From left to right: Former Curry County Commissioner Brad Alcorn, Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald and current Board Chairman Jay Trost. | Courtesy Curry County
The Oregon State Bar Association has cleared Curry County Counsel Ted Fitzgerald of professional misconduct and told Sheriff John Ward it would take no further action related to the complaint he submitted nearly a year ago.
Curry County Board Chairman Jay Trost announced the outcome of the State Bar Association’s investigation into Ward’s allegations in a press release Wednesday. According to the release, the State Bar informed Ward of its decision in a letter on July 3. Trost said he and his colleagues on the Board of Commissioners wanted to wait until an appeals window had passed before making the outcome public.
Sheriff John Ward
“We’re happy to find a resolution,” Trost told Redwood Voice Community News. “This has been going on since September.”
Friday’s special Curry County Board of Commissioners meeting
Jay Trost and Patrick Hollinger went on the offensive against the chief petitioners seeking to oust them from the Curry County Board of Commissioners.
After spending about 45 minutes of a special meeting Friday touting their accomplishments, Trost and Hollinger went through each petition, taking issue with both the grievances they raise and the individuals raising them.
Trost said he viewed the petition against him, filed by Curry County jail commander Lt. Jeremy Krohn, as opposition to the Board’s “not adhering to a mentality of status quo.”
Thumbnail image courtesy of the Gold Beach Police Department
A Curry County woman is suing the City of Gold Beach and one of its police officers, alleging that the officer, Kenneth Moore, exercised excessive force when he shot her twice during a traffic stop on Jan. 23, 2024.
Sharon Johnston-Corson sustained two bullet wounds in her shoulder, according to the complaint filed on her behalf in the United States District Court in Medford on Wednesday. One of those shots caused a pulmonary contusion and resulted in bullet fragments being lodged inside her left lung.
The complaint also states that after shooting her, Moore pulled Johnston-Corson out of her Subaru and forced her face-down on the ground to handcuff her in violation of Gold Beach Police Department policy stating that “individuals subject to force ‘should not be placed on their stomachs for an extended period of time as this could impair their ability to breathe.’”
Curry County commissioners took the advice of their director of operations Wednesday and finalized an agreement with the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, which will provide third-party oversight to their finances.
Ted Fitzgerald compared the services RVCOG can offer Curry County to the services it received when it worked with the Lane Council of Governments following a ransomware attack in 2023. The county did just hire a new employee in its finance department and the department is getting stronger, Fitzgerald said, but he still wanted professional oversight “to make sure we’re doing things right.”
“The different specialties that exist within the Rogue Valley Council of Governments will be able to help us on a variety of levels,” he told commissioners. “I think it’s going to be a thing [where] we learn how much we need them as we go along, but I want to be sure that we really give it a good chance because every time we have reached out for help from outside entities we’ve gotten it.”
Two days after they adopted the county’s 2025-26 budget, Curry County commissioners wanted to get started on finalizing job descriptions and finding people to fill those positions.
New positions include a public works director, an investigator in the District Attorney’s Office, a community resource officer in the Sheriff’s Office and a part-time civil processor and animal control officer, according to Board Chairman Jay Trost.
Added on as a last-minute agenda item on Wednesday, Trost said he wanted to get a consensus from his colleagues to allow human resources to create those job descriptions and bring them back to the Board by its next meeting in July for approval.
Though tensions continued on Tuesday with Curry County’s newest commissioner telling John Ward that his constituents have been fearful for the past year, both sides were able to compromise on staffing for the sheriff’s office.
Both sides agreed to staff a lieutenant in the patrol division who would oversee four deputies, a forest deputy, a marine deputy and a community resource officer. There would also be a part-time civil service deputy working for the sheriff’s office as well as two sergeants working under jail commander Lt. Jeremy Krohn.
The part-time civil service deputy would also handle animal control cases for the Board of Commissioners, according to Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald.
Among the items discussed at Monday’s Crescent City Council meeting:
Reserve Officer Program:
Councilors gave their blessing to a program that will rely on volunteers to boost the Crescent City Police Department’s roster.
Police Chief Richard Griffin said two candidates have expressed interest in the program. One is a former CCPD officer who’s looking to maintain her police academy training and police officer status. The other candidate is a former corrections officer who wants to help out with the police department’s negotiations team, Griffin said.
The Council’s unanimous approval of an ordinance creating the reserve officer program will allow volunteers to be 24-hour peace officers depending on their level of expertise, the police chief said. They would be available to cover a shift when a career officer calls out sick and could fill in during an emergency. Their primary duties could also include helping out with traffic enforcement during major events like the Fourth of July celebration, acting as a public information officer, Griffin said.
A defiant Patrick Hollinger accused the Oregon State Sheriff’s Association (OSSA) and Curry County Sheriff John Ward of trying to intimidate and silence him “through the deliberate twisting of state law.”
The Curry County commissioner’s statement Wednesday comes after the sheriff’s association issued a letter stating that a presentation Hollinger gave at a May 20 Board of Commissioners meeting incorrectly implied that OSSA supported the commissioners in their ongoing conflict with Ward.
“This is an attempt to discredit an elected official advocating for accountability and transparency, which is all I have ever done,” Hollinger said. “Oregon law is intended to ensure justice and fairness. What we are witnessing is a deliberate distortion of the law intended to discredit an elected official and erode the public trust in those who are sworn to uphold it.”
A bright orange notice posted on the front door of the Brookings-Harbor Farmers Market last week turned a normal preparation day into a cacophony of questions as vendors tried to determine how to respond.
The notice, posted on May 22, informed them that it would be a misdemeanor to occupy the building 48 hours after its posting. Vendors thought this meant at close of business Saturday.
May 22nd, 2025- For Redwood Voice Community News, a production of Redwood Voice Youth Media, today’s news: Roadwork Updates from Caltrans District 1; Del Norte’s illegal fireworks committee announces their “No Tolerance” Campaign; Items discussed at Monday’s Del Norte Library District Board Meeting; Local transportation officials will hold a meeting Thursday to unveil The South Beach Climate Resilience Plan; The Del Norte Sheriff’s Office warns of scammers calling about unpaid jury duty fines; An update from DNUSD superintendent Jeff Harris; Topics discussed by the Tolowa Dee-’ni Nation during the 2025 Economic Summit; The California Fish & Game Commission adopts the sports fishing regulations for the 2025 season; The Save the Redwoods League recently planted several Sequoia tree seedlings that had orbited the moon; A proposed funding bill will result in cuts to Medicaid, affecting rural hospitals; Governor Gavin Newsom proposes freezing Medi-Cal Enrollment, among other changes; Jackson County Fire District 4 seeks to increase it’s levy by eleven cents; The possibility of a nuclear reactor being constructed in Umatilla County sparks controversy; California State Parks is offering free admission in participating park units this Memorial Day; and Humboldt County Supervisors will appoint a new Director Of Aviation at their next meeting. All this and our regular segments from the Pacifica Radio Network and National Native News.
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Today’s news card image is courtesy of Bjorn Bakstad via Getty Images, which has been edited.
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