A Visit to Mayor Hogsett's Office on His First Day

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INDIANAPOLIS -- The mayor’s office was a little hectic late Monday morning. Locks on doors were being changed, new staffers asking for directions, several news cameras waited for interviews.

It was his first full day of work as the top administrator of Indianapolis.

"It’s a lot like the first day of school," Joe Hogsett said. There’s a certain level of anxiousness and nervousness."

The mayor’s day had started at a slower place – taking an IndyGo bus from his north side home, which he does often. Hogsett had a busy weekend and is known to work all hours. In a brief interview with WFYI, he admitted he’ll have to pace himself.

"Well I do think that pace of being mayor is frenetic. Just in the first three or four days I’ve realized that that’s certainly true," he said. "And so one has to, no pun intended, pace one’s self."

Hogsett was sworn in during a ceremony Friday afternoon. He then held a summit on public safety Saturday. Sunday morning, he was making appearances at several church services.

The most profound moment so far as been when it all began Friday.

"The gravity of not only the oath that you’re taking, listening to the words that are part of the oath," he said. "And the importance of them."

The Democrat says his first few days will be filled with putting his administration together "and hopefully once the team is all in place, we’ll be up and running with our feet on the ground, moving our city forward," he said.

Hogsett said his most challenging area will be what he calls the "inertia" of government "that can best described as the intrinsic bureaucracy that slows things down."

He's hoping to speed it up.

Contact Ryan: 317.489.4491 | rdelaney@wfyi.org | @rpatrickdelaney