[ALAC] ALAC Rule of Procedure for Selecting Director

[Evan Leibovitch]

My two cents.

I see the very correct points that both Adam and Alan are making and am
struggling to come up with an approach that serves our purpose without
insisting on a tactic (insisting on an ALAC liaision *and* the At-Large
Director) that is politically impractical.

I share Adam's fear that, with the creation of the At-Large-appointed
Director and elimination of Liaison, there is a possibility that ALAC's own
work as a policy-development body will slide into far less relevance than it
has now (and that bar is already very low). With nobody on the Board charged
with advancing ALAC positions or relaying to ALAC the Board's feedback, we
are technically at the same advisory level as any other group submitting
public comments through those official mechanisms.

Is this what ICANN works so hard to create and spent (and still spending) so
much money to develop? To create a body whose only real function is to wake
up every three years to help send someone to the Board and then go back to
sleep?

For ALAC to continue to engage the At-Large community in policy development,
there needs to be a direct channel between it and the Board. And just as the
At-Large-appointed Board member is not accountable to ALAC, neither must (or
even should) the liaision between the Board and ALAC go through that
designated person.

I would like to toss out a possible middle ground, in fact I can think of
two:

1) There is a designated ALAC-Board liaison, but that person be selected by
the Board from amongst its members as an official role. That person would be
charged with being the bi-directional conduit between ALAC policy
development and the Board.

2) we don't need a liaison if the Board is compelled to address and answer
ALAC communiques as it now does for the GAC, Advocating ALAC to have the
same advisory status as the GAC is both logical and accountable.

Are either of these reasonable middle grounds to push for strategically?

- Evan