Pharm policy
Ever since the Soloviev Group lost its recent bid to plant a gambling casino in midtown Manhattan and then stopped filling prescriptions in midtown Shelter Island instead, Crone has been prescribing deep breaths for Codger. Two sharp breaths in, then a long exhalation. Navy Seals do it for stress, like just before a battle, which just might be looming, especially if the No Kings demonstrations this Saturday lead to a No Oligarchs demonstration here. Codger thinks a great place could be the Dory, if that sad little dive wouldn’t sink into Chase Creek under the weight of its murky history. Weren’t the Solovievs going to make something of that place, too? Along with Jack’s Marine? Did they promise anything in writing to their new community?
“Shelter Island is like a womb,” said Stacey Soloviev, soon after arrival, to the Reporter’s Charity Robey. “You feel very good when you come to Shelter Island.”
Many other people did, too, reminds Codger, especially before she waltzed in.
Stop that, Codger. Dumping on Solovievs, especially the boss’s ex-wife, is too easy. After all, a more powerful family is pillaging the entire country and shutting it down. Even leftish pundits like Robert Reich are assuring their audiences that their depression is appropriate, not to worry. Even if it’s appropriate, asks Codger, where we do get our Prozac and Zoloft without a functioning pharmacy?
Codger agrees that shutting down the only drug dispensary, especially on something like a week’s notice, seems like a moral crime in a “womb” with so many elderly people with medical needs compounded by transportation problems, fixed incomes, and the lack of a full-time doctor. Thank Goodness for the saintly Senior Services, especially Laurie Fanelli and Kelly Brochu, and the financial support of the Senior Citizens Foundation.
Codger had a predictable eat-the-rich response; even if the Soloviev claim of losing $50,000 a month in that store is true, none of Stacey and her ex, Stefan Soloviev’s, reported 22 children will go hungry thanks to his Forbes-reported $2.3 billion corporation. That number might have led town officials to fantasize a bonanza of tax revenue and jobs, a much simpler fix for them than the long-term comprehensive planning that establishes proper land use and water quality or the community housing that allows young families to stay on the Island in place of rich seasonal tourists with demands but no commitments.Codger was impressed with the Island’s response to the shutdown. Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams led the way to make contact with nearby drugstores that could not only take over the local pharmacy’s prescriptions but even deliver. Cliff and Tish Clark were generous with their South Ferry. That may be only taking on the symptoms, not the cause of Shelter
Island’s Hamptonization, but in this case symptoms can kill.
The new Health and Wellness Committee sponsored a town forum, chaired by co-founder Nancy Green, to share information and solutions. Residents argued for and against a boycott of Soloviev businesses, such as The Chequit, while others pointed to insurance companies and capitalism itself as greater villains than the Soloviev Group, which represents an attack from the outside.
Codger thinks Town officials need be aware of what President Trump identifies as “the enemy within.” Ever since Hay Beach homeowners beat back the Gardiner’s Bay Country Club attempt to build a workers’ dorm on its own property, the golf club has been searching for a site. It found the Shelter Island House, an old hotel and restaurant on Stearns Point Road, near Codger and Crone’s house (Nimby alert!), in an area — West Neck — without an active neighborhood association.
Codger wishes it had one like the dogged Fresh Pond Association, which cleaned up its beloved swimming hole. Fresh Pond is one of 10 associations in the Shelter Island Association (SIA), a nonpartisan, nonprofit dedicated to “the betterment, advancement, and best interests of Shelter Island.” (Full disclosure: Crone is an SIA Trustee-at-Large.)
Codger thinks the SIA seems like an organization that just might take on such potential threats to “best interests” as the Soloviev Group and the golfers, who are poised to induct 10 new members (they have 350) at $200,000 a head to help finance their house for hired hands.The SIA is in a position to encourage Town officials to monitor the intensely complex land and water issues of changing one nonconforming use (hotel) to another (workforce housing). If new precedents are hastily established along the way and special treatment offered, lives will be affected. Of course, Codger thinks it would be better if Town officials stepped up their oversight and enforcement, but timidity has too often been the prevailing mood. However, there is an election in three weeks, reminds Codger, never a better time to take some deep breaths and make opinions known.
