RE: [council] Making Council less crazy

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike,

Are you saying that the GNSO opinion counts as much as the ICANN General
Council's opinion?

Chuck 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Rodenbaugh
> Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 2:06 PM
> To: 'Council GNSO'
> Subject: RE: [council] Making Council less crazy
> 
> 
> I would just like to clarify that ICANN Staff's opinion of 
> what is in scope of GNSO PDP is required by bylaws and 
> certainly can be useful.  But it is not necessarily the final 
> word.  GNSO's opinion ought to be of equal weight, at least, 
> but ultimately only the Board could make a decision if there 
> was disagreement between Staff and GNSO.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mike
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tim Ruiz
> Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 8:05 AM
> To: 'Council GNSO'
> Subject: RE: [council] Making Council less crazy
> 
> 
> 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 
> 
> 
> 
>