[council] Term of the next GNSO Council chair

[Gomes, Chuck]

It seems to me that, before the nomination process begins, it would be
good for us to agree on the term to be served by whomever we elect to be
chair in place of Bruce, as Bruce suggests in his message below. It
seems clear from Bruce's reference to the Bylaws (Article X, Section 3,
Paragraph 7) that the decision regarding term is up to the Council as
long as it does not exceed one year.
 
The simplest solution is undoubtedly to have the term run through the
end of the ICANN annual meeting, which would have been the expiration of
Bruce's term.  If we take this approach, to ensure that we do not have
any gaps in leadership, we should then probably take an action such as
one of the following:  1) hold another election culminating no later
than the ICANN annual meeting so that the chair could be seated at the
end of the annual meeting; 2) extend the term of  the chair from the end
of the annual meeting for whatever time necessary to allow for an
election after the annual meeting.  
 
In the first alternative, new Council members seated at the end of the
annual meeting would not have any say in that election, which I believe
is the concern Avri communicated.  At the same time, some have pointed
out that after last year's annual meeting it took several months before
elections for Council members were completed by some constituencies, so
any advantages of holding off the elections would have been at least
partially lost.
 
On a more general note, I think there are some possible complications in
tying the term of the Chair with the ICANN annual meeting: 1) the dates
of the annual meetings vary some from year to year so the chair term
would also vary; 2) we could actually get into a situation where there
is more than one year (12 months) between annual meetings in which case
we might have to move the election up in order to comply with the 'one
year' term limitation in the Bylaws.   It might be better to set a fixed
term for Council chair; for example it could be one of the following:
calendar year; February 1 - January 31.
 
I would be curious to hear what the leaning is of other Councilors
regarding the term for Bruce's replacement as well as the term in
general for the future.

Regardless of whether we can come to agreement on how to handle the term
in the next week, we should proceed with the Chair election process as
planned because there is little slack time between the close of the
election process and the end of Alejandro's position on the Board.  

Chuck Gomes
 
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org 
> [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
> Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 9:31 PM
> To: council at gnso.icann.org
> Subject: [council] Term of the next GNSO Council chair
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> The other matter to decide is the term for the GNSO Council 
> chair election.
> 
> The ICANN bylaws allow the Council to appoint a person for up 
> to a year:
> 
> "The GNSO Council shall select the GNSO Chair, for a term the 
> GNSO Council specifies but not longer than one year, by 
> written ballot or by action at a meeting. Any such selection 
> must have affirmative votes comprising a majority of the 
> votes of all the members of the GNSO Council."
> 
> Over the past couple of years, I have suggested aligning the 
> term of the Chair to the annual general meeting timing, as 
> per the terms of Council
> members:
> "the regular term of each GNSO Council member shall begin at 
> the conclusion of an ICANN annual meeting and shall end at 
> the conclusion of the second ICANN annual meeting thereafter
> 
> 
> So my current term as approved at the Council meeting of 21 
> Dec 2006, ends at the end of the ICANN AGM in 2007:
> (http://www.gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-gnso-21dec06.shtml):
> 
> "Bruce Tonkin elected as GNSO Council Chair for the period 21 December
> 2006 until the end of the ICANN Annual General Meeting in 2007"
> 
> 
> So does the Council wish to elect a person to serve the 
> remainder of my current term from June 2007 to the end of the 
> ICANN Annual General Meeting in 2007, or some other term?
> 
> Comments please.
> 
> Regards,
> Bruce Tonkin
> 
> 
> 
>