DPPA Focuses: Heading the Issues Off at the Pass By Terry Brown DPPA’s Board of Directors recently held a retreat to discuss the future focus of DPPA - and came up with some strategies that we believe will help us all work more effectively toward DPPA’s mission of fostering open government and responsible city planning. As you likely know, there are at any given time a good number of worthwhile and urgent local issues to tackle, with a number of different angles from which they can be approached. The board’s consensus was that rather than focusing primarily on the issues themselves, DPPA should focus on the public policy that leads to the situations we all spend so much time battling. There’s more than one reason for adopting this approach. For me, at least, the primary reason is the hope that some of the conflicts in our community can be avoided - cut off at the source - when we promote better public policy, improved public participation, and more open and accountable government. Not that public policy is any ``silver bullet,'' of course, but it is an angle not being pursued by any other group. And that’s a second reason: The public-policy consideration shouldn’t be neglected. A third reason is simple pragmatism. Everyone’s spread pretty thin these days, and it’s better to complete a couple of projects properly than it is to try to juggle a bunch of endeavors. Enacting this focus has necessitated proposing changes in the DPPA Bylaws. (See ``Here Are Those Proposed Bylaws Changes....'') Some of the changes reflect a need to be nonpartisan - even apolitical - to work effectively on public-policy issues. Some of the other proposed changes in thKUWS radio host Patty McNulty will act as moderator. e Bylaws simply tighten DPPA’s focus on public policy. This new focus and these suggested Bylaws tweaks are the board’s best shot at defining how we think DPPA can be most effective in improving our community for everyone.  We hope you agree. Terry Brown is the Treasurer of the Duluth Public-Policy Alliance These articles are retained on the web for historical interest and do not necessarily reflect the views or goals of DPPA today.

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