Joly,

In response to my post contending that the multistakeholder model was not effectively meeting the needs of individual Internet users (IIUs) in New York City you said:

"But are we? ALS's and individuals can join RALOs, who in turn can influence the ALAC, who advise the ICANN board."

That's correct. And that's what I'm doing right now.

Following that line of thought we really don't need a city council or mayor at all. After all, we also have a democratically elected congress and president. Why bother with city government? Just call your congress member about the pothole, garbage pickup, or idea for a park improvement. And indeed you can. But my congress member represents about 700,000 people and avers to the local council member who represents 160,000 residents. He has close ties, that include budgetary control, with the local service providers - the pothole fillers, sanitation and parks departments. So for local service delivery issues it's better to go local. And in this instance, with .nyc, I think we have agreed to go down one more layer and engage the stakeholders in the process. And indeed, ICANN talks bottom-up and multistakeholder. Minimally, minimally, ICANN could send a notification to the local ALSs when a city registry agreement change is proposed. And it would seem reasonable to provide the opportunity for that ALS to respond, and for that response to be considered. One might argue that it is the ALS's responsibility to keep an eye on ICANN's activities. And that's a good idea. And I support and look forward to the day when we're provided by ICANN with a budget to hire a staff member for that task. But for now it seems ICANN's generating a letter about proposed changes to the registry agreement is the simpler way to go.

"There was an advisory board for .nyc. It hardly met, and the meetings it had were closed. You were on it. It could've done something to break its chains if the will was there, surely."

As I recall the situation, the city created the advisory board under duress - there was a challenge to their .nyc application from Connecting.nyc Inc. After the .NYC Community Advisory Board's creation the city retained tight control over its operation. It appointed members, scheduled the meetings, and set the agenda. I informed media-types about the meetings, but they were excluded by the representatives of the mayor. Additionally, even city officials were excluded. Council member Gale Brewer's representative, whom I invited, was told to leave the room when he showed up. And as I mentioned previously, when they abolished it on December 31, 2014 they wiped out any sign of its existence from its website. But you're right, those chains probably could have been broken short of self-immolation. I just never figured out how. Where are we now? While we've taken a hit with the abolition of the .NYC Community Advisory Board, I'm still trying to get a governance process started where IIUs can meaningfully participate in a governance process. My latest thought is to get ICANN, via the ALSs, on board and advocating for a multistakeholder governance process, one that includes IIUs. Any thoughts on how to achieve this are most welcomed.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt