Why Aldermen Received Forged Document ‘Yet to be Determined’

A doctored agreement with expensive consequences was presented to Ocean Springs aldermen before a lease vote. Officials now question who altered it.

OCEAN SPRINGS, MS (GC WIRE) – Aldermen were handed what they were told was a five-year-old agreement ahead of a vote on the 1515 Government Street parking garage lease. They were told the document was already approved by them five years prior.

It wasn’t.

The document had been doctored. Someone rewrote the first page of agreement and paired it with the original signature page, adding terms that could have cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars a year – terms the Board never agreed to.

What the Board Actually Agreed To

In 2021, the Board of Aldermen approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with developers of the OS1515 hotel project. The agreement between the City and OHOS Development LLC outlined the framework for a possible future lease of a three-story parking garage built with state grant funds.

It read like what it was a letter of intent, not a final deal.

The key terms were laid out in a short list of bullet points, including one that stated:

• The City agrees to maintain the public portion of the parking garage.

That was the deal.

But as aldermen prepared to vote on the actual lease, they were presented with something different.

In the version placed before the Board, that same line had been rewritten to read:

• The City to provide insurance and maintenance for the public portion of the parking garage.

One phrase added. One expensive obligation multiplied year after year.

Insurance was never part of the 2021 agreement. Yet the version recently presented to aldermen quietly included it, embedded in a document that otherwise appeared to be the same agreement they had already approved.

The lease aldermen were asked to approve contained sections detailing how much insurance the City was expected to pay for – and led to believe the Board had already approved it five years prior. They had not.

Who Forged the Document?

Several members of the public noticed the two documents were not the same. City Attorney David Harris acknowledged the controversy in a confidential memo given to aldermen in November.

In it, he appears to blame his predecessor, former City Attorney Robert Wilkinson.

“This MOU was provided when the current City Attorney received information from the past attorney contract specifically to draft and evaluate the proposed lease agreement,” Harris wrote in a November 2025 memo labeled “Confidential Privileged.”

“This MOU is different than the August 17, 2021 MOU in that the second bullet point regarding the general terms of the lease states: ‘The City to provide insurance and maintenance for public portion of the parking garage,’” He added.

Harris specifically stated the new document is not the same as what the Board agreed to.

“This language does not appear in the MOU contained in the minutes from August 17, 2021,” Harris wrote.

“Why the language is different has yet to be determined.”

GC Wire reached out to Wilkinson for comment on Harris’s claim that the doctored agreement was supplied by him. Wilkinson did not respond before publication.

What Laws Could This Violate?

Altering an executed public agreement is not a minor discrepancy.

Under Mississippi law, knowingly changing the contents of an official document — especially one tied to public funds or obligations — can carry serious legal consequences.

State statutes prohibit the falsification or alteration of public records, as well as the use of any writing intended to mislead others about its authenticity. That includes documents presented to elected officials as part of official decision-making.

If a document is modified after it is signed, then presented as if it were the original agreement, it raises questions that go beyond policy or procedure.

It becomes a question of authenticity.

It may also become a question of intent.

Legal experts generally distinguish between simple clerical errors and material changes. A typo is one thing. Adding a new financial obligation — like requiring the City to carry insurance — is something else entirely.

And if that change is used to influence a vote or justify public spending, additional concerns come into play, including whether officials were misled in the performance of their duties.

There is also the issue of record integrity.

Mississippi’s public records laws are built on the premise that official documents — particularly those approved in open meetings and preserved in minutes — reflect what actually occurred. When a document in circulation does not match what is contained in the official record, it creates a direct conflict between what was approved and what is being represented.

Not the First Time Questions Have Been Raised

This is not the first time City Attorney David Harris has been linked to discrepancies in official records.

In July 2025, the Board of Aldermen was forced to take formal action to correct its own minutes after a vote appeared in the official record that multiple aldermen said never happened. The entry claimed the Board had unanimously voted to keep former City Attorney Robert Wilkinson on retainer.

They hadn’t. In fact, no vote had been taken on the matter.

The Board later voted 7–0 to strike the false entry from the record. Multiple aldermen confirmed Harris was the one who submitted the minutes containing the phantom vote.

No official explanation was ever publicly provided for how the false action made its way into the city’s record.

Records Not Meant to Be Altered

Whether the altered MOU was the result of error, assumption, or something more deliberate remains unanswered.

But the legal implications are clear:

Public documents are not supposed to change after the fact.

See both the documents here:

Original MOU approved by the Board of Alderman in August 2021

Altered version later distributed to Board