comments on the ICANN budget

[Michael Oghia]

Thank you Ed for the clarification. Does anyone know why this wasn't
discussed more on this list?

Best,
-Michael

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 5:30 PM, Edward Morris <egmorris1 at toast.net> wrote:

> Hi Milton,
>
> As too often is the case, you rush to personal attack without first
> determining the facts.
>
> From the NCSG PC list (https://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-pc/2017-April/
> 000515.html )
>
> ___
>
> Hi Rafik,
>
> I’d like to thank those who stepped in to contribute to the budget
> comment. I sadly disagree with the tone and much of the content of the
> document. I do not endorse it.
>
> There was no way for me to edit the document without completely deleting
> much of what had previously been written there. I just didn’t feel that was
> an appropriate thing to do.
>
> Rather I have completed and submitted to the Comments Forum a Personal
> Comment, which I am attaching to this post. I welcome those who have
> stepped up to do the NCSG comment to consider what I had to say, borrow
> from my post, or disregard it completely.
>
> My objection to the NCSG comment as written consists of the following
> objections:
>
> 1. I believe it is too negative and accusatory and fails to recognize the
> hard work done by Finance and the unique nature of the first year of the
> Empowered Community.
>
> I have major problems with the process, and have expressed them in my
> Comment, along with suggested ways of improving cooperation and community
> input. However, I don’t believe any slights were deliberate or intentional.
> I believe the Community, including myself, erred in placing so many hard
> deadlines on Finance as part of the budget process in the new Bylaws. This
> is a year of adaptation but generalized critical comments without specific
> proposed solutions serve no purpose. And that is what much of the proposed
> NCSG comment consists of.
>
> 2.  I find the objections to ALAC expenditures to appear as a stand alone
> attack on the AC. There are a number of areas of expenditure that many of
> us would find questionable. Why focus only on these in the absence of
> criticism of other questionable expenses?
>
> 3. I don’t find staff retreats to be among the most pressing fiscal
> matters. After all, as a supplemental request components of the NCSG asked
> for their own retreats and the GNSO Council was actually granted one.
> Should we not first oppose these retreats or is there a reason staff
> retreats are so onerous?
>
> 4. As noted in my personal comment, my biggest concern involves the lack
> of funding priority for core policy activities. I have focused on one
> unfunded proposal – that of $100,000 for external PDP support – and would
> encourage the NCSG to consider adopting this view.
>
> Although I can not endorse the comment, out of respect for the work done
> on the document I will not oppose it. I will abstain and hope my comments
> above as well as those in my personal comment will be considered by the PC.
>
> Regrettably, I have some domestic responsibilities to attend to this
> evening that must take priority over my volunteer activities here. Consider
> my abstention to be a permament one and feel free to borrow from, or
> ignore, my offerings on this matter.
>
> Best,
>
> Ed Morris
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
>
> Public comments are the purview of the NCSG Policy Committee, not the NCSG
> Finance Committee. With rare exceptions, discussions of the content of the
> public comments occur within the PC and not on the DISCUSS list. Maybe that
> is something we should re-think, however that problem is not unique to this
> comment. If you’d like to know why the NCSG did not submit a public comment
> on the budget I’d suggest you read the NCSG PC archives, ask the NCSG PC
> Chair or ask those who volunteered to write the comment at the last NCSG PC
> meeting.
>
> Contrary to your assertion, Milton, as above, I did share my comments with
> those who stepped forward to draft the comment for the Policy Committee. I
> should note that I was not one of those who volunteered to draft this
> comment for the PC. As a member of the P.C., though, I saw things I
> disagreed with in what was being done and shared my views. We were all on
> deadline, though, which made things difficult.  In fact, one P.C. observer
> suggested the NCSG might want to endorse my comment (although qualifying
> her comment by stating she had yet to read my comment and may not even
> agree with her suggestion) (https://lists.ncsg.is/
> pipermail/ncsg-pc/2017-April/000518.html ).
>
> Not much else I can say Milton. You seem to delight in attacking me
> personally, facts notwithstanding. I hope you had fun. You can criticize me
> for being late to the conversation, but this is a volunteer position and I
> was busy elsewhere early in the comment period. I guess that doesn’t fit
> your narrative, a narrative which has little to do with fact.
>
> Ed Morris
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 4:17 PM, Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu>
> wrote:
>>
>> I was interested in the public comments on ICANN's budget - I believe
>> this is the first one since the transition.
>>
>> I noticed that all stakeholder groups and constituencies except NCSG
>> filed comments on the budget. I was disappointed to see that instead of a
>> NCSG comment we have a lone individual, Ed Morris, commenting with his
>> personal opinions. Since Ed is supposed to be the chair of our NCSG finance
>> committee, one would have thought that he would post his comments to the
>> NCSG list for some feedback.
>>
>> Ed's comments (http://mm.icann.org/pipermail
>> /comments-fy18-budget-08mar17/attachments/20170428/440be454/
>> budgetcomment-0001.pdf) make it clear that they are his personal
>> opinions and not necessarily those of the NCSG, but I find this very odd.
>> Normally, if you file comments individually, it is because you tried to
>> achieve NCSG consensus but could not. In that case, it's OK for folks to
>> file comments to reflect the different views.
>>
>> In this case, Ed made no effort to inform the group of his views on the
>> budget, much less attempt to gain some support for them. I think this is
>> not acceptable. The Chair of our Finance Committee needs to think of
>> himself as a delegate of the SG, not as someone who goes off into a silo
>> and does whatever he wants, without even informing the members who
>> appointed him.
>>
>> This becomes more serious when one realizes that in his comments, Ed
>> basically threatens ICANN with rejecting the entire budget because of a
>> disagreement over a small item. He says:
>>
>> "Unless bound by my Support Group to support this budget, I would be
>> inclined to favor rejecting the entire budget when it comes back to the
>> GNSO Council if this amount is not restored to the budget prior its final
>> adoption."
>>
>> I am not sure what Ed means by his "support group" but presumably that
>> means his Stakeholder Group and/or Constituency. But how are we supposed to
>> "bind" him to favor or oppose the budget if we don't even know that he has
>> made this threat?
>>
>> In sum, I am sure we all appreciate the willingness of volunteers to go
>> through the budget and make sense of it, but our delegates to these
>> committees have to understand that they are agents of NCSG and it is their
>> responsibility to liaise with the SG and inform the membership of their
>> actions, and to build consensus on positions when possible. It's not that
>> hard to write an email to the list and attach a draft of your proposed
>> comments.
>>
>>
>> Dr. Milton L Mueller
>> Professor, School of Public Policy
>> Georgia Institute of Technology
>> Internet Governance Project
>> http://internetgovernance.org/
>
>
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