 Hello, welcome to CTN member highlights. I'm Leslie McVane and today I'm at the Portland Public Library with Constituent Service Representative Dan Reardon for Angus King. Hi, good to see you Leslie. I'm Dan Reardon, and I am a constituent service rep for Angus. I'm a retired businessman in the community and I have been working for Angus since he was elected. And the library gives you space here to do this on a regular basis? The library, I have learned in the last four plus years that libraries are the best community center that you can hope for. I do this at other libraries, but boy the Portland Public Library couldn't be a better place to meet people and to help and to talk with people. It's a nice flow of people from all demographics in the city and beyond the city coming through here on a daily basis. It's lovely to see. It surely is. I was just explaining to somebody else earlier that, you know, we see business people who are going down to go to meetings. We see people that are in groups that are meeting here. We see immigrants. We see people who are staying in the shelters in the neighborhood. There really isn't any constituent that doesn't come through here. It's a welcoming place. So tell me what do you do when you're here, and how often do you do this? Okay, this program is called Your Government, Your Neighborhood. And Angus initiated this when he was elected. And what this is based on is that the senator believes that you shouldn't have to come and find us, that we should be out where you are. Our office is in Scarborough here in southern Maine. And what we've really done here is set up a mini-office. So if you're having a concern with a government agency, well, then I can take that information and begin the process to help you with that. If you need information about services offered by the government, I can do that. If you'd like Angus to have your opinion, I can do that. And so this is really a mini-office. I'm here once a month for two hours. And people feel more comfortable sometimes talking to a person than leaving a message on a phone or writing a letter. You know, one of the things that I found is that people will go by and they'll say, oh, you're from the senator's office. You know, I've been thinking for weeks to send an email to call. But you know, now that I see you here, there's something I'd like you to tell the senator for me. It's sort of like the kitchen table thing, you know? Well, you know, it is. And recently we have found more and more and more people who just want to come in and talk. Okay? You know, and that's been great too. I think the political atmosphere right now is very confusing for people. And to know that there is someone who's actually working for us in Washington, that they can have some dialogue with, a representative, not necessarily the senator himself, but somebody who can give him messages. Absolutely. You know, I've had three people come by today who said that they'd either called or sent emails and they had gotten a response from the Washington office and how pleased they were at that. I was wondering about that as well. How do you translate what you hear here to Angus so that it gets to his desk? There's a series of ways. Primarily, there's a form here where we can take in detail what an opinion is. And then when I go back to the office this afternoon, I'll enter all that information into the system and send it to the policy person who's responsible for that area. And that way Angus will see what happens and will get an answer from the person who is most knowledgeable about that area. That makes a lot of sense and it goes directly to the area it's supposed to be in instead of floating around somewhere. That's correct, yeah. Now this is something you do other places in the Portland area as well? Yes. In the greater Portland area, I do the YMCA, which is another great place. You see a lot of folks there. Again, across the whole spectrum of people. I do Yarmouth Public Library, which is also interesting there. We have a little different experience. Very often groups of people will come to see us. Again, to talk and give their point of view, but they just feel comfortable doing that there. So those are the key Portland places that I do this. And is this something that Angus has started around the state? Oh yes, yes. We do this all over the state and we've been doing it since the beginning. Now does Angus ever surprise everyone and come to some of these? I haven't had that happen, but you know, an interesting story. The phones have been so busy in the last month that a person I know, they came over to me at some event and they said, you know, I called the Washington office today and the person answered the phone and said, Angus King. And I said, who is this? And he said, this is Angus King. He said, the phones were busy and I thought I should step in. Oh, I love that story. That's a good one. And with all he's doing too right now. But he so much cares what people think, what they say, and he wants to hear that. He's a good listener. It shows. Yeah, and when we had the listening session over Gorsuch and those issues, I think everybody, you know, saw that was what they wanted was a chance to talk. Well, I think this is wonderful. And I wonder a little question before we close. What seems to be the question that you get the most of when you're at these? Is there any one issue that people are concerned about? Well, you know, it's been very interesting this year that it's very hard. I got to ask that question earlier today. There's a lot of change going on. And depending on what is going on at the national level, you know, you might have 30 people come in and ask you about this. And then the next day, you may have 30 people come in and ask about something else because it affects them more directly. So it's day to day. But on any given day when you're here, about how many people do you average coming by to talk? To sit down and talk, I would say at this library, probably eight to 10 people sit down and talk in, you know, people who stop by and or just even walk by and say, I want Angus to know very often 20, 25 people. That's good. How can people find out where you're going to be and when you're going to be there? It's on the Senate website on Angus's Senate website. That's terrific. Well, thank you for doing this thing. Angus for doing this, it's good for us to to have a place we can go and just find out what's happening. Thanks a lot. Thank you.