Dear North American Regional At Large Colleagues, I'm preparing a personal comment, reflecting my thoughts on the issue of city names, to submit before my term as the Unaffiliated NARALO Member Representative begins at the close of the 2010 ICANN AGM in Cartagena. Broadly, I think each of the rationals Peter offers for declining to explore changes from the DAGv4 (now DAGv5) protections is flawed, and I think limiting the GAC's interest in distinguishing urban public administrations from private parties to delegation agreements to mere string protection is also flawed. Naturally, given the complexity of the issues, and my own prolixity, it will take me several pages to present my thoughts to Peter and Heather. I am aware of gTLD projects in the North American Region concerned with Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Miami, Portland (Oregon), Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and smaller numbers of gTLD projects similarly concerned with urban areas in Europe, Asia, South America, and Asia - Pacific. The public comments period for the current version of the DAG closes on December 10th, at 7am Eastern, 4am Pacific, just before the Friday Board meeting that week, and the beginning of my term as the Unaffiliated NARALO Member Representative at the close of that Board meeting. Eric Brunner-Williams Ithaca, New York