The buck stops at the Mayor as he is the leader. Council dictates policy which in a perfect world is enacted by management. Then again sometimes management dictates to a weak and ignorant council lacking vision, leadership, and direction.
For the second term in a row Council has given the contract for Pharmacy services at its Long Term Care facility, Glen Stor Dun Lodge to a service provider that is not based in Cornwall nor has many local employees. In other words, over a half million dollars is pumped out of the community instead of into the community.
The cost to the city either way? Pretty much zero as the province writes the cheques and residents may in fact have to pay higher costs for services and products not covered by the province.
Medical Arts Pharmacy is a locally owned firm that has facilities and services most pharmacies do not. It has been a long standing family firm that is one of, if not, the largest non government employers in the community with many of the positions, including one held by the mayor’s own daughter, paying well compared to other local gigs.
Does any of that make any sense? While a promotional video, much of the ground covered is very relative to the service offered by a local company via a distant one with no real local presence.
The contract was given to the outside company under the Paul Fitzpatrick Donna Derouchie scandal. Does it make sense to have renewed?
What do you think dear CFN viewers? Should the city be giving more credence to the local impact of contracts awarded?
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You can post your comments below.
Omg, another missed opportunity from our wonderful city council. Doesn’t anyone on that council have any interest in seeing local businesses grow and keeping jobs in our community?
Your points are so valid. Medical Arts supports so many organizations and gets no support from our city? Where’s the fairness? I wonder if this out of town organization will support anything in our city.
Way to go council!
Local companies should be given points for being local. Going for the lower cost is sort of okay. But nothing beats buying local. Local means faster service and when you’re dealing with people’s health and / or medications time is of the essence. But I did see that the Medical Arts Pharmacy was the only local pharmacy to bid. PJC, Fullerton Drug Stores, Shoppers Drug Mart, Medical Pharmacies and Pitt St Pharmacy did not submit a proposal. Does that say something? Perhaps the profit margin is too low on LTC facility pharmaceutical services.
LOL LOL. More disappearing from Cornwall. What else is new in Cornwall that is all you hear about.
How many points for big bribes?
More disappearing?? Nope. It’s been out of Cornwall for at least five years now. It would be nice if it returned to a Cornwall pharmacy.
I am sitting here asking myself if Medical Arts does the trimming over the loss of revenue where will all these people go for work? One of my son’s former girlfriends who is from Cornwall but lives in Ottawa took the pharmacy assistant program at Algonquin College and at the time that I knew about her there was no work in that area right here in Ottawa and she had to do a job that was way beneath her level. I have seen a pharmacist (two or three – the ones with their PHD’s) work only part time and commuted from Montréal to Cornwall and oh yes there was another one that I remember down there as well so that would make three. What is Lez going to do about his own daughter – maybe bribe the company to keep her on while others lose their jobs – pull off a BOB while he is at it.
Take a very good look at the picture on Pitt Street and compare it to other towns the size of Cornwall and even bigger and see all the things that are missing. If only we cold see all the store fronts that are empty and show the empty lots of Domtar, Courthaulds, etc. Cornwall is a mighty depressed town and there was more liveliment back in the 30’s Great Depression. Something is mighty wrong somewhere when there is absolutely no vision at all and instead of going forwards the place went back more than one hundred years. The street looks more like Frontier Town and what you see on Gunsmoke and such programs that I ask where Miss Kitty is located at the Longbranch. I was sitting here a while ago and laughed at what Mr. Oldham read at the library that was posted back in 74 or 75 about Cornwall was supposed to have a population of 100K by the year 2000 and I am looking around and even with all the little towns that would be put together outside of Cornwall would not come to 100K nor near that. So many people left for much better pastures because they were not stupid they knew fully well what was going to happen and how the town is run. It is good for a good laugh.
Maybe political contributions going to Les O’Shaughnessy and some councillors from this out of town provider.used to be a time when it was tendered.
Pete Walbee….it was tendered, a Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued and only six pharmacies responded. The city then short-listed it to two pharmacies, Classic Care Pharmacy and Medical Arts Pharmacy. Site visits were performed on the two pharmacies and Medical Arts Pharmacy came out on the short end of the stick.
But I guess that doesn’t matter now, as the contract wasn’t passed by council.
No growth in population in over 50 years. A history of backing white elephants. Demand growing for seniors and services diminishing. A continuing legacy of controversy and dysfunction. People divided in purpose and uninspired leadership. When council fails to rally behind local business what message does that send to businesses thinking of establishing themselves in Cornwall? Helping others is honourable. Helping ourselves first to be in a better position to help others is simply common sense. Where is the leadership? Perhaps rather than vote in another round of inept idiots we should contract our representation to an outside firm that can get the job done. Current council could vote on a feasibility study to be conducted by a non Cornwall firm. They have demonstrated an ability in this area if nothing else.
David Oldham….the contract was NOT awarded to the firm from Nepean. City staff are going to see how the proposal can be worded so local firms have a leg up on contracts awarded by the city.
If we want to “contract out” our city councilor positions we could bring in Doug Ford.
I must have laughed myself to sleep yesterday and named Lez as “Boss Hogg” since he is totally incompetent and got in on lies. There has been so much incompetence down through the years and Lez “Boss Hogg” sure shows it. He borrows $47K and more to pay someone from Ottawa to do work for Cornwall and where are the engineers in Cornwall are there not any. Lez goes on CFRA and spills the beans about “Wormgate” and about “Skategate” and cannot handle the little problems how is he going to handle serious things that come up. People have no work and have to rely on social assistance and what kind of a life is that. The taxes in Cornwall is astronomical for such a tiny town and the most expensive among the small towns in Ontario. Wait until Cornwall gets hits big time in 2019 – you haven’t seen anything yet with the high cost of utilities. Cornwall had a chance to thrive in fast years and a certain mayor turned things away. The same bunch rules over the town and the rich get richer and the poor poorer. All the present mayors are there for is to feather their pockets. The present mayor along with Frosty the Showman are making more money as mayor and in council than what they do in real estate in Cornwall.
Hugger1 what would the point of the exercise be if all we did was make a lateral move?
Much like last year when the city employed security guards making just 25 cents above minimum wage were all terminated because they signed union cards. Their reason for signing union cards wasn’t about anything else except to end bullying and embarrassment by 2 city managers. The city council voted to support the termination of the 7 casual employees including supported by Elaine MacDonald who is suppose to be uionn supporter. They tendered the security contract to a private company and the city lied by saying they’d save money. HEY, tell me what company takes on a contract without a billing rate? The billing rate is the amount charged to the city and that becomes their PROFIT. At that time the minimum wage was 11 per hour.
The word embarrassment should be harassment my mistake.
Doug and his family would provide comic relief for the citizens of Cornwall.