National Press Club Hosts 'D.C. Open Government Summit: Street View'

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Mar 06, 2014, 04:13 ET

WASHINGTON, March 6, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The D.C. Open Government Coalition will hold the third annual D.C. Open Government Summit March 19 at the National Press Club to focus on transparency in neighborhoods and communities in the District of Columbia.

The event--titled, "D.C. Open Government Summit: Street View"--will be held during Sunshine Week http://sunshineweek.org/, and will feature remarks by:

Traci Hughes, the first director of the D.C. Office of Open Government http://www.bega-dc.gov/office-open-government;
Adam Tope, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner http://www.anc3f.us/index.html?phpMyAdmin=i2ufkQZeDi%2CnbNNDC5%2Css%2CWtCl1, who will share the steps his ANC has taken to be more open and accessible to its residents by live-streaming meetings and by putting its checkbook online so the public can see how and when money is spent in real time;
Debbie Cenziper, a Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/09/08/left-with-nothing/ reporter who used District records to uncover examples of residents losing their homes to foreclosure because of unpaid property taxes they may not have known about;
Marie Drissel, a D.C. resident who regularly files FOIA requests and whose requests led to an investigation into possible corruption in awarding D.C.'s lottery contract; and
Innovators from Code for DC http://codefordc.org/ who have used open government data and information to create useful tools for our daily lives, such as mapping restaurant health code violations and tracking the District's emergency response times.

The event will take place in the National Press Club's Holeman Lounge from 6:30-9 p.m. and is cosponsored by the National Press Club's Freedom of the Press Committee http://press.org/news-multimedia/freedom-press, the D.C. Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists https://www.spj.org/ and the American University School of Communication http://www.american.edu/soc/. A reception will follow the program.

Sunshine Week, which takes place every year in mid-March near James Madison's birthday, is intended to spotlight the importance of transparency and press freedom.

Space is limited so please be sure to register for this free event in advance to ensure you can join us: http://press.org/events/forum-dc-open-government-issues#tickets.

Contact: John M. Donnelly, NPC Press Freedom Committee Chairman,[email protected]; or Cori Zarek, D.C. Open Government Coalition vice president: [email protected].

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SOURCE National Press Club