SECTION B
THE BLADE, TOLEDO, OHIO ■ TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2019
SECOND NEWS
BUSINESS
Pot­belly Sand­wich Shops down­town,
in W. Toledo close  6
■ TODAY’S LOG 3
■ OBITUARIES 4, 5

COLUMBUS — Locked in po­ten­tially lengthy lit­i­ga­tion with the mid­dle­men who are sup­posed to save the state money on pre­scrip­tion drugs, Ohio At­tor­ney Gen­eral Dave Yost called Mon­day for law­mak­ers to act now to re­form the sys­tem af­fect­ing drug pric­ing.

Mr. Yost said state of­fi­cials — de­spite put­ting much ef­fort into study­ing the is­sue — still don’t know whether phar­macy-ben­e­fit man­ag­ers are giv­ing Ohio a good deal when it comes to

pre­scription prices.

“The state ba­si­cally has hired a fox to watch the hen house,” the Re­pub­li­can said. “But the fox is a pretty smart fox. He doesn’t kill the chick­ens. He steals the eggs.

“What we need to do is move away from this very opaque, com­pli­cated sys­tem to

some­thing that’s more trans­par­ent,” Mr. Yost said.

State agen­cies con­tract with these com­pa­nies to ne­go­ti­ate prices with phar­ma­cies to get bet­ter deals on pre­scrip­tion drugs for health pro­grams fi­nanced by state gov­ern­ment.

By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF
Yost urges lawmakers to reform drug pricing
State AG: System needs transparency
THE BLADE/JIM PROVANCE
At­tor­ney Gen­eral Dave Yost speaks in Co­lum­bus about the state’s lit­i­ga­tion against pre­scrip­tion drug mid­dle­men.
See DRUGS, Page B2
ROSSFORD SCHOOLS
Board votes to allow Murtha resignation
Students accused him of unwanted touching

The Ross­ford school board voted unan­i­mously Mon­day night to ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion of ath­letic di­rec­tor and high school as­sis­tant prin­ci­pal Pat Murtha af­ter a two-month in­ves­ti­ga­tion into al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct.

The board made the de­ci­sion af­ter an ex­ec­u­tive ses­sion. There was no dis­cus­sion, and board mem­bers would not com­ment. A dis­trict spokes­man said a res­ig­na­tion let­ter was not avail­able Mon­day night.

Dis­trict records show three stu­dents made com­plaints against Mr. Murtha in Feb­ru­ary, 2019. School of­fi­cials who looked into the

stu­dents’ claims found Mr. Murtha had en­gaged in “in­ap­pro­pri­ate con­duct,” in­clud­ing the un­wanted touch­ing of their hair and shoul­ders.

Per a state­ment from Ross­ford schools, Mr. Murtha’s con­duct did not con­sti­tute

sex­ual ha­rass­ment, as de­fined by dis­trict pol­icy.

“Given the cir­cum­stances, it was in the best in­ter­est of our stu­dents and the dis­trict to reach an agree­ment to part ways,” Su­per­in­ten­dent Dan Creps said in a one-sen­tence state­ment.

Mr. Murtha de­nied wrong­do­ing, ac­cord­ing to dis­trict records.

Both sides en­tered in to a tran­si­tion agree­ment that calls for Mr. Murtha to end his em­ploy­ment with Ross­ford on

By JAY SKEBBA
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Murtha
See ROSSFORD, Page B3

Geor­gia Dem­o­crat Sta­cey Abrams is busy these days. She is think­ing about run­ning for pres­i­dent or the U.S. Senate. She leads a non­profit to ad­vance vot­ing rights. And she’s pro­mot­ing a book.

The lat­ter will bring the for­mer gu­ber­na­to­rial can­di­date here for the Toledo Lu­cas County Pub­lic Li­brary’s “Authors!” se­ries on Sun­day at Bow­sher High School. But if you don’t al­ready have a ticket, you’re out of luck — all 750 are gone.

Ac­cord­ing to the li­brary, the event sold out April 1, be­fore an email was sent to ticket hold­ers in­form­ing them Ms. Abrams’ sched­ule no lon­ger per­mits her to stay af­ter the 45-minute dis­cus­sion, mod-

er­ated by Pulit­zer Prize-win­ning col­um­nist Con­nie Schultz. She won’t be sign­ing cop­ies of her book, Lead from the Out­side, or pos­ing for

By LIZ SKALKA
BLADE POLITICS WRITER
Abrams’ schedule to shorten her Toledo visit
ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Stacey Abrams’ appearance Sunday as part of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library’s ‘Authors!’ series is sold out.
See ABRAMS, Page B2
WASHINGTON LOCAL SCHOOLS
Ex-superintendent could get out of jail
Hickey may be freed on Tuesday

Former Wash­ing­ton Lo­cal Schools su­per­in­ten­dent Patrick Hickey could be re­leased from jail as early as Tues­day morn­ing, roughly one year af­ter he ad­mit­ted in court that he groped a fe­male Ad­dison High School stu­dent de­cades ago.

Capt. Jim Craig at the Lenawee County jail con­firmed to The Blade that Hickey is to be freed Tues­day, bar­ring the dis­cov­ery of any out­stand­ing war­rants.

Cap­tain Craig added the county pro­ba­tion and pa­role de­part­ment de­ter­mines the

ear­li­est pos­si­ble re­lease date for in­mates, and jail staff will check that Hickey has no other out­stand­ing war­rants or

charges be­fore po­ten­tially re­leas­ing him.

By KATE SNYDER
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Hickey
See HICKEY, Page B2
RECYCLING ELECTRONIC GOODS TO MARK EARTH DAY
THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGT
Trevor Herrera, right, with Recycle IT, USA Toledo LLC, helps Darrel Rubertiello of Toledo unload his electrical goods to be recycled at the shop Monday in conjunction with Earth Day. Earth Day — April 22 — was initiated in 1970 and marked the start of the modern environmental movement.
BORDERLAND
BLADE STAFF

Tole­doan to ap­pear on an­i­mal cru­elty charge

A Toledo woman ar­rested Mon­day on a nearly four-year-old war­rant for an­i­mal cru­elty is due in court Tues­day.

Sarah T. Car­rillo, 27, is ac­cused of aban­don­ing a dog that had been con­fined with­out sus­te­nance in the kitchen of a home in the 2000 block of Airline Avenue in May, 2015, ac­cord­ing to records in Toledo Munic­i­pal Court. She is fac­ing a mis­de­meanor charge of an­i­mal cru­elty and a sec­ond mis­de­meanor of an­i­mal aban­don­ment, both filed by the Toledo Area Hu­mane So­ci­ety.

She was ar­rested by Toledo po­lice on a bench war­rant af­ter a traf­fic stop for a seat belt vi­o­la­tion early Mon­day morn­ing, then booked at the Lu­cas County jail and re­leased on a per­sonal re­cog­ni­zance bond. She is to ap­pear in court for ar­raign­ment Tues­day morn­ing.

TFD will hold
awards cer­e­mony

The Toledo Fire & Res­cue Depart­ment will hold its an­nual awards cer­e­mony Tues­day rec­og­niz­ing the life­sav­ing and ex­em­plary ser­vice that sev­eral Toledo Fire­fight­ers and com­mu­nity mem­bers have per­formed in the past year.

The cer­e­mony will be at 7 p.m. Tues­day at St. Cle­ments Hall, 2990 Tre­mains­ville Rd. The awards will in­clude: Let­ter of Ap­pre­ci­a­tion, Ci­ta­tion of Spe­cial Rec­og­ni­tion, Dis­tin­guished Unit Ci­ta­tion, Rib­bon of Pro­fes­sional Com­men­da­tion, and Life Sav­ing Award.

Five mem­bers of the fire de­part­ment will re­ceive the Life Sav­ing Award and three will re­ceive the Rib­bon of Pro­fes­sional Com­men­da­tion. Three area res­i­dents will also re­ceive the Ci­ta­tion of Spe­cial Rec­og­ni­tion for their life­sav­ing.

Hu­mane Ohio to of­fer $20 dog, cat neu­ter­ing

Hu­mane Ohio is of­fer­ing a pro­mo­tion for neu­ter­ing male dogs and cats next month.

The “Avoid the May­hem” pro­mo­tion for Lu­cas County pet own­ers will pro­vide neu­ter­ing for 200 male dogs and 200 owned male cats for $20 each at 3131 Tre­mains­ville Rd. The spe­cial is funded with a $45,900 grant from PetSmart Char­i­ties.

Neu­ter­ing can be per­formed on an­i­mals that are at least 8 weeks old and at least two pounds. The pro­ce­dure not only pre­vents un­wanted lit­ters from be­ing born, it can re­duce an­i­mals’ ten­dency to roam and mark their ter­ri­to­ries. It can also help re­duce ag­gres­sion, and is known to im­prove the health of the pet, in­clud­ing a re­duced risk of cer­tain re­pro­duc­tive can­cers and in­fec­tions.

To sched­ule an ap­point­ment, call 419-266-5607 or go on­line to hu­ma­neo­hio.org.