I write to share my experience with our friend and neighbor Alan Silverstein, asking you to elect him President of our Easton Town Council on Tuesday, September 12.
As president emeritus of our Eastern Shore Area Health Education Center (among the 200 in the federally mandated program for medically underserved communities), I and scores of colleagues in our nine Eastern Shore counties, in professional caucuses ranging from surgery to chaplaincy, through our staff have offered education programs in our schools to inspire a new generation of professionals to serve our communities. May they sustain us in future years.
Yet, we wring our hands, awaiting the State of Maryland, the University of Maryland, and certain of our local governments, to accept the clarion call to do two things. Al Silverstein understands these developmental tasks. It’ll take monumental moxie.
First, the new Council President must take on the mantle as Easton’s lobbyist, opening doors in Annapolis and the University – with such remarkable friends as our new Governor Wes Moore, the University’s new President Dr. Daryll J. Pines, and Mark T. Gladwin, MD, new Dean of the University of Maryland College of Medicine. The object is to seek their personal partnerships – by professions a philanthropic visionary, an aerospace scientist, and a physician-scientist – to join with our highly accomplished national community builder, Al Silverstein, to honor our local hospital administration and our government to finally build our much heralded regional medical center!
Second, the new Council President should install new phone lines, must take a few road trips, to contact and meet physicians and other medical professionals who are ready to take the next steps in their professions, who desire the type of professional, social and educational environment we have to offer to them and their families. It’s a well known fact that hospital professionals, town and city development professionals, travel to coffee shops near hospitals, medical and nursing schools to meet students about to graduate. Is it unthinkable that Al might go with signing bonuses in hand? Is it unthinkable that our Town Council may even support the effort by creating a Town of Easton professional development office?
Easton: Face it! We have a local medical care crisis, merely component to the national crisis. It’s not only primary care docs, it’s diagnosticians, it’s radiologists, it’s nurses, it’s EMTs. It’s the entire care complex.
These are the reason why you and I need to elect our friend and neighbor Al Silverstein our Council President.
The Right Reverend Joel Marcus Johnson
Easton
Reed Fawell 3 says
There is an obvious reason why Primary Care Physicians are evaporating out of the medical marketplace. I wonder if the Right Reverend might have a clue as to why that is? And how to fix that glaring gap in our community despite the obstacles erected against them by the current system of health care in the country.
Surely too the Right Reverend should have a clue he’s the “As president emeritus of our Eastern Shore Area Health Education Center,” whose local track record to date, as best as I can discern, is absolutely dismal, despite its many individual professionals doing the best they can in an obviously broken system.
As to the rest of it, in my view:
Al Silverstein is by far the most knowledgeable, experienced, and qualified candidate for president of the Easton town council to effectively address this current health care crisis in our community. I believe this is clearly plain to see from his testamentary at our town hall on the subject. I urge everyone to start at the 40th minute of that town hall meeting to see why. See:
https://talbotspy.org/the-avalon-and-talbot-spy-the-easton-council-president-election-town-hall-meeting-with-craig-fuller/
Geoff Holmes says
I wholeheartedly agree.
jan bohn says
I’ve no dog in this fight but it does seem as if people are confusing expertise with ‘good old boyness’. All of the candidates in this race have the likeability to succeed – they all are genuine in their desire to serve and represent us. But only Al Silverstein, like him or not, appears to have the hutzpah and expertise to actually get the job done, especially concerning the new hospital. Sometimes effectiveness is better than anything else. Do you want the hospital or not? We need someone who can deal with Annapolis and I’m not sure the other candidates have that capability.
Carol Voyles says
Bishop Joel, I couldn’t agree with you more, and I couldn’t have said it so beautifully! During the mayoral election debates, I appreciated Al’s focus upon the regional medical center, his experience in this arena, and his ability to network in this arena.
I’m very fond of Mayor Willey, and appreciate his years of service to the community; but, particularly during such challenging times, I believe we would all benefit tremendously by opening our doors and our hearts to this opportunity.
What better time than now?