Gulfport City Council candidate disqualified from special election. Here’s what happened
Derek Bullock has been disqualified as a candidate in the Feb. 18 special election for Gulfport’s Ward 5 City Council seat, but he plans to appeal the decision.
The Gulfport Municipal Election Commission made the decision in a meeting Wednesday morning. Bullock plans to appeal at a hearing set Feb. 11 at City Hall.
The commission’s decision, if it stands, leaves three candidates in the race to replace Myles Sharp, who recently resigned.
The election commission had previously qualified Bullock for the race, but members changed their minds after Margaret Murdock, an attorney for the city, looked further into the law.
Bullock was disqualified because, the commission decided, he has not been a resident of Ward 5 for two years, as state law began requiring in 2021.
Candidate will fight to stay in race
Bullock previously lived in Ward 4. He moved in August 2023 to a new address that became part of Ward 5 in September 2023, after the city redrew ward lines to correspond with population changes.
But the law says a municipal candidate must reside in their ward for two years before the date of the election, which meant he needed to reside in Ward 5 by February 2023.
His attorney, Malcolm Jones, argued before the commission vote that the law doesn’t disqualify Bullock. Gulfport was supposed to adopt new ward lines within six months of the U.S. Census being released but waited two years, Jones said.
He said the special circumstances of redistricting should allow Bullock’s candidacy, as there are exceptions to the two-year requirement.
“You have the ability to go ahead and say, ‘This person qualifies,’ and give the voters a chance to decide what they want,” Jones told commissioners.
After the meeting, Bullock said: “It is a special case and special cases require special thought. We believe we have the law on our side.”
Candidates qualified by the commission to run for the Ward 5 seat are real estate broker and firm owner Holly Gibbs, retired registered nurse Don Harden, and longtime city Planning Commission member BJ Sellers, a paving company general manager.
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 12:01 PM.
