Biloxi Takes Secretary of State to Court

Biloxi attorneys were in court today trying to recover about $1.2 million owed after the city’s share of rent from the Golden Nugget Casino was inadvertently swept into the state’s general fund.
Attorneys representing Biloxi, Gerald Blessey and Michael Whitehead, asked Judge Jennifer Schloegel today to consider three potential solutions to the issue that include the city dispersing the funds collected from the Golden Nugget, a third party dispersing those funds, or have the Golden Nugget cut three checks to the three landlords.
Attorneys representing Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann argued that a house bill passed by the legislature required Delbert Hosemann to transfer millions of dollars from certain funds in the state treasury to the general fund.
Blessey and Whitehead say the money should not have come from the Point Cadet leasing fund. “One of the arguments he made today was that ‘well, what was he expected to do, lay people off?’ Well, was he expecting Biloxi to lay people off? This is part of our operating budget. What he should have done was gone back to the legislature, remember the legislature had a special session at the very end of the fiscal year because they were short and they needed to put money in to fund agencies that were short. He could’ve gone to them then and said, ‘oops, I made a mistake here, so I, as the secretary of state, don’t have to lay anybody off, you need to fund me and let me go pay Biloxi and IHL what they’re owed,’ but he didn’t do that,” said Blessey.
The attorneys now have 14 days to come up with official proposals for a solution to present to Judge Schloegel.