INDIANAPOLIS (MIRROR INDY) — For years, city employees and political volunteers would not speak negatively about working for Mayor Joe Hogsett.
That changed last year, though, as Hogsett was forced to respond to concerns about how he handled repeated reports of sexual harassment made against his former chief of staff, Thomas Cook.
Now, a collection of current and former employees, while supportive of the Democratic mayor’s policy initiatives, say they have become disillusioned by the work culture that has fostered under his leadership over the last decade. Some have rebuked the mayor publicly at City-County Council meetings. Others have sat in the audience, holding signs that say, ‘Protect workers, not Joe.’ Some have taken to social media to share their experiences.
They say they have been inspired by former campaign worker Lauren Roberts and former city staffer Caroline Ellert — not only for publicly describing their experiences but also for their demands for policy changes to help future workers.
And what began as a focused criticism on a single issue — sexual harassment — has ballooned into broader concerns about what they say is a toxic work environment inside Hogsett’s city hall.
“It was really when I saw how they were handling the fallout in the story in which Lauren and Caroline came forward. … They just kept trying to cover their own asses,” said Morgan Mickelson, former director of the Office of Sustainability, who has spoken publicly about her time working in the Hogsett administration since leaving in September 2024. “That’s when I began to realize that it’s the same reasons why we’re all experiencing that type of inappropriate behavior.”
Yet while some are speaking publicly, others are swapping stories in group chats and quietly trying to support each other.
To understand the work culture inside the Hogsett administration, Mirror Indy interviewed 12 current or former city employees. Mirror Indy agreed not to publicly identify eight of them because they feared professional retaliation for speaking about the administration. The other four, like Mickelson, are named.
Together, the group includes people who have worked in at least one of Hogsett’s three terms and across five separate departments or offices within his administration.
Many of them described a “culture of fear” inside the City-County Building that discourages workers from approaching leadership with bad news out of concern for how they would react.
At least eight director-level employees have left the Hogsett administration in the past year, and two of the city’s deputy mayor positions remain vacant.
Meanwhile, some former employees said the sexual harassment allegations engulfing the administration are making it difficult for city staff to do their jobs effectively, and for the city to retain and attract talent.
Not every employee interviewed by Mirror Indy agrees on every criticism lobbed against Hogsett. Some attribute the frustrations of former employees to generational differences in leadership styles. For instance, some were told that if the mayor yelled at you, it meant he trusted you.
“I was yelled at a few times. I chalked it up to Hogsett’s Bob Knight personality,” a former city employee told Mirror Indy, referring to the former Indiana University basketball coach. “I never took it as abuse.”
Mayor Hogsett, through a spokesperson, declined Mirror Indy’s request for an interview. Aliya Wishner, the city’s communications and policy director, pushed back on claims that the city is having trouble attracting talent or functioning effectively, citing human resources data that shows the city has seen a 42% increase in job applicants from 2023 to 2025.
“These trends prove that people want to be a part of what the Hogsett administration is doing for the city of Indianapolis,” Wishner said in an emailed statement, in part.
In public statements, Hogsett has promised to address the city’s work culture by instituting various reforms, which included the creation of an anonymous reporting system. That system received at least 70 concerns or complaints in the first half of 2025, according to Human Resources Director Twana Ellis, which amounted to an average of a submission every two days.
Hogsett also pledged to work with the City-County Council to reform the city’s sexual harassment policies and provide a safer work environment for employees.
But some former employees believe Hogsett is part of the problem.
Mila Myles, who was Hogsett’s special assistant for part of his first term, said the mayor’s behavior is what drove her out of the position.
She’s also skeptical that Hogsett’s promises are genuine, given that she said the mayor often made inappropriate remarks and was prone to outbursts.
“He treated me like (expletive), would call me weird, a (expletive), and questioned whether I could do the job in front of people,” Myles told Mirror Indy. “He would yell at me for small things. Him yelling was not rare.”
In the emailed statement, Wishner said the mayor “will not comment on statements made by former employees.”
The fallout
Not every employee interviewed by Mirror Indy said they experienced or witnessed harassment or abuse, but they all agreed on at least one point: They said the Hogsett administration is focused on controlling the public narrative rather than addressing the concerns at the heart of employees’ experiences.
And as the criticisms mount, several political observers have noticed a change in the mayor’s public appearances, too.
The mayor stopped holding monthly gatherings with the media outside his office. His planned speech at a press conference to announce a key housing initiative was canceled after IndyStar published personal text messages sent to Roberts and Ellert. And long gone are the days of Dancing Joe.
“He treated me like (expletive), would call me weird, a (expletive), and questioned whether I could do the job in front of people.”
Mila Myles, Hogsett’s former special assistant
“I was yelled at a few times. I chalked it up to Hogsett’s Bob Knight personality. I never took it as abuse.”
A former city employee
“It was degrading and demeaning.”
Morgan Mickelson, former director of the Office of Sustainability
Even some Democrats on the City-County Council have bucked the mayor. Three of them — Jesse Brown, Crista Carlino and Andy Nielsen — have called for the mayor’s resignation, along with Republican Councilor Josh Bain.
One political observer said the ongoing controversy could transform how Hogsett’s legacy is viewed.
“The fallout from the scandal has hurt his reputation because there is no resolve,” said Laura Merrifield Wilson, a political science professor at the University of Indianapolis. “For those upset and up in arms about his behavior, it feels like nothing has happened and nothing has changed.”
Mickelson is among those who have been waiting for something to change.
‘Degrading and demeaning’
Mickelson left the meeting in tears.
It was December 2022, and the director of the Office of Sustainability had just given a presentation on the city’s efforts to curb the effects of climate change.
Hogsett was in the room, Mickelson said, and she remembers a slide in her presentation “pissed him off.”
Hogsett stood up and walked around the room, Mickelson said, yelling at her and her team to the point where she was on the verge of tears.
“It was degrading and demeaning,” Mickelson recalled.
“What I’ve witnessed and endured during my time in the administration was a culture that too often tolerated unhealthy and, at times, abusive behavior.
Leadership that relied on intimidation, yelling, and demeaning treatment of staff. A culture where sexual harassment was not confronted but instead enabled through silence and inaction.”
Morgan Mickelson, while testifying during a June 9, 2025, meeting of the council
She brushed it off, but the incident stuck with one of her colleagues who witnessed the outburst and confirmed Mickelson’s account to Mirror Indy.
Hogsett declined to comment when asked through a spokesperson about the incident.
Mickelson said she didn’t consider quitting at that point because she felt the work was too important.
“I very much had it in my head that any type of this work, political or governmental public service, is just hard,” Mickelson said. “I saw it as a necessary evil to deal with that.”
Josiah Johnson, who worked in the Human Resources Division and the Office of Public Health and Safety between 2018 and 2023, said he experienced bullying and workplace harassment from his supervisor.
By the end of his employment, he said his supervisor was forcing him to work seven days a week.
“I was nervous, barely eating, and I was in a constant state of fear of losing my job,” Johnson said.
Johnson recalled asking for a $5,000 raise and getting denied because he was told he wasn’t qualified, despite having earned a master’s degree in public administration.
Johnson, who now works a corporate job in the Chicago area, said he ultimately sought work in the private sector in search of better working conditions and higher pay. He told Mirror Indy he felt compelled to tell his story after hearing from other city employees who faced mistreatment.
“I am tired of people at the top getting away with egregious activities, and the way they treat people just because they have power and influence over others,” Johnson said. “People that have power and influence over others should be benevolent in the way that they yield and wield and influence.”
Myles, who worked as Hogsett’s special assistant in 2017 and 2018, said she quit because of how she was treated.
“I didn’t want to leave the city of Indianapolis. I wanted to grow my career in the biggest blue city (in Indiana), but I decided to leave because I realized growing my career there wasn’t worth my worsening mental health,” said Myles, a national Democratic political operative who has worked for campaigns, labor unions and government officials.
“I am tired of people at the top getting away with egregious activities, and the way they treat people just because they have power and influence over others.
People that have power and influence over others should be benevolent in the way that they yield and wield and influence.”
Josiah Johnson
Maggie Adams-McBride, a former project manager in the mayor’s office who resigned in May, said she was retaliated against after she filed an HR complaint and tendered her resignation.
She said she decided to speak out publicly after seeing how her colleagues were treated.
“I have watched so many other people leave quietly because of fear of retaliation,” Adams-McBride said. “I decided I didn’t want that to happen anymore.
“As long as he is in that office, nothing’s gonna change,” Adams-McBride said.
‘Shockingly unprofessional’
Mickelson recalled another incident that contributed to her departure.
At a meeting of department directors that took place shortly after many of the sexual harassment and abuse allegations against Cook first came to light in July 2024, Mickelson asked what the city was doing to ensure that employees felt safe on the job.
She said she was told by Sarah Riordan, who was then the city controller, that any employee can report a complaint to human resources. Mickelson responded by saying that she didn’t know anyone in the human resources department. Mickelson said that Riordan responded by yelling and offering to show Mickelson where the human resources department is located. Two other employees in the room confirmed Mickelson’s description of the incident to Mirror Indy. Again, she left a meeting in tears.
Riordan declined to comment when reached by Mirror Indy.
Other employees later consoled Mickelson, but the experience reminded her of the mayor’s reaction several years earlier.
“It was shockingly unprofessional,” said Mickelson, who later filed an HR complaint.
Employees like Johnson, McBride, Mickelson and Myles said the work environment left them with no choice but to seek employment elsewhere.
“I loved my job. I didn’t want to leave it, but I realized that I wasn’t able to make meaningful progress in my job or in the community that I kept saying I wanted to improve,” Mickelson said. “I realized that for my own mental health I needed to leave.”
What’s next?
A law firm’s investigation into the Hogsett administration’s handling of harassment allegations recommended that the city’s human resources division become independent of the mayor’s office.
Some employees who have shared their concerns publicly have been privately pushing members of the City-County Council to make that a reality, among other reforms.
They recognize, though, that many Democrats on the council are political allies of Hogsett, and two members of the Democratic caucus — Keith Graves and Nick Roberts — have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct themselves.
Still, members of the City-County Council say they plan to introduce a proposal in the coming weeks that will establish an independent human resources board to replace the current human resources division.
They also said they plan to remove the Office of Equal Opportunity from within the Office of Corporation Counsel and make it an independent agency with expanded jurisdiction over city-county employee complaints.
Former employees like McBride believe this would be a step in the right direction.
“The number one thing for me is they pass an ordinance that any harassment allegation against a mayoral appointee automatically goes to an outside firm for an investigation outside of the city walls,” McBride said. “That’s my biggest thing, because there’s no accountability in the current process.”
How Mirror Indy reported this story
Just weeks after sexual harassment and abuse allegations first came to light against former Hogsett aide Thomas Cook in July 2024, Mirror Indy learned about an online petition started by former city employees.
The petition, which eventually garnered nearly 2,000 signatures, alleged that the city’s workplace culture is “unhealthy, unsafe and inappropriate.” It is this culture, the former employees said, that enabled Cook’s alleged behavior.
After speaking with the petition’s creator, local government reporter Peter Blanchard started hearing from other city employees about the working conditions inside the Hogsett administration.
What emerged was a pattern of employees describing the work environment as toxic, unprofessional and degrading.
Mirror Indy agreed not to publicly identify eight of the 12 employees interviewed for this story because they feared professional repercussions for speaking publicly. The other four agreed to be identified.
Blanchard also shared the former employees’ descriptions to Mayor Joe Hogsett and asked for an interview. Hogsett, through a spokesperson, declined.
In addition, Blanchard asked the city’s human resources department to share how many complaints have been made to the city’s anonymous workplace harassment reporting tool since it launched late last year.
Mirror Indy photojournalist Brett Phelps traveled to Chicago to interview and take photographs of Josiah Johnson, a former city employee.
If you have more to share, you can reach Blanchard at the contact information below.
This story was first published Sept. 4, 2025, by Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations. Peter Blanchard covers local government. Reach him at 317-605-4836 or peter.blanchard@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @peterlblanchard.