Transparency for Sale: Clerk’s Sworn Statement Blows Hole in Ocean Springs Paywall

Ocean Springs built a paywall around transparency. A sworn court filing just cracked it wide open.

OCEAN SPRINGS, MS — State law allows anyone to access emails sent and received by city officials. It’s supposed to be an easy and affordable way for residents to keep government transparent — a clear window into the decisions made with public money.

Some cities don’t want those emails to be public, so they concoct ways to close the window.

In Ocean Springs, city officials have adopted a rationale that makes access to officials’ emails cost upwards of hundreds of dollars. It’s a surefire way to keep the average resident from ever getting their hands on them, and effectively slamming the transparency window shut.

But that justification collapsed this week, when City Clerk Christine Millard filed a sworn declaration in federal court that is opposite of what she and the city tells the public.

What the Law Says vs. What Ocean Springs Does

The Mississippi Public Records Act is clear: searches for requested public documents, including emails, should be performed by the lowest-paid employee capable of doing the work, and the city may charge only the actual cost of that labor.

Ocean Springs has long maintained that nobody at City Hall has access to the city’s email system. Because of that, officials say, the city must hire an outside IT contractor — a company that charges $37.50 just to provide an estimated cost and then $150 to $175 per hour to perform the search. A request for just a handful of emails can run hundreds of dollars, effectively pricing transparency out of reach for most residents.

Under Oath, the City’s Story Collapses

In August, during a recorded conversation at City Hall, Millard reinforced the city’s long-standing claim of inaccessibility.

“I want to make sure you know what you’re asking and what we can do,” Millard said while explaining the email fees. “Because we can’t pull — like, we’re not even allowed to pull emails – we have to contract that out. They don’t allow us to even search our own emails.”

.

That is the story told to the public. Yet, in a sworn declaration filed in federal court on Tuesday, Millard stated the opposite, under penalty of perjury.

“In my capacity as City Clerk, I maintain access to City email accounts,” she wrote. “I recently conducted a search [spanning nearly five months] regarding communications from Plaintiff Eric Brian Rosenberg, a.k.a. E. Brian Rose.”

That statement directly contradicts her previous statements and the city’s justification for the extreme high fees it charges to residents for access to official emails. The conflicting stories cannot both be true.

If Millard maintains access to all city email accounts and can conduct searches herself, the entire paywall — built on the claim that no one could — raises consequential legal and ethical questions.

180 Degree Reversal Following Sworn Statement

A recent phone call revealed yet another twist. One day after City Clerk Millard stated under oath that she held the keys to all the city’s email accounts and personally conducts searches, Deputy City Clerk Vicky Hupe told a GC Wire reader on a recorded line the categorical opposite.

“So, nobody at City Hall has access to search emails?” the reader asked.

Hupe replied confidently: “Nope.”

She also changed the city’s official story from “can’t” to “won’t.”

“Why do you need an outside company to search your email?” the reader asked.

Hupe offered two different partial admissions before settling on a third.

“Because we’re not legally… because we don’t want to be… we’ve been accused before of not pulling up all of the emails, and this way it’s done by a different company,” she said.

.

That explanation reframes the entire issue. According to Hupe, the city isn’t outsourcing because it lacks the ability — it’s outsourcing as a result of past accusations, and then billing residents for their choice.

The multiple accounts cannot coexist. To residents, the city clerk and her deputy insist nobody has access. In court, Millard admits she does have access. Again, both cannot be true.

The law permits recovery of actual costs. It does not authorize shifting the expense of reputation-management decisions to citizens. Likewise, basic ethical standards do not permit officials to give one story to the public while offering the opposite to a court when under oath.

The Irony and the Impact

The irony could not be sharper: the Millard declaration was made inside a motion asking for a sweeping restraint order aimed at restricting this reporter’s access to public officials and public documents, including emails, while the city defends accusations of First Amendment retaliation

Instead, the filing exposed what may be one of the current administration’s most serious transparency questions yet.

Ocean Springs has spent years telling residents they must pay massive fees to an outside contractor, for what the City Clerk herself now admits she can do in-house. Under state law, that means every inflated invoice, every request abandoned over fees, and every “estimate fee” may have been built on a false premise — one that has now unraveled in federal court – and has the potential to become the center of future litigation if any residents deem they were misled.

The city’s motion for a restraining order was filed in the federal case Rosenberg v. City of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, et al. The court has yet to rule on it.

What Does the Ethics Commission Say?

A small number of other Mississippi cities have faced similar scrutiny for using outside IT firms to handle email public records requests, and the Mississippi Ethics Commission has previously dismissed complaints over those fee structures. But Ocean Springs is different.

In those cases, officials uniformly claimed that no employee had access to city email systems. Here, the City Clerk herself swore under oath that she not only maintains the city’s email accounts, but personally conducted a five-month search — while publicly telling residents otherwise. That distinction changes everything.

A System Built to Deter

If the city clerk has access, the law requires the city to perform those searches internally at staff pay rates.

By maintaining a $150 per-hour barrier, Ocean Springs effectively turned the statutory right to transparency into a privilege only reserved for those who can afford it.

Whether the conflicting statements stem from confusion, deliberate policy, or fear of accountability, the result is the same: a city government told incompatible stories about access to its own records, and then charged residents based on the more expensive version.

Full Recordings

Below are the full recordings of conversations referenced in this article. The recordings were obtained lawfully, in compliance with Mississippi law, and are presented in their entirety for public transparency and verification.

August 26, 2025 – Conversation between E. Brian Rose, Ocean Springs City Clerk Christine Millard, and a clerk’s assistant:

.

October 22, 2025 – Telephone conversation between GC Wire reader and Ocean Springs Deputy City Clerk Vicky Hupe:

.

Ocean Springs Published Public Records Request Rates

• Copy rate/per  BW page – $0.25 – Copy rate per Color page – $0.50 — Standard Letter or Legal Size. Architectural or legal size $5.00/pg
• Postage – Current Rate
• Search, Review, Reproduction (per hour/per staff member) – $20
• Email files under 25MB – No charge
• USB Flash Drive (Up to 1 GB)/CD – $10 each
• A $1.00 charge will be added per Ordinance 2022-17 following Section 25-60-5 MS Code requirements.
• Inspect in person -staff hourly rate in 15-minute increments.
• Email Searches will be charged at AGJ set rate – $150/hour M-F 8-5 or $175/hour Weekend and after-hours
• Email Search Estimate provided by AGJ – $37.50 must be submitted before estimate is given
• Video Footage Search – $50.00/hour fee to outside agency

.