Civics Meeting Minutes July 7, 2025
Time: 12:00 UTC – 13:02 UTC Location: Google Meet Facilitator: Nicolas Cerny (Chair) Secretary: Larisa Mcfarlane
Attendees
Nicolas Cerny (Chair) Larisa Mcfarlane (Secretary) Ken-Erik Ølmheim (Member) Thomas Lindseth (Intersect) Nana Safo (Member) Dzubang Mermoz (Member) Randy (Wada) (Member) Alex Seregin (Member) Tim Richmond (Intersect)
Members not present Takeshi Ohishi Reshan Fernando Taichi Yokoyama
Agenda
Constitutional Committee (CC) Update Committee Governance Action Proposal
Draft Roadmap & Workstream Planning
DRep Participation Analysis & Metadata Use
Tools & Resources for Evaluating Governance Actions
AOB & Next Steps
Minutes
1. Constitutional Committee (CC) Update Committee Governance Action The committee discussed the timeline and submission of the governance action to transition from the Interim Constitutional Committee (ICC) to the newly elected CC. Chair explained the need for timely submission (targeting Epoch 572, July 23–28) to avoid overlap with the 39 Treasury Withdrawals being reviewed by the ICC.
Intersect staff confirmed that ICC members are prepared and motivated to complete this task and emphasized the risks of delaying the transition. The committee voted unanimously to proceed with approval to propose submitting the governance action in Epoch 572.
A draft of the governance action document was shared, with only one credential hash still pending. Members were invited to review and provide feedback in Discord.
2. Draft Roadmap & Workstream Planning Chair introduced a draft roadmap document summarizing committee objectives and proposed workstreams for the remainder of 2025. Key focus areas include:
Fostering Governance Health: Developing a requirements document for a governance health dashboard.
Delivering Governance Education: Establishing a working group to support educational materials and outreach.
A third objective, setting up a new constitutional review committee, was deprioritized due to low participation from recent workshops.
Chair proposed that the Civics Committee help define, coordinate, and administer transparent budgeting processes through RFPs to encourage competition and reduce vendor monopoly. Members supported this approach, citing past examples like the CC election voting tool RFP.
The draft includes a preliminary RACI matrix and will be finalized next week following review.
3. DRep Participation Analysis & Metadata Use The secretary presented DRep participation data (with thanks to contributions from Intersect’s staff), visualizing trends across recent governance actions. The analysis revealed low and declining rates of metadata rationale submissions, with a maximum of ~30% participation.
A member raised concerns over the concentration of delegation among inactive DReps, describing the current situation as "alarming." and discussion emphasized the importance of metadata as a mechanism for accountability and proposed improving tooling to simplify rationale submissions.
Discussion points included:
Lowering the 500 ADA DRep registration cost.
Simplifying metadata submission with better tooling (e.g., AI summaries, public dashboards).
Encouraging builders and tooling teams to make use of metadata for analysis and transparency.
4. Tools & Resources for Evaluating Governance Actions Intersect staff showcased a spreadsheet tool to support ICC members in assessing the constitutionality of the 39 Treasury Withdrawals. A simplified version for DReps is being prepared, including direct proposal links and key review criteria.
The tool is designed to reduce friction when navigating governance proposals and support more informed participation.
5. AOB & Next Steps
Committee members were asked to review the roadmap document before the next meeting.
A vote on roadmap approval will take place next week.
Members were encouraged to share resources and dashboards (e.g., the spreadsheet tool) within their communities.
Meeting closed with thanks and a reminder to prepare for the coming governance action submissions.
Meeting adjourned at: 13:02 UTC Next meeting: Thursday, July 17, 2025 – 12:00 UTC
Last updated