By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
After Kingston Police Chief Joel Johnson backed his rival in the upcoming election for County Commissioner, Selectman Kevin St. James confronted the chief during a meeting that was supposed to be for Johnson’s annual performance review.
Now St. James, a former Republican state representative and former Rockingham County Commissioner, has been removed from his position as the board’s town department liaison. He does remain a member of the board.
Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.
St. James is no stranger to controversy. In 2020, he resigned his position as County Commission chair after he was accused of sending sexually explicit memes to a county employee. On Thursday, St. James told InDepthNH.org he was sorry for his conversation with Johnson.
“I am sorry for the words I used as they were inappropriate. I want to move forward and serve the people of Kingston,” St. James wrote in an email.
As the department liaison, St. James was responsible for meeting with and providing supervision for department heads like Chief Johnson and conducting the annual performance reviews.
According to a letter Johnson’s attorney, John Ventura, sent to the board this month, St. James used his April 4 performance review meeting to confront the chief over the upcoming election where St. James is trying to recapture the seat he was forced to resign.
“(F)or reasons unknown to Chief Johnson, St. James initiated a conversation regarding the upcoming election in which St. James is a candidate. St. James inquired of the Chief as to why he, Johnson, was ‘backing’ another candidate and how dare he do so,” Ventura wrote.
Johnson quickly became uncomfortable with the conversation as the selectman is his supervisor, according to Ventura’s letter, and St. James was questioning his loyalty.
Later on during the same conversation, Johnson questioned St. James about his availability to the Police Department. As liaison, St. James was not checking in with the department on a regular basis to keep abreast of the operation as prior selectmen had done, according to Ventura’s letter.
St. James responded that he was busy with a full-time job. St. James is a firefighter in Exeter. St. James then posed a seemingly sarcastic, sexually explicit question to Johnson, according to Ventura.
“St. James then made a reference to the Chief, essentially asking him if he ‘wanted him to perform oral sex upon the Chief,’” Ventura wrote.
Ventura noted that St. James used more colorful language to describe the sex act, and that this was not the first time St. James had used that phrase when Johnson questioned St. James’s availability.
“To say this is not only inappropriate language for a supervisor to use with a subordinate, but the very suggestion that he perform a sexual act upon an employee is absurd,” Ventura wrote.
Ventura’s April 10 letter to the Kingston Selectmen states Johnson would be willing to discuss the matter in a public session.
Acting Board Chair Christopher Bashaw told InDepthNH.org he could not comment on the matter under advice from the town’s attorney. According to an April 17 letter the board sent St. James, St. James acknowledged making inappropriate comments during the performance review meeting with Johnson.
“This behavior is unfitting for a member of the Kingston Select Board and shall not be tolerated,” the board letter states.
St. James was removed from his position as board liaison and ordered to have no discussion with town employees outside of board meetings.