Admin Note: I realize this is not a Whatcom County event, but it seemed appropriate to put it here anyway.
Dear Friend of Open Government:
In addition to our work on open government issues within Washington state, the Washington Coalition for Open Government partners with several national groups who advocate for your right to access information held by the federal government. One of these groups, OMB Watch (www.ombwatch.org), has launched a new project which they call the “21st Century Right to Know Project”. The purpose of this project is to develop recommendations for the next White House and Congress on how to improve government openness and access to information at the federal level. The long-term goal of the project is to develop a proactive agenda to change the underlying policies, priorities, and practices regarding public access for all branches of government. More information on the project can be found at
http://www.ombwatch.org/21stProject/index.html. As part of the 21st Century Right to Know Project, OMB Watch will be conducting meetings around the country with state and local stakeholder groups, government officials, local media, policy experts and researchers, librarians, and others to discuss how government information is accessed, the difficulties in obtaining access to government information, the types of information most difficult to obtain and how it should be improved. The purpose is to inform the policy recommendations they will eventually hand to the next President and Congress.
One of these meetings will be held in Seattle on Monday, April 21, from 10AM to 3PM. OMB Watch has asked the Coalition to assist them in identifying organizations and experts from Washington state who would be interested in participating in this meeting and contributing to this effort. OMB Watch has asked us to provide a list of interested Washington state participants by Monday, March 24. Space is limited and only about two dozen participants will be invited. If you are interested and would like to receive an invitation from OMB Watch to participate in this meeting, please send your name, organization name, address, phone, and email address to
info@washingtoncog.org at your earliest opportunity.
If you know of other Washington state experts or organizations who access federal government information and may be interested in participating in this meeting, please forward this email to them.
Thanks very much for your support of open government in Washington!
