Biloxi politician denies his business and council roles conflict. Is he right?
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- Airbnb sued Biloxi, naming Councilman Glavan over votes on short‑term rentals.
- Glavan holds hotel roles and association presidency while voting on rental ordinances.
- State Ethics Commission must assess potential monetary benefit before ordering recusal.
Biloxi Council member Kenny Glavan says that he has no conflict of interest when he votes on matters involving short-term rentals, even though he works as a director at a hotel company and serves as president of the Mississippi Hotel & Lodging Association.
Airbnb has filed a federal lawsuit against Biloxi that accuses the city of conspiring with the association to stifle the short-term rental market. Glavan is named throughout the lawsuit. Airbnb maintains his private business and role with the association conflict with his votes as a city councilman for ordinances that restrict short-term rentals.
Glavan defends his actions, but told the Sun Herald that he has not sought a formal opinion from the state Ethics Commission on whether he should abstain from voting on permits and zoning for short-term rentals. Glavan said in 2018, when he called a special meeting about Airbnbs, that he would check on any potential conflict.
Tom Hood, executive director of the Ethics Commission, could not comment on Glavan’s specific situation but said, “Any time a public official has a question about the ethics law, they should contact us and request an ethics opinion.”
State ethics laws prohibit public officials from voting on matters that would financially benefit them. The law cautions that elected officials are in positions of public trust and should avoid even the “suspicion” of a conflict.
Glavan has been in the hotel business for 37 years. He currently serves as director of regional support services for Biloxi Lodging LLC, which manages hotel properties, including The White House Hotel and Margaritaville Resort Biloxi.
MS Ethics Commission opinion available
Airbnb maintains short-term rentals are in competition with “the entrenched lodging industry” in Biloxi. But Glavan says short-term rentals are lodging. The Mississippi Hotel & Lodging Association has both hotels and short-term rental representatives as members, Executive Director Linda Hornsby said.
Glavan said a well-rounded community offers a variety of lodging, with short-term rentals being an important part of the mix. Generally, serving in a volunteer position with a trade group, as Glavan does, would not violate state ethics laws.
But the Ethics Commission would need to examine the facts and determine whether Glavan would benefit financially from his association presidency or Biloxi Lodging position when he votes on short-term rental issues.
Generally, Hood said, the Ethics Commission would not tell a public official to abstain from a vote “unless we can point to some at least potential monetary benefit.”
For example, a 2014 Ethics Commission opinion said in one case that city officials could own or manage property that could be affected, either positively or negatively, by their vote on a zoning ordinance. The opinion does not identify the locality or public official seeking the advice.
Any monetary benefit that results from the vote, the opinion said, “would be remote in time and would require speculation about the future effect of potential ordinances and future real estate developments. Such speculation about future events is insufficient to prohibit these public servants from participating in the zoning changes.”
How Biloxi councilman voted
Glavan has voted to limit zones where short-term rentals can operate and to cap the number of short-term rentals allowed in zones where they are required to get a special-use permit, the lawsuit says.
The city has not yet had time to respond in court to the lawsuit, but Glavan addressed it during Tuesday’s council meeting.
He said that he has voted to approve conditional-use permits for short-term rentals in 34 of 46 cases. The city has a total of 483 short-term rentals, most in zones where they are allowed without a permit. Biloxi shares all short-term rental permit applications with the Hotel & Lodging Association, although it is not a government agency, the Airbnb lawsuit points out.
“You’ll have to decide on your own if that looks like I’m tilting toward one industry or the other,” he said during the meeting.
