[council] Board election information

[Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au>]

Hello All,

The Names Council is about to elect a person to fill the expiring Board seat
of 
Alejandro Pisanty.  The newly elected person will likely take up the Board
seat at the end of the Shanghai meeting.

After consulting with Louis Touton, I believe the newly elected person will
continue in that role until the end of the March 2003 meeting if the reform
process goes ahead.  So it is likely that the newly elected person will hold
office for less than a 6 month period.

I understand that if the Board approves the reform process in Shanghai, that
it is likely that a fresh election will be held for the two directors
appointed by the GNSO to the new Board.

See below for relevant text from: 
http://www.icann.org/committees/evol-reform/second-implementation-report-02s
ep02.htm

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin


There will necessarily be a period of time before the newly constituted
ICANN Board can be seated. Assuming final action on reform by the Board in
Shanghai in late October, it seems entirely possible that selection of the
new ICANN Board could take a period of months. Some bodies (like the ASO and
the GNSO) will undoubtedly be able to function quickly and select persons to
the Board seats for which they are responsible, but other selections (such
as those from the Nominating Committee) are likely to take longer to
accomplish. The next public Board meeting following Shanghai will likely be
in March of 2003, or some four months after Shanghai. It seems reasonable to
assume that a newly constituted ICANN Board could be ready to be seated by
that time, and thus a transition structure is (hopefully) necessary only
until that time. Nonetheless, any transition structure should be durable
enough to last longer if necessary.

The current ICANN Board consists of 18 persons selected by various
constituencies, and the CEO ex officio. Of the 18, nine are designated "At
Large" directors, and the terms of those directors expire at the end of the
annual meeting in 2002. While the date of the official annual meeting has
not yet been set, the terms of those directors will clearly expire prior to
the March meeting in 2003. This leaves nine directors - three each selected
by the DNSO, the ASO, and the PSO. There is currently one vacancy from that
group (the seat formerly held by Phil Davidson, selected by the PSO). In
addition, the ASO has selected a new director for a term to begin at the end
of this year's annual meeting (Mouhamet Diop), and the DNSO is currently in
the process of selecting a person for the expiring seat of Alejandro
Pisanty, also for a term to begin at the end of this year's annual meeting.
Thus, as it currently stands, there will be eight (or nine, if the PSO
should hold elections to fill its vacant seat) ICANN directors whose terms
would, absent reform, run at least through 2003. 

While there is any number of possible transition mechanisms, we believe that
the principal objective should be continuing stability during this
transition. To that end, we plan to recommend to the ICANN Board that those
members of the current Board whose terms would ordinarily continue through
next year should remain on the Board until the end of the March meeting in
2003 (or longer, if that should prove necessary to select the reformed
Board). At that time, unless they have been selected to the reformed ICANN
Board by one of the selecting bodies, they would retire from the ICANN
Board. In addition, we plan to recommend that the Board select six (or five,
if the PSO has by then selected a third director) of the directors whose
terms are due to expire this year to continue until a reformed ICANN Board
is selected, at which time they too, unless selected to the reformed ICANN
Board, would retire. Since a certain number of current Board members have
indicated, publicly and privately, that they do not intend to continue on
the Board once their term expires, it may be that this selection process
could become simple through the individual decisions of these Board members.
Other adjustments may also be necessary to accomplish a transition Board of
the right size commensurate with the intent of the final reform decisions.