The Gisborne District Council has seen a 39 percent hike in abuse and threats against staff since the beginning of the year.
"Incidents have ranged from physical assault and verbal abuse to intimidation and low-level threatening behaviour," council chief executive Nedine Thatcher Swann said.
One council staff member said she had a chair thrown at her and while she was pregnant a man said he would put a mākutu (spell) on her.
One man said he was once bitten and had seen staff receive "punches, scratches" and a man get his tooth knocked out.
The abuse was happening across all council teams, not just those who were customer-facing, and outside of office hours as well, Swann said.
"We're also seeing an increase in unacceptable online social media posts directed at individual staff.
"Our people are feeling increasingly intimidated and scared."
Mayor Rehette Stoltz told Checkpoint the council had noticed an increase in abuse in the past few years "but a definite increase in the last six months".
She put that down to a community stretched beyond what a community should go through, she said.
"I can understand that people are experiencing extreme stress levels," Stoltz said.
"Behaviours that are just unacceptable, personal threats and behaviours that should have no place in our society.
"The stuff said on social media is words that we can never repeat on this radio station, so it is vile comments being made, some of it's being filtered out by our automatic filters but our social media staff still need to read some of the comments - which I cannot share with you today.
"But I do know that we have staff that's been spat on, shoved.
"As the mayor I've got quite broad shoulders, I've received emails with unacceptable comments or some personal comments or even threats of violence."
She said physical threats were sent straight to the police.
"We have no tolerance for that at all," she said.
"Next time you think of dealing with a staff member at the Gisborne District Council, I challenge people to think this is someone's mum, someone's aunty, treat them the way you want someone to treat your mum or your aunty or your sister.
"Just be a decent human being. We still want people to get the information they need, we still want people to hold us to account but there are ways to do it and what we've seen in the last while is not acceptable and we will not tolerate it."
