[arin-discuss] Are we going to vote on this ?

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Keith W. Hare wrote:

> > So the question is:
> > 
> >     Are we going to be able to vote on the removal of the 
> > board members as a result of the revelations discussed here ?
> 
> Highly unlikely.

I think its quite likely. Of about 2900 members, only about 290 are
needed for the petition. When we get the full total amounts wasted, I
think a majority will vote for honest, effective governance, and I think
the people responsible will be removed.

As I understand the process, there is no hurry to have the petition
filed:  Nothing can happen until the membership can vote in the next
Member Meeting which is in April. Certainly, we do not want to have a
membership vote before the facts fully come out. We have until April to
get the full story of facts. Time is on our side, I think.  And I think
the mere presence of investigation will tend to deter additional
examples of waste and corruption in the meantime.

> In addition to the fact that the procedural steps John Curran noted
> have not yet been taken, I have the following issues with the
> "relevations" discussed here:
> 
> 1.  I have no way of verifying the truth of most of the allegations
> and the stuff I might be able to verify would take more time than I
> have to spend on this.

Everything I've cited is publicly verifiable. For facts I've asserted on
ARIN/NANOG, you can go the NANOG web site, look at pages on previous
meetings, and get the attendee lists. It didn't take me more than a
couple hours to download and put into a database. For the $50,000 check
to Nanog, you can look at the 2007 ARIN budget
http://www.arin.net/about_us/corp_docs/budget.html For facts on VON, we
have yet to receive accurate numbers, however Board Members have
confirmed going to VON and have asserted this is "eductational
outreach". There is no dispute over the facts found so far.  The facts
have essentially been stipulated by the both sides.  The dispute is
whether these activities qualify as "educational outreach".

But if you merely can't take the short time necessary to verify facts,
you have no right to assert they are unverifable, since you truthfully
have no idea of whether they are verifiable.  Your claim of
"unverifiable" is just an attack on the objective facts, but you don't
have any facts to support your attack; your attack is baseless. My
claims are well-founded in objective facts.

> 2.  Much of this sounds like a rehash of a decade-old feud over
> something.

No, it is a related series of questionable activities spanning more than
a decade.  I only just noticed it about 10 years ago, and I've only been
keeping tabs for 10 years.  There is quite a lot of recent activity. And
the activity has picked up, not declined.

> 3.  The allegations I've heard so far do not materially affect the
> things ARIN needs to do over the next five years.

Issues of corruption, waste, cronyism do indeed materially affect the
things that ARIN needs to do over the next 5 years.  ARIN's credibility
as a fair and unbiased actor is most critical during this period.

> 4.  There are much bigger issues facing ARIN, such as PA versus PI
> space, and doing enough education and outreach so that users
> understand the IPv4/IPv6 issues to create a market so vendors and LIRs
> actually support IPv6 by the time it is needed.

These are indeed big issues. However, they can't be addressed by
parochially motivated (nice term for "helping cronies") persons with
serious conflicts of interests.  This has to be addressed.

		--Dean

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