The Last Supper: Tom Henry’s final meal and the race to replace him
Two nights before his death, the Mayor had dinner with several key players in Fort Wayne’s future
Just hours before he was driven to the hospital on March 27 complaining of stomach pain, Mayor Tom Henry enjoyed a meal at Catablu Grille in southwest Fort Wayne.
Sadly, it would be his last.
Henry, who’d learned of his late-stage stomach cancer diagnosis five weeks prior — on February 20, the day before delivering the State of the City address — knew it was time to start devising a succession plan, and part of the conversation at dinner that night was the first step in what he likely anticipated to be a much longer process of selecting his replacement.
It would culminate in a caucus, not an election. Indiana state law dictates that when an elected official steps down or dies in office, they are replaced by a member of the same party. All of the precinct chairs — active party members who are themselves elected or appointed to be the voice and face of the party in a particular voting precinct — convene a caucus and vote by secret ballot to pick a winner.
Plenty of local Democrats were interested in succeeding Henry, but most were wary of acting like it while he still seemed in relatively good health. An official endorsement from the Mayor would provide a huge advantage in a competitive caucus, and none of them wanted to do anything that might upset him.
Despite his grim diagnosis, there was precedent for thinking he had plenty of time remaining. When his wife Cindy Henry had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September of 2022, she was told she had just months to live. Instead, she lasted nearly sixteen, finally succumbing to her illness this January.
By mid-March, the Mayor had resumed his schedule of community appearances despite starting chemotherapy. That included the Allen County Democratic Party’s annual Obama Dinner fundraiser on March 21, where Henry was approached by at least one prospective mayoral candidate requesting a meeting to discuss his succession plan with them.
It was becoming clear that he needed to start having those conversations soon, regardless of how much sand he thought remained in the hourglass. He also scheduled an April trip to Kentucky with his brothers to watch a horse race, in part to discuss his potential successors with them. “Unfortunately,” Deer Park Irish Pub owner Tony Henry told me, “he slipped away before we [could have] that conversation.”
One final meal
On Tuesday, March 26, Henry sat down for dinner at Catablu with several friends. They included Deputy Mayor Karl Bandemer — who just days later would be sworn in to replace his boss as acting mayor — and his older brother Jerry Henry.
State Representative Phil GiaQuinta, who declared himself a candidate to replace Henry the week after the mayor’s death, was also there. It’s not clear whether the group had gathered for the express purpose of discussing GiaQuinta succeeding Henry, but according to a source familiar with what was talked about, the topic came up.
The House Minority leader since 2018, GiaQuinta was first elected in 2006, winning a contested primary against current City Councilman Geoff Paddock. His father Ben GiaQuinta held the same seat for seven terms, beginning in 1990. Phil’s older brother Mark GiaQuinta is also a veteran of local politics, serving on City Council from 1979 to 1995 and as Fort Wayne Community School Board president from 2008 to 2017.
The younger GiaQuinta is an obvious candidate to replace Henry as mayor. He’s been an active Democrat for many years — long before his time in elected office — and despite his position as House Minority Leader in the Statehouse, is known for being willing to spend his weekends knocking on doors with and for other Democratic candidates running in Allen County.
He and Henry had a strong relationship, and according to one Henry family insider, that made GiaQuinta the likely eventual recipient of an endorsement to replace the mayor, had Henry lived long enough to make one.
Kelley Automotive president Tom Kelley was the fifth person who joined them at the table that night at Catablu. A longtime friend of Henry’s, Kelley is not a politician, but he’s no stranger to politics: his father Jim Kelley was the Allen County Democratic Party chairman in the 1970s and 1980s.
In addition to their friendship, the younger Kelley was a loyal donor to Henry; public disclosure forms indicate that he gave at least $10,000 to the mayor’s successful 2023 reelection bid.
A check of Kelley’s publicly available voting history, however, shows that he’s an avid Republican—at least by the standard set forth in Indiana law: how one votes in primaries. In the last 25 years, Kelley has voted in five primary elections. Each and every time, he asked for a Republican ballot.
According to FEC campaign finance data, Kelley is also a reliable — and significant — financial supporter of the GOP, both in Indiana and nationally. That includes large amounts to Jim Banks, Todd Young, and Mike Braun.
Just last year, he donated the maximum allowed to both Banks’ Senate campaign and his PAC (Banks Victory Fund). In 2022, Kelley wrote two $10,000 checks, one to the Indiana State Republican Committee and one to Young’s PAC. A year earlier, he sent $20,000 to the NRSC, which worked that cycle trying to elect Republicans like J.D. Vance, Herschel Walker, and Dr. Mehmet Oz in an effort to wrest control of the U.S. Senate from Democrats.
Kelley is also rumored to be an occasional golf partner of former president Donald Trump.
Despite all that, Kelley was definitely among friends at Catablu that night. In addition to helping Henry, he’s also a known backer of GiaQuinta. Indiana campaign finance records show Kelley Automotive Group has given at least $10,000 to GiaQuinta over the past three years, donations likely approved by Kelley himself.
One precinct chair I spoke with thought that, given Kelley’s Republican history, his connection to GiaQuinta “could potentially make a difference” with a certain group of caucus voters. “For the wing of the party that is anti-elite, blue collar, I don’t think that plays well.”
This same person was quick to note, however, that they also believe “enough Democrats understand there’s a money piece to [running for mayor]. Tom Kelley can give a lot of money. There’s strategic value in that.”
Fort Wayne power brokers like Kelley — who are also big GOP donors — have been a significant part of Henry’s winning formula over the years. Unlike in federal races for Congress or the U.S. Senate, there’s no individual contribution limit in Indiana, so one or two wealthy individuals can have an outsized impact on local races.
In Henry’s case, his campaign finance reports for the 2023 election show large donations from Sweetwater founder Chuck Surack ($148,210) and Auburn businessman Rick James and his wife Vicki ($39,548).
“That’s what makes this [caucus] so interesting,” said one of the 98 Allen County Democratic Party precinct chairs who will be selecting the next mayor on April 20. “The normal power brokers don’t have their power.”
An uphill climb?
GiaQuinta’s connection to Kelley may be less of an issue for his candidacy than the fact that, like Henry, he shares two characteristics with every elected mayor in the history of Fort Wayne: being white and male.
“I want to see a female mayor,” one precinct chair said when discussing GiaQuinta’s prospects. Another was even more blunt. “I will not vote for a white man. It’s not happening.”
In that case, they have plenty of options. Every other candidate is either female, a person of color, or both: Michelle Chambers, Sharon Tucker, Stephanie Crandall, Austin Knox, Jorge Fernandez, and Palermo Galindo.
There were rumblings in the days following the mayor’s death that the Henry family might come out together publicly in support of GiaQuinta just prior to the caucus, but Tony Henry’s public endorsement of Knox at his announcement event last week ended any chance of that happening.
It also doesn’t seem like Tom Henry told GiaQuinta he wanted him to be his successor at that final dinner. At least, that’s not something GiaQuinta is claiming in his conversations with precinct chairs, according to several I’ve spoken with.
No heir apparent
It’s unlikely we’ll ever know for certain who Henry wanted to succeed him – or if he’d even made up his mind by the time he died.
Over the years, he’d suggested to several Democrats that he’d like for them to replace him one day, but he never followed up on those conversations by initiating the steps necessary to make it happen.
The most likely reason? Tom Henry loved being mayor of Fort Wayne, and he just couldn’t imagine anyone else in that office while he still might want to hold it.
“There’s only two things I know how to do,” he once told a close friend. “Love Cindy and run this city.”