Several Indianapolis City-County Council members are sharply criticizing Mayor Joe Hogsett’s handling of conflicts of interest regarding a secret relationship between his former chief of staff, Thomas Cook, and Scarlett Andrews, a top city official who recommended millions of dollars in city incentives for Cook’s clients.

Councilors said they were troubled that they hadn’t known about the romantic relationship between the two when the council was voting to approve city incentives for major projects. Andrews began leading the city’s Department of Metropolitan Development in 2020 around the same time that Cook resigned to work for a private law firm representing developers seeking city incentives.

The conflicts of interest were made public by a Mirror Indy / IndyStar investigation publ

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