RE: [council] Making Council less crazy

["Tim Ruiz" <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps I am crazy. 

Crazy for expecting a more sound approach to decision making for Council
members. 

Crazy for thinking that the Council and Staff should be responsible for
efficient use of limited resources in an organization whose budget is
growing rapidly.

I would simply like to make an informed decision when voting on requests
for issues reports. I would like to know up front if the issue is within
scope of GNSO policy making. That does not require a pre-issues issues
report as Philip has attempted to charactize it. It requires only an
opinion of Staff Counsel on 2.e 1-5 of the bylaws. As Philip points out,
that has to be done anyway. There is nothing in the bylaws that prevent
it from being done up front. The opinion can still be included in the
issues report, if pursued, without duplicating any effort.

What it would require is that our requests be well defined and specific
and not broad brush strokes that at times appear to be fishing
expeditions for something that may be in scope. Specific, limited
requests would also make more efficient use of Staff resources. 

It has also been suggested that issues reports might be requested just
to gather information, perhaps to consider a best practices approach,
etc. I think any request that is intended as such should be fully
identified up front, with the understanding that Staff is not bound to
the bylaws in responding to any such request. Annex A of the bylaws
appears to me to be very specific about what an issues report is for. 

Crasy as it may be, I and my constituents want to know exactly what I am
voting on.


Tim 


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [council] Making Council less crazy
From: "Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@xxxxxx>
Date: Fri, September 26, 2008 4:33 am
To: "'Council GNSO'" <council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Background
On yesterday's call I used the word crazy to describe a part of the
debate I heard around the agenda item on abusive practices and the
request for an issues report.
My apologies again for being late to the meeting as my day job
responsibilities intervened. However, I would like to clarify what I
meant.
 
It is my burden to have been a member of  Council for some time and thus
have a certain institutional memory. I also helped write the current PDP
(and advised strenuously against putting it in the bylaws so that we
could fine tune it every quarter).
 
What is crazy then?
I use the term in the sense of unsound. 
 
Crazy 1
A Council member requests that before an issues report we have a
pre-issues report to determine if the issue is in scope.
BUT the PDP http://www.icann.org/en/general/bylaws.htm tells us in 2e
that one key element of the issues report itself is:
"the opinion of the ICANN General Counsel regarding whether the issue
proposed to initiate the PDP is properly within the scope of the ICANN
policy process and within the scope of the GNSO."
 
Crazy  2
Even after the Council member has requested this and in advance by
e-mail no staff member intervenes to explain this.
 
Crazy 3
The Chair of the meeting does not rule the motion out of order.
 
Crazy 4
We debate on whether policy staff are sufficiently resourced to act on
our request.
It is NOT the job of Council to micro-manage staff. We request what we
want.
It IS the job of the Vice President, Policy Development to manage policy
staff and tell Council when we need to make priority choices.
 
Crazy 5
In the same light we start to negotiate with staff on the timelines in
the knowledge that we all know the PDP timelines are hopeless (and as
mentioned above ill-advisedly enshrined in the bylaws). 
Council should make its request.
Then Staff should advise on the art of the possible with respect to the
request and other requests. Then if necessary we advise on priorities.
 
As we move forward to revise PDP etc  lets us bear the above in mind.
And lets please empower our professional staff to advise, to act, to
counsel and to guide.
 
Philip