though he acknowledges that "there is something going on" and details will be announced Wednesday morning, Van Eaton & Romero CEO Bill Bacqué says he and fellow firm principals Nancy Van Eaton-Broussard, seated, and Gail Romero "on Thursday and the days beyond that, every day, we are going to be here." |
“There is something going on,” Bacqué acknowledges, though declining to identify the name of the company that will also take part in the announcement. He did, however, confirm that New Orleans-based Latter & Blum is the entity most speculation has been centered upon. That may in part be related to a January 2011 transaction in which Van Eaton & Romero bought the residential division of ERA Stirling Properties’ Lafayette office from Latter & Blum. That agreement occurred simultaneously with Latter & Blum’s purchase of Stirling’s entire residential division, which included operations in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Latter & Blum, which currently has only a commercial property management office in Lafayette, operates in Louisiana and Mississippi and includes residential, relocation and commercial divisions and a property management division; it offers insurance and financing services as well, according to its website. The company also owns CJ Brown Realtors in Baton Rouge and Noles-Frye in Alexandria.
Calls placed to the Lafayette Latter & Blum office and the company's marketing department in New Orleans were not immediately returned.
Latter & Blum and VER's dealings with each other actually date back almost a decade, according to Bacqué. “[In] 2003 or 2004, we exchanged our residential property management division for a Latter & Blum Lafayette residential sales office. At that time they actually had a small presence in the Lafayette housing market. We wanted to get out of the property management business, and they were not satisfied with the performance of their residential sales operation. It was a good trade for all parties,” he says.
Bacqué couched the Wednesday press conference as more of an announcement about the company’s strategy for 2013 and beyond, saying it will unveil “significant technological changes, relocation enhancements and other strategic announcements to help us define and maintain our dominance as a real estate company going into the future.”
“I can tell you, Nancy [Van Eaton-Broussard], Gail [Romero] and I on Thursday and the days beyond that, every day, we are going to be here,” Bacqué continues.
Van Eaton-Broussard and Romero founded the firm in 1977; Bacqué, now 61, joined them in 1990.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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