Dear Wendy:
Since you have seen fit to deal with the situation with respect to your travel in the most public way possible, and because you have made serious and unsubstantiated allegations about the role of the staff in ‘manipulating the travel policy to exclude participation’, this response is being sent to the public At-Large list. May I take this opportunity to state that I take no pleasure whatever in having to send such communications and I would have preferred that the matter be dealt with in a normal way between those directly concerned instead.
Since you were informed that you would not receive travel support because you didn’t book your tickets in the allotted time, you have:
- Accused the staff, in public email communications, of deliberately manipulating the travel policy to exclude participation in San Juan. Considering the amount of funding which ICANN provides to the At-Large community to attend ICANN meetings year in and year out - and considering that you personally have been supported for something like five years to attend three meetings a year, this accusation is unhelpful, inflammatory, and untrue.
- You have chosen to make untrue statements that you had complied with the travel deadlines on several occasions when that was demonstrably not the case. As is clear from the chronology of your contacts with American Express that you have not disputed, you had repeated opportunities to book your travel in the time provided and American Express repeatedly offered to help you – you on several occasions told them you were not ready to be ticketed yet.
- You have suggested that ‘policies’ about the amount of time for booking your tickets were ‘hidden’ when you were clearly aware of them. You replied to the email that contained them.
- Suggesting that the email that contained the travel deadlines from the vendor was somehow hidden when you as well as everyone else were notified by me that you could expect an email from American Express containing details of how and when to arrange your flights “within 24 hours” (email of 31st May).
- Suggested that you were somehow not able to use ‘the full period’ to book your travel when that is demonstrably not true.
- Suggested that the travel vendor failed to call you or follow up with you on public email lists when in fact you didn’t ask them to call you, and when they followed up with you the next day, you did not indicate that they should have called you – and in fact told them that you were not yet ready to book your travel.
Your representation of the travel system is inaccurate, the accusations made against members of the ICANN staff are untrue and alleged incompetence in the actions of the travel vendor belied by the detailed record of communication between you and Amex.
The result of the inaccurate and inflammatory statements you have made, as well as the very public way in which you have chosen to present them, is that a great deal of time and energy has been consumed by several people in and out of ICANN on a matter that should have been a straightforward decision based upon facts. This has resulted in time that could have been spent on providing services to the whole community being spent instead on this matter. As a community leader, it seems to me that you are meant to be helping the community help itself, not providing opportunities to waste the time of staff and of others and making untrue and inflammatory statements which require time to be spent correcting the record.
Out of a total of 40 people attending the San Juan meeting, of which 35 used the American Express service, you are the only person who didn’t manage to make the arrangements in time. There were no other complaints about not having enough time to make arrangements – on the contrary, everyone else was done in good time – in spite of the fact that as previously mentioned, many had far more complex itineraries than yours would have been.
The reality of having so many people travel with support from ICANN from this community is that there must be some reasonable rules regarding travel support – otherwise fewer people will get to attend meetings.
It would be entirely reasonable for us to stand by our previous decision and uphold the rules as they were written – rules that everyone else managed to follow. However, upon reflection and taking particularly into account the wish of a number of your ALAC colleagues that the rules be bent in your favour, what we are prepared to do, on a one-time basis, is to reimburse you for an amount up to what the ticket could have been purchased for on the 8th on the airline of your choice and flight time windows, both of which you indicated as your preferences to American Express. If you choose to attend the San Juan meeting, please provide your airfare receipt with an expense claim and you will be reimbursed for up to US$883.00.
Please let us know within 48 hours if you are intending to avail yourself of this offer and provide a copy of your itinerary so we can make the requisite hotel arrangements. To remind you, if you do attend, per-diems will cover a period of not longer than 23 – 29 June inclusive (meaning departure from San Juan on the 30th).
I hope very much that this will be the end of this episode – and that you will address any remaining concerns to me and eschew opportunities for further public airing of matters related to your travel arrangements.
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Chronology of W Seltzer’s Contacts with American Express Travel Desk.
· May 31 - Original email sent to traveller
· June 1 616 a - Ms Seltzer responds that she is out of the office until the 4th . She does add her phone number, but does not specifically request a verbal phone call and since this is an international reservation, our agents responded via email.
· June 1-11:45a - agent response with email that she looks forward to her response on Monday.
· June 4 3 :58p- agent does not hear back from traveller and sends a courtesy reminder, requesting verification of carrier and flights
· June 4 4: 28p - Ms Seltzer responds that she is not ready to ticket.
- June 8 11:45a- Received request for alternate flights- we did not have the opportunity to get back to her on Friday.
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Regards,
Nick Ashton-Hart
Director, At-Large
ICANN
PO Box 32160
London N4 2XY
United Kingdom
Main Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011]
USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460