City Attorney Threatens Citizen Journalist: Withdraw Ethics Complaint Or Else

OCEAN SPRINGS, MS (GC Wire) – The City of Ocean Springs got caught red handed swapping out documents that resulted in millions of dollars in public money being shifted from taxpayers to a private company with close ties to officials.

I reported my findings in news articles. Then, I reported Ocean Springs to the state.

Now, the City is coming after me.

Ocean Springs City Hall is threatening legal action and personal financial consequences against me unless I withdraw the formal Open Meetings Act complaint I filed through the very state process Mississippi law provides citizens to challenge government transparency violations.

Earlier this year, GC Wire exposed a massive discrepancy in the city’s official records related to the eight-million-dollar downtown parking garage that was built with public money.

According to the evidence obtained and published by GC Wire, Ocean Springs officials quietly changed the historical records regarding what was actually voted on by the Board of Aldermen on May 17, 2022.

These altered records were relied upon when deciding whether taxpayers would retain ownership of the multi-million-dollar garage or if it would be owned by a private company whose executives had close ties to then-Mayor Kenny Holloway.

The Ethics Commission complaint laid out an impossible timeline, showing how the Board could not possibly have approved contracts in 2022 that were not drafted until 2023.

Now, the Ocean Springs City Attorney has given this reporter an ultimatum: withdraw the complaint now or face financial and harsh legal consequences.

It’s an all too familiar trend when South Mississippi city officials face intense public scrutiny.

What My Ethics Complaint Alleges

The Mississippi Open Meetings Act explicitly mandates that a public body maintain an “accurate recording of any final actions taken at such meeting.” This record is legally referred to as “minutes.”

My complaint focuses on a clear factual discrepancy: the official minutes packet for the May 17, 2022 meeting attaches unapproved agreements drafted more than a year later in July 2023. It is an impossible timeline.

This means the historical minutes, as they currently stand, do not accurately reflect the actual final actions taken by the Board on that night in May 2022.

The agreements fundamentally changed who would own the multi-million-dollar garage.

The City applied for the BP Oil Spill grant money jointly with the owners of 1515 OS, a downtown boutique hotel. The grant application told the state if they awarded the millions of dollars to build the garage, it would be owned by its residents. After state approval of the grant, the Board of Aldermen approved a set of grant agreements that showed the city would be the owners of the structure.

Later, the city quietly replaced those contracts with contracts that were never approved by the Board and were not even created until over a year after the Board voted. Those new contracts gave ownership to the private partners.

Rather than answer the ethics complaint within 14 days of service as mandated by state law, the City chose to threaten me.

In an extraordinary August 13 demand letter, City Attorney David N. Harris Jr. gave me seven days to withdraw Mississippi Ethics Commission Complaint M-26-012, the complaint which alleges the City’s official records were altered and approved contracts were swapped out by contracts never approved by the Board of Aldermen.

If this reporter refuses, Harris warned that the City intends to pursue “all available relief at law,” specifically threatening me with expensive financial consequences.

In other words, I filed a legal complaint with the state agency charged with enforcing Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act. Rather than simply answering the allegations and allowing the Ethics Commission to decide whether a violation occurred, the City’s attorney has demanded that I abandon the complaint or potentially face large financial penalties.

I emphatically refuse.

Baseless Legal Grounding

City Attorney Harris’ threat relies on a complete mischaracterization of the complaint.

Instead of addressing its core question of “does the record accurately reflect what was approved by the Board on that night,” Harris describes the complaint as asking the Ethics Commission to determine whether the Board made the right call with their votes.

Harris cited the Mississippi Litigation Accountability Act (MLAA) as his legal basis for the threat, stating my complaint is asking the Commission to decide something outside its jurisdiction. It’s not. Further, the MLAA is only relevant to lawsuits filed within the state.

“Your invocation of the Mississippi Litigation Accountability Act (MLAA) is legally baseless,” my formal response sent to Harris on Thursday stated.

“By its own explicit terms, the MLAA applies to actions brought in a ‘court of record.’ It has no application to an administrative enforcement complaint before an executive [ethics] commission. Your attempt to threaten a journalist with manufactured civil litigation fees in a non-judicial forum is noted.”

The letter also stated my clear answer to his ultimatum:

“I will not withdraw a factually sound complaint regarding public record accuracy under the threat of bad-faith financial penalties,”

A Chilling Pattern

This is not the first time Ocean Springs officials have retaliated for factual reporting. It is also not the only local Mississippi municipality to use strong arm methods.

In April, US Air Force Master Sergeant Jarrod Fusco, who publishes a Facebook page critical of Biloxi governmental affairs, was arrested for sharing a link to a critical blog post written by someone else.

The link, posted to Facebook, contained a disclaimer that any links to outside media articles are written by their respective authors.

He was charged with a Mississippi misdemeanor after one of the Biloxi officials mentioned in the blog post filed a sworn charging affidavit, claiming Fusco linked to an article she found offensive. If convicted of sharing a link on Facebook, Fusco faces six months in jail.

In 2022, I began openly investigating several major instances where I believed actions of Ocean Springs officials did not coincide with the law. I later published my findings, which included discrepancies in zoning issues.

Those investigations eventually led to the exposing of a massive traffic ticket scandal in which City officials were on the private payrolls of Securix, the company Ocean Springs contracted with to identify and fine uninsured motorists. The web of those involved in the now defunct program led to statewide names who yielded massive power.

A campaign to discredit me ensued. Officials actively attacked the reporter, rather than addressing the issues he uncovered.

I sued the City and several of its officials in federal court for defamation and First Amendment retaliation.

Making a claim against a municipality proved difficult. The court dismissed the federal case against the city, but allowed the complaints against the individuals to proceed in state court, if I chose to seek that remedy. Due to costs and the stress of the proceedings, I decided to let it go.

But the City continues its barrage of retaliation for the scandals I uncover.

The Latest Retaliation

Mississippi law gives citizens the right to file Open Meetings Act complaints with the Ethics Commission. The government gets to respond. The complainant presents the evidence. The Ethics Commission decides whether the law was violated.

That’s the process.

I used it.

Now I’ve been given seven days to abandon my complaint or potentially face personal financial consequences.

Again, I emphatically refuse.

The City can file its response. I will stand behind my evidence. And the Mississippi Ethics Commission can decide the case.

Eventually, someone is going to have to answer the EIGHT MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION at the center of all of this:

Do the City’s official minutes accurately record what its elected Board actually approved?

They don’t.

And an Ethics Commission ruling acknowledging this could have massive consequences… consequences they are willing to try anything to avoid.