As Caroline Ellert and Lauren Roberts watched Monday from the second row of a crowded City-County Council meeting, Mayor Joe Hogsett offered his first public apology in response to their allegations of impropriety against Thomas Cook, his former chief of staff.
“I want to tell you both, and the third anonymous individual who also shared her story, how sorry I am for the harm that has occurred, and I apologize,” Hogsett said. “There are no words to adequately acknowledge the bravery and the strength that you all have shown by coming forward to tell your stories, and to advocate for systemic change across the city-county enterprise in the way that we protect our employees from sex harassment and associated retaliation.”
Roberts and Ellert came to the meeting to see if the council would vote to take any action, or if Hogsett would address the allegations.
Hogsett told them he “fell short” and regretted that they “did not feel heard for far too long.”
“We weren’t heard” — Roberts interjected as she held up a sign that read “2017 investigation? Prove it.”
As the mayor entered and exited the council meeting, Hogsett breezed past reporters who peppered him with questions about the allegations. He declined to answer them.
Council moves to investigate
Immediately following the mayor’s remarks, the council gave preliminary approval to form a special committee to investigate allegations of impropriety against the mayor’s office concerning how it responded to Cook’s actions.
The Council voted 22-3 in favor of forming the committee, with councilors Ali Brown, Ron Gibson and Jessica McCormick voting against the resolution. The proposal came from Brian Mowery, the Republican minority leader on council.
In a statement, Brown and McCormick explained their reasoning for voting against the proposal.
“The proposal put forward this evening by our Republican colleagues to form an investigative committee was, we believe, too narrowly focused on the actions of a few individuals and too limited in its scope to result in meaningful or lasting protections for city employees,” the statement read. “Given these limitations, we could not, in good conscience, vote in favor of our colleague’s proposal.”
In a separate vote, councilors voted unanimously to review the city’s current sexual harassment processes, procedures and training.
The moves by lawmakers come less than a week after a Mirror Indy investigation detailed a pattern of an abuse of power by Cook, the mayor’s former right-hand man who played a key role in directing city policy and worked on all three of the mayor’s campaigns.
Roberts, who worked with Cook on the mayor’s 2015 campaign, and Ellert, a former city staffer under Cook’s supervision, have said that Cook abused his authority in ways that made them feel trapped and victimized. The mayor knew about allegations regarding Cook’s behavior toward Roberts as early as 2017 and kept Cook on his 2023 campaign even after a relationship with a second subordinate came to light in 2020.
Because both resolutions were not on the agenda prior to the Aug. 12 meeting, councilors voted to suspend their regular process for adopting agenda items in order to fast track both proposals — which required a two-thirds majority of council.
Both resolutions were referred to the Rules and Public Policy Committee, which is scheduled to meet Sept. 24 at 5:30 p.m. If the committee chooses to pass one or both of those proposals, they would come back to the full council for final approval.
Mayor addresses allegations
The mayor said he would immediately work to begin implementing measures that Roberts and Ellert called for in an Aug. 8 letter to the city. Among the demands included calls to establish an independent third-party entity to handle sexual harassment claims and to require sexual harassment training of all city-county employees — not just supervisors — so that all workers are informed of their rights.
Hogsett also said the city will roll out an anonymous online reporting form as the city works to hire a third-party company to administer reports of abuse or harassment.
The mayor did not address their demands for more information about the city’s investigations into their complaints. Roberts emailed Hogsett and members of the Indiana Democratic Party in 2017 with her concerns about Cook, but she said she was never contacted about an investigation.
In 2020, the mayor asked Cook to resign after learning that his chief of staff was involved in a relationship with another subordinate, though he kept Cook on his 2023 campaign.
Ellert told the mayor about Cook’s behavior in September 2023, which led to Hogsett removing Cook from his mayoral campaign six weeks before the election.
Peter Blanchard covers local government. Reach him at 317-605-4836 or peter.blanchard@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @peterlblanchard.
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