Thumbnail photo by Ken Lund via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons License
Two days after Curry County voters rejected a property tax levy to fund patrol deputies and dispatchers, the sheriff took solace from the narrower margin of failure compared to the effort the Board of Commissioners spearheaded in 2024.
“It was 70-30 [last year],” Sheriff John Ward told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. “And this year, the breakdown was somewhere around 60 percent-to-40 percent.”
According to the results from Tuesday’s election posted on the Oregon Secretary of State’s website, 60.20 percent of the Curry County voters who cast a ballot rejected the proposed “five-year option tax for Curry County law enforcement. According to the results, 39.8 percent approved it.
Led by a group of Curry County citizens, the levy had asked voters if they would be willing to be taxed at $1.12 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The goal was to raise about $4.28 million annually, which would have paid for five more patrol deputies, one sergeant and two dispatchers and would allocate $122,605 toward the sheriff’s marine patrol and Search & Rescue divisions.
With the May 20 election behind him, Ward said he’s focusing on the 2025-26 budget, which he expects to be status quo from the previous year. He said he’s currently operating on three paid deputy positions, which he said he had to move to the jail to address vacancies there.
Ward said three of his senior staff often respond to calls “because we have no deputies available.”
“I have my lieutenant,” the sheriff said. “He got called out at 1 o’clock this morning for two fires that look like they’re arson up in the Langlois area and he just now walked back in after working all day yesterday and working today.”
The tax levy’s defeat comes about eight months into a dispute between Ward and the Board of Commissioners. The May 2024 levy’s defeat had forced the county to make several cuts to alleviate a $3.8 million general fund deficit, which included laying off deputies.
After the sheriff and commissioners differed over the county’s K9 program, including whether Ward was able to enter into an agreement with Josephine County to foster one of the dogs, the sheriff stopped attending meetings.
In September, Ward filed a state bar complaint against Curry County Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald, who also acts as county counsel. In January, the Board of Commissioners filed a declaratory judgment suit against Ward in Curry County Circuit Court, stating they hoped to “resolve long-standing disagreements” over roles and responsibilities.
On Tuesday at the Board’s regular meeting, Commissioner Patrick Hollinger added an item to the agenda — his recitation of a question-and-answer session between him and other county commissioners and Tim Svenson, the Oregon State Sheriff’s Association’s executive director.
Svenson had given a presentation about the history of the sheriff’s office in Oregon at a training for county elected officials hosted by the Association for Oregon Counties, Hollinger said.
The Curry County commissioner said he recorded Svenson’s presentation and received permission to share the question-and-answer part with the public. But instead of playing the recording for his fellow commissioners, Hollinger read from a typed transcript. The county commissioner followed his recitation by issuing a press release posted on Curry County’s Facebook page on Wednesday that included the written transcript of Svenson’s presentation.
As of Friday, Redwood Voice could not reach Svenson for comment on the presentation he gave at the Association for Oregon Counties event Hollinger attended.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Hollinger said he and other commissioners asked Svenson to weigh in on the role of the Board of Commissioners versus the sheriff’s office, especially concerning the authority to enter into contracts. Hollinger said he also asked Svenson how the association would handle a situation where the “sheriff didn’t show up for eight months under the direction of the county court” if he was in the Board’s position.
After reading the transcript aloud, Hollinger used what he said were Svenson’s responses to bolster the Board of Commissioners’ stance against the sheriff. This included Svenson’s supposed statement that contracts should be reviewed by county counsel and county commissioners “in partnership with the sheriff’s office and as a mutual signature thing.”
According to Hollinger, Svenson said that while some sheriffs feel they can sign contracts on their own, it isn’t good practice because the Board of Commissioners will be liable for the contract, not the sheriff.
“I find it interesting and refreshing at the same time — that the sheriff’s association aligns with our stance,” Hollinger told his colleagues on Tuesday, adding that Svenson’s supposed statement was supported by Oregon statute.
According to Hollinger, who said he asked this question, Svenson also weighed in on Ward’s continual absence from Board of Commissioners meetings.
“The answer from Director Svenson, ‘… it’s important for each elected official to have that engagement and that conversation and it’s unfortunate where you get to a position where they just butt heads to a point where they’re not going to report,’” Hollinger said, reading from his transcript. “‘If the Board of Commissioners say, hey, we would like you to come talk to us about x, y, z, and it has to do with something you guys are funding, you guys are well within your means to ask for him, the sheriff, to come and report on it.’”
Though he thanked Svenson for his presentation, Hollinger told the Board on Tuesday that he wondered where the Oregon State Sheriff’s Association stood on the dispute between him and his colleagues and the Curry County sheriff.
“They have known this dispute in our county has been going on for the better part of a year,” Hollinger said. “Where has the Sheriff’s Association been in providing their duty to our sheriff’s office? In providing that counsel and instructing and educating on the training of policy and the training of [Oregon statute]? Why does he now want to answer the questions that obviously favor [Oregon statute]? It’s very black and white, but I would want them to answer that question.”
Hollinger’s newest colleague, Lynn Coker, who was appointed to the Board of Commissioners last month to replace Brad Alcorn, said the transcript Hollinger read was a “terrific bridge” between the Board and the county’s senior law enforcement officers.
Coker also suggested that he and his colleagues, sheriff’s association representatives and the local sheriff should meet and “trade some notes” on how the dispute between the two parties began.
“It sounds like it was completely unnecessary and based on improper information,” Coker said.
On Thursday, Ward said he had sent the YouTube video of Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners meeting to Svenson, adding that the OSSA executive director had been bombarded with questions when he was there to talk about the history of the sheriff’s office.
According to Ward, Svenson was upset because he wasn’t aware that Hollinger was recording him and said that Hollinger had taken the information he provided out of context.
“I sent that link to Tim Svenson and he called me back last night and said he had spoken with the [Association of Oregon Counties] director and both are very upset with Hollinger and how he went about what he did,” Ward told Redwood Voice.
Following Hollinger’s presentation on Tuesday, Board Chair Jay Trost said he received the number of cases that were referred to the Curry County District Attorney’s Office from the sheriff’s office. Trost said the numbers came from DA Joshua Spansail.
Between February and May, the Curry County Sheriff’s Office has submitted 48 case reports to the DA’s office, Trost said. Twelve were for unattended deaths, 10 are “not current cases” and 26 are newer cases, Trost said. He said the number of new cases the sheriff’s office sent to the DA equates to about six per month or 1.25 per week.
