Curry County commissioners on Tuesday green lit a proposal to transfer four vehicles to the Brookings Police Department for use in its K9 program.
They reached this decision after learning that BPD would make its dogs available to other agencies in the county. But it prompted Sheriff John Ward to rehash a long-standing grievance via Facebook on Wednesday.
“This was all done without a conversation with me or even one word, no communication,” he posted on the Curry County Justice Facebook page. “They even demanded that I turn over all duplicate keys to all our vehicles. It sounds insane, but that is what is going on.”
The Board of Commissioners on Tuesday voted unanimously to loan a 2017 and a 2019 Ford Explorer to the Brookings Police Department. They have about 150,000 to 160,000 miles on them, according to Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald.
Commissioners also agreed to sell two 2020 Dodge Durangos to BPD at Kelly Blue Book value. Those vehicles have about 74,000 and 76,000 miles on them, Fitzgerald said.
The Curry County Sheriff’s Office had used the two Explorers in its K9 program, which the sheriff stated in August was being dissolved.
The Dodge Durangos still need to be outfitted for BPD’s two K9 teams. According to Fitzgerald, the plan is to loan BPD the two Explorers short-term until the agency could put the Durangos to use.
Fitzgerald said he’s also discussed the possibility of BPD retaining one of the Explorers as an administrative vehicle with Police Chief Kelby McCrae as well.
“If we work with them, they will make those dogs available to every law enforcement agency within the county as needed,” Fitzgerald said. “I think that’s a really integral part of law enforcement, especially now that we’re able to go after drugs in a more effective way.”
This decision comes about seven months after commissioners rejected a proposal from Ward to sell one of the Explorers to the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office, saying they’d like it to benefit local taxpayers instead.
At a meeting on July 30, the Board of Commissioners also admonished Ward after they learned that he had promised the vehicle to the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office and had placed one of the county’s K9 officers in their care for fostering.
Commissioners told Ward that both the vehicle and the dog were county assets and said he couldn’t promise assets that didn’t belong to him. The Board ultimately decided to retire the dog after Josephine County decided it could no longer foster him.
On Thursday, Fitzgerald told Redwood Voice Community News that while there are some vehicles that the sheriff only has keys to, they are county property, not the sheriff’s personal vehicles. He also reiterated the Board of Commissioners’ wish to keep assets within the county and not transfer them to outside communities such as Josephine County.
“It made sense to repurpose those K9 resources within the county, especially when the Brookings Police Department, with our cooperation, will pledge to provide those assets to any law enforcement agency within the county,” he said.
When asked about Ward’s statement on Facebook that the decision to transfer the two Ford Explorers and Dodge Durangos to BPD was made without communication with him, Fitzgerald said that commissioners have asked the sheriff to attend all Board meetings “unless otherwise directed.”
Ward has not attended Board of Commissioners meetings since December 2024, Fitzgerald said.
“However, the agendas are supplied to every department,” he said. “The agendas for meetings are a public document and if the sheriff chose to be involved in county government, then the sheriff could attend those meetings and discuss the issue.”
BPD has operated a K9 program since about 1990, McCrae told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. It currently has two dogs, Duke, who joined the force in 2022 and works with his partner Officer Patrick Smith, and newcomer Betts. Both are Belgian Malinois-Dutch shepherd mixes.
Betts came to BPD in February and he and his handler are set to graduate from a six-week training course next week, McCrae said.
A third K9, a yellow Lab named Nova, retired. She died in January, McCrae said.
The police chief also said that his department has always loaned its K9 teams to other agencies within Curry County.
“Whether it’s for tracking, whether it’s for drug detection, we made our K9s available to other agencies within the county, either because there weren’t dogs in the county or those dogs weren’t available,” McCrae said.
On his Facebook post, Ward said that as a result of budget cuts following a tax levy that failed in May 2024, his patrol division was “defunded down to three positions.” He urged residents to support another tax levy that will appear on the ballot this May, saying that it would fund patrol and dispatch as well as the marine and search and rescue divisions.
If the levy is approved, property owners would be taxed $1.12 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The levy is estimated to raise about $4.28 million annually and would pay for five more patrol deputies, one sergeant, two dispatchers and would allocate $122,605 to the marine division and search & rescue.
The levy would also establish a five-member citizens oversight committee that will monitor how those tax dollars are being spent.
Ward promised that a Curry County Citizens for Law Enforcement Group would make more information available soon.
“If we can pass the levy for public safety, we are going to need our patrol cars for the deputies we will hire,” he said. “The county cannot afford to buy more cars and have them outfitted. The cars we have were all paid [from our] past approved budgets and they are under our control. This is just one of many things we have had to deal with, and there is no excuse.”
