Newly elected Vermilion Parish tax assessor will not take office until 2013

January will see a number of newly elected politicians officially sworn in to new posts.

Gabe Marceaux will have to wait a bit longer before he joins that group. Marceaux, who won the election for Vermilion Parish Tax Assessor on Oct. 22, will not take over the position until January 2013. Waiting may be difficult for some, but not for Marceaux.

“I knew that going into it,” Marceaux said of having to wait 14 months before taking office. “It’s never been a big deal for me. “I was prepared for that and it’s been business as usual for me.”

Marceaux, who currently serves as the chief deputy, has worked for the assessor’s office for over six years. While Marceaux said he has looked down the road to when he takes over, he has not let it affect today.

“We’re still busy with day-to-day operations,” Marceaux said. “Obviously we are looking at the future and we will be doing little things along the way to get ready. However, we are in full swing working on the 2012 tax roll right now.”

Marceaux said he knew during the campaign process that, if he did win, a victory would not change how he operated in his current position. That thinking has not changed.

“I wasn’t going to do anything differently,” Marceaux said. “And I’m not going to change that now.”

Marceaux said that he will take the next year to continue to learn.

“It definitely makes for a good transition period,” Marceaux said of the delayed swearing in. “You could look at it in a negative way, but I always like to look at the plus side of it.”

The plus side is that Marceaux has more time to learn from the current Tax Assessor Kathy Broussard.

“It gives me another year with Mrs. Kathy,” Marceaux said. “She has nearly 36 years of experience.

“You can’t go wrong whenever you can work along with somebody like that.”

Marceaux earned the right to wait and continue to learn for the assessor’s seat after taking nearly 60 percent of the 14,793 votes in the October election. When asked if much of the stress has been eased in the day-to-day work since the win, Marceaux replied, “Definitely so. I lived and breathed the campaign every day. Until it’s over, you don’t realize how much time you were spending with it.”

Marceaux said, with a wife and six kids, it is nice to have the election finished. Marceaux said he planned to spend a nice Christmas with his family. The New Year will bring business as usual, as well as some patience.

“It doesn’t pay to get ahead of ourselves,” Marceaux said. “I knew going into (the election) that the take-office date would be 14 months out from the Election Day. There’s definitely plenty of work to be done in the office in the meantime. We have our hands full just doing what we have to do now. “You’ve got to look ahead in a certain sense. But as far as wishing daily that I was the assessor now, I don’t do that. That all comes in time.”