Dear Joe, ab$olutely love the banking indu$try. Love, Aaron
it was the opportunity to get to know and love both of you in a way that would have never been possible outside of the intimacy of banking activities.
Who knew banking was intimate? I guess it would have to be for a self admitted corrupt politician but whatever floats your boat there Aaron. Let’s pull an oldie outta the cyber jukebox and ponder the possibilities.
From Google cache of troutpointlodge.wordpress.com:
From 2000 until 2010, a prominent Louisiana politician named Aaron Broussard, who is of Acadian French decent, owned a vacation home on a lot on the Trout Point Road, in East Kemptville, NS, near Trout Point Lodge. Perret & Leary had known Broussard for many years and Abel once worked for him, so when Broussard visited their new project in the Acadian homeland, he fell in love and decided to build a vacation home there, near the dining and recreational facilities offered by Trout Point.
Broussard loved Nova Scotia, vacationed and brought friends there. Never, however, did Mr. Broussard own any part, or have any management role in Trout Point Lodge – he was simply a neighbour and someone who visited once or twice a year. The Lodge also managed rentals of his property, and has never denied this fact. That Aaron Broussard owned a cottage near Trout Point was no secret or mystery – the Times Picayune newspaper published just this fact in a July, 2001 travel article. Brousard also had friends in the local community. When a privately-owned postage-stamp lost next to his became available sometime around 2007, Broussard bought that also and a built a 2nd, smaller cottage there. He called the two cottages “Black Bear” and “Cub”.
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From the Millie Ball article:
“Abel is the steadying glue — – and a good evangelist. The guys won’t name names, but the 200 acres have become a haven for some prominent New Orleans and Jefferson residents.
“Mr. Broussard was up here last week with his son,” said a construction worker outside a brand new lakeside home I checked out on my walk. “Mr. Broussard?” “Aaron,” he said, as in Jefferson Parish Council chairman. “This is his house.”
And “Miss Marie’s” house over there, that would be Miss Marie . . . ? Listening carefully to his garbled pronunciation, I came up with “Marie Krantz?” “Yes, that’s her,” he said. As in the Fair Grounds’ Marie Krantz.
Wendell Gauthier is an investor, though he’s never been here. New Orleans attorney Peter J. Butler Jr. said on the phone he invested as a 2 percent partner, and plans to visit …”
Wonder who in the local community was friends with Aaron Broussard?
Incroyable
January 27, 2013 at 9:50 am
The sames names seemed to pop up in the man’s files over and over and over again. What do you make of that?
Doug Handshoe
January 27, 2013 at 10:47 am
Damn, Doug, you remind me of Monty Python “nudge, nudge, wink, wink”.
Kleptocracy at its height.
The Empire Parish
January 29, 2013 at 9:05 am
From Changemakers, the eco-tourism competition:
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
Trout Point is a small private enterprise. Financing came from (a) investors who exchanged equity and use of the Lodge for cash; (b) sale of vacation home lots with protective covenants limiting the commercial or non-aesthetic use and development of the property; (c) the hard work of the three partners; and (d) constant re-investment in infrastructure. Trout Point has now reached the level where it is buying back some of the lots previously sold to create more nature areas and experiences. Trout Point now employs about 10-14 on a seasonal basis, with 2 year-round caretakers.
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
The Lodge is sustainable, with major limiting factors being the seasonality of local tourism & the attendant problems with employee retention. The Lodge would be more successful both financially and as a positive local force if it could operate at a higher level year-round. To accomplish this requires becoming a true, 3- to 4- season destination. In becoming a seasonal destination property, Trout Point has already drawn on local history and unappreciated resources like the rivers & forest, but now it must create attractions that function beyond summer & fall. New year-round initiatives for 2009 include an indoor spa area with treatments using local seaweed resources, horse stable, accessibility of canoes & kayaks, & enrollment of 2 local staff in the cook apprenticeship program for all-season dining.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
Current management holds lessons for anyone seeking to create a tourism destination based on sustainable principles, including the analysis, synthesis, and communication of existing local environmental, cultural, aesthetic, & heritage resources. We have also built, owned, and managed a small eco-lodge in Costa Rica, where the tourism environment differs substantially from Nova Scotia (see http://www.cerrocoyote.com). Lessons learned after ten years of managing Trout Point, and compared with experiences in Louisiana and Costa Rica, include: 1. Overcoming a local perception that the Yarmouth area has little to offer tourists; this includes encouraging memory of the lengthy history of the area being a major “eco-tourism” destination in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 2. Overcoming federal and provincial tourism strategies that only emphasize Nova Scotia’s coastal experiences while ignoring the Tobeatic Wilderness Area and the concept of a more integrated type of natural/cultural tourism embodied in the Biosphere Reserve concept. 3. Encouraging the recognition of the importance of Acadian French (in addition to English or Scottish) cultural heritage for geotourism, which as former Louisiana residents had immediate currency for us in the late 1990s.The formation of the Yarmouth & Acadian Shores Region in 2008 has started to face this challenge, but more can be done. 4. Lack of cooperation among tourism operators, which forms a stark contrast to Costa Rica. Few are truly willing to cooperate with referrals, commissions, mutual promotion, etc. 5. Overcoming the view prevalent in the sustainable tourism industry that appealing upmarket somehow contradicts the goals of geo- or eco-tourism. We are not of the view that upscale must mean that en enterprise cannot also innovate in the area of geo-tourism and hope that Trout Point proves this point. Given our size, we can have much greater impact on the local society and economy following this path.
What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
Our hope is that Trout Point will develop practices and strategies of management translatable to other tourism enterprises in other situations. From a sheer effort at financial survival particularly with the loss of local ferry services in the last 5 years, the Lodge has had to develop itself into a destination property, rather than one receiving guests for 1 night on their way elsewhere. The goals of Trout Point as a destination coincide wholeheartedly with the promotion and sustainable use of the Tobeatic Wilderness Area and the Southern Nova Scotia Biosphere, and only through stewardship of this destination and its local society will the Lodge prosper. Our geo-tourism management approach has been enhanced through experiences in Costa Rica and Spain, where we have developed very small-scale accommodations that also speak of place, and our future project is the creation of a destination property and agri-tourism enterprise in the troglodyte area of Benalua, Granada Province, Spain.
Incroyable
January 27, 2013 at 11:29 am
It is crystal clear to me that Leary, Perret and Abel are filing defamation lawsuits about the ownership of Trout Point Lodge completely understanding they are not disclosing who invested and thus has ownership shares in the Lodge.
Incroyable
January 27, 2013 at 11:30 am
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
My partners and I had departed from traditional career paths as lawyers and professors to become organic farmers, cheesemakers, sustainable agriculture investigators, and finally restaurateurs in Louisiana during the 1990s. In 1996, two of us visited Nova Scotia, following the Acadian-Cajun French cultural connection. As farmers, we had always emphasized small-scale, integrated, sustainable solutions to quality food production. The New Orleans restaurant we opened brought us in greater contact with the public, where we found a fascination with learning about food & ingredients. In the Yarmouth area of Nova Scotia, we found a land rich with natural beauty, diverse cultures, a wealth of local food possibilities, and an intriguing history. We decided to follow our instincts to create a tourism destination, even though tourism and accommodations was not a field we had previously experienced.
As we investigated the region’s history, we discovered that a well-developed tradition of nature camps, lodges, and guides had existed starting in the 19th century (see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tent_Dwellers), which had all but petered out by the 1950s, when the wave of roadside motels and seaside cottages took over. Checking in to accommodations in Yarmouth was like stepping into a time machine, taking you back to 1970. Our sojourns at the “El Rancho Motel” in 1996 & 97 were emblematic of this state of affairs.
However, scattered here and there physical remnants of the previous tourism tradition survived, which very much appealed to geotourism values. Most of the old camps and lodges had burned or literally deteriorated, one became a retirement home, others were in private hands. We tried to buy one of the latter–700 acres including frontage on numerous lakes, a farmhouse, Great Lodge, and cabins. The deal fell through, and the owner had started to clear-cut several areas of the property, so we moved on to the idea of building something anew.
After months of searching for a backwoods parcel that would not be affected by neighboring timber holdings and the threat of clear cuts–a goal not so easily attainable in southern Nova Scotia (see what happened to a nearby monastery: http://www.nben.ca/environews/alerts/alert_archives/98/nova.htm)–we happened upon 200 acres at the confluence of 2 rivers, perfect for a wilderness lodge. Just 3 days after the purchase, the provincial legislature declared the Tobeatic as a protected area, ensuring that the lands across the river and to our north would never be open to commercial development or cutting. In 2001, the United Nations declared the Southern Nova Scotia Biosphere Reserve, with the Tobeatic at its heart (http://www.snbra.ca/reserves.htm).
Incroyable
January 27, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Tell the Changemakers and the Media, when constructing the eco-friendly lodge and related properties on that backwoods parcel of 200 acres at the confluence of 2 rivers, what type of sewage system did you opt for?
Not At All Surprised
January 28, 2013 at 5:32 pm
The side note reads,”I’m just a call away from whatever you ever need for family or business, Aaron.”
In the JP political game of Crony Capitalistic Monopoly(CCM) the general translation to the side note is: If you wish to play CCM I being da’ Godfather of CCM have God given connections in da’ Parish such that if any player’s family or business need favors( a get out of jail card,community card giving you gifts , grants, jobs etc.or wish to pass “GO” three times on one roll of da’ dice) I can do all tings thru my crony governmental connections and friends in da’ media to cover any leaks/breakdowns in our little cozy CCM game.
The CCM game, JP version, continued from one Administration to another without stop with Broussard leaving all the political players of the previous administration to remain playing and roll da’ dice to all hours of da’ night and especially after The Great Broussard Flood. Why?, caused dey all helped him get re-elected,hat-tip to da’ westbank, after The Great Broussard Flood.
Here’s hoping The Virginian will set fire to the CCM board,collect back some of da’ money da’ JP bank lost, break up all da’ board pieces and prevent da’ players or future players from being able to play such a corrupt game for a long time.
lockemuptight
January 27, 2013 at 2:56 pm
EWE man played the CCM game. It kind of worked out well for him. He got to retire in prison and rest up, a hot blonde kept him company, then she married him, and now they star on their own Reality TV show.
Incroyable
January 27, 2013 at 7:07 pm
hey one day I’ll get the old Slabbed site off my log roll and replace it with @ org.Kin of miss the ole site. Nothing wrong with new since it’s improved. Damn, I’m a slacker. Oh,all this love & banking is about the s%@t’s. Least we forget someone (taxes/political/corruption)is paying for this. Remember they also create victims everyday.Anyone know where a person can find a normal life in all this?
http://youtu.be/RpdFoizbnTg?t=3m25s
classvictim
January 28, 2013 at 4:21 am
“Trout Point currently consists of: 8-room Great Lodge including restaurant, 8 stone fireplaces, teaching kitchen, and public areas, 3-room bed & breakfast, 2 cottages, 100 acres of Acadian Forest & river …”
Incroyable
January 28, 2013 at 4:27 am
Charles Leary puts out some very confusing press.
In 2009 for a tourism competition he tells the Changemaker organization that Trout Point Lodge consists of a Great Lodge, 3-room B&B and 2 cottages.
Say what?
In 2012 Leary said Aaron Broussard built 2 cottages at Trout Point and owned these up to 2010.
Why then would Charles Leary lay claim to 3 privately owned buildings – the 2 Broussard cottages and the Marie Krantz Riverbend cottage – as part and parcel of Trout Point Lodge Limited?
How can a corporation rent out buildings it doesn’t own, insure or maintain?
There are far too many questions being raised out of Charles Leary’s press.
Incroyable
January 28, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Wilderness Retreat in Nova Scotia
By : Melanie Furlong
Three hours from Halifax and just a 30-minute drive from Yarmouth, Trout Point Lodge is so deep in the woods of southwest Nova Scotia that there’s no cell phone service. Upland bogs, eskers, pools, giant boulders and granite barrens make up the rough and rocky landscape at the edge of the Tobeatic Wilderness Area, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. The lodge is set here on the Tusket and Napier rivers, where wildlife such as moose, black bear, bald eagles, brook trout, porcupines and flying squirrels far outnumber any human occupants. It’s truly a wilderness nature retreat—a perfect location to get away from it all.
That’s why its Louisianan chef/proprietors Charles Leary, Vaughn Perret and Daniel G. Abel chose it 10 years ago. Following the Great Lodge tradition of Yarmouth County, which is similar to that of the Adirondacks of New York, they built a world-class retreat from giant Eastern Spruce logs, chiseled granite and sandstone that’s reminiscent of the area’s early 20th-century lodges, which were visited by Franklin Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Ernest Hemingway, Amelia Earhart, Zane Grey and travel writer Albert Paine Bigelow, who featured the area in The Tent Dwellers. The Great Lodge offers eight junior suites and one full suite, all with full bath and local Acadian-made log and twig furniture. The décor includes Italian tile, hand-knit rugs and wood floors, all designed for what the owners call “haute rustic” comfort. They added a second smaller lodge, River Bend Lodge, with four double/quadruple-occupancy rooms and two cottages, a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom. Every room boasts water views.
Incroyable
January 28, 2013 at 1:01 pm
The Times Picayune was forced to retract that all companies and buildings owned by Broussard and D’Aquila were Trout Point Lodge.
How then can Charles Leary claim buildings owned by Broussard are Trout Point Lodge?
Incroyable
January 28, 2013 at 4:54 pm
If the longest running bank in the world can’t escape criminal relationships with the State, why would we expect our American upstarts to do any better, right?
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0129/Scandal-at-world-s-oldest-bank-upends-Italian-elections?nav=620181-csm_article-editorsPicks
The Empire Parish
January 29, 2013 at 9:03 am