Northfield Mayor Chau faces demands he resign from head of his own party

Chau was charged last week with allegedly threatening a woman with a starter pistol in the parking lot of Mainland Regional High School, where the retired teacher had taught for 45 years. She had blocked his car in while he was trying to exit a parking spot.

“He needs to concentrate on himself and his health,” Atlantic County Republican Chair Don Purdy said Monday. “What he did is unacceptable by anyone.”

Purdy said he sent a message to Chau, a Republican who has been mayor since 2014, encouraging him to resign but has heard nothing in response.

Chau, who was reelected last year, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. City Council is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

It doesn’t matter that Chau brandished a starter pistol rather than a real gun, Purdy said. Authorities have said it looked like a real gun.

“It could have had such bad consequences. He could have caused a stampede, a panic, the lady could have had a heart attack,” Purdy said. “There’s been a lot of accusations made about other things. This one here is definitely not acceptable.”

There were calls by some Northfield residents for Chau to resign in 2021 after an angry outburst at a July 2021 council meeting over whether the city would join the Atlantic County Library System.

At the next meeting in August, Chau apologized and said it would never happen again.

His public apology mostly was aimed at Councilwoman Barbara Anne Madden, to whom he had directed much of his ire, and Councilman Greg Dewees, who is Chau’s brother-in-law.

Dewees, a Republican, and Madden, a Democrat, worked on a subcommittee to explore the possibility of joining the county library system. Chau lost his temper after Madden reported that the city should not move the proposal forward. He said he should not have been left out of the decision.

At one point in Chau’s outburst, he questioned whether it was related to his race. Chau is Asian American. At the Aug. 10 meeting, he said he was upset about something that happened earlier that day, suggesting it clouded his judgment.

“In hindsight, I should not have attended that meeting, but I felt as the mayor it was my responsibility and duty to attend the council meeting and to participate,” Chau said in August 2021. “It was absolutely no excuse for my disruptive outburst and offensive behavior that I exhibited that evening. It was completely uncharacteristic, irresponsible and insensitive of me.”

In 2021, Rita Gisondi accused Chau of speaking inappropriately to her son while he was Chau’s student at Mainland.

At the meeting, Gisondi said Chau spoke of her son in disparaging and suggestive terms, describing the comments as sexual harassment. She and another speaker called on Chau to resign as mayor.

Gisondi said she took her allegations to the police and school officials, but no disciplinary action was taken.

Chau said then that an accusation would have been fully investigated and he said he could not speak about any student, even as he questioned why accusations from years earlier were being made public now.

“I have done nothing illegal or criminal or had any legal action taken against me,” Chau said in 2021.