Lawrence Co. Public Library Board under fire for excessive management costs to Codell, Preston
Exclusive to the Lazer
LOUISA- Lawrence Co. Judge/Executive Phil Carter is questioning actions of the Lawrence Co. Public Library Board involving a contractual agreement between the library board and Codell Construction, which employs Heath Preston, who is the current chairman of the Lawrence Co. Board of Education.
Preston is challenging Carter in the May Republican Primary for County Judge/Executive.
Documents retrieved through open records requests and other public records show that the library board started construction of a new addition in April 2019. A request for proposal (RFP) was issued in March 2019 for an owner’s representative.
The RFP specifically stated the owner’s representative would be paid $60 per hour for 24 hours per week. The owner’s representative was to be employed for one year with a maximum cost not to exceed $80,000.
Codell Construction was hired by the board to provide owner’s representative services. Codell employed Preston as the on-site manager for the project.
Elliott Construction of Pikeville was hired as the general contractor for the project. Construction started on April 1, 2019, to be completed by the end of March 2020.
The board gave a single bid contract to Codell and Preston for 40 hours per week at $60 per hour, not the 24 hours per week as stated in the RFP.
The Lawrence Co. Public Library Board operates as an independent agency. The library board does not have any oversight from the Lawrence Co. Fiscal Court.
Nonetheless, in an exclusive interview with the Lazer, Judge Carter says he has serious concerns about the library board’s actions and the decision to pay Codell and Preston over $187,000 for on-site management fees during an 18-month period, some $107,000 more than the original agreement specified.
“Why would the library board need to hire an owner’s representative/project manager to look over a well-qualified general contractor they had hired unless it was just being done as a political favor to take care of somebody,” Carter said.
“Lawrence County’s taxpayers are stretched to the max, and no governmental agency should be abusing public dollars in this manner,” continued Carter.
Carter further questioned Codell and Preston’s effectiveness in managing the Lawrence Co. Library Addition construction, as the project was six months late getting completed. No records have been received to show time extensions or change orders to the Codell contract to explain the lateness.
The library board entered into an open-ended contract with Codell, with Preston as the full-time on-site manager. The library board charged Elliott liquidated damages even though Codell was overseeing the work with Preston as the on-site manager.
“Codell Construction has built the Lawrence Co. Judicial Center, the Lawrence Co. Public Library Addition, and now they are doing the renovations and additions to Lawrence Co. High School. And who is Codell’s man but Heath Preston, who is also the chairman of the school board and now he wants my job. I would submit to the taxpayers of Lawrence County that they literally can’t afford Heath Preston as county judge/executive, based on his history,” Carter said.
Heath Preston is not near the man Phil Carter is. His interest is not money, it is Lawrence County.
Watch out for the corn. It Flys and hurts.
I’ve often wondered why we have a library that rivals those found in many big cities.
We have a population of around 2,000 people in the city and a county population of around 15,000.
They built the first huge building and I thought cool, it’s kinda big for this little community, but no big deal, but then they built another section equally as big and I’m like really? In little ol’ Louisa where you would be hard pressed to find more than a half dozen people at one time using the library on any given day unless they’re doing story hour for kids. (Do they even do that anymore?)
Great to have the upgrade, but this big? Talk about wasted space.
Makes me wonder who ultimately benefited from this humongous construction project.
Exactly
Got my vote Phil this looks like a quid pro quo everybody should know what this is.
Sounds like a Hunter Biden deal to me. Stay on this Lazer, very interesting. The mainstream media buried the Hunter Biden corrupt deals on his then Vice President daddy’s coat tail. Transparency with our tax dollars is imperative.
Really you do know your traitor Trump had all the evidence and didn’t come up with anything and this was before the election he lost in a landslide even Russia couldn’t pull out a miracle for him.
Landslide? Uh……ok 😳
Yes a landslide if your boy Trump said in 2016 he won in a landslide despite losing the popular vote by over 3 million the YES 2020 was a LANDSLIDE
Clueless KAG
Please do your research everyone. Heath Preston’s agenda is not for Lawrence County. Read for yourself. Research for yourself. The facts are there. I don’t want you to take my word for it. Discover for yourself.
It’s there. Skeletons in his closet.
I’ve heard a lot of bad business managership skills when he comes to Heath Preston. I don’t want our county to end up like a his sonic businesss did.
Sal your boy Trump filed bankruptcy 5 times would that be considered bad managership skills ?
My name is Sally.
Not Sal.
Sally your boy Trump filed bankruptcy 5 times would that be considered bad managership skills ?
Wonder if anyone checked to see that it doesn’t say paid by candidate at the end of the last paragraph like some screenshots show hmm.
It absolutely DID say that and it apparently has been modified so that it no longer does. I guess the Lazer staff thought they could make changes and no one could prove what it originally said…. Guess we know who Mark is rooting for in this election…
Good job Phillip! Keep up the good work. This Preston fellow has a bad record.
Preston is hiding quite a bit seems like.
Hummm he sure ain’t changed – so he’s anti – Lawrence county
Carter is a life long Lawrence county resident, the Preston, castle, brown, Robinson all need put on a bus and shipped back where they came from
So I’m curious about Brandy Compton Preston, a PA, who’s suppose to a medical “professional”. What kind of professional goes around talking about people and degrades them on social media. I don’t know about the rest of everyone else but i dont want my medical professional going around calling people sleazy on Facebook….. and I saw her do that on Phils post.
Kinda sleazy, huh?
Sal sounds a lot like Trump he degraded a lot of people on social media sounds kinda sleazy huh ?
Yeah, but look at the nasty sleaze bags that Mr. Trump was dealing with.
Why are you not letting people comment on this? Has it been shut down?
Maybe someone should be asking the school board why they hired Codell? How much influence did Preston put on the other board members? Was the job bid or given to Codell/Preston?
Maybe the library board and the school board should offer up comments for a story.
What about Lee Peters? Running for Magistrate. Know anything about him?
My question is..how could Heath Preston hold a job on the school board full time and be a full time “advisor” for Codell? There’s only so many hours in the day so either he wasn’t doing his job at the school board or at Codell…you can’t be both places “working” without cheating one job of time and money. I would think that’s fraud.
Why is this all coming up now? Why wasnt this information made public before now? Why didnt the county Judge an others in charge do something before the MONEY was spent?
Heath Preston (And I’m sure you are reading these) would you like to explain where the $1700 from the Little League Football went to? Inquiring minds would like to be enlightened!!!
I heard $1700 was just a drop in the bucket. That they were using the money to pay themselves. I guess making shirts in the basement and everything. Last thing I heard was they were going to be audited.
Looking at public records, Phil’s stating nothing but the truth & heath is the only one being negative about everything.
Stop the mud sliding!!!
Doesn’t Phil Carters niece work at the library? Or she did not long ago
Really, is that what you want to drag up? Okay, if you want to know, yes she did, it was when she was in High School and on a very part time basis. She was a good, dedicated and hard working part time employee. She quit and left for college. Should she or Preston be looked down on just because she wanted to work, applied and got a job like anyone else would. Would this be brough up if she worked at Food City, Walmart or any other business in town?
She still works there when she’s home from college, I saw her there last summer when I stopped by for their summer feeding programming
We probably can’t comment on Heath’s response because it’s paid for by the candidate. Heath made no attempt to deny that Carter is correct about this. He just tried to cover it up by pointing out what the BOE has done as a whole since he’s been involved. I’m sure that all of the items he listed would have been done with or without him. I don’t trust this fellow.
And he is not telling you how many times he has voted YES on raising your taxes
This county is in the worst shape it has ever been under Phil Carter. The roads are god awful. God forbid something is nice and new. Phil is just mad he can’t take credit for this. Hope is voted out ASAP!!!!!
Phil is the best choice we have. He’s a good man doing a good job. Read these comments. We are happy with Phil.
Why isn’t there any comments on Heaths reply? Just wondering.
No comments on paid ads.
That’s a joke.
Because the owner of this “newspaper” is a coward and only allows comments to go through that he approves, it’s a heavily moderated comment section.
Also, this is a paid ad as well—the original article had “Paid for by the Candidate” on it, but I’m guessing Daddy Phil wanted Mark to take that part out.
If that’s the truth, why don’t Heath ask him to do the same? Scared to?
Heath will just raise your Taxes just look and see how many times he has done it as being on the school board
Phil is acting like his lord and savior, DJT. Idk how he is still in office after his bffs, the Hogan’s, got caught. Maybe the state should do a similar audit on ole Carter as well. See why he’s using funds for his campaign and tax payer dollars to have these kind of articles published.
If you want to dig up skeletons I guarantee you you will find plenty more on Mr. Preston. I challenged his wife on here about it quite awhile back. She didn’t respond. With the internet you can find anything on anyone if you dig deep enough. Trust me.
Your in dreamland libby. Keep looking for your pink unicorn to carry you away to your cotton candy cloud.
Since the good ole Levisa Lazer won’t let me comment on the POSITIVE POST by Mr. Preston, I’ll try this one. First and foremost Preston did not accomplish all of the things he listed. This would have been done with or without him. He is only one vote on the board of education. The ones that really take the cake are the accomplishments of the sports teams. How can you take credit for their good seasons?
The ONLY reason you are still on the board is because wants to run because of the old buddy system that is being played there. Lawrence County is better than that. Do us all a favor and go back to Johnson County. Phil, if you would like to debate him I can give you more than enough information.
Heath has sure been eating good since high school. Maybe that’s why his Sonic venture didn’t survive.