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Previously:

• Proposed K9 Vehicle Sale to Josephine County Puts Curry County Sheriff At Odds With Commissioners

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Curry County’s director of operations accused the sheriff of circumventing procurement rules again this time by retiring a K9 dog to one of his deputies.

Ted Fitzgerald, who is also county counsel, said Thursday he was made aware of an email Sheriff John Ward sent to the finance department that K9 Hulk would be retired and would live out his days as a member of his handler’s family.

According to Fitzgerald, Ward had asked payroll to have that change reflected in the salary of Hulk’s handler, Sgt. Zane Van Zelf.

This revelation and an email thread between the sheriff and county counsel over whether the dogs involved in the K9 program are properly trained and certified prompted the Curry County Board of Commissioners to call for a meeting with the sheriff.

This meeting is scheduled to take place at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in closed session and may include potential contracts to transfer liability for the dog from the county to Van Zelf. Commissioners also raised concerns about policies at the sheriff’s office related to personnel training and certifications and county counsel’s ability to access those records.

“You’re defending the sheriff’s office,” Commissioner Brad Alcorn told Fitzgerald, after describing how the public safety policy management platform Lexipol works. “You should have access to those policies and procedures.”

According to Ward, the decision to retire K9 Hulk came at Van Zelf’s request. Van Zelf had brought the K9 with him from the Brookings Police Department when he was hired in 2022, Ward told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Tuesday. At 10-years-old, Hulk is at the end of his working life, the sheriff said.

Ward said he doesn’t plan on attending the Board of Commissioners meeting Wednesday.

“Every time I go there, they ambush me,” he said. “I’m talking to an attorney right now — a personal attorney. In my opinion, they’re not able to professionally provide legal services for me because the attorney is conflicted.”

On July 29, Ward told commissioners that he had asked the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office to foster and retrain another K9 dog, Darvit. Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniels had responded to a request Ward had posted on a listserv. Ward said while the dog was loving with people, it was aggressive toward other dogs and had almost killed his cat.

At that meeting, the Curry County Board of Commissioners rejected a proposal from the sheriff to sell a K9 vehicle to Josephine County. They said they'd rather see the Brookings, Gold Beach or Port Orford police departments get first pick of the vehicle so it would continue to serve local taxpayers.

They also argued that Darvit the dog should stay in Curry County, saying even if it belongs to another agency it could still be used to save a deputy's life.

On Thursday, Fitzgerald said he had asked the sheriff for documentation relating to the transfer of the dog to Josephine County — which, the director of operations said, was done “in contravention of county procurement rules.” Fitzgerald said there was no paperwork regarding the transfer, which created a liability risk for Curry County since the sheriff described the dog as not properly trained.

Fitzgerald said he has worked with Daniels to draft a liability agreement between Curry County and Josephine County.

“We made that dog available to every agency in Curry County,” he said. “Neither Port Orford, Brookings nor Gold Beach is currently in a position to take a dog that needs the kind of work that it does and the type of handler that it needs.”

Fitzgerald said he’d like to formalize that agreement between Curry County and Josephine County at the Board of Commissioners meeting Wednesday.

Fitzgerald also made commissioners aware of an email thread between him and the sheriff over his request for records pertaining to the training, certification and deployment of dogs that are active in the county’s K9 program.

Fitzgerald said he asked for those records on July 30 and made a third request on Aug. 2. Finally, on Aug. 3, Fitzgerald sent Ward an email immediately suspending the remaining K9 dog from service and demanding those records and the K9 policy.

At that point, Fitzgerald told commissioners, the sheriff responded, saying he had sent him information about the K9 policy — though Fitzgerald said that’s not what he received — and that the training records for each K9 is the handler’s responsibility.

According to Fitzgerald, Ward said Van Zelf was the only K9 handler on duty in August and “he has all of his training records and the dog is certified.”

Fitzgerald said the sheriff didn’t provide him with a copy of those records.

“I wrote a subsequent email, I clarified that we need [those records] so we can verify that we are protecting ourselves from liability in the event that one of these dogs is out and in service and bites somebody or something happens,” Fitzgerald told the Board of Commissioners. “[If] the dog is not properly certified and trained, it exposes the county to extreme liability.”

Fitzgerald said he asked for those records again on Aug. 19 and on Aug. 20 received an allegation from a former sheriff’s office employee that Hulk was not currently certified for service and “has not been for some time.”


“I reiterated my request for those records, my need to see those so I can deal with these allegations,” Fitzgerald said. “Either to verify them or put them to bed.”

Fitzgerald said he accessed PackTrack, an online record-keeping system for K9 units that the county has paid to use, and found that it wasn’t up to date. After this revelation, Fitzgerald said, he sent an Aug. 22 email to the sheriff saying that he was submitting a public information request for the K9 program’s training records — something he said he found repugnant to have to do.

“I am the person that is in charge of reviewing and assessing liability and coordinating with our insurance company regarding these liabilities,” Fitzgerald told commissioners. “That’s why I’m asking for this information. It’s important and I’m being ignored. And when I’m being ignored, the taxpayers are being ignored.”

Fitzgerald told commissioners that he notified the county’s insurer, Citycounty Insurance Services, and sent a copy of the email thread between him and the sheriff to a pre-loss attorney.

“This is a very serious issue, and it’s going to get a lot more serious,” he said.

Ward, who has been the sheriff for 10 years and worked in the sheriff’s office for 33 years, said retiring a K9 dog and having him be with his handler’s family as a pet is common practice for law enforcement agencies around the state.

Ward mentioned Fitzgerald’s reference to county procurement rules, but said he has never seen any such policy. He also said Fitzgerald is now the county road master and has control over its Road Department reserves.

After being forced to cut 15 patrol deputies, Ward told commissioners that if they had dipped further into the county’s Road Department reserves it could have some jobs. It’s a position he reiterated on Wednesday, telling the Outpost that Fitzgerald has been appointed Curry County Road Master and has control over those Road Department reserve dollars.

“He’s totally against us using any of the Road Fund reserves and there’s $17-plus million that could be used to strengthen patrol services,” Ward said.

Ward said he hired Van Zelf as a patrol deputy in September 2022 and promoted him to sergeant in June 2023. Hulk has been with Van Zelf for about seven or eight years, Ward said.

“When we retired him, I told him he could keep his dog,” Ward told the Outpost.

After having to cut most of his patrol staff, Ward said there is no one currently qualified to continue the K9 program.

Alcorn, who volunteered to help set up the K9 program, which included establishing its policies and procedures and helping with training, said he stepped away from the program when Van Zelf was hired by the county. Alcorn said he had looked at PackTrack, but didn’t find any training entries after he left the program.

“It’s a program that collects certifications, daily training logs, weekly training logs and I would sign them off, I would approve them,” he said, adding that it cost the county a few hundred dollars a year to use. “I looked at PackTrack recently and it appears that when I walked away, they stopped using it.”

Despite his concerns about the program, Alcorn argued that Hulk needs to stay with Van Zelf. He said he didn’t understand why the Curry County Sheriff’s Office was giving a dog to Josephine County to foster while retiring another dog.

“None of it makes sense,” he said. “Maybe the sheriff can come and answer those questions.”

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