Community Members Offer Support for Wagner

    HARLAN – Larry Hopp was one of five individuals who spoke in support of Harlan Community Schools Superintendent Justin Wagner during the public comments portion of a Monday evening meeting of the board of education, and he also called out the Harlan News-Advertiser, and specifically managing editor Bob Bjoin, for what he called an “embarrassing, disgusting hit piece on a good man.”
    Approximately 35 community members attended the meeting Monday, Nov. 12, with the only agenda item to make a decision on the procedure to fill the District 6 board vacancy left open with the resignation of Kathy Mahlberg on November 6 (see accompanying story).
    Five persons spoke during the comments from the public on non-agenda items portion of the meeting.  Hopp, a community member and former school board member, was especially critical of a Harlan Newspapers news report published last week that detailed what former staff and community members detailed as a toxic Harlan Community Schools workplace under Wagner.