OCEAN SPRINGS, MS — A series of meetings set for Friday evening between Ocean Springs officials and State Rep. Hank Zuber have been scheduled in a way that shuts the public and media out — an exact scenario the Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled violates the state’s Open Meetings Act.
The aldermen are set to meet with Zuber in a sequence of small, private gatherings arranged by Mayor’s Assistant Laurri Garcia.
The deliberate structure of the meetings are part of a pattern the city has been accused of using in recent months to eliminate the public from knowing about or participating in certain governmental affairs.
How Tonight’s Meetings Are Arranged
Text messages sent to aldermen by Garcia divided the board into three groups:
- 4:30 p.m. — Aldermen Karen Stennis, Steve Tillis, Matthew Hinton
- 5:00 p.m. — Aldermen Shannon Pfeiffer, Rob Blackman, Julie Messenger
- Later (time TBD) — Alderman Kevin Wade and Mayor Bobby Cox
When one alderman privately raised concerns about the legality of the meetings, Garcia responded by text: “He’s meeting with three, then three. Bobby and Kevin are at another time.”
The result: every alderman and the mayor will meet with Zuber, just never four at once.
Mississippi law defines a quorum of the Board of Aldermen as four members. When a quorum is held, the city must notify the public and allow their presence. Public bodies sometimes try to avoid quorum requirements by splitting into smaller groups.
This practice, known as a “walking quorum,” occurs when less than a quorum meets in sequential groups to discuss the same issue, effectively deliberating as a full board while never appearing together in one room.
Friday’s setup essentially sidesteps the law to keep the public and media out of the meetings.
Supreme Court Already Ruled Against This Tactic
In 2017, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the City of Columbus violated the Open Meetings Act when its mayor and council used nearly identical tactics — splitting into sub-quorum groups to discuss public business in private.
The case began after a reporter from The Commercial Dispatch filed a complaint about being excluded from the meetings.
The Court’s language could not have been clearer:
“The Mayor and the City Council members for the City of Columbus held four pairs of prearranged, nonsocial and subquorum gatherings over the course of two months.”
“Because all of the gatherings were just shy of a quorum … the gatherings were not open to the public.”
“Prearranged, nonsocial gatherings on public business that are held in subquorum groups with the intent to circumvent the Act are required to be open to the public under Section 25-41-1 of the Open Meetings Act. Thus, the City’s failure to hold open gatherings violated the Act.”
That case firmly established that breaking a governing body into rolling groups does not shield it from transparency requirements.
A Pattern in Ocean Springs
This is not the first time the new Cox administration has been accused of evading Mississippi’s open-government laws. In July, at its very first meeting, the Board of Aldermen quietly abandoned the word “committee” when making oversight assignments. Instead of a Finance Committee or HR Committee, aldermen were appointed to “assist” departments — motions, seconds, and roll call votes included.
Mayor Cox even interrupted Alderman Shannon Pfeiffer during that meeting to insist, “We don’t have committees,” despite official records showing Cox himself had previously made motions to appoint finance committees.
Insiders told GC Wire at the time that the word swap was suggested behind closed doors by staff after a journalist asked for committee minutes. As one official explained, “They didn’t want the public requesting the minutes.”
But under Mississippi law, the name doesn’t matter. The Open Meetings Act applies to any committee or subcommittee of a public body.
The city’s effort to rebrand committees as “assistants” has not gone unnoticed. At a Mississippi Municipal League (MML) training session in Hattiesburg on Thursday night, multiple Ocean Springs aldermen confirmed they raised the issue with trainers.
According to those who attended, the question was met with laughter, and the response was unambiguous: cities are required to make minutes available to the public, regardless of whether they call the groups committees or assistants.
The exchange lends credence to what state law already makes clear — public business cannot be hidden with wordplay.
Abandoned Transparency
Together, the July committee rebrand and tonight’s rolling meetings with Rep. Zuber reveal a consistent pattern: decisions about how city officials deliberate are being shaped with one eye on the law, and the other on how to avoid it.
GC Wire has filed a public records request for Garcia’s scheduling texts and any responses from aldermen. In Mississippi, the Ethics Commission has held that text messages relating to government business are public records, even when sent from private phones.
The mayor’s office and Rep. Zuber were contacted for comment Friday but did not respond before publication.
