George, I find this a thoughtful message and it deserve answers. As you, I am only speaking on my own behalf, although I suspect that much (but not all) would be supported by my At-Large colleagues. I am short on time, so forgive any typos...

Perhaps this will prompt others to answer your questions.

At 12/10/2015 03:33 AM, George Sadowsky wrote:

<6 concerns>

I share many of these feelings, but must comment on two of them:

Removal of Directors by AC/SO vs overall community: My personal position is that if a group can select a Board member, then they should be able to change their mind and remove as well, but I can live with community removal as well. But I think the Board concern has little merit. Given the frequency of AC/SO directors being renewed, I cannot see this happening all that often, and if it does, there may well be good cause. Perhaps there is an edge case of a good director being removed frivolously. But we also have no way to guarantee that no appointed director will be a dud. But we live with the uncertainty with the hope and intent that it is not a frequent occasion.

On the last point, I will point out that Cardinals do not bill by the hour at the rates our attorneys do!


In order to assist in resolving our current difficulties, here are some issues that I believe are pertinent.  I raise them in the form of questions., for I believe that there is not a common precise understanding of them.  Is it possible to provide simple and direct answers to them that might be useful for establishing greater understanding of the differences that still exist and beginning to bridge them?  That would be helpful.

A.  It appears that the single designator model is very much the same as the single member mode, but with the only statutory power being to select or remove directors.   In general, is this correct?  In brief, what are the other differences?

 To establish any new structure the community still needs to address a range of open topics to ensure ICANN’s stability and freedom from capture: 

As I understand it, the ONLY statutory power that a designator has is to appoint and remove directors. Any other powers it may be given will need to be spelled out in the Bylaws.

My personal feeling is that we don't even need designators. We could have a Community Mechanism as a Single Widget and grant that entity the Bylaw power to appoint/remove directors. It may be a de facto designator under the California code, just as the SOs and At-Large is now, but if the name is a problem, let's ditch it.

I note that to make the MEM work, we will probably need just such an entity to allow a group of SO/ACs to take IPR or other action.


B. In Buenos Aires, there was discussion and convergence (I thought) on an "empowered AC/SO" model.  Does this model offer any initial point for movement to convergence of opinion?

It died an un-natural death when the CMSM was born...


C. The Board proposal calls for each AC/SO to decide if they are for or against and issue instead of possibly dividing its "vote". Is this a show-stopper?

Not for me. Each AC/SO must already decide, AS A UNIT, whether it will participate in the CMSM and whether to launch or support a petition to exercise some power. It would be natural to use the same mechanism to actually exercise the power.


D. The Board proposal allows any AC/SO to weigh in on a particular issue (and decide to exercise or oppose the use of one of the powers. The CCWG proposal requires and AC/SO to decide ahead of time whether it will participate in future uses of the powers. Is this a show-stopper?

It seemed a natural way to do things when we invented the community powers. I see no problem with leaving it open until a need to decide on exercising a particular power.


E. What would the community take as evidence in the short term that the Board is acting in good faith?  I'm concerned by what appears to be Board bashing on the list, wherein many things that any of us say or do are interpreted negatively and perhaps conspiratorially.  I realize that the great majority of people involved int he CCSG process do not have such attitudes, but predictably it only takes a very few individuals to sour and confuse a discussion and lessen its utility.

If you are talking short term, as in days or weeks, then it needs to be something that does not need a lot of investigation or preparation. The one thing that has been talked about for YEARS that fits this description is make all Board meetings and Board Committee meeting open. Yes, it will likely force SOME discussions offline, but it will also give AC/SO and the NomCom SOME insight as to how their appointed directors act. Why would that be bad?

Alan


I'm sure that these questions reflect my limited and imperfect understanding of the situation, and perhaps some naïveté also, but there aren't many other ways to gain a productive understanding of it.


Comments welcome.

George



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