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Nearly five months have passed since a report about the Hogsett administration’s handling of sexual harassment allegations was released. City-County Council members from both sides of the aisle criticized the report from investigative law firm Fisher Phillips as inadequate, prompting resignation calls for both Mayor Joe Hogsett and council leaders.
Discussion about the report went nearly silent, at least publicly, as the summer wound down and Hogsett administration officials and the council worked to craft the 2026 city budget, which will receive a vote Oct. 6. But councilors aren’t quite done dealing with the report.
“We’re all just kind of doing our heavy lifting behind the scenes right now,” Councilor Dan Boots, the leader of a working group determining next steps, told IBJ.
A special Rules and Public Policy Committee meeting is scheduled for Oct. 28. At that meeting, Boots says experts will speak and explain the council’s recommendations, which will be released beforehand. Along with those recommendations, Boots said the council will release responses from Fisher Phillips, the firm that conducted the investigation, to questions submitted by councilors and involved parties.
Experts and presenters at the meeting will likely include city legal and human resources staff, national HR consultants and scholars in those areas. It will likely also include Emma Davidson Tribbs of the National Women’s Defense League. During a committee hearing in June, Davidson Tribbs spoke on behalf of people who say they were harassed and assaulted by members of the Hogsett administration.
Notably missing from the lineup is the law firm that crafted the report. Fisher Phillips won’t appear at the meeting because the contract between the firm and the city has expired.
Instead, Boots collected questions from all 25 councilors for the firm to answer.
The 54-page report from Fisher Phillips, released in May, found that the Hogsett administration and campaign did not violate any laws. But it was criticized by the women who publicly accused Hogsett’s former top aide, Thomas Cook, of harassment, as well as sitting elected officials.
Lauren Roberts and Caroline Ellert, former employees of the Hogsett campaign and the city, said the report omitted texts from the mayor himself that crossed personal boundaries. It “undermined and belittled” Ellert’s experience, she wrote in a statement.
Multiple Democratic councilors—Andy Nielsen, Crista Carlino and Jesse Brown—have called on the mayor to resign. Nielsen, a member of the working group, called on Hogsett to resign after Roberts and Ellert made the texts public.
Carlino, the chair of the Investigative Committee, claimed in June that the report’s scope was changed without her knowledge. She called on Council President Vop Osili and Vice President Ali Brown to step down from their positions at the time, but later rescinded her allegations against them.
However, she told IBJ she still believes the law firm was directed to do a narrower probe than what was set last November. She said that she hopes to get answers from the firm’s responses.
“The timeline and documentation for this has not been transparent,” Carlino told IBJ in a text. “And the actions and accountability for the changes made and the marching orders given to the firm have yet to be revealed.”
Crafting recommendations
A six-member group of four Democrats and two Republicans is working to create recommendations based on the work of the investigative committee.
The councilors involved are Boots, Nielsen, Brienne Delaney, Jessica McCormick, Michael-Paul Hart and Josh Bain. About a month out from the meeting, Boots said the recommendations were still pretty rough.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of recommendations we’ve gotten already,” Boots said. He said the challenge lies in determining feasibility, cost, and whether the council is the best body to pursue these recommendations.
The working group might not have those details ironed out by Oct. 28, he said, but the committee will “fine-tune” the recommendations in subsequent days.
The council and the Hogsett administration have received a ton of recommendations from outside individuals since the allegations of harassment broke in summer 2024. For example, Roberts and Ellert wrote an August 2024 letter with four major reform suggestions.
Some of those options, like mandating sexual harassment training for all city-county employees and creating an anonymous reporting platform, have been implemented.
In the final report released in May, Fisher Phillips suggested replacing the current Human Resources division with an independent board similar to that of the city’s information technology board. Additionally, it suggested appointing an independent inspector-general.
The firm also said the city should update and modernize its policies and reporting systems and update training models to include completion tracking.
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Where is are mayor? He hast not been seen in a long time as our city has experienced murders at a frightening level. He needs to go!!!
Taylor— IBJ pseudo employee, Ed Delaney is busy grandstanding about the IEDC. Can you ask him why he is not “curious” about Hogsett’s actions? You know where to find Ed because IBJ prints him almost weekly. Let me help you out, ask Eddie what his daughter, the employment attorney would say about Hogsett if he was a defendant in one of her cases instead of one of mommy and daddy’s political buddies.