The Dakota West Arts Council is focused on the process of developing public arts policy rather than the outcome of that process, according to President Jeff Weikum.

At Thursday's Bismarck Park Board meeting, Weikum provided an update on the progress made by the council since it has taken the lead on developing a public arts policy.

"We've kind of moved from developing of art policy to the process of developing art policy. Discussions can get bogged down when you start talking about what will be allowed," Weikum explained. "So at our last meeting we took a couple of steps back which we felt was critical. We began looking at the process and the need to provide and collect input."

The first thing the council needs to do is determine what its role is in the process. It also spent a lot of time on what the council will need to do to facilitate a format through which the public can participate in the development of public art policy, according to Weikum.

"We've made requests to have people submit their ideas on public art, but we haven't gotten any specific responses," Weikum said. "Then we decided to try and determine who should be involved and it should be everyone."

Artists, engineers, architects are some of the people the council wants involved. But it also wants representation from the educational institutions, government and other various entities.

Weikum said trying to get a cross section of representatives will be difficult and with a large number of people the process can become unwieldy.

The council's plan is to come up with a general format for the process which it will provide to the park board and then post online to allow easy access to everyone. Through a Web site, yet to be developed, people will be able to provide information which will lead to development of public arts policy.

"This is all going to take some time and arm twisting,"Weikum said. "For a lot of the people we want on this committee it means just another board to serve on, another commitment. But we need people involved."

The next move by the committee will be to develop a general outline of the process which will be made available to the public whose comments will be welcome. The outline should be ready for review by the park board by its next meeting on May 15.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@bismarcktribune.com.)