Davis County Commissioner John Crofts drew a strong rebuke from colleagues Tuesday after interviews conducted in an investigation revealed accusations that he’d engaged in patterns of political favoritism, religious and LGBTQ+ discrimination, defamation and other actions contributing to a hostile work environment.

Along with facing a formal vote of censure, Crofts, a first-term Republican on the three-member commission, was also removed from his post as chair and from any supervisor duties over county employees.

The rare move reflected what fellow commissioner Lorene Miner Kamalu called “essentially uniform complaints of egregious and unacceptable workplace behavior.”

“Staff, former staff, public officials and the public deserve transparency,” Kamalu said Tuesday as she read from a formal censure letter, “and they deserve action to protect the county and the remaining staff.”

As part of the commission’s motion, Crofts will also be removed from all prior purview over county facilities, golf courses, public works, human resources and advising the county on senior services.

The censure and demotion flowed from the findings of a five-month independent investigation launched in November by the outside law firm Strong & Hanni. The probe involved interviews with two dozen people, including Crofts.

Kamalu and Commissioner Bob J. Stevenson, who will now serve as chair through the end of the year, voted to approve the censure and rotation of Crofts out from the role of chair, while Crofts abstained from voting.

Crofts later complained he had not seen the censure letter prior to Tuesday’s vote. He also largely sidestepped the investigation report’s specific and numerous claims, denouncing what he said were “many misstatements” and calling the probe “politically motivated.”

He specifically denied any accusations of LGBTQ+ discrimination.

Claims of yelling, threats, intimidation and retaliation

Findings of that investigation, pursued at the county’s behest after employee complaints, reached the commission in April and became public in May, partly through an open-records request and story by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Nearly all the witnesses interviewed, according to attorney and report author Kristin VanOrman, detailed what they considered hostile work conditions, including being yelled at, having their job threatened due to their political affiliations and being publicly accused of criminal and personal misconduct.

In one instance, VanOrman wrote, Crofts allegedly said he would oust one employee because the worker “flies a pride flag at the library and Republicans can’t use the library anymore because of the flag.”

Employees told VanOrman that when they met with Crofts, he would often ask about their voting choices or if they were party delegates. If an employee voted for his opponent during a primary in 2024, Crofts “sought retribution,” and many employees feared their jobs were based on their political affiliation, VanOrman wrote.

The report also said that Crofts has used his position to advance a “personal vendetta” against County Clerk Brian McKenzie. VanOrman found that Crofts had “used his political position inappropriately due to this personal animus” and said his conduct “is extremely troubling and is a blatant misuse of county time and resources.”

And in a series of bizarre accounts, Crofts is said to have claimed he could control the weather, read other people’s thoughts and that he worked with Mossad — Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.

Kamalu added Tuesday that a number of valued employees who’d worked alongside Crofts had subsequently left Davis County and formally raised “allegations involving a variety of unlawful conduct,” which she added had prompted the probe to assess the county’s liability.

Call for Crofts’ resignation

During public comments prior to Tuesday’s censure vote, a former Davis County housing specialist and jail administrator, Jenna Nelson, called for Crofts’ resignation.

Nelson said she’d “personally experienced conduct ... that caused me to question his judgment, integrity and ultimately his fitness to continue serving the people of Davis County.”

She alleged that in private conversations with Crofts, he proposed major personnel changes without consulting other commissioners and voiced dislike for an elected official “because he was gay and open about it.”

“A county cannot effectively serve its residents,” Nelson said, “if the people serving those residents do not feel respected or safe in their workplace.”

The outside investigation had also raised troubling accounts of retaliation against county workers who raised concerns.

A county attorney told Crofts at one point that such actions could create “serious legal consequences,” and that the county “strongly prohibits” confronting people who participated in the investigation process.

Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings at another point told Crofts that the county’s Human Resources Department had received “multiple reports” of potentially retaliatory conduct, according to an email with the subject line “FINAL REMINDER.”

Kamalu said Tuesday that Crofts, though given an opportunity to provide written and verbal responses to the investigation, had “failed to produce any evidence rebutting the claims of egregious behavior or to otherwise defend himself.”

‘A toxic culture of gossip’

Crofts did not address the alleged patterns of behavior and instead sought to deflect the allegations and minimize the report’s findings. He complained that interviewees had been granted anonymity and said the report was “supposed to be internal” but had instead been “leaked to the press.”

“Extensive time and significant taxpayer dollars were spent to create a false narrative against me,” Crofts said. “That effort concluded exactly as it should have, with absolutely no findings of wrongdoing. It was a political hatchet job, plain and simple.”

He said the county’s review had stemmed from “a toxic culture of gossip that has plagued this body for too long.”

Like others on the commission, Crofts, a longtime Davis County resident elected in 2024 for a four-year term, serves the entire county, not a specific district. The business administrator with a background in emergency management also alleged Tuesday the censure was driven by his role as a fiscal hawk on the commission.

Crofts said he’d unfairly fallen under a critical eye by county workers and elected officials for advocating on behalf of Davis County taxpayers and for disagreeing with fellow commissioners on key budget decisions, including a recent property tax increase.

“I was the commissioner that people liked,” Crofts said. “And then I became the commissioner that everybody disliked fairly quickly” after a series of public open houses on the county’s budget.

“I voted against the taxes,” he said, “and I think that magically turned a lot of people among the county employees very unfavorably towards me.”

Though voted out as chair early in Tuesday’s meeting, Crofts was allowed to continue in that role for what remained of an hour-long agenda of county business. He later snapped several times at Stevenson and Kamalu for what he perceived as interruptions to his comments, saying at one point they needed to show him respect.

Crofts then used his closing remarks at Tuesday’s meeting to deny allegations in the report of discriminatory behavior toward LGBTQ+ employees.

“I take great offense to that,” he said. “... I do not have a problem with LGBTQ.”

Correction • July 8, 11 a.m.: This story was updated to correct the context of Jenna Nelson’s comments.