[council] Washington meeting: NCUC position

[Mawaki Chango <ki_chango@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Bruce, all:

As most of you, it is my duty to report back and forth between the
Council and my constituency. I personnally may have rested my case,
but the issue of the Washington, D.C. meeting has caused a turmoil on
the NCUC-list which is, unfortunately, still distracting the
constituency from the actual work at hand. I have to report back to
you the strong opposition of NCUC on the principle, and related
agenda item, of calling for an addtional and f2f round of public
comments in D.C., summarizing the reasons put forward as follows:

1/ Given this particular and sensitive issue of gTLD, which has been
on and on for a good while, we have heard the same arguments for and
against gTLDs for years, and what is most needed is not more comment,
but decisions (at least on positions and recommendations, as far as
the GNSO Council is concerned). The idea that we, the Council and our
Constituencies, don't know what our position is, or need to hear
more, does not convince none of my constituents. Instead, it is
beleived that what we really need to do is to put our heads together
and come up with a common and final position.

2/ And to better achieve this, we need not to expose ourselves to
further pressure and lobbying from interest groups, which my fellow
constituents beleive is going to happen in D.C. In effect, we are
concerned that opening this meeting in Washington to public comment
turn this into lobbying meeting that will easily be dominated by
Washington insiders who are far to reflect the variety of possible
and existing positions on this sensitive issue of value to all of us,
both as ICANN bodies and globally.

Please note that the Non-Commercial Users Constituency does not
oppose the principle of the GNSO Council having a meeting to advance
our work on that crucial issue, and is prepared to participate at its
best in such meeting.

My very best regards, in a fair play spirit as ever,

Mawaki