Register today for NINA Spring Conference

Today is the deadline to register for next Friday's NINA Spring Conference at NIU-DeKalb. Contact Jim Killam. One speaker substitution: Terry Pastika, executive director of the Citizen Advocacy Center, replaces Beth Bennett of the Illinois Press Association. Our other speaker is Cara Smith, public access counselor for the Illinois Attorney General's office.

Terry Pastika joined the Citizen Advocacy Center as a community lawyer in 1999 and became its executive director in 2001. In her tenure as a community lawyer, Ms. Pastika organized the Center's three suburban Civic Fairs which brought together more than 150 community organizations and civic leaders throughout the Chicago metropolitan region, coordinated the Center's Citizen Training Corps program which was recognized regionally and nationally as "civics boot camp with clout," and launched the Center's youth civic education program. Ms. Pastika provides community organizing assistance, legal assistance, and when necessary litigates to help citizens access the democratic process and remove anti-democratic or illegal policies that prohibit citizen participation in government decision-making. Ms. Pastika speaks at conferences and law schools on topics such as the First Amendment, open government laws, TIF, home rule, election laws, campaign finance, and community empowerment. She has authored several law journal articles and co-author of the Citizen Advocacy Center’s 2009 release of its Midwest regional study on FOIA and OMA laws titled, Accessing Government: How Difficult is it?. Beyond working to strengthen democracy at the local level, Ms. Pastika has participated in statewide reform initiatives that have included TIF, ethics, campaign finance, and most recently FOIA.

Ms. Pastika was part of the team of community lawyers that received an award for "Most Innovative Advocacy" in the Chicagoland region and has been guest speaker at the John F. Kennedy School of Politics at Harvard University. Ms. Pastika was nationally recognized in 2003 by the Washington D.C. non-profit, OMB Watch, as one of a handful of people inducted into the first "Public Interest Rising Star Hall of Fame" for leading a new generation in pursuit of social justice. Ms. Pastika graduated from Marquette University in 1992 and Creighton University School of Law in 1997. She is a member of the California, Nebraska and Illinois Bar.