Re: [ga] ICANN Travel Budgeting

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

George,

I just sent a similar note to Kieren by way of the
CPSR Governance list.  I'd love to know why the other
candidate cities were rejected if the cost for
attendance in Delhi is so high.

regards,
Danny


--- George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> Hello,
> 
> One *has* to take a look at these numbers:
> 
>
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg04280.html
> 
> "India Travel ? It is estimated that airfare for 21
> Council members for
> this meeting would be US$147,000. Cost for hotel/per
> diem for 21
> Council members for this meeting would be
> US$205,800."
> 
> That would be a total of $352,000, or $16,800 per
> person! To India! How
> many couples went on a holiday to India and spent
> $35K for a week? The
> premium for business travel isn't that high, unless
> one is staying at
> the Four Seasons.
> 
> Compare that to the entire budgets of various
> constituencies, for a
> year, and that seems enormously wasteful.
> 
> Why is it that no one at ICANN can provide a quote
> as to what Webex.com
> or another videoconference solution that can scale
> to 200+ people would
> cost?
> 
> I predict it would cost substantially LESS than
> $1000 per person for a
> week of live feeds using Webex or other systems. And
> folks could
> participate from the comfort of their home/office,
> and sleep in their
> own bed at night. Their carbon footprint would also
> be much less.
> 
> I assume the number of ICANN staffers being sent far
> exceeds 21, so you
> can just imagine the enormous wasteful spending, on
> the backs of domain
> registrants. More bread, less circuses.
> 
> If you're going to flush away $50,000 for 3 council
> members from a
> single constituency, I think it would be better to
> give that money to
> the relevant constituency, and then have that
> constituency decide how
> the money is to be spent. I imagine they'll be able
> to search around
> for much cheaper tickets and/or hotels, or decide to
> use the money to
> reduce their constituency annual membership fees,
> etc.
> 
> When something is "free" it tends to get abused, be
> it the Add Grace
> Period, or travel funding. More efficient
> allocations of resources
> occur when one is given the choice of how to
> allocate those "free"
> funds.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> George Kirikos
> http://www.kirikos.com/
> 
> 



      
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