Editorial: All the best, Wordelmans

Soaring high: Scott Wordelman officially bids Red Wing farewell today as the community says goodbye to Fairview Red Wing Health Services and hello Sunday morning to Mayo Clinic Health System in Red Wing.

A changing of the guard was inevitable once the new relationship was finalized: Mayo always has a medical doctor at the helm of any facility.

Perhaps never before has Red Wing seen anyone work harder than Wordelman did the last two years to accomplish something for the good of the community while knowing he would be out of a job. Most CEOs and presidents would have left long before the deal was done.

Wordelman has given the community his best, day in and day out, since he arrived 14 years ago to lead a fledgling Fairview Red Wing. He made the merging of separate and sometimes competing entities into an integrated medical campus that is the envy of many communities

Our community now wishes him all the best. He and wife Donna deserve it.

Soaring high: Consolidation can be a good thing, provided it results in true savings and efficiencies.

The proposed 12-county human resources collaboration apparently didn’t fit the bill. Olmsted County stood to gain the most, and that was in monetary and political terms. A few counties — Goodhue County among them — stood to lose under the plan.

Goodhue County did the proper thing last week by opting out. The county already is ahead of the game in combining public health and social services. Commissioners can now concentrate on completing that task.

Tags: opinion, editorials