[At-Large] [NA-Discuss] Results of the Voting for ALAC Nominating Committee 2008 Appointments

[Thompson, Darlene]

I am finding this more and more disturbing.

Our two ALAC reps (Beau and Robert) are supposed to be taking direction from the region and moving it forward.  In this case, the direction from the region was completely disregarded and ALAC moved ahead with its own agenda.  This is just horrible and a case of the tail wagging the dog.  I fully understand that Alan does not have to vote in line with the region but why didn't Beau and Robert?  They could have proposed Ross to the region at any time at all for our discussion but did not.  I am totally confused and dismayed because, up until this time, I totally trusted our two ALAC reps to forward the regions wishes.  I guess I was wrong.

I think, regionally, we need to have this stuff addressed either in our Rules of Procedure or in our Operating Principles (whichever is appropriate) so that this does not happen again.  I've been told that LACRALO has excellent wording in their RoP dictating the limits to the powers of their two ALAC reps.  I naïvely thought that we didn't need that.  I think I was wrong.

Alan, thank you very much for the explanation.  I still think that if it was felt that there should have been additions to the list of people the RALO had decided on, then all should have had the opportunity to discuss it.  There was PLENTY of time.

Nick, I have a day job and I do not have time to be consulting the Wiki all the time - especially for a page I didn't even know existed or should exist.  I also find it almost impossible to find ANYTHING at all on there.  And English is my mother tongue.  I REALLY feel for the other regions.  Or am I just really new and stupid?  Since we have a Secretariats list, perhaps important pages like this can be flagged to the Secretariats so that they can then choose which ones to clutter their region's in-boxes with.  I *know* how busy you are but I think that this is kinda important.

D

Darlene A. Thompson
Community Access Program Administrator
Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP
c/o P.O. Box 1000, Station 910
Iqaluit, NU  X0A 0H0
Phone:  (867) 975-6531
Fax:  (867) 979-8870
dthompson at gov.nu.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: alac-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 9:48 AM
To: Evan Leibovitch
Cc: At-Large Worldwide
Subject: Re: [At-Large] [NA-Discuss] Results of the Voting for ALAC Nominating Committee 2008 Appointments

Evan Leibovitch ha scritto:
> Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
>> you are correct that it is not dictated by the Bylaws - however, as
>> the Bylaws are silent on this point the Bylaws clearly do not prevent
>> the ALAC from voting in the manner they have chosen to follow, either.
> So, because the bylaws don't mandate transparency, it's not to be
> considered (let alone advocated)?

As I am not an ALAC member any more since last April, I have not been 
involved directly in this process - but I observed it, and so I would 
like to make some personal considerations.

As I gather from the history of messages from the ALAC lists, things 
went this way:
- the NARALO submitted a list of candidates;
- the three NA ALAC members discussed them extensively, discarded all of 
them but one, and added the name of Ross Rader;
- they could not agree on which of the two remaining candidates they 
would have liked to recommend to the whole ALAC, so two of them 
submitted to the group their personal preferences;
- the ALAC decided to vote on each slot for which the Region could not 
agree on a unanimous suggestion, so the two candidates were put to 
votes; [note - this was already done once, two years ago for Europe, so 
there was a precedent]
- and the ALAC voted for Ross (with quite a majority).

So I am troubled by your conclusion:

> Is it staff practice not to itself be transparent -- and to recommend
> against transparency and accountability in internal procedures -- unless
> the bylaws absolutely and specifically demand it? Is doing the absolute
> minimum necessary Standard Operating Procedure?

because it is the ALAC who sets its procedures, and it is the ALAC who 
took all the decisions you disagree with, not staff. I actually saw 
staff often remind the ALAC of responsibilities about due process, 
transparency, and public consultation, including consultation with 
RALOs. However, the ALAC often spends more time complaining about staff 
"interference" than working on policy, and, for some ALAC members 
(fortunately not all), blaming staff and ICANN in general has become an 
easy trick to dump personal responsibility and to promote themselves.

Anyway, I find what happened in this case extremely worrying. We may 
discuss about process, but it was in ALAC's formal prerogatives to do 
all of the above actions. But when we come to substance, even if Ross is 
a honest, committed and intelligent person, appointing to the Nomcom a 
key employee of one of the biggest registrars, who was never involved 
with the At Large before, makes one wonder about how well does the ALAC 
intend to pursue the global public interest. I am sure that most ALAC 
members didn't mean to do anything bad, they just followed the 
recommendations from the regional members and overlooked the issue, but 
this kind of factual conflicts of interest deserves much more attention.

Regards,
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
-------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------

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