Long under fire, Pemberton mayor resigns after being called uninsurable
Tompkins said he was working in a toxic environment. Township employees said he was the one who created that environment. A new mayor will be selected Wednesday.
Former Pemberton Township Mayor Jack Tompkins revealed in a rare interview this week that lawsuits stemming from allegations of misconduct against him made him uninsurable, compelling him to resign to avoid financial ruin.
The township’s insurance carrier “decided to cancel my insurance,“ said Tompkins, 64, who resigned on Dec. 31. ”They notified me and the township in October. I weighed my options and the smartest thing to do was to resign. Withdrawal of insurance coverage would have financially devastated me.”
Tompkins, a Republican, was long under fire for alleged sexual harassment and other behavior over the last two years.
On Wednesday, the five-member township council of the Pine Barrens community in Burlington County — all Republicans — will choose one of three GOP candidates to replace Tompkins. The three candidates were selected by the Republican municipal county committee last week to serve the balance of the year. The committee didn’t release the candidates’ names.
Tompkins was the subject of a highly critical independent investigation in April 2024 that was commissioned by township officials and conducted by a Hackensack law firm, Pashman Stein Walder Hayden.
Some of the report’s more serious allegations included inappropriate interactions with female lifeguards under age 18; sexual harassment of the township’s recreation director, who sued Tompkins and the township, winning a $500,000 judgment.
He was also accused of a pattern of misconduct — such as poking a woman in the head, or discussing rape in township offices — that was sometimes accompanied by obscene language and “retaliatory” outbursts, fostering what the investigators who wrote the report termed a “severe chilling effect” that silenced anyone who felt wronged and allowed Tompkins to continue his aberrant behavior.
Tompkins said that while he was mayor, he worked in a “toxic environment created by [township] council, and I was walking on eggshells.
“Things got really ugly and nasty.”
He added that his time in office left “such a dirty taste in my mouth about politics, I want nothing to do with it anymore.”
In office since January 2023, Tompkins, 64, a retired Air Force veteran, refused to quit during his tumultuous tenure despite calls from members of both political parties for him to do so, including Gov. Phil Murphy.
Over time, the township council officially censured Tompkins, whose pay was cut from $13,000 annually to $4,000, to $1.
Tompkins told The Inquirer on Monday he relented after the Burlington County Municipal Joint Insurance Fund, which covers the township, informed him of their decision to no longer insure him. The fund cited “numerous claims resulting from your interaction with Pemberton Township employees over the past several years.”
Township officials said last summer that more lawsuits connected to Tompkins were expected.
In the interview, he said that inappropriate behavior with lifeguards “never happened.” He also said that any alleged misconduct “toward [other] females never happened.” He declined to comment on additional allegations.
Tompkins said there have been “zero criminal charges” leveled against him. He added, “Everything has been civil allegations, and nothing’s been proven.”
Asked why these allegations were made in the first place, Tompkins said, “You’re looking for an answer to something I don’t know. I don’t know what they were trying to do.”
Accused on several occasions of cursing and being harsh to staff, Tompkins explained, “Sometimes when you’re the boss and tell somebody they need to get something done, I guess they wanted me to ask ‘pretty please.’ With my military background, that wouldn’t always happen.”
Tompkins said he’s survived the experience with the support of friends and family “who knew this was nonsense.”
Sherry Scull, a former Democratic township council member, has publicly supported Tompkins, and continues to do so. “I’ve never seen signs of him doing what he was accused of,” she said. “I think his resigning is sad.”
Others contacted this week didn’t agree.
“This has been a total embarrassment for the town,” said Republican council member Dan Dewey.
Abby Bargar, Republican municipal chair for Pemberton Township, said, “I always liked Jack, but I think he made some bad decisions. It was the best thing for the party that he stepped down.”
Throughout town, the reaction to the end of Tompkins’s administration is “overwhelmingly positive,” said Marti Graf Wenger, president of the Browns Mills Improvement Association. Browns Mills is an unincorporated section of Pemberton Township; the association works to improve and promote the area, once a “Gatsby-esque” locale with chic hotels that drew well-off Philadelphians vacationing in the woods, Wenger said.
She added, “Tompkins treated this town like his dictatorship. There’s just a sense of relief now, a feeling that we can start fresh and hope our leadership will be better.”
Asked whether lingering resentments will make it difficult to remain in town, Tompkins said he’s not going anywhere.
“I just want to go into retirement and put this chapter behind me,” he said. “I’ve traveled the world, and I’ve settled here. I once said I’m going to die in this house. So this is where I’ll be.”