ICANN São Paulo meeting site

Ed, so isn't it more that you are interested in knowing about process timing? I still stand by the notion that we really can't have "open committee meetings". It's just not feasible from an operating perspective. I'd rather not clutter this space too much with this discussion unless there are others who disagree with me on this.

However, I can imagine that we can try to document when certain decisions might be made or slated to be discussed if there is sufficient evidence that this information is material enough to warrant the time and cost of tracking and publicizing this rather often-changing and dynamic information. I will say that many of these meetings and decisions to make decisions happens very last minute depending information that we have. We often do not know more than a day in advance what meetings we will have and what we will discuss. Often new information will cause meetings to be canceled or rescheduled. Planning your travel itinerary around committee meetings would be a rather frustrating thing.

Joichi Ito says, "Committee meetings are just too operational to feasibly report on or disclose." But ICANN's transparency Bylaw explicitly governs how ICANN "operates", not just how it conducts meetings.

You say, "The rest of the board is briefed on committee meetings." How do these briefings take place? If these briefings are in writing, what is the URL at which they are available?

I do not have enough information to judge whether it would be feasible to publish, in advance, Board committee meeting agendas and background documents. But clearly it *would* be feasible to publish the fact that these meetings are planned, probably at least a tentative schedule, and quite possibly at least a tentative agenda. It would be feasible to permit those physically present in the meeting location (Sao Paulo, in this case) to observe them.

By failing to give notice of these meetings or include them in the posted schedule and agenda for the week of meetings in Sao Paulo, ICANN has denied anyone who didn't have other reasons to go to Sao Paulo, and/or who didn't have some other way to find out when and where during the week these meetings would be held, the opportunity to observe them.

For example, I have specifically requested notice of any meeting of the Reconsideration Committee, but have received no such notice. If I had known that the Reconsideration Commiteee would be meeting in Sao Paulo sometime this week, and that the only way to observe that meeting would be to go to Sao Paulo, I would have gone to Sao Paulo to observe that meeting. Because of the lack of notice, it's now too late for me to do so.

Susan Crawford said;
...my own view is that paying Board members isn't appropriate. But others don't agree with me.

Just a perspective from the Australian experience. auDA also has a voluntary board elected by our members. We have just agreed to pay those Board members a 'sitting fee' for each meeting they attend (A$750 per meeting). We did this for a number of reasons but the mainly a) to acknowledge the time and effort that these volunteers put in and b) to encourage more people in the future to nominate for the Board.

We also have 2 (soon to be 3) independent directors who are not elected but are appointed by the Board itself. These people are intended to bring skill sets to the board that might otherwise be lacking such as corporate governance experience or security experience. We pay the independent directors a yearly stipend. Our Chair is always one of the independent directors because we don't consider it appropriate that the organisation should be chaired by someone who has been elected from one of our constituencies.

Something for ICANN to consider, perhaps.

I think I am one of the stronger supporters of transparency and while I understand the sentiment of wanted to know EVERYTHING. Committee meetings are just too operational to feasibly report on or disclose. The committee itself is usually scrambling to get everything together for the committee reports and agendas often come together the last minute. The rest of the board is briefed on committee meetings and the public gets a report from the committee chair at the public meeting. These committees are operating groups who take advantage of the face to face meetings to meet.

During the public forums, the committees are available for questions and should try to explain as clearly as possible what the views are and how they got to them. I think that is much more productive than trying to disclose the process at the level of committee meetings in real-time.

"Today the Board we met in committees during the morning."

Thank you for telling us this. If you had not posted this here, it would have been impossible to determine from the ICANN web site that these meetings were even happening.

Where are the notices of schedules and agendas for these meetings? Where are the minutes or records of these meetings? They aren't listed with the rest of the agenda at:

http://www.icann.org/meetings/saopaulo/#ScheduleandAgenda

Clearly committees of the Board of Directors are "subsidiary bodies" of ICANN, and required to operate with the maximum extent feasible of openness and transparency.

So where is the openness and transparency? What means of observation and participation are being made available for these meetings, both for those in Sao Paulo and those wishing to participate remotely?