OPEN GOVERNMENT — Californians Aware General Counsel Terry Francke and Sacramento Bee investigative reporter and public records specialist Andrew McIntosh will tackle the question, "How Open Is California Government?", in a lunchtime panel in observance of Sunshine Week at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento Wednesday, March 25.
The day's program, sponsored by the Northern California Association of Law Libraries and the Sierra Nevada Chapter of the Special Libraries Association, will begin at 9:30 a.m with a recorded national webcast of a Washington, D. C. expert panel discussing Opening Doors: Finding the Keys to Open Government. That event, to be recorded on March 20, will feature a discussion between speakers and the audience
on what the Obama administration hopes to achieve, the policy issues
facing this administration, the Obama administration's vision for
e-government, and financial and economic transparency.
McIntosh, a native of Canada, is the three-time winner of that countrys highest journalism honor, the National Newspaper Award. He is currently a senior writer at the Bee, where he serves as a public records and FOIA specialist. He received the 2007 Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Investigative Reporting for a five-part series on defects in the states licensing for paramedics and emergency medical technicians. The series was picked up by CBS and NBC news, as well as the Los Angeles Times, and it led to the passage of new state law in 2008. His investigative series on the deaths and thousands of injuries caused by air-powered nail gun design flaws made him a finalist for Washington DC-based Understanding Governments Preventive Journalism Award in 2008.
Francke, co-founder of Californians Aware, previously served as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition and as legal counsel to the California Newspaper Publishers Association and served as expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Brown Act, and to the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution.
Registration for the program, which includes continental breakfast and lunch, is $15 in advance or $18 at the door, but seating is limited. To register on line and pay with a credit card by PayPal, go here. If paying by check, send it with the form below to Phoebe Ayers, Physical Sciences & Engineering Library, One Shields Avenue, University of California, Davis, CA 95616-8676, and confirm that you sent both by emailing her at psayers@ucdavis.edu.
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