September 13, 2025
Published in Newark Advocate
Etna Township Trustee Mark Evans’ four-year tenure has had a financially devastating and toxic impact on the township, its people, and employees.
Since January 2022, eight employees have been bullied and harassed into resigning, seven of them citing Evans’ bullying as the direct cause. Evans is a bully and refers to his bullying as “oversight.” Whenever Evans is called out on his behavior, he becomes a “crybully,” a hybrid victim and bully.
With three months left in his term, Evans is desperate to stay in office. He would rather Etna fail than for him not to be in charge.
His $25,000 annual salary as trustee has cost taxpayers over $125,000 annually when adjusted for lawsuits, bullying settlements, employee replacement costs, and legal fees — making Etna a local joke.
In addition to using township money to fuel his political lawsuits, his team of Facebook enforcers blocks and removes any resident who disagrees with him or mentions his three back-to-back personal bankruptcies, his four lawsuits against his own township (he lost all of them), or his general nastiness toward anyone who will not bow to his will.
Evans confuses repetition with truth. He repeats his same old bromides about Laura Brown, a 20-year veteran employee pushed out by Evans, and his physical altercation with former zoning officer John Singleton (video evidence to the contrary), or any of the three administrators who have left in the past 18 months. A Newark Advocate article on Aug.26, 2025, describes Evans’ latest victim.
An Aug. 9, 2024, Advocate article describes Evans trying to appoint himself as board president with his self-drafted resolution, criticizing everyone but himself — which would be a great comedy skit, except that citizens are paying.
Everyone knows Trustee Evans is The Bully of the Township. If you vote in Etna Township, help us end Evans’s gaslighting and manipulation.
Jon Hanson, Etna Township
Other letters: https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/opinion/readers/2025/01/11/letter-to-the-editor-etna-taxpayers-subsidizing-trustees-bullying/77547295007/