[gnso-osc] FW: Further Council Ops Procedures Concepts and Presentation
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 *** Attachment:
GNSO Council Operating Procedures-Reorganized 23 Sep 09.doc |