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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMost of the Indianapolis City-County Council’s Democratic caucus issued a joint statement Friday morning committing to city human resources reforms in light of sexual harassment allegations against a former top aide to Mayor Joe Hogsett.
The Democrats, led by President Vop Osili and Vice President Ali Brown, laid out “initial plans to strengthen employee protections,” after three subordinate female staffers publicly accused Thomas Cook, the mayor’s former chief of staff, of abusing his power and making unwanted advances over the past decade.
Hogsett, a Democrat, has been criticized for knowing about the harassment accusations and not doing enough to stop repeat incidents.
Seventeen members of the 19-member Democratic caucus signed onto the statement shared by City-County Council spokeswoman Sara Hindi. The statement lays out three specific commitments:
- “Create a separate branch of Human Resources from the Administration that explicitly addresses sexual harassment and other discrimination related complaints.
- Create a commission that engages subject matter experts to evaluate the city’s current policies, identify gaps, and implement best practices that will foster a culture of safety, respect, and accountability. This includes but not limited to the use of the Employee Assistance Program.
- Modify Revised Code Section 293-304 to include all city county employees in an annual mandatory sexual harassment training.”
“As the legislative branch of local government, we are committed to working together to determine the necessary changes to the city’s policies and systems to ensure a safe work environment for all employees, now and into the future,” the joint statement read. “Our priority is to create a workplace where every employee feels secure, valued, and supported. We are focused on implementing improvements that will bring greater accountability for all leaders, whether elected, appointed, or hired.”
Democrats on the council hold a 19-6 supermajority against the Republican caucus.
The omitted Democrats were Jesse Brown and Ron Gibson. Brown, a self-described democratic socialist, called for the mayor’s resignation on Wednesday. Brown has previously faced threat of expulsion from the caucus.
Gibson told IBJ he decided against signing the statement because he wants to wait and see what the Hogsett administration does before backing a certain solution.
“I wanted to give them that time and space for the mayor to make it right before we as a legislature try to intervene,” Gibson said. “If that doesn’t occur, then I believe that all the recommendations laid out to date should be, if you will, followed up on by the legislative body, if necessary.”
Gibson, a first-term councilor who previously served as an at-large councilor from 2000 to 2007, also called Cook’s alleged actions “absurd and unacceptable.”
The minority caucus plans to propose a different route.
Republicans said in a statement Thursday that they would work to introduce a resolution at Monday night’s council meeting to create a committee to investigate the mayor’s response to the allegations against Cook.
Cook’s behavior was investigated on three separate occasions, according to a July statement from city attorneys. The first was in 2017, when he was reprimanded for “inappropriate advances” toward a coworker on the Hogsett campaign in 2014. Cook resigned to join an Indianapolis law firm after an alleged inappropriate relationship in 2020, but the reason for his departure was not shared publicly at the time. He was brought back to lead Hogsett’s 2023 reelection campaign.
In October, following a third alleged inappropriate relationship with a subordinate on the campaign, Hogsett severed ties with Cook, including all contracts with the city and related entities.
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It appears as though less than thorough investigations were completed, and “less than appropriate” disciplinary actions were taken. It is unfortunate that the time limit for filing an EEOC complaint has passed.
How about reforms to prevent economic harassment? How about trying to protect those people that live, visit and support downtown Indy? That would be a good reform.
This is miss-leading calling him an “aid”. He was a Deputy Mayor. Cook did not operate in a vacuum. He operated in close association with the mayor. Party allegiance aside this should be handled the way the law requires it to be in a non-governmental business. Fired and banned from business with the City/County.
Call him whatever you like. He no longer works for the city, so he cannot be fired, and it was also admitted (you can read it right in the reporting) that his behavior, illegal yes, was not reported until years after the incidents. Now, this is where the issue is that the reporting needs to be made easier and given a greater chain of independence. And, hopefully, these reforms make reporting incidents less intimidating and easier to accomplish.
I have worked in many different industries, for both big and small companies, and seen much of the same type of thing happen over and over, despite all the laws and good intentions. The issue almost always comes down to the need for better reporting and enforcement mechanisms—not “education” and not even harsher penalties:
Oh no! A Pledge! That’ll show em. This is just grandstanding. The Democrat mayor is in hiding. How many other people knew and didn’t act? Does anyone know any “journalists”?
No other journalists are even covering the story…. Maybe go report on it yourself if you’re unhappy?
I wonder if Hogsett’s recent divorce is linked to any of this behavior by his top aid?
No allegations he and Cook had a romantic relationship, so the answer works be no.
These things happen in every industry, at all sorts of companies, of all sizes, for-profit, non-profit, and government.
Of course, no one really cares. despite the clutch-the-pearls posts on social media and the press releases. People only care about making political zingers or getting attention for themselves. This is true with most societal issues. As for this specific issue, hopefully, a clearer and more transparent reporting mechanism can be put in place to make these incidents easier to report.
Additional HR employees, committees and more training. Typical democratic response, spend more money. Laws were broken, people need to lose their jobs, this was not normal behavior for a civilized workplace.
It is not acceptable behavior. Sadly, it IS and has been quite normal for many decades.
I have worked in law, accounting, social services, tech, etc. Every job I have had at both big and small companies, there were sexual harassment incidents. that we heard about. So, I always get annoyed when people pretend it is not a serious societal wide issue, and act like these things are just “one-offs.” They are not.
I hope the training starts at the top level . And, that the policy specifies some direct penalties for supervisors, officials that fail to prevent or report harassment
like termination, demotion, pay cut …
..