[NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Public Board Meeting - the Update for Prague

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Dear Beau,

your concerns and those of other members of our community such as Bret's
message prompted me to write to Steve Crocker, Chris Disspain and
Sébastien Bachollet, since an email discussion is currently taking place
between Chairs of SO/ACs and Board members.
I essentially relayed our community's concerns. The reply I received was
that the Friday morning interaction was going to be replaced by two
other interactions, one on Monday and the second on Thursday.
I urged the Board to act quickly and explain its thinking in details so
as to avoid raising even more concern in our community. I was told that
details are forthcoming.

More interspersed in your message:

On 04/05/2012 16:12, Beau Brendler wrote :
>
> However, last time, I found the interaction to be predictably scripted. We spent the time talking about cross-functional teams or some sort of useless topic. If this public board meeting is going to go away, then what should happen -- since the at-large is supposed to represent the public interest -- is that the at-large should tell the board what it wants to discuss in its meeting, and it should follow up on each statement ALAC has made since the last meeting to determine what the board has or has not done about it. 

Prior to an ICANN meeting we are asked what subjects would we like to
discuss with the Board, with the GAC and with any other constituency
that we would have a meeting with. Agendas are set-up by consensus. When
this comes up for Prague, I will ask that a Wiki page be set-up for each
interaction so as to build our agenda.
That said, some of the subjects we asked for in the past were not chosen
by our counterparts due to lack of time. We can only treat 2-3 subjects
per session max.

>
> For instance, in Prague, I suggest the at-large demand a full accounting of the TAS disaster. I suggest the at-large demand a full accounting of the board conflict-of-interest problems. I suggest the at-large demand a full accounting of what's being done to address the IANA contract issue. Not be shown some pre-scripted video, but have an actual interaction that's not phony. And it all needs to go on the public record.

Absolutely agreed. On the TAS, we are yet to receive all of the
information about what is going on. You have seen our two statements
about the Board Conflict of Interest Issue. On the IANA Contract issue,
I have emailed the Board Working Group to provide us with more
information about what they are doing and was planning to forward their
answer to our mailing list, once I got one --- and my request has gone
unanswered so far.

>
> The at-large needs to take on a role similar to that of a major shareholder in a public for-profit company. Executive behavior should be its business; failure to execute should be its business. ALAC needs to be more outside the process looking in, not submerged in process issues that are essentially meaningless to the general public. If we are arguing to hold on to a meeting so that we can parse the body language of participants, then the entire philosophy of public interaction with the board needs to be re-thought.

Parsing the body language is all part of interaction between people.
This is why we meet face to face.
Let's see what the Board suggests as a replacement for the Friday
session and then we can take this up officially with a statement, if needed.

Kind regards,

Olivier