Ward 4 D.C. City Councilmember Muriel Bowser will announce Monday at 10a.m. her plan to introduce a bill to overhall the city's antiquated, ineffective open meetings statute.

Bowser's bill will require all boards, commissions and task forces, as well as the City Council, to meet in public to conduct most business. The bill would require public bodies to deliberate in public, except when they are engaged in quasi-judicial functions.

She will introduce the bill when the Council meets March 16.

The 12th annual National FOI Day Conference will be held on Monday, March 15, 2010. The conference will begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 12:30 p.m. It will be held at the Knight Conference Center at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., 7th Floor, Washington, D.C. (Freedom Forum & 6th Street Entrance).

  Bob Schieffer, Gwen Ifill, Kenneth T. Walsh, and Toby McIntosh will be inducted June 9, 2009, into the Hall of Fame of the D.C. Pro Chapter of Society of Professional Journalists. Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy will receive the Chapter's 2009 Distinguished Service Award for his many years of advocacy for disadvantaged and disenfranchised residents of the Washington metropolitan area.