1.      ALMA Proposal Review Process:
 
The ALMA Proposal Review Process is under development guided by an ALMA Board Subcommittee (composed of JAO Director, ESO, NAOJ and NRAO Directors and Monica Rubio, the Chilean representative, chaired by NRAO Director).  Unfortunately, a draft implementation plan is still not quite ready for distribution to the various advisory committees as of Sept. 20.)
 
The NRAO Director will give a summary of the draft implementation plan of the ALMA PRP at the f2f ANASAC meeting and will bring up a few key issues for ANASAC to consider and provide input.  Two key issues concern the role of the Observing Council (OC) and the relevance of Director’s Discretionary Time.
 
2.      Observing Council (OC: Chaired by JAO Director, 3 representatives from the 3 Executive Observatories and 1 representative from Chile, plus the APRC Chair.)    
 
The PRP process as drafted has 4 stages:  written assessments; ARP meetings; APRC synthesis meeting; OC meeting.   The role of the OC is to work with the JAO Director to manage issues concerning the balance of time between the Executives or to incorporate any regional issues before finalizing the Observing Queue.  
 
There has been a suggestion that the OC's role can instead be handled by the JAO Director alone.  Please advise NRAO on the importance and relevance of the role of  the OC from the perspective of the NA ALMA user community. 
 
3.      Director's Discretionary Time (DDT).    
 
There is a 2006 ALMA Board resolution that the JAO Director should hold some Rapid Response Time to respond to Target of Opportunities (ToO) proposals that are outside the normal proposal review process.  How much RRT to set aside is for the Executive Observatories to work out with the JAO before each observing session.
 
However, the issue remains whether the JAO Director should have “JAO Director’s Discretionary Time” by right, for assignment to projects other than ToO observations. A related issue is whether such Discretionary Time should be reserved for Executive Observatory Directors (i.e. NRAO, ESO and NAOJ Directors) instead, and by agreement such DDT’s can be pooled.
 
The ANASAC is asked to consider and advise on (1) whether it is important to have Director Discretionary Time at all, especially during the early years of ALMA, and (2) whether the Director’s Discretionary Time is “controlled” by the JAO Director or the Executive Directors, and (3)  how much RRT and Director’s Discretionary Time are appropriate.
 
4.      Since similar issues will be presented to the ASAC for advice and recommendation to the ALMA Board, it would be important for the ANASAC to come to a consensus in time for the next ASAC f2f meeting, such that there will be a clear North American community preference for such issues, such as OC and DDT.