You can spend Valentine’s Day, February 14, sipping and shopping through downtown Findlay with an upcoming event.

“An Evening in the Heart of Downtown” will feature special hours and offerings from 8 downtown businesses as well as wine and hors d’oeuvres.

The night will start off at the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts with an opening reception from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.

The night will finish at the Hancock Hotel with live entertainment starting at 8 pm.

Tickets are $75 per person and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Jane and Gary Heminger HeartCare Center.

More details here.

Several people were arrested following the searches of two Findlay residences.

The Hancock County METRICH Drug Task Force and Findlay Police Department Emergency Response Team searched a home on Hardin Street and another on Logan Avenue Friday morning.

In the Hardin Street residence, officers found crack cocaine.

Officers say the Logan Avenue home had methamphetamine and a large amount of fentanyl.

Both homes also had prescription pills, drug paraphernalia, cash, and items indicative of drug trafficking.

Arrested were:

38-year-old Melinda Delarosa on a charge of possession of crack cocaine.

34-year-old Jared Obermeyer on a charge of possession of fentanyl.

37-year-old Tonya Julien on a charge of possession of fentanyl

26-year-old Alicia Frankforther on a charge of possession of methamphetamine.

Officers say additional charges are expected.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol says it will be cracking down on impaired drivers on Super Bowl Sunday.

“Fans don’t let fans drive drunk,” said Colonel Richard S. Fambro, superintendent of the Highway Patrol.

He says the patrol is committed to removing impaired drivers from the roadways and people need to remember to designate a sober driver and influence friends and family to do the same.

People hosting a Super Bowl party are being urged to make sure their guests have a safe and sober way home.

During last year’s Super Bowl, the Patrol made 62 OVI arrests from 6 a.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday.

During the 24-hour reporting period, seven people were killed in six fatal crashes.

Of those, two crashes and three fatalities were OVI-related.

Bowling Green State University will begin research on substance abuse after receiving grant funding from the Ohio Department of Higher Education.

The grant money totals more than $475,000, making it the second highest amount of funding behind Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.

The group will research the risk factors leading to substance abuse by looking at the socioeconomic factors driving addiction and how it affects communities.

Researchers will plot recovery strategies statewide and at the local level.

Ohio is the second highest state with opioid addiction behind West Virginia.

Findlay City Schools is asking voters to approve an operating levy on March 17th.

The school district says the five-year 5.9 mill levy would generate about $5 million annually.

The levy would cost a homeowner $206.50 for each $100,000 of home value. That’s a little more than $17 a month that would be added to your school taxes.

“We looked at our forecast and where our expense line is going and we tried to stay just barely above it,” Superintendent Ed Kurt said on with WFIN’s Chris Oaks.

“We’re not trying to bank a bunch of money, we’re trying to be responsible to the community.”

He says Findlay City Schools last asked for additional operating money in 2004, when voters approved a five-year, 4.9 mill levy.

Voters made that levy permanent in May of 2017.

The school district says it could face a $12 million deficit by 2024 without additional operating money.

If the levy fails, the district says it would have to cut electives and consider reducing staff.

A former TV meteorologist in Columbus has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges.

Mike Davis resigned from WBNS-TV after he was arrested for possessing sexual images of children in September.

Prosecutors say Davis downloaded 16,000 images of child pornography and emailed them to himself.

His attorney is hoping Davis can qualify for a community-based correctional facility near Cincinnati that has a sex offender treatment program.

Davis faces up to 30 years in prison when he’s sentenced in March.

The major potholes in the parking lot by Chipotle and Walgreens on Tiffin Avenue in Findlay will be fixed soon.

Mayor Christina Muryn said that she spoke with the owners of the parking lot and received good results.

Muryn explained that the lot was owned by a group that isn’t local and wasn’t aware of the issue.

She added that if you discover any potholes you can visit the city’s website to let them know about it.

Registration is underway for Camp 911 in Hancock County.

The program is for kids entering Kindergarten so that they can learn basic safety.

Morning sessions will be held 8 to 11 am from June 2 through 5.

There will also be afternoon sessions from 1 to 4 pm from June 1 to June 5.

100 kids will be accepted into each session.

You can register for morning sessions here and afternoon sessions here.

Findlay Family YMCA CEO Paul Worstell will be retiring this May.

He said that he has had a great time serving the YMCA for the past two years.

Worstell was also named the recipient of the Baldrige Foundation’s E. David Spong Lifetime Achievement award.

The award is given to people who have performed truly extraordinary service, changed their world, and inspired others to do the same, according to the Baldrige Foundation.

Worstell remains humble about it.

President and CEO of the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Al Faber said, “Few individuals will have made more of a mark on the Baldrige community than our 2020 awardee, W. Paul Worstell”.

The award will be presented on March 26 during the Quest for Excellence conference.

The Baldrige Foundation is a nonprofit that seeks to ensure long-term growth and viability of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program and to support organizational performance excellence across the U.S.

Findlay Mayor Christina Muryn has been appointed to the state’s prescription drug advisory council.

Details are in the following media release from the City of Findlay.

On January 27th Governor Mike DeWine announced his appointment of Findlay Mayor, Christina Muryn, as the local elected official to serve on the Prescription Drug Transparency and Affordability Advisory Council for the State of Ohio.

The council which was created out of House Bill 166 is now mandated in the Ohio Revised Code 125.95. The focus of the council is to provide recommendations to the Administration on:

(1) How this state can best achieve prescription drug price transparency;

(2) New payment models or other avenues to create the most affordable environment for purchasing prescription drugs;

(3) Leveraging this state’s purchasing power across all state agencies, boards, commissions, and similar entities;

(4) Creating efficiencies across different health care systems, such as hospitals, the criminal justice system, treatment and recovery support programs, and employer-sponsored health insurance, to reduce duplicative service delivery across these systems, ensure that patients receive high quality and affordable prescription drugs, and support quality care and outcomes;

(5) Which critical outcomes can be measured and used to improve this state’s system of purchasing affordable prescribed drugs; and

(6) How federal, state, and local resources are being used to optimize these outcomes and identify where the resources can be better coordinated or redirected to meet the needs of consumers in this state.

“I am excited to represent the City of Findlay and local elected office holders across the State of Ohio on the advisory council.” said Mayor Muryn. “The rising costs of prescription medications are out of control. This not only affects the citizens of Findlay, but businesses and the City of Findlay directly given we are a self-insured entity. I appreciate the Governor allowing me the opportunity to use my prior experience in the healthcare field to serve in this capacity.”

Get more details on the council here.