_{Thumbnail photo: Citing previous grievances with the sheriff the Curry County Board of Commissioners called for a workshop rather than granting him signature authority over a state grant for opioid use disorder treatment at the jail. | Ken Lund via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons License}

Curry County commissioners expressed doubts over whether the sheriff would be forthcoming enough to comply with reporting requirements tied to a $331,214 grant for opioid use disorder treatment at the jail.

In the middle of a seven-month long dispute with Sheriff John Ward, commissioners didn’t turn the money down. But, citing their past grievances with the sheriff on Tuesday, commissioners called for a workshop rather than grant him signature authority over the Jail-based Medications for Opioid Use award.

In a conversation with Redwood Voice Community News on Wednesday, Ward said the Board had called for workshops to discuss the JMOUD grant three or four times before, and wound up canceling one of the meetings when the finance director couldn’t make it.

Ward said he signed off on the grant when it became apparent that no one else was going to, only to have County Counsel and Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald tell him he wasn’t able to do that. So, Ward said, he added the grant to the Board of Commissioners’ consent agenda. 

“We got to the point that we’re tired of it, so we put it on the consent agenda for this last meeting yesterday and they decided to pull it again,” he said. “We’re not going to do [the workshop].”

On Tuesday, during his final meeting as a Curry County commissioner, Brad Alcorn told his colleagues that he brought his concerns regarding a potential lack of oversight for the K9 program to the attention of the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training.

Alcorn also mentioned yet another concern his colleague, Commissioner Patrick Hollinger outlined on Tuesday over the integrity of data the sheriff’s marine patrol division provided to the Oregon State Marine Board Boating Safety Program director last summer.

“When we became aware of the information Patrick discovered, we collected the supporting emails and documents and forwarded that onto the [Department of Justice],” Alcorn said. “They have that now and hopefully they will take the appropriate action.”

The commissioners’ doubts come about a month before Curry County voters weigh in on a property tax levy proponents say will allow the sheriff’s office to be financially independent from the county.

And, though Georgia Cockerham, a representative of the citizens group spearheading the effort, gave a presentation before the Board on Tuesday, the sheriff was, once again, a no-show at the meeting.

According to Cockerham, the five-year levy would result in a tax of $1.12 per $1,000 of assessed property value annually, or about 60 cents per day for the average resident. It would pay for five additional patrol deputies, a sergeant and two dispatchers, she said, with the five-year proposed lifespan providing job security for potential new hires.

The $1.12 tax could also be calculated down if it’s found that the sheriff’s office could function at a lower valuation, Cockerham said. A citizens oversight committee would monitor how the tax dollars are spent and they would be held in a restricted account overseen by the county treasurer, she said.

“The levy funding would cover costs for the sheriff’s office currently funded by the county general fund and road funds. The county would retain a little more than $2 million that was previously used to fund the sheriff’s office,” Cockerham said. “Why do we want to make the sheriff’s office financially independent of the county? For the same reason that we made this a five-year levy rather than a three: Security for the sheriff in the knowledge of how much money he will receive each year to operate as efficiently as possible for all divisions of his office.”

Cockerham added that there has been no viable solution for funding the sheriff’s office put forward since Curry County’s levy to fund 24/7 law enforcement failed in May 2024.

Commissioners unleashed their doubts following Cockerham’s presentation, challenging a statement she made about three deputies being on patrol currently and how the ability to hire five deputies would change things

Alcorn asked Cockerham repeatedly if she and other citizens spearheading the levy “knew what the sheriff’s office is doing,” pointing out the sheriff’s absence.

“Shouldn’t he be here to discuss this?” Alcorn asked.

Alcorn’s colleague, Commissioner Jay Trost said that in addition to the three deputies on patrol there are three supervisors, including the sheriff who are paid out of the office’s patrol fund.

“To say there’s only three deputies patrolling the entire county, that discounts the fact that we have a sergeant, a lieutenant and a sheriff who’s also being paid out of those funds as well,” he said.

Cockerham conceded that there are six people who can handle calls for service in the sheriff’s office, but they’re not all out patrolling.

“This group of people came up with this opportunity not only to help the sheriff’s office, but ultimately benefit the county as well with over $2 million and you attack the person who’s up here talking,” she said.

After the May 2024 tax levy failed, the Board of Commissioners faced a $3.8 million budget deficit. Departments countywide were forced to cut about 31 percent from their budgets, according to Trost. Though the Board of Commissioners allocated $1.18 million in Road Department Reserve interest to the sheriff’s office, 10 road deputy positions, a captain, two detectives and a sergeant/K9 unit were eliminated. 

On Wednesday, Ward said the three deputies currently working for the sheriff’s office are filling vacancies at the jail, which is a mandated service. The department’s three supervisors — a lieutenant, a sergeant and the sheriff himself — are on patrol. 

As a result, Ward said, instead of being able to provide service 18 hours a day, seven days a week, his deputies respond from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday. He said he refuses to send a deputy on a call in the middle of the night by themselves.

“We don’t have the resources to handle all the calls and we’re not unique to that,” Ward said. “There are a lot of agencies that do that. They have people filling out self-report forms for insurance purposes and things like that. But we will respond to all priority calls that are person-to-person, in-progress or unattended deaths or vehicle accidents or whatever you name.”

If the current levy succeeds, Ward said he’ll be able to start hiring deputies again.

“This is a citizen-driven initiative,” he said. “They asked me what I needed and they came up with the wording and [are doing] their own thing. I’ve been to several of their meetings just in case they have any questions, but mostly all the advertisements are going out via the committee itself.”

In response to Cockerham’s presentation on Tuesday, Hollinger said that while a successful levy might free up $2 million for the county, it’s more important than ever that he and his colleagues continue to have oversight over the sheriff’s budget. As an example of this importance, the Board’s newest commissioner brought up a conversation he had with Brian Paulsen, the Oregon State Marine Board boating safety manager, while attending its quarterly meeting in October, before Hollinger took the oath of office.

On Tuesday, Hollinger read out the copy of an email Paulsen sent to Ward in August outlining his concerns about the lack of hours the Curry County Marine Patrol division spent patrolling the Rogue River and Gold Beach areas during the month of August. Paulsen also questioned the validity of the data Ward’s office forwarded to the Marine Safety Board from boat examination reports his marine patrol deputies conducted in Gold Beach.

In his Aug. 12 email to the sheriff, Paulsen said Curry County deputies had contacted 142 boaters during the month of August and that all of them were 100 percent in compliance with the state’s requirements governing safety carriage, or equipment requirements. Paulsen pointed out that the statewide average of boaters not complying with those requirements was 30 percent and, in some areas, that 50 percent were not compliant with safety carriage requirements.

“The fact that the data conveys that Curry County CSO inspected 142 boaters and that ALL had safety carriage requirements [leads] me to believe that there is a data error or the inspections may not be completed directly,” Paulsen wrote in his email to the sheriff. 

In a reply, Ward told Paulsen he had sent his query to Sgt. Jared Gray for further investigation.

On Wednesday, Hollinger said he had reached out to several people on the list of boats the sheriff’s office had provided to the Marine Safety Board. The owner of Eagle Bay Lodging & Fishing, Hollinger said he knew some of the sportfishing guides whose boats were on that list.

“About half of those sportfishing guides said they had never been checked at all, but yet their registration numbers were on [those] reports as having been checked and sent to the Marine Board,” Hollinger told Redwood Voice.

When asked to respond to Hollinger, Ward told Redwood Voice that the commissioner’s report was taken out of context and that he had followed up with the Marine Board about two months later.

“We provided them with a work plan for the year and they were happy with that,” he said. “They even called and sent my marine deputy an attaboy for getting things done.”

On Tuesday, Alcorn said it was because of the discrepancy in the data Hollinger said the sheriff’s office provided to the Marine Safety Board that he wanted to discuss the $331,214 JMOUD grant further instead of approving it as part of the consent agenda.

Participating in the meeting via phone, Curry County Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald said the JMOUD grant is part of a state mandate to provide medicated opioid abuse disorder treatment to jail inmates. Those dollars pay for equipment and care providers, who the Board of Commissioners had wanted to interview, he said. Some of that treatment had been provided to jail inmates by deputies, Fitzgerald said.

“When we asked for that information so we could schedule a meeting, that was not forthcoming from the sheriff’s office and, apparently, no one at the sheriff’s office wanted to move forward with this,” Fitzgerald told commissioners.

Fitzgerald said he had toured the jail with representatives from Oregon’s U.S. senators offices and spoke with jail commander, Lt. Jeremy Krohn. Fitzgerald said he agreed to place the JMOUD grant on the agenda after speaking with Krohn.

The three commissioners called for another workshop to meet with the care providers who would be paid for through the JMOUD grant and would offer that treatment to inmates. They said they wanted a better understanding of how the program would work.

During the meeting’s public comment period, Ree Klein urged voters to evaluate their own personal situation and do the math before weighing in on the proposed levy. One question she asked voters to consider was whether marketing material for the levy makes them feel like they’re being threatened with no service should the proposed tax fail.

Klein also asked them to consider whether the levy is seeking more funding than is needed so the “sheriff can shut out the BOC oversight.”

“In other words, am I paying to settle a grudge match between the sheriff and the BOC,” Klein summed up.