By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Randall Reid-Smith, the cabinet secretary for the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, defended the process behind the mural project in the upper rotunda of the State Capitol Building in a statement following a lawsuit filed last week to halt the project.
According to the statement, released Wednesday on the website of the Department of Arts, Culture and History (WVDACH), the murals are 100 years overdue and despite a paused effort that began in 2010 to fulfill State Capitol Building architect Cass Gilbert’s dreams of murals under the golden Capitol dome, the restart of the project more than nine years later was legal.
“The fact is that Cass Gilbert called for murals to be installed when the State could afford it,” Reid-Smith said. “For nearly 100 years, it didn’t get done. The State tried to get the project done in the early 2010s, but proper funding remained the impediment.
“The plaintiffs’ claims in the recently filed suit regarding the installation of the rotunda murals are meritless and seem to be based on their misunderstanding of the history and facts of the murals project, as well their misunderstanding or misrepresentation of West Virginia procurement and open governmental proceedings laws,” Reid-Smith continued.
Harvey Peyton, an attorney representing West Virginia residents Gregory Morris and Tom Acosta, filed a lawsuit last week in Kanawha County Circuit Court against Reid-Smith, who also chairs the Capitol Building Commission, which approves major changes to the grounds and building that make up the State Capitol Complex.
The lawsuit also includes members of an informal committee that signed off on the final renditions of the murals, contractor John Canning and Co., Department of Administration Acting Cabinet Secretary Jon McHugh and State Treasurer Riley Moore.