This doesn’t involve Keith Hall, from what we can tell, but it involves his Magisterial District in Pike County. We just had to share a bit of this story because it seems nothing ever goes right in that neck of the woods – it’s not just Dubya Keith.

From the Appalachian News-Express:

An investigation by the News Express has revealed that more than half a million dollars of work was performed on a project in Magistrate Hilman Dotson’s district over a period of two years, with no bidding on the project taking place until this month.

Documents obtained through an open records request show that work began on the new Phelps road department lot in December 2009 with no bidding process being followed. The county has spent more than $500,000 on the project, with more than $200,000 of the work going to one con- tractor.

According to the documents, Evans Construction, of Beattyville, was paid for nearly $220,000 of work done on the road department lot. In most instances the bills paid by the Fiscal Court were for less than $20,000 each and only $12,000 of the money paid to the company was done so under a bid contract.

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…[N]no one has taken responsibility for initiating the work to be done, though the court has authorized half a million dollars in payments to vendors and contractors.

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There are provisions of state law, through the Model Procurement Code, which prevents agencies like the Pike Fiscal Court from using “small purchases” to avoid bidding a large project, which in aggregate, costs more then $20,000.

The law says, “A local public agency may use small purchase procedures for any contract for which a determination is made that the aggregate amount of the contract does not exceed $20,000.”

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On Friday, the question of who is responsible for initiat- ing work on the project remained unanswered, as Dotson denied he asked for the work to be done. Pike Judge-Executive Wayne T. Rutherford did not respond to questions about responsibility as of presstime.

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At a point in an interview Friday, Dotson became defensive of the project.

“What, are you all saying we done something wrong or something?” Dotson asked, then defended his decisions on the project after denying responsibility for initiating it.

Banging your head against the desk yet?

If that doesn’t take the cake, get a load of Wayne T. Rutherford discussing some unbid pool work being done in the guy’s district:

Rutherford also said during the meeting that not hav- ing contracts in place could result in problems for the court.

“The auditor will get us if we don’t have contracts signed,” he said.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of the May 21-22 ANE to give the story a read. Since we can’t link to the story on the ANE site, be sure to check out the paper’s unscientific poll regarding the matter:

It’s all just too ripe.