LOS ANGELES - ICANN held community calls during which the comments submitted on the Draft FY17 Operating Plan and Budget were presented by the submitters to ICANN Board and staff.

These calls were intended to enhance ICANN's understanding of the comments and so improve the quality of the response. This process was implemented to improve the public comment process, consistent with ATRT2 recommendations (#12.1 and #12.5 [PDF, 220 KB]).

According to ICANN, the calls were public, focused on the organization that submitted comments, and attended by the Board Finance Committee and other Board members. The staff and Board members attending primarily listened and asked clarifying questions as the calls were not intended for providing responses to public comments except those that needed a simple, factual answer.

These conversations are helpful in developing the staff report on public comments, which staff is developing with the Board, and is planned for publication on 30 May 2016. An updated plan is also being prepared and is scheduled to be adopted by the Board in the last week of June.

All submitted comments can be found in the public comment forum.

Links to all the recordings have been published on the Community Wiki.