OCEAN SPRINGS, MS – On Tuesday, Ocean Springs City Attorney David Harris sent a two-page letter to officials. It was labeled “Privileged Attorney-Client Communication.” The letter, sent in response to allegations raised in a recent press conference, was addressed to the mayor and all members of the Board of Aldermen, with the exception of Ward 4 Alderman Shannon Pfeiffer.
The letter followed a Special Meeting called the day before by Aldermen Karen Stennis and Pfeiffer to consider motions regarding Harris’s alleged misconduct. With no quorum present, the meeting was not convened. Instead, the two aldermen held a press conference to explain why they believed the issues require Board attention.
Stennis and Pfeiffer gave detailed statements regarding actions by Harris they felt were outside Mississippi law, ethical requirements, and rules of professional conduct.
Their list of allegations included falsifying official documents, misrepresenting state law to secure a lucrative city contract, refusal to recuse himself, and a recent incident of self-dealing.
The letter marks the first formal written response from Harris to the allegations raised by Aldermen Stennis and Pfeiffer. In it, he addressed each allegation, at times freely admitting to the very behavior he is being accused of, and other times doubling down on interpretations that contradict Attorney General opinions and, sometimes, even his own.
The following is a plain English breakdown of Harris’s letter as compared to the law and various opinions of state agencies.
Failure to Recuse
At a recent board meeting, the aldermen were scheduled to discuss applicants for the permanent position of city attorney. Harris, being one of those applicants, was asked to recuse himself. The Board voted unanimously for him to do so and the mayor asked him to leave the room.
But Harris refused.
“I’ll just sit here quietly,” he said.
In his letter, Harris justified his refusal to step out by claiming he is a member of the general public, rather than a public servant having to abide by the rules of public officials.
“I am not a member of the Board, I do not exercise a vote on the Board,” he wrote.
Harris recognized that the Board asked him to recuse himself, but then cited 39 Miss. Code. R. 101-I-9.1, which is a state rule governing the conduct of residents in open meetings. He stated:
“An open meeting must remain open and members of the general public are welcome to attend if the behave in a ‘calm, professional manner and will not attempt to directly or indirectly interrupt a meeting of the Board.’”
But David Harris is not a member of the general public of Ocean Springs – he is a public servant and public servants are governed by a specific set of rules during public meetings. Stennis and Pfeiffer claim that Harris is subject to those rules. And the state’s top legal agency agrees.
In Opinion WL 247199, the Mississippi Attorney General states:
“A Municipal Attorney… is a public servant as defined in Section 25-4-1-3.”
And in Advisory Opinion 96-028-E, the AG wrote:
“In order to properly recuse oneself from a matter, the public servant must leave the room or area where such discussions, considerations and/or actions take place.”
Falsifying Official Documents
On July 1, the first day the new Board and mayor took office, Harris led a closed door executive session. During that meeting, several legal issues were discussed. Among them, whether the Ocean Springs should continue to allow former city attorney and Securix counsel Robert Wilkinson to represent it in several pending lawsuits.
No action on the matter was taken.
However, the following month, the official minutes from the meeting, written by Harris, reflected a motion by Alderman Matthew Hinton, seconded by Alderman Rob Blackman, and unanimously carried for Wilkinson’s firm to continue representation of the city.
At the time, Hinton told GC Wire that entry was a complete fabrication. “There was no action taken,” he said. “There was only a discussion, but no vote.” Stennis and Pfeiffer concurred in their responses to media inquiries. Alderman Steve Tillis was unsure, but trusted the minutes taken by Harris. “While I don’t recall the vote, if it’s in the minutes, it must have happened,” he said.
At the August 5 Board of Aldermen meeting, Hinton made a motion to strike from the record Harris’s account of a vote he said never took place. The Board, including Tillis, voted unanimously to remove Harris’s entry.
In his letter, Harris shrugged off his action as a simple error. He wrote that his inclusion of a phantom motion, second, and unanimous vote into the minutes were determined by the Board to be a “clerical error.”
But the video recording of the meeting show no such declaration was made. Rather, Alderman Hinton plainly stated the described motion and action simply did not happen. His motion did not declare the phantom vote as a simple “clerical error.”
Misrepresenting State Law to Secure a Lucrative City Contract
Harris was appointed as Interim City Attorney by the previous Board on June 17, while requests for applications to fill the spot permanently were being advertised. Eleven weeks later, Harris sprung a surprise on the newly elected Board members.
At the September 2 meeting, Harris said his interim position was set to end as a matter of law. He then cited Mississippi Code 21-15-41, a statute that caps interim positions at 90 days.
But that law only applies to “required” positions:
“No person shall serve in an interim or hold-over capacity for longer than ninety (90) days in a position that is required by law…”
Stennis and Pfeiffer claim that the position of city attorney is not required by law, and, instead, is a discretionary position. During the September 2 meeting, Harris told the aldermen the city “must have” a city attorney, explaining that his position is required.
The Mississippi Attorney General appears to side with Stennis and Pfeiffer’s interpretation.
In AG Opinion No. 2006-00642, the Attorney General weighs in on Mississippi Code 21-15-25, the statute governing the appointment of municipal attorneys:
“We have previously opined that section 21-15-25 is discretionary and there is no requirement that an attorney be appointed under this section.
But Harris stuck to his own opinion. In the letter, he doubles down that the rule limiting interim appointments applies to his position, even after being told multiple times by the aldermen that statute 21-15-41 only applies to required positions.
In his letter, Harris wrote: “The appointment to interim city attorney occurred during the transition from the prior administration to this one. The appointment according to Miss Code Ann. Section 21-15-41 can be no longer than ninety-days.”
Harris Contradicts Himself
Harris told the Board of Aldermen on September 2 they were not allowed by law to continue his interim month-to-month contract or sign a new month-to-month contract with him. He said the law requires all municipal attorney contracts to be for one year.
He doubled down on this in his letter to the Board and mayor.
Stennis and Pfeiffer argue that Mississippi Code 21-15-25 states that governing authorities “may annually appoint an attorney,” which means an annual appointment is optional, not a requirement.
Harris’s own position falls apart under its own contradictions.
Mr. Harris claims that 21-15-25 states every contract with a city attorney must be for a one year period. If that were to be taken as fact, then Mr. Harris’s first contract as a month-to-month interim city attorney would have been against the law, by his own definition.
Here is what 21-15-25 actually says about the matter:
“The governing authorities may annually appoint an attorney-at-law for the municipality, prescribe his duties and fix his compensation, and/or they may employ counsel to represent the interest of the municipality, should the occasion require.”
The statute clearly allows for flexibility in contracting or hiring a city attorney. It does not differentiate between normal and interim contracts – the line “should the occasion require” seemingly supports the idea of ongoing short term contracts.
Harris Claims Self-Dealing is Allowed by Attorneys
In his letter, Mr. Harris addresses the allegation made by Stennis and Pfeiffer that he attempted to use his position to benefit from a third party vendor.
State law is crystal clear on this topic.
The first sentence of Mississippi Code 25-4-105 reads, “No public servant shall use his official position to obtain, or attempt to obtain, pecuniary benefit for himself other than that compensation provided for by law…”
But that appears to be what Harris has done.
During a recent closed door executive session, Harris presented aldermen with submissions from three third-party vendors to assist the city in obtaining funds related to PFAS (forever chemicals) contamination.
The firm Harris recommended as the best option was also the one firm that would directly pay Harris 15% of the contingency fee.
Embedded into the contract aldermen received from Harris the following day was this clause: “You approve of Your board attorney being associated by WMC to serve as local counsel and to be paid 15% of the 33% attorney fees, after expenses are deducted.”
Harris justified this in his letter by quoting a passage from Mississippi Code 21-15-25, which states, “For services and duties which the regular city attorney is not required to perform as a result of his employment as such, and which are not covered by the regular compensation paid him, such municipal attorney may be employed and compensated additionally.”
Stennis and Pfeiffer say after consulting with various attorneys, the type of compensation mentioned in that passage applies to additional work for the city that is outside the scope of his retainer, like litigation, not as a part of a third-party vendor contract.
In fact, this very type of additional work is addressed in Harris’s current contract with the city.
Harris’s contract lists duties covered by his “General Retainer,” which ranges from attending Board meetings to providing legal advice to the Board and mayor on various subject matter. A separate section of that contract provides for hourly rate compensation for handling various non insurance covered litigation.
Harris’s letter completely ignores state law that bars public servants from using their position to “obtain or attempt to obtain pecuniary benefit.” Section 3 of that same statute states:
“No public servant shall be a contractor, subcontractor or vendor with the governmental entity of which he is a member, officer, employee or agent, other than in his contract of employment.”
That single line obliterates Harris’s contention that he is allowed to be compensated as part of a third-party vendor contract.
Sharing Executive Session Information
In his letter, Harris also criticizes unnamed aldermen for sharing information discussed during executive session and states that doing so is “against the law.” Mississippi law does not support that claim.
Under Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act, executive session is a limited exception that allows a governing body to meet privately for specific purposes. The Act restricts the public body from disclosing certain matters through its official minutes, but it does not impose a criminal or civil penalty on individual board members who describe what occurred behind closed doors.
The Mississippi Attorney General made this clear in a March 4, 1982 opinion (1982 WL 44189), writing:
“Nothing in the law prohibits a member of a public body from informally revealing what occurred at an executive session, but such revelation is not official and the minutes are the only [official] record of what actions were taken at any board meeting, open or closed.”
This means an alderman who discusses executive-session events is not violating the Open Meetings Act, though their statements do not carry the force of an official record. The law places restrictions on governing bodies as institutions, not on the individual elected officials who make up those bodies.
Whistleblower Protections
Mississippi’s whistleblower laws further strengthen the rights of elected officials to disclose information when they believe wrongdoing has occurred.
Under Mississippi law and related provisions, public employees and officials are protected when they report:
- violations of law,
- gross mismanagement,
- abuse of authority,
- waste of public funds, or
- actions that pose a substantial danger to public health or safety.
These protections apply whether the disclosure is made internally or to an outside party, including the media. The law recognizes that violations of ethics, conflicts of interest, or misuse of public office often come to light only when an official feels safe to speak publicly.
Application to the Harris Allegations
Several of the issues raised by Stennis and Pfeiffer, such as self-dealing, misrepresentation of law, and falsification of minutes, would fall squarely within the types of concerns the whistleblower statute was designed to protect.
Had aldermen not disclosed these matters:
- The July 1 false minutes would not have been corrected.
- The discrepancy in Harris’s interpretation of his own contract rules would not have surfaced.
- The vendor contract containing a compensation clause benefiting Harris would not have been identified.
- And the very letter Harris labeled “Privileged Attorney-Client Communication” would not be subject to public scrutiny.
This underscores the fundamental purpose of whistleblower protections: to ensure that potential violations of law or ethics are not insulated from public view by labels, procedures, or internal pressure.
Privilege Mislabeling
The fact that Harris’s letter was labeled “privileged” despite being sent to the mayor and six aldermen, while omitting one of the alderman who called the meeting involving him, further illustrates why disclosure is sometimes necessary.
Mississippi’s privilege doctrine applies only when communications are made for the purpose of providing legal advice to the client. When a municipal attorney is the subject of an inquiry or an adverse employment action, the attorney does not speak as counsel but as a party whose interests differ from those of the governing body.
Labeling his letter as attorney-client privilege suggests that his letter is legal advice. If that were the case, then the very nature of his letter would create a conflict of interest.
But the letter addresses allegations about Harris’s own conduct, not legal matters facing the city, placing him in the position of a subject, not a legal advisor.
Ethics Review Likely Ahead
Regardless of whether a majority of the Board chooses to revisit the motions raised by Aldermen Stennis and Pfeiffer, the issues they identified are unlikely to disappear. Several of the allegations — particularly those involving conflicts of interest, misuse of position, and the accuracy of official minutes — fall within the jurisdiction of the Mississippi Ethics Commission.
Under Mississippi law, the Ethics Commission is authorized to review complaints involving:
- prohibited financial benefits to public officials,
- failure to recuse in matters affecting personal interest,
- improper use of public position, and
- violations of the Ethics in Government Act.
If a complaint is filed, the Commission has the authority to investigate, issue subpoenas, conduct hearings, and impose penalties ranging from public reprimand to fines. In past cases, the Commission has reviewed matters involving municipal attorneys, board members, and other public servants when questions of self-dealing or improper influence have been raised.
While the Board of Aldermen can choose whether to address Harris’s conduct internally, the Ethics Commission does not depend on board action to evaluate whether state law was followed. A complaint can be submitted by any resident, board member, or public official, and the Commission’s review proceeds independently of local politics.
Given the nature of the concerns raised, the Commission may ultimately be the body that examines these issues, even if they do not return to the Board’s agenda.
As of press time, no such complaint has been filed publicly.
(Article last updated November 27, 2025 at 11:45 a.m.)
