'Open House' Forum with Rep. Jay Kaufman

Rep. Jay Kaufman's award-winning public policy forum, "OPEN HOUSE", convenes its third forum in October, this time examining the historic Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The forum will be held on Thursday, October 21 from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the Lexington Depot, 13 Depot Square, in Lexington Center.  

Expanding civil rights is one of the hallmarks of our democracy and 1990 was a watershed year for the disabled in our midst. This year, we are celebrating 20 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act. How have the rights and access anticipated in the law been realized? What barriers still remain? The forum will begin with an invitation to individuals with disabilities to give a first-hand account of the benefit this law now gives them in accessing work, education, and recreational facilities.

As with every forum, audience participation is encouraged and questions and comments from the floor will shape the discussion. This forum will have ASL and CART interpreters and is fully accessible.

Upon taking office in 1995, Rep. Kaufman sought to provide a vehicle for discussing the challenges and opportunities facing our community and Commonwealth on a regular basis. While most of his colleagues appear occasionally on local cable access shows, the format is invariably one-sided, as there is no real way to engage the viewer. In the early 90's, the open town meeting format was just coming into its own, and offered a new, albeit challenging, way to engage constituents in important public policy conversations.

Over its first 15 years, OPEN HOUSE has addressed issues ranging from reinventing public education to gay marriage, property tax relief to campaign finance reform, the shrinking middle class to stem cell research, the nature of political leadership to the challenges of effecting fundamental change in a democracy.

In 1997, OPEN HOUSE was awarded the prestigious Beacon Award, cable television's equivalent of an Emmy, as the nation's best government relations series.  The series was also named the best television series by Massachusetts Cable Television Commission.

The OPEN HOUSE series is produced through a partnership between Rep. Kaufman and LexMedia, which records the forums for broadcast in Lexington, Arlington and Woburn.