City Says Promises Used to Obtain Millions were Just ‘Sales Pitch’ Fluff

OCEAN SPRINGS, MS — City Attorney David Harris told the public Tuesday that the broken promises used to secure millions in state funds for a private developer were nothing more than a non-binding “sales pitch” — but the contracts say otherwise.

The downtown parking garage at 1515 Government Street was built with more than $8 million in state grant money, awarded through a program meant to fund public infrastructure. Ocean Springs and its private partner secured the funds by telling the state that the garage would become city-owned public property once construction was finished — a transfer that never happened.

For years, city officials maintained to the state the promise was genuine. But at Tuesday night’s Board of Aldermen meeting, Harris offered a new explanation: Those ownership promises weren’t binding at all, he said. They were merely “a sales pitch.”

According to Harris, the statements the city certified to the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) — including the guarantee that Ocean Springs would own the garage — were just “aspirational language,” embellishment grant writers used to make a project sound better.

But the state’s contracts tell a very different story. The city didn’t merely offer a fluff filled sales pitch, it certified the pitch as fact.

In multiple grant agreements signed in 2023 and 2024, Ocean Springs formally re-certified that all of the promises in its original application — including the ownership transfer — were “true and correct.”

Those agreements include a legally binding clause requiring that every material fact in the application remain accurate at the time the city signed the contract.

And this week, MDA confirmed in writing that it has dispatched an investigator to Ocean Springs to review the status of that ownership transfer — an inquiry prompted, in part, by the city’s conflicting explanations and GC Wire’s earlier reporting.

Misrepresentation by City Attorney

At the center of the unfolding controversy is a single paragraph in the GCRF grant agreements — Section 6 — a clause that makes the “sales pitch” defense impossible.

Those agreements, signed by former Mayor Kenny Holloway and former City Clerk Patty Gaston, state:

“The Entity certifies that all of the material information contained in the Application is true and correct as of the date of the Application and the date of this Agreement.”

The agreement also incorporates the entire grant application — including its promises — by reference.

In that application, Ocean Springs and OHOS Land, LLC jointly told the state:

“OHOS Land, LLC has entered into an agreement in which it will transfer ownership of the parking garage and amenities to the City upon completing construction.”

This was the very premise that justified the multimillion-dollar award: State money for a public asset.

But as GC Wire previously documented, no such agreement ever existed. At every public facing stage, the city described the same thing: a lease, not a transfer of ownership to the city.

Yet the city re-certified the ownership promise in multiple versions of the MDA grant agreement. This is why Harris’s “sales pitch” remark sent a jolt through the board.

It was not merely inaccurate — it suggested that the city attorney himself fundamentally misrepresented what Ocean Springs had repeatedly signed.

Aldermen Question Whether Money Was Obtained ‘Illegally’

Board members reacted with visible frustration as they pieced together the implications.

Alderman Steve Tillis said the most obvious thing no one had yet been willing to say publicly:

“We as a board need to figure out who owns the parking garage… It appears they own it, but the application says we would receive it. How that changed, I don’t know.”

He continued:

“I just want to know how we abandoned ownership… and why this was done.”

Alderman Karen Stennis, after hearing Harris describe the application as merely aspirational, went further:

“To me it sounds like funds were gotten illegally.”

Alderman Shannon Pfeiffer pointed out that Ocean Springs and OHOS told MDA as recently as August 2024 — when the structure was nearly finished — that the garage would still be transferred to the city.

Alderman-at-Large Matthew Hinton attempted to defend the historical record, saying the city always expected a lease, never ownership. But his summary only highlighted the contradiction: If the city always expected a lease, why did it repeatedly certify to the state the garage ownership would transferred to the city?

Hinton did not address the other side of the contradiction – that the city repeatedly certified the opposite to the state.

Harris Asks Alderman to Leave the Room

The story did not end when the meeting shifted to a private setting.

According to several aldermen, Harris attempted to persuade Alderman Karen Stennis to recuse herself and leave the room.

His justification?

An email written not by Karen, but by her father — former mayor Tom Stennis — to Mayor Bobby Cox and MDA Director Bill Cork. Alderman Stennis disagreed, stating she had not written the email and that there was no conflict of interest.

The irony was immediate and unmistakable:

The board had unanimously voted earlier that same night for Harris to recuse himself while the Board discussed his contract — and he refused to leave the room.

Yet, an hour later, he attempted to eject an elected alderman who had no involvement in the communication he cited. According to members in attendance, Harris said he would have to notate in the minutes that Stennis refused to leave.

The Email Harris Read Aloud

Harris then read the Tom Stennis email aloud to the room. Among other points, the email stated:

• residents were preparing to acquire the full grant file through public records requests
• the city had “not complied with the terms of the application”
• and: “The MDA has stated they will investigate.”

Cork’s response, sent minutes later, confirmed exactly that:

“I’m dispatching the grant administrator to Ocean Springs to check on the project and interview folks on the status of the garage transfer.” — Bill Cork, Nov. 13, 2025

Cork did not describe this as routine — in the email, he explicitly used the word “investigation.”

Which explains why Harris had earlier urged the board to move the discussion into executive session:

“There are some other issues… that are better discussed in executive session because of some things that have happened this week.”

Now we know what he meant.

What the Fluff?

The contradictions between the grant application, the agreements, the reality, and the city attorney’s public statements have become impossible to overlook.

The stakes now include:

• A pending state investigation
• The possibility of a grant clawback
• Potential legal exposure for false certifications
• And a growing realization among aldermen that the city’s story has never added up

For residents, questions remains:

Did Ocean Springs obtain more than eight million in public funds for a private company based on statements its own city attorney now dismisses as nothing more than “sales pitch” fluff? And if so, what are the consequences?