Senator Frerichs Dist Office Week 8

Unfortunately, my post for this week will be relatively short. The office has been rather quiet this week. Our Chief of Staff Laurie has been out of the office the entire week while in Springfield; therefore, I have headed up the Champaign District Office this week. Senator Frerichs finally hired a new legislative assistant for Springfield; however, I will still be headed to Springfield on a bi-weekly basis to work in another area where I can be of assistance.

Next week, I will be in Springfield which will be a nice change of pace considering the work which I have been doing this week. With Laurie out of the office, I worked on a variety of menial tasks in an effort to catch up on all the work which needed to be accomplished. This meant this week I focused on clipping newspaper articles for the Saw You in the News mailings the Senator sends out. Too, I spent quite a bit of time sending out emails in response to a wide-variety of constituent concerns. After weeks of working to limit the amount of emails which were left with no response for an extended period of time, I am happy to say that the inbox is now in single digits.

Further, I have worked to assemble a variety of spreadsheets which will be utilized to mail out form letters which will soon be composed on key issues. Too, I am working on completing a list of all the agencies within Champaign and Vermillion County which are eligible to receive grant funding; this list will be utilized to mail out grant information to all of these agencies.

Thats the gist of the office work this week. I look forward to next week as I will hope it will be quite a busy week in the State Capitol. Or perhaps with the upcoming St. Patrick's Day holiday, it may not be. I remember past memories of working in the Capitol years ago (Sullivan Caucus) and coming into work the next day as many representatives and senators spoke of their previous night's engagements.

Perhaps to, I will begin to expand on the constituent work I do here next week to the best of which I am able to make my posts more lively; a lot of information need remain confidential.

Best

Matthew