Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

As part of my free life lesson program, I had the distinct pleasure to be in Atlanta Traffic Court Monday afternoon for the first live session using the court”s new computerized case-management system. The pleasure came from the pure comedy involved in watching a staid old traffic court judge try to use one of those newfangled computer systems. It seemed a whole lot like trying to teach your grandpa to check his email.

The judge actually had a representative from the system vendor sitting with him as he tried to navigate the system - during a live court session. Hardly any action attempted went well for the judge, and his frustration steadily grew during the 90 minutes I had to stick around to be on hand. Almost away from his mic, the judge would mutter things like “why can”t I just change this to $15? I want it to say 15 bucks!!” to his hand-holder, and couldn”t use the system at all to do some things.

A typical case went something like this:

Judge: Call the next case.

Clerk: DEFENDANT NAME

Judge: Mr. DEFENDANT NAME, you”re charged with … … … … seat belt violation.

Solicitor: Your honor, Mr. DEFENDANT NAME has three citations.

Judge: I don”t see that.

Judge”s Helper: [reaches over to show judge where to see the citations]

Judge: [to Judge”s Helper] Well, why doesn”t that show here? [pointing to screen]

Judge”s Helper: [points at screen, mumbles instructions to judge]

Judge: Mr. DEFENDANT NAME, you”re charged with … … I can”t read this (poorly-scanned citation image)

Solicitor: [lists charges]

Judge: OK, Mr. DEFENDANT NAME, are you entering a plea?

DEFENDANT: Yes sir. Guilty.

Judge: OK, $150 fine plus state surcharges … … … [to Judge”s Helper] Where does it show the fine?

Judge”s Helper: [points at screen]

Judge: [stares at screen, fumbles around with mouse] [to Judge”s Helper] I can”t change it!

Judge”s Helper: [points at screen]

Judge: [to Judge”s Helper] Why do I have to do that twice? I want to just put the fine here [points at screen]

Judge: [stares at screen, fumbles around with mouse] … … … … … … … OK, Mr. DEFENDANT NAME, please step through the door to your right and see the cashier.

Judge: Call the next case.

You get the idea. The scene was captured in this courtroom drawing that looks remarkably like a piece of a decent camera-phone picture (those courtroom artists are good!)

After making it through about five cases - none of which involved anything more than a defendant saying “guilty” and paying a fine or “not guilty” and getting a trial date - in an hour, the judge went into speed-plea mode. He called cases alphabetically because it was a lot easier to find them that way, and had defendants queue up 10 deep to compensate for the slowness of him getting through each case.

Fortunately, the guy who hit me is a “C”, so I was out of there pretty quickly. But it was a lot of fun to watch while I was there.

And the scary news? The next phase of traffic court efficiency is replacing the paper citation pads cops carry with an electronic device that records everything digitally and just spits out a small receipt for the offender. I”m sure that”ll go off without a hitch.

It”s good to read stories like this one in The Advocate (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) laying out the expectation that LSU”s 2007 offensive will be a lot more wide-open than it”s been in the past. Of course, it might have been nice to play an open offense when we had JaMarcus, Bowe, etc., but let”s not dwell on the past. Matt Flynn is a mobile QB, which will work well in more of a spread attack, and the receiver corps is younger but still really talented. Throw in a strong mix of running backs, and Crowton has all the tools he needs.

It”s slightly disconcerting, though, that the Advocate writer felt compelled to include the line “LSU coach Les Miles isn’t likely to come anywhere close to completely abandoning a power-based run game …“. I”m sure it”s the Leslie cynic in me, but that just stinks of Miles meddling in the plan his new OC has.

But if Crowton is able to open up 90% of the offense, we”ll give Leslie his occasional ineffective plunge into the left side of the line.

For those of you following the tale of Jeff Notrica and Inman Park Properties in East Atlanta, here are some updates for you. The Good:

- Work is rolling along at the two new restaurants set to open in Notrica”s strip of spaces between the Graveyard Tavern and what used to be Good News Cafe on Glenwood Avenue. Word is one of the spaces (described in some circles as a juice bar / vegetarian restaurant / live music space - who knows?) is set to open this month, with the other (The Glenwood - which is positioning itself as something along the lines of Atkins Park) opening sometime after that. The parking lot/alley behind the spaces remains well-maintained and clean.

- A bar catering to lesbians - My Sister”s Room - plans to relocate to the EAV from Decatur. According to the East Atlanta Community Association, the club is moving into the former Good News Cafe space at Glenwood and Gresham avenues. More interesting, still, is that EACA says Inman Park Properties has purchased the Good News space specifically to lease to My Sister”s Room. County records still show that space being owned by the Graveyard Tavern people, but I guess that has changed. At this month”s EACA meeting, it was noted that My Sister”s Room had reservations about leasing from Inman Park Properties because the club became aware of some issues East Atlanta has with Jeff Notrica. To that I say if a company doesn”t let its properties get into this kind of shape, it won”t face these kinds of questions from prospective tenants.

- Some work on the utilities at Inman Park”s Tucker Automotive building on Flat Shoals Avenue has begun. Supposedly this is the future home of yet another new restaurant, but there”s a ton of work that needs to be done before any kind of business is opening there.

The Bad:

- It”s status quo at the B&W Market and East Atlanta Lock & Key. Sure, the ghetto market is gone, but these two spaces are huge eyesores right in the heart of the Village. Notrica could have demolished these spaces when he tore down the Homeless Hovel farther north on Flat Shoals, but he chose not to do so. Supposedly plans are in the works to demolish these buildings, but I”ll believe it when I see it.

- Still lots of trash around the B&W and Notrica”s lots next door - including their lovely rusting oil drums. They”ve done a good job of cleaning up behind the Glenwood space, but not so much is their less visible spots.

The Really Bad and Really Disturbing:

I was told after the EACA meeting that the city has begun code enforcement action against Inman Park Properties in relation to the John B. Gordon School on Metropolitan Avenue. The company bought the school - built in 1925 - from Atlanta Public Schools in the summer of 1997 with the supposed intention of converting it to lofts. And then they left the building there to rot. They”ve updated their “coming soon” sign a couple of times, with the current almost-not-falling-apart version promoting a Spring 2006 launch!

What I was told by an official NPU-W representative is that the city has ordered Inman Park Properties to resolve the issue of boarded up windows at the Gordon School. Apparently outlawing boarded windows is how the city combats abandoned property. And I was also told that Jeff Notrica has a novel idea for resolving the boarded windows - by demolishing the school. I was told that Notrica believes the cost of repairing the windows is too high, so the smart choice is to tear the place down. Somehow I don”t think that was the vision Atlanta Public Schools had when it sold the property 10 years ago. It”s also an interesting position considering the company”s slogan of Preserving The Future By Saving The Past.

Notrica will face a real fight on this one. It”s likely to be a lose-lose proposition, however, because Notrica has demonstrated that he”s more than happy to sit on this property and let it rot. So the options will likely be compel him to put new windows in, in which case the building will probably just continue to rot, or let him tear the place down, in which case the property will probably sit vacant and undeveloped for years to come. I”m sure Notrica will come forward with grand plans for a beautiful new development there, but his history in East Atlanta precedes him.

Jeff Notrica has been perfectly content to let the Gordon School rot for a decade. The Tucker Automotive space has sat vacant and rotting for six years now. The Homeless Hovel sat rotting for seven years before Notrica was finally pressured to tear it down - reportedly because of a boarded window citation. He”s content to let the small building he put up at 567 Flat Shoals five years ago sit vacant to this day. He owns vacant lots on Flat Shoals, Glenwood, May and Haas Avenues that he”s happy to let sit undeveloped, so any promises to build something new on the Gordon School land will ring completely hollow.

East Atlanta will look at any plans by Jeff Notrica will great doubt, because that”s the reputation he”s created for himself in our neighborhood.

These are not good times for LSU fans. We”re not even 90 days removed from the last great moment in Tiger sports - the thrashing of Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl - and good news is rare in South Baton Rouge. Men”s basketball wasn”t even invited to the NIT a year after reaching the Final Four. Women”s hoops opens the NCAA tourney today under the weight of Pokey Chatman”s sex-scandal resignation. Baseball began SEC play yesterday - getting shut out by South Carolina - unranked and having dropped series to the powerhouse programs that are Stetson and Lipscomb.

And the man in the middle - Skip Bertman - is under fire for his handling of the Pokey situation, the state of the baseball program and increasingly his general management of the athletic department. Sure, all those new buildings and Tiger Stadium expansions are nice, but Tiger fans aren”t really happy with the old baseball coach, who”ll be stepping aside no more than a year from this summer. Especially in the wake of the sex scandal, more pressure may be put on Bertman to go ahead and retire when his current contract ends June 30.

Given the problems with hoops and baseball, the shining light of LSU sports is clearly football. And the brightest light in the program is about to be an Oakland Raider.

To say the 2007 football season is important for LSU sports is like saying Jessica Simpson”s tits are important to her career. Obvious and a huge understatement.

The expectations for Leslie are huge. LSU may start the season ranked higher than any year since 1959, when we debuted at No. 1 coming off our first national championship (we started at No. 4 in 2004 and No. 5 in 2005). The schedule - so brutal in 2006 - favors LSU, with South Carolina, Florida, Auburn and Arkansas all coming to Baton Rouge (along with Virginia Tech), and the clear expectation is an SEC West title and another shot at the BCS.

Really rabid Tiger fans expect nothing less than another national championship this season, but the sane among us realize the BCS is too much of a crap shoot to project any team into the title game before late November (unless you”re talking about USC, of course). SEC teams shoot for no more than one loss - to a good team - a division title and an SEC Championship Game win. How things fall beyond that are in the hands of the football gods.

That”s Leslie”s expectation this year. Stay in the top 5 and win the west. And, by the way, you”d better beat Fonzie in Tuscaloosa to satisfy the Saban=Satan crowd.

Of course, there will be no JaMarcus Russell this year; no Dwayne Bowe; no LaRon Landry and no Jessie Daniels. The staff, like the players, is less Saban-influenced and the program clearly will carry Miles” mark from here on. This is the season Leslie shows his worth - the influence and the expectations are all his now.

With so much of the LSU sports program in disarray, football success is critical. Big wins in Tiger Stadium do wonders to take attention away from problems elsewhere. And when football is down, there needs to be success elsewhere to keep LSU hope alive (see LSU Baseball: 1989 - 2000). With football expectations so high and problems elsewhere so troubling, the importance of football success is magnified even more.

LSU football is on the brink of “elite” status. Winning the SEC and getting back to the BCS this year would get us there. Faltering and winding up 8-4 or worse would just toss another log on the fire of LSU”s athletic woes.

I”ll be rooting hard for Leslie this fall.

Supposedly the result of an LSU fan finding Fonzie”s car parked in the “head coach” spot outside of the Bama football offices.

I do remember Nick Saban liking the black Mercedes S-Classes back in the day.

Going through my RSS feeds last night, I was surprised to see a fairly rational account of The Coca Cola Company”s proxy filing and executive pay disclosures in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But, alas, that was just the initial filing of the story. The original piece, which my reader said came across at 1:36 p.m. (maybe still available here if you”ve given ajc.com a fake email address) was headlined “Coke CEO gets $7 mil in cash pay for “06 and was written thusly:

Coca-Cola Chairman and Chief Executive Neville Isdell earned $7 million in salary and incentive pay in 2006, plus stock awards and other perks worth millions more, the soft drink maker reported Friday.

The payout included a one-time award of $5.5 million based on the company”s total performance for the year, as determined by Coke”s board of directors using a preset award range.

Isdell”s base salary in 2006 was $1.5 million, the same as he earned in 2005. Isdell also received stock awards and options worth millions more, according to a filing with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. Many of the stock awards and options can be cashed in only after meeting certain targets or remaining with the company for a set period of time.

In addition, Isdell got the benefit of the company”s corporate jet, a car and driver, and security that were all worth nearly $320,000, according to Coke”s filing.

The SEC requires publicly-traded companies to disclose compensation for the top five highest paid employees.

The rest of the piece talks about other proxy matters.

OK, so it headlines the $7 million in cash, mentions Isdell got stock and options “worth millions more” and correctly states that a lot of that compensation “can be cashed in only after meeting certain targets”. It would be far too much to ask, of course, for the AJC to put the compensation in context of the company”s performance - such as the $17 billion in market cap added in 2006 - and there”s no chance in hell the AJC would reference any of the exhaustive explanation Coke lists about how pay is determined.

But for the AJC, this was a relatively fair bit of reporting.

However, by the time the story was massaged for today”s physical paper - which apparently some people actually still buy - the headline had become “Coke chief”s compensation $32.3 million in “06” and the story read:

Coca-Cola Chairman and Chief Executive Neville Isdell earned $7.5 million in salary, incentive pay and perks in 2006, the soft drink maker reported Friday.

But including stock options and awards, pension benefits, deferred compensation and other benefits, Isdell”s total compensation hit $32.3 million in 2006, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC requires publicly traded companies to disclose annually the compensation for the five highest-paid employees. New rules this year greatly expand how companies disclose compensation. The rules aim to give investors a more transparent view into executive compensation.

Had the rules been in place last year, Isdell”s total compensation would have been reported as a little more than $26 million for 2005, according to Coke”s calculations.

Isdell”s pay included a one-time cash award of $5.5 million based on the company”s total performance for the year, as determined by Coke”s board of directors using a preset award range. That was up from the $4.5 million bonus Isdell received in 2005.

Isdell”s base salary in 2006 was $1.5 million, the same as he earned in 2005.

In addition to the cash and benefits compensation, Isdell received stock awards and options currently worth roughly $19.4 million, according to the SEC filing. Isdell won”t be able to cash in these stock awards and options until the company meets certain financial targets and he remains with the company for a set period of time.

Isdell received other pension benefits and deferred compensation worth nearly $5.4 million.

Isdell”s perks included the use of the company”s corporate jet, a car and driver and security that were all worth nearly $320,000, according to Coke”s filing.

If you”re a bit lazy, here are the changes:

- Headline focuses on the big money (which he may not actually get)

- Value of “perks” added to the “cash” received to raise that total by $500K

- Stock value pushed up with not-at-all-agenda-driven “But …” lead in and value stated

- Paragraph about SEC rules added to reinforce how you poor people now get to know exactly how much these fatcats “make”

- Paragraph added to report what the big number would have been in 2005

- Note added that cash award was up from 2005

- Conditions of his options award changed from “Many of the stock awards and options can be cashed in only after meeting certain targets” to “Isdell won”t be able to cash in these stock awards and options until the company meets certain financial targets”. Key change there is “after meeting” becomes “until the company meets”, which implies much more certainty that the gain will be realized.

- The note “In addition, Isdell got the benefit of the company”s corporate jet, a car and driver, and security that were all worth nearly $320,000″ became “Isdell”s perks included the use of the company”s corporate jet, a car and driver and security that were all worth nearly $320,000″. That”s a classic and telling AJC twist - “perks” is a much better wealth-envy term than “benefits”. The information is exactly the same, just twisted to better suit the AJC “Business” section”s anti-business agenda.

I”m sure the AJC editors would say the changes merely represent the difference between an immediate, breaking story and one written after the reporter had more time to examine the SEC filing. Yes, there”s more information in the follow-on piece, but it all serves the purpose of making Isdell”s package look fatter.

The paper also had the time to read Coke”s 40-page explanation of how executive compensation is determined, but they included none of the context provided by the company. I”m sure the AJC read the part where Coke explains in great detail why Isdell is required by the company (for security reasons) to always travel on corporate planes and how the car and driver he”s provided with are used for other company purposes when not transporting Isdell, but again they saw no reason to use any of that information in their expanded story.

Of course, none of this is surprising. I just wanted to point it out.