AW: [gnso-osc-ops] FW: Further Council Ops Procedures Concepts and Presentation

[<KnobenW@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm ok with this text and form
 


Best regards 
Wolf-Ulrich


________________________________

Von: owner-gnso-osc-ops@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc-ops@xxxxxxxxx] Im 
Auftrag von Ray Fassett
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 24. September 2009 02:00
An: gnso-osc-ops@xxxxxxxxx
Betreff: [gnso-osc-ops] FW: Further Council Ops Procedures Concepts and 
Presentation
Wichtigkeit: Hoch



Team, please see below for background, and the attached for what appears to be 
the final version of the RoP for Council to vote on for public comment.  Feel 
free to let me know if any questions/comments.  I've been following the back 
and forth changes in the past few days, at times offering input when asked, and 
agree with Chuck that the work of GCOT has not been compromised.  What Chuck 
considers as "many changes" are many people's eyes looking at it and sharpening 
up the language vs. changing anything substantive.  I think the prevailing 
opinion is that the GCOT produced a quality document which allowed people to 
only have to focus upon sharpening it, which is a good thing.  To be honest, my 
concern was our not leaving enough time for this part, but turns out we did :-)

 

Again, let me know if any questions.

 

Ray

 

________________________________

From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 6:22 PM
To: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: Ray Fassett
Subject: FW: Further Council Ops Procedures Concepts and Presentation
Importance: High

 

Here is what I hope is a near final version of the draft GNSO Council Operating 
Procedures that the Council will hopefully approve for public comment tomorrow. 
 Please read Rob's message below to get a good overview of the changes that 
were made to the version that the GCOT and OSC had previously submitted.  Also, 
note that I added one more edit to what Rob sent at the end of Section 4.2, the 
last sentence.  All of the content changes are highlighted to make it easy to 
see the changes.

 

Ray - please forward this to the GCOT list.

 

My apologies for the many changes but I personally believe that each iteration 
has made the procedures better without compromising the work of the GCOT.  If 
you have any concerns, please communicate them to your Council reps or to me 
before the Council meeting tomorrow (13:00 UTC; 9 am EDT).

 

Chuck

 

________________________________

From: Robert Hoggarth [mailto:robert.hoggarth@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 2:56 PM
To: Gomes, Chuck; Avri Doria
Cc: Glen de Saint Géry; Ray Fassett; Liz Gasster; Denise Michel; Julie Hedlund; 
Margie Milam; Ken Bour
Subject: Re: Further Council Ops Procedures Concepts and Presentation
Importance: High

Dear Chuck, Avri and Ray;

Per Chuck's recent message, we have gotten General Counsel office feedback on 
the suggested language changes circulated yesterday and a thumb's up that they 
look OK. 

Armed with that feedback, attached is a new document setting forth the Work 
Team recommendations in a revised format.  The attached draft document 
faithfully reflects the substance of the original recommendations in most 
respects with just a few areas for consolidation, heading changes and 
reordering of section numbers. 

The substantive changes include the suggested revised language I previously 
shared, a suggested change regarding the vote for closing session and some 
other obvious formatting changes described below:

Substantive suggested language changes:

1.   Number of Votes Cast - Former Section 5.4 is now Section 4.2 and includes 
the new text that Ken and I suggested yesterday.  The entire section is shown 
as "changed" in the draft document.

2.   Quorum - Former Section 3.6 is now section 4.1 and reflects the revised 
language I circulated yesterday.

3.   Open vs Closed Sessions -  New Section 3.2.  This is a new suggestion.  It 
struck us that in the spirit of transparency, it might be viewed as 
inappropriate for a subset of the Council members present during a specific 
session to close that session without some prior notice or other process and 
that at the very least the default threshold of a majority vote of both houses 
should be required.  The suggestion is clearly marked and can be rejected if 
you think it goes too far this late in the process.

Other format changes include:

1.   Re-working the introduction and streamlining the list of links provided.  
The work team recommendations were necessarily based on the original procedures 
format, but this streamlined approach seems more clear, clean and accessible to 
us.

2.   Other word additions, substitutions and heading changes clearly marked to 
reflect re-organizing or re-ordering.  

________

Our review of the materials over the last two days confirms the very heavy 
lifting and great effort that the Work Team made under Ray's direction and 
Julie's support!

I also like Avri's suggestion for the operating procedures transition - to add 
another line to the draft Implementation Plan to resolve the "bootstrapping" 
issue.  Much cleaner than our original brainstorming idea. Maybe, Avri, you can 
share that thought with the Council list and it can be discussed during the 
Council meeting tomorrow.

Happy to have further email dialogue on this as necessary.

Cheers,

RobH


On 9/22/09 7:12 PM, "Chuck Gomes" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Thanks Rob and Ken for your work on this.  I like the suggested amendments to 
Sections 5.4 and 3.5 in the Draft Council Operating Procedures.  They are 
consistent with the objection I communicated on the Council list to Philip's 
proposed amendment.  I would like to see comments from others on the 
distribution of this email message and also would like to have confirmation 
that the GC office concurs with your recommendation by ASAP tomorrow but NLT 3 
pm EDT.  Assuming that happens, I would like to propose the amendments to the 
motion I made.

Note that I added some additional comments below.

Chuck


 

________________________________

From: Robert Hoggarth  [mailto:robert.hoggarth@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 22,  2009 6:40 PM
To: Gomes, Chuck; Avri Doria
Cc: Glen de  Saint Géry; Ray Fassett; Liz Gasster; Denise Michel; Julie 
Hedlund; Margie  Milam
Subject: Further Council Ops Procedures  Thoughts

 
Dear Avri and  Chuck;

Ken Bour and I spent a couple of hours today going over the new  Bylaws and the 
recommended Council Ops Procedures in an effort to better  understand the 
issues behind the recent brief dialogue on abstentions with  Kristina and 
Phillip on the Council email list AND in an effort to test and or  break the 
ops processes and voting mechanisms.

As a result of our  effort, we have have come up with a number of 
ideas/concepts we wanted to  float by you prior to the Council meeting.

1.   We've  developed some edits to the recommendations - specifically Section 
5.4 (# of  votes cast) and section 3.5 (Quorum) that we think address the 
affirmative  vote/no vote abstaining issue by providing some more clarity to 
the  recommended voting procedure.  That potential compromise language is set  
forth at the end of this message.

2.   At the conclusion of  the Work Team's deliberations, noting that the team 
had focused on the  substance of each specific recommendation and not on the 
overall format of the  procedures, I suggested to Ray Fassett (copying Ray on 
this message) that in  preparation for the public comment period, Staff could 
work on the format and  presentation of the recommendations to make them more 
clear and clean. We've  started some work in that regard - not making any 
substantive changes,  but merely trying to pull different sections together and 
consolidating common  subjects areas (e.g., voting ) where there may be 
references in more than one  section of the recommendations.  We should have a 
suggested format  finished for you all to take a look at tomorrow.
[Gomes,  Chuck] Assuming they are just format changes, it seems to me that it  
would be much better to post the reformatted document for public comment  
rather than the current one however it might be amended.  If there is  general 
agreement on that, then we should think about how best to make that  happen; I 
assume another amendment to my motion would be the way to go and I  will think 
about how best to do that in addition to the amendments to 5.4 and  3.5.

3.   We discussed the conundrum of the  incoming Council voting on the Ops 
Procedures (before new voting procedures  exist).  We suggest that you consider 
creating a procedural bridge  between the two Councils in which the outgoing 
Council "conditionally  approves" the new procedures as a transitional matter 
(perhaps this could take  place at a "special" Council meeting during the 
weekend in Seoul) and then  have the incoming Council ratify them as its first 
order of business.   The new Council could then make changes over time as it 
works with and  develops some experience with the new procedures. Haven't 
discussed this with  the GC yet - just brainstorming.
[Gomes, Chuck] As it stands now,  I don't think there is any plan for the 
outgoing Council to approve  the procedures. Do you think it is necessary?  As 
I believe you  understand, the plan is for the new Council to approve the 
procedures  as one of the first agenda items on the 28th.  Our practice has 
been  to not do official business during our working sessions on the  weekend 
before ICANN general meetings because not everyone can make it  there early and 
some people will be traveling on the weekend.  If it is  necessary, we might be 
able to make an exception, but it seems best to avoid  that if possible. 

4.   We have also  started to develop a a matrix/voting record spreadsheet as 
an unofficial tool  for the new Chair and Glen to use for recording votes.  The 
idea is to  have a clear and understandable score sheet that can be used during 
votes to  easily show when voting thresholds have been met (or not). We'll get 
Glen's  feedback on the concept and share that with you when she is comfortable 
with a  draft document.
[Gomes, Chuck] Sounds great.  I would hope that  it would be a template that 
allowed for live input of  votes that resulted in automatic totally of the 
votes.  Is that what  you anticipate? 

We are hopeful that the language  suggested below is useful. Your comments are 
most welcomed.   

Cheers,

RobH

SUGGESTED REVISED LANGUAGE FOLLOWS.  SUGGESTED CHANGES IN BOLD RED UNDERLINED  
TEXT.

In the recommended Council Operating Procedures, we  suggest some new language 
to modify Section 5.4 and 3.5 as  follows:

5.4 The Number of Votes Cast
 
OLD: To pass, a motion  must attain a majority of the votes cast in each house 
unless otherwise  specified in these procedures or in the ICANN Bylaws. 
Abstentions count as  votes cast and shall include a reason for the abstention. 
 This has the  effect of making an abstention count the same as a  vote against 
except as described in ICANN Bylaws, ANNEX A, GNSO  Policy-Development Process, 
Section 3, Initiation of PDP.  [INSERT LIVE  LINK TO THE BYLAWS.]
 

NEW:  Unless otherwise specified in these  procedures or in the ICANN Bylaws, 
to pass a motion  or other action, greater than 50% of the eligible voters in 
each House  must cast affirmative votes.  For all votes taken, the number of 
eligible voters in each House  shall be fixed to the number of seats allocated 
in the Bylaws (a.k.a. the  denominator) and is not affected by the number of 
members present or absent at  the meeting in which the motion or other action 
is initiated.   Abstentions shall be recorded as  non-votes and shall include a 
reason. 

3.5.  Quorum
 
OLD: In order for the GNSO Council to initiate a meeting a  quorum must be 
present.  A quorum is a majority of voting members, which  includes at least 
one member of each Stakeholder Group. [INSERT LIVE LINK TO  BYLAWS.] Whenever a 
vote is taken there must be a quorum. 

NEW: In order for  the GNSO Council to initiate a vote,  a quorum must be 
present.  A quorum is a majority of voting members in each House, which 
includes at least one  member of each Stakeholder Group. 

***END SUGGESTED  LANGUAGE ***