Re: [ga] Motion asking for GA poll on rebid of ICANN contract

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

Thomas would feel a little bit more comfortable with a certain amount of 
discussion on the proposal to re-bid the ICANN contracts before he decides 
whether a ballot should be prepared.  He is your elected Chair, and his 
request for some preliminary dialogue is not unreasonable.  As a Chair he 
must assess whether their is sufficient interest and support in any given 
proposition to merit calling for an Assembly-wide vote.  As I have seconded 
Jamie's motion, I don't mind offering some thoughts on the topic.

We all accept the principle of competition (as noted in the White Paper) 
because we all tend to believe that competition is healthy.  It would be 
quite healthy for the future of DNS management/coordination to allow 
competing groups to each offer up plans to NTIA for evaluation.  If ICANN has 
the best plan for attending to the concerns enumerated in our current 
Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Commerce, then ICANN will 
get the nod.  If some other entity offers a better mousetrap, then they will 
get the go-ahead.  

Our MoU is set to expire in September.  A great many of our assigned tasks 
have not be accomplished.  It seems to me that ICANN management does not 
intend to complete several of the assigned tasks.  Stuart has made it clear 
that the Board does not intend to allow for an external review of Board 
decisions by a neutral third party as the MoU requires.  Neither does ICANN 
intend to allow for appropriate membership mechanisms as required by the MoU 
(they plan to remain a corporation without members).  You can kiss goodbye to 
all hope of having the ICANN Independent Review process (another MoU 
requirement), and the realistic chances of honoring the MoU and arriving at 
stable agreements with the organizations operating country-code top level 
domains is next to nil.

Let's give others the chance to bid on the contracts.  How much worse of a 
job could some other NTIA-approved entity do?  Thomas considers such an 
action the equivalent of a vote of no confidence in the Board.  So be it.  At 
the moment there is not much that inspires confidence in the Board.  They 
have killed At-Large elections, and this General Assembly will be next on the 
chopping block.  Sure, there's a place for the constituencies in Stuart's 
proposed forums, but the GA is dead meat and appears nowhere within current 
ICANN reform plans.

Let's send a very very clear message... what we want is nothing less than 
that which was promised, an ICANN with nine elected At-Large directors, a 
Board whose job is only to ratify policy (not to make it), and an 
organization with all necessary checks and balances in place... and since we 
aren't going to get this with this current management in place, let's send a 
signal that it's time to throw the bums out.  Requesting a re-bid of the 
ICANN contracts is a totally appropriate course of action to take.

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