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Dear Neighbor,

I hope this email finds you healthy and well. I am writing to provide an exciting update about constituent services in Riverdale and to ensure you are aware of how our office can help support the Riverdale community.

As a Congressional office, our office provides a range of services to constituents. This includes     information on government benefits, services and opportunities, as well as assistance when  problems arise  between individual constituents and government agencies. 

While the pandemic has forced us to conduct some of our work remotely in order to prioritize the safety of our staff and constituents, I am proud that our office has been able to help over 260 Riverdale constituents with casework requests over the last 10 months. These cases range from social security support and USPS delay issues to veterans benefits and immigration assistance. In addition, we have had the pleasure of engaging with over 300 Riverdale constituents via phone, thousands more via email, and I personally have attended over a dozen community events to hear directly from our Riverdale constituents. We have also held successful mobile constituent services events at the Riverdale Y, Riverdale Neighborhood House and National Night Out. These opportunities have been extremely valuable for ensuring we are working alongside residents to address federal challenges that are playing out locally, and I look forward to many more opportunities in the coming months. 

I am excited to announce that we will be holding expanded constituent service visiting hours in partnership with the New York Public Library’s Riverdale Branch. This will create an additional opportunity for our team to meet with you face-to-face and support constituent services needs. I look forward to providing more details about this new partnership in the coming days. 

In addition, my legislative team works to be responsive to issues raised by Riverdale constituents where a federal nexus allows us to take action. After learning about mail delays at the Fieldston Post Office, for example, I successfully advocated for more federal resources to address this issue. This resulted in USPS hiring additional staff for this branch. In addition, in March I led a letter with Senator Biaggi and Assemblymember Dinowitz about the negative impact that the Knolls Crescent Chase Bank branch closure would have on seniors, urging the Comptroller of Currency to get involved. You can read more about our efforts here. And after learning about  sidewalk safety issues outside of SAR Academy, I successfully advocated for $2.3 million in federal funds for the Department of Transportation to address this issue. These funds passed the House, and I am advocating for their passage in the Senate.

I’m incredibly proud of our constituent service team’s responsiveness and professionalism, which has allowed us to address more than 1,700 cases this year and respond to over 900 emails from Riverdale constituents in the last 15 days alone. If someone is looking for assistance, I encourage them to reach out to us at bowman.casework@mail.house.gov or at (718) 530-7710. Even when I am in D.C, my staff are always working to serve constituents and represent me to ensure our community is supported. A member of our constituent services team, Jesse Lerer, is focused specifically on the Riverdale area and can be reached at Jesse.Lerer@mail.house.gov.

I look forward to continuing to serve this great community. As always, please do not hesitate to reach out.