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.” Fitzgerald, who is also the Curry County director of operations, reiterated a statement he gave to the Wild Rivers Outpost last year — that Ward’s complaint had no basis in fact. On Thursday, Fitzgerald said Ward filed his complaint with the State Bar Association to keep the Board of Commissioners from asking questions. “I’m going to continue to do my job, which is what I’ve been trying to do the entire time,” Fitzgerald said. “Obstruction doesn’t solve problems, it just delays the inevitable — the final arrival at the consequences that the county has ended up [incurring] by having the wrong people in elected office.” Ward could not be reached for comment. In the letter he sent to the Oregon State Bar Association on Sept. 4, 2024, Ward accused Fitzgerald of pursuing a “directed vendetta fueled by personal animosity.” The sheriff said Fitzgerald demanded he provide him with “numerous documents, data, video and so on” and that Fitzgerald had threatened him and his staff. The sheriff also accused county counsel of confronting him in a threatening manner, accusing him of wrongdoing without specifics and “conveyed contempt, animosity and disparagement” at Board of Commissioners meetings. In his complaint, Ward included emails between himself and Fitzgerald showing that the county counsel was asking for information concerning the sheriff’s K9 program, his staffing plan under the 2024-25 budget as well as a record of the responses and calls for law enforcement services in the county during the last two weeks of July 2024. In a letter to Ward on July 3, 2025, Alexis Preskar, attorney for the Oregon State Bar’s Client Assistance Office, told the sheriff that she lacked sufficient evidence to refer his complaint to the association’s disciplinary counsel. “There is no evidence that Mr. Fitzgerald represents you in an individual capacity; rather, he represents the county,” Preskar wrote. “It appears he has asked your office for certain information in his role as county counsel, but that does not create a conflict of interest. Further, I understand you take issue with how Mr. Fitzgerald speaks to you and how he phrases his requests for information. While we do not condone rude conduct or mannerisms, we have no rule to enforce against behavior that is merely discourteous.” Ward could have requested a review of Preskar’s decision by July 24, 2025, but had not done so, Preskar told David J. Elkanich, an attorney with Buchalter Law Firm, who represents Fitzgerald. For about nine months, the sheriff refused to attend Board of Commissioners meetings prompting the Board to petition the courts for a declaratory judgment in January. Though relations between the two parties have thawed enough for them to meet in late June to work on a staffing plan for the 2025-26 fiscal year, the sheriff is due to give a deposition in connection with the county’s petition for a declaratory judgment next week. According to the county’s petition, in addition to not attending meetings for nearly nine months, the sheriff has violated an order the Board issued in December to, among other things, communicate “the manner in which the parties will resolve outstanding surplus property.” In this case, the surplus property is a K9 that had been “transferred or otherwise disposed of in violation of county policy.” The county’s petition also states that the sheriff allowed or encouraged his employees not to sign the Curry County Technology Policy and had failed to provide personnel records to the Human Resources Department after commissioners asked him to. On Thursday, Fitzgerald said the county was awarded fees for the “cost of time wasted and obstruction caused by [Ward’s] failure to produce documents.” He also stated that in addition to his role as director of county operations, as county counsel he’s also the risk manager. “That compels me to ask questions,” he said. “And when complaints are given to me that are made against different departments and when I investigate those claims, I expect not to be hindered or obstructed and [have] my professional certifications threatened just to keep me from doing my job.” Curry County’s announcement of the outcome of the state bar complaint against Fitzgerald also comes as Lt. Jeremy Krohn, the sheriff’s office jail commander, and Brookings area resident Andre Bay filed petitions to recall Trost and his colleague Patrick Hollinger from the Board of Commissioners. In his petition to recall Hollinger, Bay writes that Hollinger “misrepresented evidence to discredit the county sheriff and continues to support the county director of operations who has interfered with the duties of independently elected officials like the county sheriff.”