[council] Funding and voting rights
To Chuck Gomes, Marilyn Cade, and members of the NC Budget Committee: In response to your queries: The General Assembly is a gathering place for constituency members, the very same members that have elected you and others as their representatives to the Names Council. One could hold it to be axiomatic that positions expressed by the General Assembly are most often the result of grassroots bottom-up community-based consensus feedback from the constituencies. On occasion, the General Assembly will vote on a particular issue after having put forth a motion, debated the motion, considered amendments, and after a ballot question has been formalized by the Chair. Most recently, the Assembly debated the issue of funding and voted upon a motion: "The General Assembly of the DNSO hereby petitions the ICANN Board to fund the DNSO and all other ICANN Supporting Organizations with funding adequate for the operation and administration of such Supporting Organizations (all monies donated to be allocated and disbursed from ICANN central accounts). The General Assembly of the DNSO further asks for formal inclusion in the overall ICANN Budgetary process." http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2001.GA-2motions-IndConstituency-DNSOfund-vote. html The vote passed by a margin in excess of 80%. In our debates, we noted that domain name policy should never be voted upon by a group that was less than fully representative of the entirety of the Internet community. If certain constituencies lost their right to vote, then any registrar or registry could challenge the declaration of consensus on domain name policy matters. We took issue with the decision of the Council to support the recommendations of the Budget Committee (because we believed that the right to vote should never be linked to the ability to pay). We had hoped that our elected representatives were listening to the message put forth. It is our contention that ICANN has an obligation to provide necessary Secretariat services. ICANN already provides certain constituencies with Staff support (such as Dan Halloran and Ellen Sondheim who attend to the needs of the registrar constituency; Herbert Vitzthum performs similar services for the ccTLDs, and Louis Touton is always present to offer advice at Names Council sessions). We note that ICANN has no objection to providing such support services because they are considered to be reasonably related to the legitimate activities of the Corporation. We, in the Assembly, consider Secretariat services to equally be part of the legitimate activities of the Corporation, and a matter which should be covered by the following portion of the ByLaws: Section 5. FEES AND CHARGES The Board may, subject to the procedures set forth in Article III, Section 3, set fees and charges for the services and benefits provided by the Corporation, with the goal of fully recovering the reasonable costs of the operation of the Corporation and establishing reasonable reserves for future expenses and contingencies reasonably related to the legitimate activities of the Corporation. Such fees and charges shall be fair and equitable, and once adopted shall be published on the Web Site in a sufficiently detailed manner so as to be readily accessible. We are not disputing the fact that the "Administrative and operational costs of the DNSO shall be funded by DNSO participants in a manner to be determined by the NC"; we are arguing that the NC should determine that to the same degree that they do not pay for the services of Halloran, Sondheim,Vitzthum and Touton, they should not have to pay for services that they should be entitled to receive from their parent body, namely Secretariat services. An SO is, after all, (as defined in our declaration to the IRS) an internal working committee of ICANN. See http://www.icann.org/financials/tax/us/letter-to-IRS-17aug00.htm There is no justification for an internal working committee that receives certain levels of support from ICANN staff, not to receive other legitimately necessary staff support such as staff webmaster and listserve support (which could be provided), and staff Secretarial support (which similarly could be provided). It is somewhat incongruous that some constituencies of the DNSO are entitled to a higher level of support than the Council of the organization within which they are members. We are expecting our elected representatives to fight for the positions put forward by the Assembly as we are those that have elected you to represent our interests. In is not in the best interest of the DNSO to ever suspend the voting rights of any constituency. We in the Assembly have already temporarily lost our right to vote due to Secretariat human resource issues. This is not an efficient way to run an operation. ICANN is willing to expend $4,530,000 on staff, professional and technical services, administration and systems, meetings and travel, but not one penny for the organization that provides it with policy guidance? This is not right. If an amendment to the Bylaws is required, we are expecting you to lobby for such a change. We have all noted that ICANN was willing to pay a rather tidy sum to Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue for legal guidance; perhaps you might consider invoicing ICANN for policy guidance. Certainly there are solutions available that are better than denying your fellow members the right to vote. You are essentially arguing that the need of the DNSO to pay for professional Secretariat support outweighs the need to respect the voting rights of your peers. We do not agree. The right to vote is sacrosanct. Even the most recently posted Option C put forth by the ALSC allows for the possibility of enhanced staff administrative support. As the restructuring of the DNSO and/or ICANN will soon become a reality, it would be prudent to re-evaluate the Council's current position on funding. The Board has made it clear via Resolution 01.28 that it is prepared to accept structural and operational changes: "The Board asks the Names Council and other sources to separate their proposals into those that improve operations of the DNSO as it is constituted today and those which may result in changes in the structure of the DNSO and/or major changes in its functioning." Asking again for that to which you are reasonably entitled, ICANN-supplied Secretariat support, would be an appropriate action to take. It is in the best interest of the Corporation to have the DNSO function well. This is a small price for our parent body to pay for the sake of efficiency.
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