This is part two of Mr. Clean, a series that will focus on ethical concerns within Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration. It was reported in a collaboration between Mirror Indy and IndyStar and is not available for republication in other media. For questions, see Mirror Indy’s content republishing guidelines.
For years, the vacant former City Hall building has been a key component of Mayor Joe Hogsett’s strategy to revitalize downtown Indianapolis.
It’s also been good business for the mayor’s allies.
At least four people with close ties to Hogsett, including two former city employees, a top donor and a former council Democrat, worked on contracts related to Old City Hall.
Yet, a decade later, the building on Alabama Street remains empty.
The contracts, worth up to $1.5 million in total since 2017, were awarded without a competitive bidding process — exactly the kind of practice Hogsett criticized on the campaign trail. His first policy announcement while running for mayor in 2015 was an ethics reform package that included a promise to reduce no-bid contracts.
Those contracts “should never be the default position of city government,” Hogsett said at the time. “Whenever feasible, I intend to introduce increased competition to professional services contracting to drive down costs and make the vendor selection process more transparent.”
But an IndyStar/Mirror Indy investigation has found that, after a decade in power, Hogsett’s administration continues to regularly award contracts without a competitive process.
The result: His administration has spent millions of taxpayer dollars with little public vetting, sometimes on contracts involving his top campaign donors and close advisers, including his disgraced former chief of staff, Thomas Cook.
In addition to the Old City Hall contracts, the city and public agencies over which Hogsett has influence have awarded $5 million in other no-bid legal contracts benefiting four of the mayor’s former top advisers since 2020.
All of them left their city positions for jobs with big downtown law firms, then either signed or worked on multiple contracts with the city or other public agencies — sometimes within weeks or months of leaving. The contracts paid $385 to $650 an hour, rates many times higher than what they were paid as city employees to handle similar work.
Even those who have traditionally supported Hogsett questioned why millions of dollars in no-bid contracts are being awarded in connection with big downtown projects as the city struggles to fund basic neighborhood services.
“We see them just squandering excessive amounts of our tax dollars,” said Anna Peay, a westside neighborhood advocate. “I love Joe Hogsett. I’m still a huge fan of his. But that doesn’t mean that I can excuse him for not having [the city] come and mow along Girls School Road.”
Hogsett, who once earned a “Mr. Clean” award from a government accountability group, declined to be interviewed for this story. In written responses, his spokesperson said services such as legal work are difficult to bid, noting that the mayor had qualified his pledge to increase competition with the phrase “whenever feasible.”
Hogsett said in a statement that he has reduced spending and ensured taxpayer dollars are used to benefit the city’s residents.
“The responsible and ethical use of taxpayer dollars has been a cornerstone of my approach to governing since long before my 2015 campaign,” Hogsett said.
He said he trusts the city’s legal office to make decisions about outside counsel and that campaign contributions “are never considered in any of my administration’s decisions.”
“To suggest otherwise regarding the best use of a redevelopment site or when selecting the most qualified provider for a professional service is blatantly incorrect,” he said.
Critics and ethics experts say it’s difficult to determine whether a deal is the best use of taxpayer dollars without a competitive process.
“To offer a no-bid contract to somebody who you have a personal relationship with suggests that the decision may be biased,” said Abe Schwab, a professor at Purdue University Fort Wayne who studies ethics. “If you do a no-bid contract, we can’t compare the bids, and so we can’t be like, ‘No, this was a good decision,’ or ‘No, this wasn’t a good decision.'”
For those who count themselves as outside of Hogsett’s circle of allies, the no-bid contracts are an example of how Hogsett has used his public office to build and consolidate political power.
“The idea that there are no other attorneys in the city of Indianapolis, of over a million people, that could possibly handle these economic development projects is a joke,” said Josh Peters, who was executive director of the Marion County Democratic Party during Hogsett’s initial campaign for mayor. “That is completely in opposition to the words he said earlier about competitive bidding.”
State law does not require professional services such as engineering and legal work to be bid. But Hogsett’s predecessor, Republican Greg Ballard, came under fire for a number of no-bid deals, prompting concerns about transparency from City-Council Council members of both parties.
That anger served as the backdrop for Hogsett’s first policy announcement on the campaign trail in 2015.
Cook, then a campaign spokesman, said Hogsett’s ethics reform proposal would likely put a burden on the government to justify cases in which traditional bidding isn’t used.
But that never happened. When Hogsett’s ethics reform package passed during his first year in office, it included no substantial changes to the bidding process.
In all, the city has awarded about 130 contracts for legal services alone since 2020, according to an IndyStar/Mirror Indy analysis. The Hogsett administration routinely awards those contracts without any competition, according to a city spokesperson.
At least 16 of those contracts involved one of four former top staffers to the mayor. That number grows to nearly 40 when including other public agencies over which Hogsett has influence. The former staffers are:
Each of those law firms were among the top 10 largest business donors to Hogsett’s campaign as of Jan. 1.
Hogsett’s spokesperson defended the use of no-bid contracts in response to questions from reporters.
“Lawyers are evaluated through a qualitative rather than a quantitative lens,” the spokesperson said. “Unlike searching for the contractor who can pour a quality curb ramp at the lowest possible cost, legal-service providers are selected based on skill, knowledge in a particular area of the law, experience, availability based on deadlines, and focus of practice.”
Other municipalities, however, have found it not only feasible but prudent to award legal contracts through a competitive process.
Minneapolis, for example, seeks proposals from law firms every few years and selects a pool of qualified firms to perform city work. The city has also requested proposals for specialized legal work in areas such as workers’ compensation.
Other central Indiana municipalities have also awarded legal work after a competitive process, including Brownsburg, McCordsville and Danville. Officials say it minimizes favoritism and drives down costs.
“We wanted to give everyone a fair shot,” McCordsville Town Manager Tim Gropp said. “We like to do stuff above board. We like to be transparent with what we’re doing.”
“It keeps people honest and in-check,” Danville Town Manager Mark Morgan said. “It’s good for the system.”
In the case of Old City Hall, a steady drumbeat of Hogsett supporters got no-bid contracts over the years.
Browning Investments — whose founder is Michael Browning, one of Hogsett’s top campaign donors — was paid $1.2 million under a 2017 contract to study redevelopment opportunities at that site and the City-County Building.
Then, in 2021, the city signed a $222,000 contract with a consulting firm to study the cost of renovating Old City Hall. The project manager on that contract was Jason Larrison, a Hogsett-backed city-county councilor who won his seat in a controversial caucus vote.
Cook, Hogsett’s former chief of staff, earned $81,000 from a 2022 contract with the Indianapolis bond bank to provide legal services related to Old City Hall. He landed that contract, and several others with city government entities, despite Hogsett forcing him to resign from city government because of a prohibited relationship with a subordinate.
And Moriarty advised the bond bank on Old City Hall under a 2024 contract after Cook’s contract was terminated in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against him. Cook has apologized for “consensual relationships that violated a trust placed in me,” but has denied seeking to use his position to further those relationships.
The legal contracts involving the former staffers covered a wide range of legal services, from defending the city in lawsuits filed by victims of police shootings to advising on economic development deals. In some cases, other attorneys at the former staffers’ firms worked on the contracts, too.
Three of the former staffers signed or awarded contracts as city employees to the firms they later went to work for. Two returned to law firms where they had worked prior to joining the Hogsett administration.
Giffin, for instance, joined Hogsett’s team after working at Faegre. Then while working for the city, he signed off on at least five no-bid contracts worth up to $386,000 to his old law firm. He signed one $25,000 deal just two weeks before his first formal discussion with two of the firm’s partners about the possibility of returning to work there.
After leaving city employment and returning to Faegre, Giffin worked on three no-bid contracts with the city worth up to $300,000.
In response to questions from reporters, Giffin defended his work for the city. He informed city officials about his employment discussions with the firm and recused himself from any involvement with Faegre during the remainder of his time with the city, according to a disclosure he filed with city officials.
He and others who worked on the no-bid contracts emphasized that the city paid their employers, not them personally.
“I am confident that I have complied with the letter and the spirit of the ethics guidelines,” Giffin said.
As a city employee, Cook also signed off on at least $535,000 in no-bid lobbying contracts with Bose before joining the firm. And Morgan signed off on a $15,000 no-bid contract with Taft to advise the city’s real estate manager.
Morgan said he was not the person who chose Taft, and he screened himself from any work with Taft once he began employment discussions. Only about $7,000 was paid out under the contract, and the work concluded before he started at Taft.
He emphasized that no state law, local ordinance or ethics rule suggests it would be improper for him to join Taft after leaving the city.
“I actually doubt I could have found a single one of the large firms in town that contracted for less City work during my time as corporation counsel than Taft did,” he said. “When I left public service, I made a deliberate choice not to build my practice around private interests seeking to exploit that reputation and that trust to extract things from government.”
But Cook did seek to win money and deals from the city on behalf of clients.
A previous IndyStar/Mirror Indy story showed he represented developers who were awarded or recommended for at least $80 million in city incentives, including the winning bidders to redevelop two city-owned properties: the historic City Market and an old jail site on the east side of downtown. Some of that money has not been paid because projects did not move forward.
Although the mayor knew about Cook’s relationship with Scarlett Andrews, the director of the city agency recommending those incentives, he allowed her and Cook to continue making deals together.
As of last month, a Marion County grand jury was investigating those deals.
Neither Cook nor Andrews responded to inquiries from reporters.
Even when advisers didn’t work directly with the Hogsett administration, they received no-bid contracts from public entities where the mayor holds influence.
Cook landed a lucrative deal with the Indianapolis Airport Authority less than two weeks after starting at Bose. The airport authority, overseen by a board to which Hogsett appoints six of 11 members, paid more than $114,000 for Cook’s legal services regarding a possible hotel at the airport.
Hogsett, who continued to rely on Cook as a top campaign adviser, said he played no role in helping Cook get the contract.
But Hogsett’s campaign treasurer, Tenley Drescher-Rhoades, did play a role. She was general counsel for the airport authority and signed the engagement letter with Cook.
She said she “did not have any communication with Mayor Joe Hogsett or his administration” regarding Cook’s selection.
Moriarty also quickly found work with the airport. About six months after leaving his city job, he was contracted by the airport authority to provide services related to the new hotel.
In a written response, Moriarty said he takes his professional and ethical responsibilities seriously, and is “confident I have complied with those obligations both as special counsel to the Mayor and as a lawyer at Faegre Drinker.”
In many cases, the former staffers performed work under contract similar to what they did while working for Hogsett, raising questions about why the city’s own attorneys couldn’t handle the work and whether the former staffers gained an unfair advantage based on their connections to the city.
Giffin, as a city attorney, was involved in the Hogsett administration’s response to an allegation of sexual misconduct against Cook. In 2024, he returned to the issue as a Faegre lawyer — representing the Hogsett administration during the City-County Council’s investigation into Hogsett’s handling of those allegations.
For his work on the Council investigation, Giffin said he sought a waiver but was told by city attorneys he didn’t need one.
The city ethics code prohibits former employees from working on the same “particular matters” they worked on at the city.
In written responses, Hogsett’s office of corporation counsel and the former staffers who responded to reporters’ inquiries said the attorneys were either granted a waiver under the city’s ethics code or that the legal work they did during and after city employment was different enough not to trigger the law.
“Working with former municipal employees who have a deep understanding of a project and municipal economic development aids in the project running smoothly and ultimately saves taxpayer money,” the city’s corporation counsel said in a statement.
Hogsett’s critics within the Democratic Party say the no-bid contracts reflect a broken campaign promise, and demonstrate how Hogsett has repeatedly made decisions to benefit those loyal to him.
Andrea Watts, a former spokeswoman for the city’s metropolitan development department, said that in retrospect, she views much of her work at the city involving Cook as “disingenuous” because “the development community wasn’t getting a fair shot at these city properties.” As a private attorney, Cook held an improper amount of sway, Watts said.
“This behavior was normalized,” Watts said. “No one was calling it out.”
Karla López Owens, an attorney and advocate for the city’s Latino community, actively campaigned for Hogsett in 2015.
She ran for a vacant city-county council seat in 2020, but a caucus vote of Democratic insiders chose Larrison, who was backed by Hogsett — and whose employer was awarded the no-bid contract to work on Old City Hall after he joined the Council.
She said the Hogsett administration’s use of no-bid contracts crystallized what she learned from her council campaign.
“Who’s going to hold them to account if it’s everyone that is part of this tight-knit circle?” López Owens said. “That’s how corruption festers.”
The Hogsett administration’s reliance on no-bid contracts has created a situation where insiders are permitted to divide the spoils of public office among themselves without input from the public.
Text messages obtained by the news outlets offer a glimpse of how these large contracts end up being bargaining chips. That was the case with Old City Hall.
Browning Investments’ consulting contract had some peculiar provisions. It called for a $35,000 monthly fee, and in the event that a different developer was awarded the project, a payment to Browning of 2.5% of the total project cost by the chosen developer.
During his final months as Hogsett’s chief of staff, Cook appeared to be intimately involved in negotiations with Browning to eliminate the latter provision, text messages obtained by the news outlets show.
“I just had a variety of conversations over the last two hours in two different bars and more or less ended the evening by telling Michael Browning that he has to give up Old City call (sic) if he’s going to have any chance of getting anything done in this town,” Cook said in an August 2020 text message to Andrews, then-director of community and economic development for the mayor’s office.
Cook then suggested a meeting with Browning to “figure all this stuff out. Preferably at a fancy restaurant.”
“As long as they are paying,” Andrews said, “I am definitely in.”
Browning, through a spokesperson, declined to comment when asked if he recalled the conversation with Cook.
After Cook’s discussions with Browning, the city and Browning’s company agreed to amend the contract in a way that cleared a path for a different developer to take over the project — without paying Browning anything.
It was a change Cook later capitalized on as a private attorney, signing up the city’s bond bank as a client to provide legal services for the Old City Hall project at $470 an hour.
Cook’s work included drafting language for the city’s request for proposals for new developers, according to a former employee who worked on the project. The bond bank, whose board is appointed by Hogsett, paid Cook’s firm more than $80,000 for his work.
The mayor’s spokesperson said Hogsett played no role in awarding the no-bid contracts to Browning or Cook, and that the mayor was unaware of Cook’s discussions with Browning. Both the mayor’s office and Browning said the company’s consulting contract was awarded based on its track record and because it had been selected through a separate competition for another city project.
Ultimately, the city awarded the Old City Hall project to TWG Development in 2023 after receiving proposals from multiple developers. Two years later, little progress has been made.
In March, the Hogsett administration recommended a $66 million city loan to keep the project alive.
TWG did not return calls and emails requesting comment, and a city spokesperson said there were no updates on the project.
As for the $1.2 million contract with Browning Investments, the company said it produced a 472-page report on Old City Hall and the City-County Building that included market analysis and construction estimates.
Six years later, the Hogsett administration still hasn’t publicly released the report, despite repeated requests from reporters.
In his statement, Hogsett defended the spending.
“The cranes seen in the sky all across Downtown Indianapolis and the continued accolades from entities such as LinkedIn and CNBC speak to the impact of these investments in the overall growth and success of our city,” he said. “I am incredibly proud of what this administration has been able to achieve for Downtown Indianapolis, and of the ripple effects that success is having on all of our neighborhoods.”
Old City Hall, however, remains vacant and in disrepair.
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Contact IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at 317-444-6081 or [email protected]. Follow him on X @IndyStarTony.
