[council] Results of Travel Policy meeting and motion for 4 September

[Avri Doria]

On 4 Sep 2008, at 14:51, Tim Ruiz wrote:

>
> Finally, I also think that any Councilor that is being proposed to
> receive funding in this motion or an amended motion should not be
> eligible to vote on that motion.
>

Responding only on the procedural issue and on the substance of the  
travel policy, the question of how one makes decisions and how one  
gauges need if that is the chosen criterion.

The GNSO council was instructed to make a decision.  I do not now of  
any way for the council to make a decision without voting.  And it  
would be equally strange to ask those who did not receive any funds,  
especially if we had been in the situation of having picked some over  
others.  It seems to me that the council was voting on an entire  
solution which included some council member's travel allocation. No  
council member was actually voting on their inclusion on the list, but  
was rather voting on a package that contained names, possibly their  
own, as had been recommended by their constituency as well as other  
measures - similar to a parliament voting on a pay raise or  
allocations for office expenses.  In this case, we found a way to fund  
everyone who had, though the process, been proposed by their  
constituency - no discrimination between people was necessary at the  
council level.

It is obvious that we need to come up with some other method for the  
future, especially as we will be operating in the bi-cameral mode the  
next time around.  In this case, given the press of time, I proposed a  
one time methodology so that we could respond to the situation as  
required.  As there were no objections at the time the process was  
suggested, we followed through with it.

a.