Stunning Admission: Many documents related to the publicly funded $8 million parking garage were ‘misappropriated.’
OCEAN SPRINGS, MS (GC Wire) – An Ocean Springs alderman has publicly admitted on social media there are “many misappropriated documents” related to an $8 million state grant for the downtown parking garage — a controversy that now centers on whether binding financial decisions approved by elected officials can later be quietly altered by unelected officials.
Ward 1 Alderman Steve Tillis made the comments in response to an article published by GC Wire that centered on his refusal to correct the City’s historical record, even after evidence showed approved grant agreements were later swapped out with materially different versions that were never approved by the Board of Alderman.
“I would agree that there has been much misappropriated documents,” Tillis wrote in a May 10 Facebook comment. “This all appeared under a different administration and as aldermen, we are making decisions we can with the cards we’re dealt.”
Additionally, Tillis posted that he must follow the directives of the City Attorney when voting – a comment that caught the attention of many residents.
In this case, he said the city attorney instructed the Board could not correct the issue.
But City Attorney David Harris made no such directive. In fact, he gave instructions on how the Board should proceed if they wanted to make corrections to the record.
The Controversy and the Attorney’s Solution
At the May 5 Board meeting, Alderman Karen Stennis presented evidence that the approved minutes of a four-year-old Board meeting had later been altered.
Stennis laid out a timeline showing that on May 17, 2022, the Board approved a set of grant agreements with the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) involving $8 million in public funding for the downtown parking garage project.
Two weeks later, in June of 2022, the Board approved the minutes of that meeting — creating the official historical record of that Board’s actions.
But according to current records, transcripts, and side-by-side document comparisons reviewed by GC Wire, those approved agreements were eventually replaced inside the official record with materially different versions created more than a year later.
The replaced agreements were never approved by the Board of Aldermen.
Stennis argued the issue before the Board was not whether to change what the 2022 Board approved, but whether the current historical record still accurately reflected what that Board had already done before someone changed the records later.
She motioned to correct the record and restore the original approved agreements back to the minutes.
The motion was seconded by Alderman Shannon Pfeiffer.
Tillis — along with Aldermen Kevin Wade, Rob Blackman, Julie Messenger, and Matthew Hinton — voted against the correction.
After GC Wire reported on the failed motion, Tillis defended his vote publicly on Facebook.
“While, I would agree that there has been much misappropriated documents,” Tillis wrote. “This all appeared under a different administration and as aldermen, we are making decisions we can with the cards we’re dealt.”
While Tillis did not offer any evidence showing the changes made to the record were done prior to him taking office, he did defend his decision not to correct the record by claiming he was following the direction of the City Attorney.
“If the sitting city attorney tells us we cannot change the minutes of a previous board,” Tillis added, “Then I have to listen to legal representation.”
But during that same May 5 meeting, Harris did not tell the Board it could not make corrections to the historical record.
Instead, Harris outlined what he believed would be the procedural steps necessary to do so.
“So in considering this, you would have to give notice to the MDA and probably the OHOS Development,” Harris told the Board. “And you would have to hold a public hearing about what amendment you wanted to make to the minutes to the extent that it may affect their rights under the contract that you’re talking about.”
In other words, Harris described a process for correcting the record – not a prohibition against doing it.
Why All of this Matters
At the center of the controversy is not simply a disagreement over paperwork.
It is the question of who controls how $8 million in public money is spent — and whether that spending can later deviate from what elected officials actually approved.
Under Mississippi law, a municipality generally “speaks through its minutes,” meaning the official minutes of a Board meeting are the legal record of what government action was authorized.
That principle exists for a reason.
Without an accurate historical record, taxpayers have no reliable way to determine what their elected officials approved, what contracts the City agreed to, or whether public money is being spent according to those approvals.
According to evidence presented by Stennis and later reviewed by GC Wire, the Board approved one set of grant agreements in May 2022 involving the use of $8 million in public funds for the downtown parking garage project.
Weeks later, those agreements were signed and notarized.
But at some point afterward, materially different agreements appeared inside the official historical record – agreements that were never approved by the Board of Aldermen.
Critics argue that distinction is critical because later versions of the agreements altered key terms tied to ownership structure, obligations, and the overall framework of the publicly funded project.
The implications go beyond political disagreement.
Altering or tampering with official public records can potentially implicate multiple areas of Mississippi criminal law, including statutes involving falsification of public records, unlawful alteration of governmental documents, and violations tied to the integrity and preservation of public records.
Critics argue the issue before the Board was never simply about whether current aldermen supported the parking garage project itself.
The issue was whether binding financial decisions involving $8 million in public money should be controlled by what elected officials actually voted to approve — or by records later altered after those votes already occurred.
The Public Is Already Speaking Out
One of the key points made by Harris during the May 5 meeting was that if the Board chose to formally address the altered records issue, the process should involve a public hearing.
For many residents, that process matters for a reason far larger than the parking garage itself.
The controversy now centers on whether unelected individuals inside government can later alter records tied to millions in taxpayer obligations after elected officials have already voted and approved those actions in regular Board meetings.
A public hearing would allow residents to speak their mind on the matter. But in order for that to happen, an alderman must motion for the City to provide notice and put the hearing on its agenda – and a majority of the Board members must agree.
Whether the Board will do so has yet to be seen. In the meantime, residents are already making their concerns known.
Following GC Wire’s reporting and Tillis’s subsequent Facebook comments, citizens flooded social media with reactions ranging from confusion and outrage to demands for a full investigation.
Cynthia Baldock Thamert criticized Tillis for what she described as a willingness to “sweep everything under the rug,” arguing residents — not city officials — will ultimately bear the consequences of the controversy.
“We voted for change and he’s willing to sweep everything under the rug,” Thamert wrote. “The citizens of Ocean Springs deserve better! We deserve answers and accountability from these officials, not just having them look the other way!”
Thamert also questioned Tillis’s reliance on legal advice from Harris following the earlier forged document controversy.
“To base a decision on advisement from an attorney who admitted to fraud,” she added, “SMH.”
Jeff Mortenson focused on the role elected officials play in safeguarding public records and taxpayer interests.
“Unconscionable that an elected official, one who is supposed to work FOR constituents and not cover-up potential corruption or falsifying official records,” Mortenson wrote. “Shame on every one of them.”
Anita Hitchcock similarly argued Tillis’s position protected the individuals involved rather than taxpayers.
“You are not protecting the taxpayers but the individuals who created this mess,” Hitchcock wrote. “They all of them as none are above the law need to pay the consequences and this mess needs to be sorted out the right way!”
Other residents questioned Tillis’s repeated framing that the controversy belonged solely to a previous administration.
“He refers to a problem created by the former administration,” Sheila Reid wrote, “but aren’t the majority of this current administration the carry over or reelected former administration including the mayor? They didn’t inherit anything, they helped create the issue.”
Some commenters focused on what they viewed as the central contradiction in the Board’s position.
“So make this make sense,” Tracy Hicks wrote. “The board, mayor and city attorney all agree that the documents have been altered but yet refuse to take any action on it?”
Mayor Not On Board
Mayor Bobby Cox has also largely avoided directly answering the central question raised by the controversy: Which agreements did the Board actually approve on May 17, 2022?
During recent public meetings, Cox repeatedly defended the City’s handling of the disputed records and insisted nothing had been secretly “stuffed” into the minutes packet.
At one point, Cox stated, “It wasn’t being hidden and stuffed in there. It was done for a reason.”
But despite weeks of controversy, Cox has stopped short of clearly stating whether the Board approved the original 2022 agreements later signed and notarized after the vote, or the later “Amended and Restated” versions now attached to the historical record.
That distinction has become increasingly important because Cox was not merely an observer to the events in question.
At the time the original MDA grant agreements were approved on May 17, 2022, current Mayor Bobby Cox was serving as Alderman-at-Large but was absent from the meeting.
Current Aldermen Rob Blackman and Kevin Wade both served on the Board at the time and voted to approve the original agreements. Blackman also seconded the motion authorizing the mayor to execute the MDA grant documents tied to the downtown garage project. Both remain in office today.
In addition to the swapped contracts controversy, it has also been revealed doctored agreements related to the parking garage had surfaced and been previously presented to Board members as legitimate — another example of unelected people changing what elected officials previously voted on.
Four years after the vote, the central question remains unresolved:
Should the City of Ocean Springs be governed by the agreements its elected officials actually approved in public meetings — or by documents that appeared later in the historical record without a public vote?
