08-07-2025
- Politics
- Indianapolis Star
Indy Council votes against ousting leadership, approves payment for harassment investigation
The rifts among Indianapolis City-County Council Democrats deepened Monday as east side Democrat Jesse Brown introduced an unsuccessful proposal to remove Council President Vop Osili and Vice President Ali Brown from their leadership roles for their handling of the investigation into sexual harassment claims within the administration of Mayor Joe Hogsett.
Before the meeting, Democrat Crista Carlino, who has already called for President Osili and Vice President Brown to resign before walking back those comments, said she was leaving the council's dominant Democratic caucus Monday "after a continued lack of leadership and accountability, abuse of power, and unfair application of our Caucus rules for membership."
The 25-person council includes 19 Democrats and six Republicans. Democrats voted to remove Jesse Brown from the caucus earlier this year over his outspoken stances, he has said.
While Jesse Brown's proposal to force a full council vote on the leaders' removal failed Monday, Carlino and Republicans Hart and Bain supported the attempt, signaling broader concerns dogging the council's top two Democrats.
Jesse Brown said Osili's decision to forcibly remove a victim of alleged sexual harassment from the June council meeting was the tipping point in a series of leadership moves he disagreed with. Osili apologized for the incident two days later and has called for reforms to city policies to protect employees who report sexual harassment.
"I don't have a smoking gun," Jesse Brown said, "but I have enough smoke that I have a lot of concerns that have not been answered."
Staunch divisions among council members weren't enough to derail the approval Monday night of a final payment to the law firm that investigated allegations of sexual harassment within the Hogsett administration.
In last month's council meeting, councilors postponed the remaining two-thirds of the $450,000 owed to Chicago law firm Fisher Phillips after many members and residents objected to a final report's omission of late-night and personal text messages that Hogsett sent to young women he worked with — the same two women alleging that the mayor's former top aide, Thomas Cook, sexually harassed and abused them.
Indy politics: Joe Hogsett wants to move past harassment scandal. Many aren't sure he can
But at the July 7 meeting, councilors approved the payment with an 18-6 vote, with Democrat Jesse Brown and five Republicans — Derek Cahill, Michael-Paul Hart, Brian Mowery, Michael Dilk and Joshua Bain — voting no.
Those who objected said it was wrong to pay the law firm without requiring a follow-up hearing in which councilors could question Fisher Phillips lawyers about their decisions.
"We want to know we're getting what we paid for, what we were contractually obligated to receive, such as the body of work that went into this," Mowery said. "Having not seen any of that ... we'd like to have an opportunity to now ask questions of the law firm."
