OCEAN SPRINGS, MS (GC Wire) – Ocean Springs officials told the public key documents did not exist. Yet, their own city attorney had already handed them out.
Newly obtained information shows the city attorney gave elected officials copies of the very same documents the mayor and city clerk told the public did not exist.
On its surface, the dispute may sound minor — a disagreement over four year old meeting notes — but the stakes are not. At issue is the paper trail behind an $8 million public project, one that could change the course of the city’s future.
The documents, which could prove the city has ownership rights of the downtown parking garage, no longer appear in the official public record.
At last week’s Board of Aldermen meeting, one alderman pointed out that official discrepancy, as other officials insisted she was wrong.
City Attorney David Harris remained silent, even though he had already distributed those same documents to elected officials months earlier — the very documents Mayor Bobby Cox and City Clerk Christine Millard said did not exist.
Meanwhile, Cox has continued to describe the parking garage deal as “perfect.”
What’s the Dispute About?
In 2019, the city partnered with OHOS Development LLC to secure grant funding for an $8 million downtown parking garage. The applications presented to the state described a project in which the city would own the structure.
The state approved the structure and funding.
On May 17, 2022, the Board of Aldermen voted to authorize the mayor to sign the grant agreements with the Mississippi Development Authority. Those agreements were executed in August, approximately 90 days later.
But a recent public records request revealed a problem with the official record.
The minutes for that meeting include a different set of contracts — amended versions created more than a year later that were never approved by the Board.
Here is why that matters:
The agreements approved by the Board reflect a structure in which the city owns the parking garage, consistent with the grant applications. The later, unapproved versions reflect the opposite.
In simple terms, the official record now reflects a different set of agreements than the ones the Board actually approved.
Because the City is legally bound by its minutes, that discrepancy could affect who ultimately owns the $8 million parking garage and what the City is required to do.
The City Attorney Remained Silent
Alderman Karen Stennis raised the issue at the April 21 Board meeting, but her concerns were dismissed by Mayor Bobby Cox and City Clerk Christine Millard.
GC Wire reported the issue the day before the meeting.
Cox said an investigation took place after the issue was raised. The mayor insisted the first set of grant agreements signed after authorization were the July 2023 versions, not the August 2022 executed contracts.
“Obviously it wasn’t done in 2022,” Cox said. “[The agreements are] stamped and notarized in 2023. So it wasn’t being hidden.”
Yet, here they are: Phase 1 MDA Grant Agreement and Phase 2 MDA Grant Agreement – both signed, notarized, and executed in August 2022.
Meanwhile, City Attorney David Harris remained silent, although he could have settled the debate instantly. Instead, his silence allowed statements he knew to be contradicted by the documents in his possession to go unchallenged.
In November of last year, Harris presented the Board and mayor with a confidentially labeled packet that contained a timeline of parking garage related actions taken by the Board. Tab 4 of his packet contained copies of the agreements executed in August 2022 – the very documents the mayor said do not exist.
Harris had already provided the Board with those documents in November. Yet, he did not reference them during the discussion. His silence left the public with an incomplete — and potentially misleading — understanding of the record.
City Clerk Millard echoed Cox.
“Once the document was signed it was added to that packet so that at some time in the future if somebody wanted to pull the discussion and see the document it would be all there together,” she said, referring to why the minutes packet contained the July 2023 contracts.
Despite insisting the July 2023 agreements were the proper documents, Millard’s office also had the correct earlier contracts in their possession.
In November, the City Clerk’s Office responded to a separate GC Wire public records request that asked for the executed contracts. Millard’s office sent the August 2022 contracts — the same agreements described at last week’s meeting as not existing.
Who Else Knew — And Said Nothing?
All of the Board members and the mayor received the contracts in question from Harris back in November.
The Friday before the April 21 Board meeting, GC Wire showed the disputed minutes packet and the missing contracts to Alderman Steve Tillis. Later that day, he responded via text: “I heard what you had to say loud and clear.”
After the April 21 meeting, Tillis was asked why he did not speak up when the Board was debating the issue.
“I understand your concerns,” he texted, before pointing towards previous leadership. “I don’t think this administration is involved with anything underhanded. It’s unfortunate we are having to deal with many of the previous board problems.”
But the issue at hand is current, involving records produced by sitting officials – not past administration players.
After the April 21 meeting, GC Wire sent copies of the disputed August 2022 contracts to all Board members and the mayor. Alderman-at-Large Matthew Hinton responded via text message, suggesting the issue may be clerical.
“I believe this is something that needs to be addressed,” he wrote. “I have requested that the matter be reviewed, and if any discrepancies are found to be a scrivener’s error, that they be corrected accordingly.”
Alderman Shannon Pfeiffer said she has also seen the August 2022 documents. Her response was more direct.
“I am not sure why the city is claiming these agreements do not exist,” Pfeiffer said. “The mayor and board members were all given copies of them earlier and also emailed a copy of them this week. The city clerk’s office distributed copies of the same documents to a resident via a public records request late last year. The 2022 agreements do exist and we all have copies.”
Mayor Says Garage Deal Was ‘Perfect’
As questions about the agreements surfaced, Mayor Cox has continued to defend the structure of the project.
In a report by WLOX, Cox described the parking garage deal in glowing terms.
“The public-private partnership, that’s how they should work, and to be honest with you, MDA is really using this as a model complex. I mean, this is exactly how they like it to be done,” Cox said.
But the mayor’s opinion is in stark contrast with the documented record.
State Official Warn Ocean Springs
In a March report related to grants, State Auditor Shad White described the Ocean Springs parking garage deal as a cautionary tale that is in danger of clawback by the MDA.
“Since the completion of the project, there has been confusion over the final ownership of the garage,” White wrote in the report.
The Auditor is referring to statements made in the grant applications that were submitted to MDA by OHOS attorney Erich Nichols. In those applications, Nichols did not mince his words:
“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.”
The same claim appears again later in the applications:
“The City of Ocean Springs is in full support of the project as evidenced by the attached resolution and the fact the City is a co-applicant and will be the owner of the proposed parking garage.”
MDA has confirmed this language was used as part of the determination to award the $8 million grant.
The City and OHOS certified the ownership claims when they signed and executed the first set of grant agreements in August 2022. Section 6 of those agreements contains the clause:
“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.”
But, those August 2022 agreements have since been removed from the official Ocean Springs record. They were replaced by a set that was executed over a year later and without Board of Aldermen approval – even though they contain certifications that they were signed with full Board approval.
The newer set of agreements have added language, pointing to “Annex B,” which details a structure where OHOS retains ownership of the garage, with the City leasing the structure and paying all costs associated with maintaining it.
Representatives from the Auditor’s Office and MDA told GC Wire the State is relying on the latter set of agreements. Both agencies say they are told those agreements were authorized by the Ocean Springs Board of Aldermen. Official City records show they were not.
That reliance led to Auditor White stating in his report, “The final performance metric for the project is the transfer of the garage to the City of Ocean Springs through a lease agreement. If the city does not enter an agreement with OHOS, it must repay all GCRF funds to MDA.”
Earlier this week, GC Wire reported the City and its partners at OHOS failed to follow the contractual and statutory required process of accepting public bids for the parking garage construction, adding another layer to the problems facing the project. Instead of a public bidding process, the City’s partners at OHOS hired Orocon Construction to build. Orocon and OHOS share the same ownership.
Public Funds with Little Public Benefit
The mixed use project at 1515 Government Street has taken advantage of a myriad of public programs to subsidize the business.
OHOS representatives originally told the City’s Planning Commission they would not need public assistance for infrastructure, but months after construction began, the City moved forward with a Tax Increment Financing plan.
In July 2023, the Board of Aldermen held a public hearing. By August, they approved a development and reimbursement agreement allowing up to $1 million in bonds to reimburse the developer for infrastructure improvements described as “necessary for the development.”
The project also participates in the State’s Tourism Project Incentive Program, or TIP.
Under that program, a portion of the sales tax generated by the development — money that would normally go to the City — is instead diverted to OHOS over time.
The result is not a direct expenditure, but a tradeoff:
For years, the City gives up a share of the revenue the project produces.
What Will Happen Next?
Alderman Stennis plans on presenting the documents at the next board meeting.
“I had already requested this issue go on the agenda for the next meeting,” she said. “I want to make sure the public has a chance to weigh in, rather than making that presentation during the Aldermen’s Forum, which is after all public comment parts of the meeting.”
The documents were approved.
The documents were signed.
The documents were provided to the Board.
What remains unresolved is not whether the documents exist — that much is no longer in dispute.
The question now is why a set of agreements approved by the Board, signed by the mayor, and distributed to elected officials no longer appears in the official record — and why those discrepancies were allowed to stand uncorrected when they surfaced in public.
With state agencies relying on a different version of those same agreements, the issue is no longer just about paperwork. It is about which version of the record will ultimately govern an $8 million public asset — and whether the public is being asked to accept a reality that does not match the documents in hand.
As of publication, emailed requests for comment to the mayor, city clerk, and city attorney have gone unanswered.
