Democratic leader says husband’s firing was ‘disgusting political agenda’

“I’m in my wife mode, and I am all-in on Isaiah Hugley,” she said. “He does not deserve to be treated in this way. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Rep. Hugley isn’t the only person confused by the City Council’s 7-3 vote last month to fire her husband, a 41-year employee of the city of Columbus, months before he was scheduled to retire. It happened at the end of a four-hour city council meeting, when the council moved into an unannounced executive session. Moments later, the 10 members returned to public session, when council member Charmaine Crabb moved to fire Hugley, effective immediately, for “a pattern of dysfunction and operational breakdowns within the departments that Mr. Hugley oversees.” Two of the “yes” votes came from unelected members of the council, recently appointed by fellow city council members to fill vacancies on the panel.

After the vote, a visibly stunned Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson looked at Hugley and thanked him “for your unselfish service to the people of this community.”

Other council members spoke out to thank him, too, while Mayor Pro Tem Gary Allen told Hugley he appreciated all he’d done for Columbus. “I hate to see it end this way,” he said.

Hugley thanked the mayor, his staff and the people of Columbus. Then he added, “There’s more to come, you haven’t seen the last of me,” he said. “I’ll just leave it at that.”

But none of the seven members who voted to fire Hugley have explained their vote, beyond the motion to dismiss him. Leslie Hartnett, a lawyer for six of the members, said they are not speaking to the media and also declined to comment herself on “ongoing matters.” So it’s been left to the people of Columbus to piece together the events that led up to the vote to guess why Hugley was dismissed and what happens next.

Here’s what is known.

One sign of trouble came in April, when Councilor Byron Hickey accused Hugley in a meeting of violating the city’s code of ethics by failing to disclose a grant awarded to Rep. Hugley and her State Farm insurance business in 2022.

The federal COVID recovery grant was approved by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce and dispersed by the city. Although Isaiah Hugley notified the mayor and city attorney of his wife’s application and recused himself from the process, the City Council later said he should have told them directly, not just the mayor.

Carolyn Hugley said her grant was awarded just like the hundreds of others to small businesses in Columbus in the aftermath of COVID.

“I have nothing to do with this,” she said. “And if you ask how many other insurance agencies and similarly situated businesses were awarded grants, you will see I’m no different from anybody else.”

More problems arose for Isaiah Hugley arose earlier in the year, when his personal tax information was unexpectedly released by the city’s finance department as a part of an open records request. A report from the sheriff’s investigation of the leak, which has since been made public, showed that the same council member who moved to fire Hugley also told investigators that she felt he had engaged in “mafia-type behavior.” The “little mafiosos” she referred to in the report were Black pastors who frequently attend city council meetings to speak publicly.

At one point during the investigation, a confrontation between the sheriff’s office and finance department employees led to two arrests of department employees for battery.

The public flare-ups between Hugley and the City Council were so concerning for former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson — who worked with Hugley for years — that she called a news conference in the spring to defend him publicly.

“Isaiah Hugley is a dutiful and masterful implementer of the direction of the citizens and the elected officials,” she said.

“We are a great city capable of great things, but that won’t be possible with small-time political shenanigans,” she said.

The political shenanigans many see at play in Columbus are about the upcoming mayor’s race, when many think both Isaiah Hugley and one or several members of the City Council could be running to succeed Henderson, who is term-limited.

Carolyn Hugley said people have reached out to her husband repeatedly to ask him to run but did not say whether he will or won’t.

“People have asked my husband to run for mayor for years, and there are some people on council who believe that he’s going to run, and so they wanted to take away his good name,” she said.

In the meantime, an attorney for Hugley has sent a letter to the City Council, demanding that the council rehire him, apologize and pay him more than $200,000. The lawyer, Scott Grubman, also said Hugley is considering filing a discrimination lawsuit against the council, which could be formalized by the end of the month.

With potential litigation, Isaiah Hugley is now speaking through his lawyer. But Carolyn Hugley is angry about what’s happened and eager to defend her husband publicly.

“They attacked him personally, they attacked his character, they attacked his professionalism, all a part of a political agenda,” she said. “But they cannot erase the impact that he has had on this city.”