Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 07/18/24 - Ask the Lawyer with Harvey Peyton including Baby Dog Justice Lawsuit
Transcript
- 0:00Unlock your dream property with meex Realty Group, where Rich the realtor makes real
- 0:04estate dreams a reality, whether it's residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to
- 0:08Huntington covered. Your key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks Realtygroup.
- 0:13Contact us at Meeks dot us. The views and opinions expressed on this
- 0:18program do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five ADWCHS it's employees or
- 0:24WVRC Media. Put the power of Peyton on the side. We have the
- 0:31court room experience such you need. We never give up. We're prepared to
- 0:38fight for your rights when you need action. Count on us puts the power
- 0:47of Payson on your side, the power of me and good morning, and
- 0:53it's eight twenty two on five eighty WUCCHS the Voice of Charleston on Jeff Jenkins
- 0:58with Harvey Payton of Peyton Law Firm in Nitro. The number to call three
- 1:02oh four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three oh four three four five
- 1:07of fifty eight fifty eight. Harvey is here. I am here. How
- 1:11you doing so well? Quite well? I don't think I can hear you
- 1:14in my headphone. But we'll check that out. But since you're sitting right
- 1:17across from me, I can hear what you're saying, looking, I can't
- 1:19hear you through the headphones, but okay, we'll be fine. Well I'm
- 1:23doing very well, can you hear me? Yeah? Well, it was
- 1:26a nice drive up this morning. I certainly cooled off a good bit over
- 1:29the last couple of days. And as I was driving up the valley road,
- 1:33I was listening to Metro News and their local news, your local news
- 1:38here, and I was listening to Nancy Bruyns, who's one of the Dickinson
- 1:42ears up here at the Salt Company and a community leader. Apparently it's heavily
- 1:48involved in this sports complex, which will not now be the Capital Sports Complex,
- 1:53because there are capital sports complexes all over the country, So we're going
- 1:57to find another name. I think that's sort of at the West Virginia International
- 2:02Jaeger Airport, your Gateway to the World, which has changed the name,
- 2:07announcing that there would be no swimming pool, which was one of the big
- 2:09features. As I was listening to that, I was driving by the entrance
- 2:15into the Valley Point in Putnam County, where yesterday Our announcement was they were
- 2:23going to be over three hundred new housing units built right there off the Tayes
- 2:28Valley Road. And what is this town of Hirk And I mean it's not
- 2:30in the what we considered the town of Hurk and proper down around main Street.
- 2:35It's about halfway down Tayes Valley Road. But that is a part of
- 2:38the town of Hirk. And then Alan bell a really good solid citizen.
- 2:43Allen. I haven't seen Allen maybe in twenty years, and never did anything
- 2:46work for him. He was involved. He bought a piece of property down
- 2:50in Point Pleasant or Henderson from a klein of mine a couple of decades ago.
- 2:54He said, go get her. You know ab contract. They bought
- 2:57the National Bank of Commerce building over here and converted in and bought a piece
- 3:01of property down near the golf course from the Hawaiian Airs and put in old
- 3:06probably sixty units of housing that sold out. So now we're going to have
- 3:09three hundred more. The only distressing thing to me is that's about five hundred
- 3:15yards from my house. And now we're going to have another traffic light,
- 3:19which is good break up the traffic on the road because you put three hundred
- 3:23homes back there. We're moving forward and not to be I mean, I
- 3:28admire the polks and can lock out it for doing what they can do.
- 3:30I saw Mayor Goodwin at the Bar Association meeting in Wheeling last Friday. Her
- 3:38father in law, Joe Bob Goodwin was being honored by the Bar Association for
- 3:43his long service as a district judge. And Amy's from Wheeling, so she
- 3:47always enjoys going back to Ogilby, which is really really quite nice. But
- 3:53it's tough. You know, you've got a city here that was built to
- 3:58have eighty thousand people and not as less than fifty thousand. What do you
- 4:04do with the detritis the excess and how do you provide for that infrastructure and
- 4:11keep things going. It's tough cheese. So I really hope this sports complex
- 4:15gets off the ground and does what the city hopes it will. We can
- 4:18use more recreational facilities. But housing in Putnam County is when Mayor Edwins was
- 4:26talking yesterday about at the grant at the announcement about the critical housing shortage in
- 4:32Putnam County. Certainly we do have I mean, we've got new industry,
- 4:36we've got new Core, which is near Putnam County. You've got the ever
- 4:41expanding Toyota Plants, You've got the medical community in Tays Valley, light manufacturing,
- 4:47you've got the power company. The power company is expanding down on Route
- 4:50thirty four, and just no place for people to live on the next step
- 4:55is some more moderate load of moderate income housing. This is going to be
- 4:59high, as I understand it that Allen's building with a clubhouse and a pool,
- 5:03et cetera, but more moderately rental priced apartments and houses would be a
- 5:13big help. We've got a situation where folks at the service work end of
- 5:18the economy, which they're not high dollar jobs, but there's a job,
- 5:23and if it's a fifteen or eighteen dollars an hour job, that's that's what
- 5:28you're qualified to do, and it's available. But if someone wants that job
- 5:32and they live in Charleston and a restaurant closes here or some service facility closes
- 5:39here, and you're living in Knaw County, in Charleston or Cedar Grove or
- 5:46Allam Creek, well, can you drive every day to and from Hurricane or
- 5:55Scott Depot or Tays Valley or Buffalo to do a service to work in the
- 6:01service industry, childcare, What do you do about childcare? What do you
- 6:06do about your gasoline, your automobiles, transportation expense? A lot of people
- 6:11ride the bus. We have no bus service in Putnam County. So it
- 6:15is at a point that I know because it's people who I know in respect
- 6:20who are small business folks, most of them in the food service business,
- 6:26who will drive, who will have a way to pick up drive and provide
- 6:30transportation for their wage staff and kitchen staff just so they can get to work.
- 6:36So I'm certainly admire Allen for his work, and I think the Mayor's
- 6:42correct. This is going to address a pretty critical need and probably open up
- 6:46some additional housing in Putnam County because folks who bought houses in the eighties in
- 6:51the nineties that are now empty nesters, but they're sitting in a four bedroom,
- 6:58two story house. I said, well, if I put this on
- 7:00the market, where am I going to go? Maybe they don't want to
- 7:03buy another house. So if they can move into a long term rental arrangement,
- 7:09sell their house, put their money in their investment account, and live
- 7:12comfortably, that opens up that house. Your original home on the market.
- 7:15We'll see what happens. It's interesting. It's going to be a good thing
- 7:20for the real estate agents and industry and the lawyers who do a lot of
- 7:26real estate work, because we don't we do some And again I'll address this,
- 7:30you know, I will stop at the courthouse today on my way from
- 7:34here back to Nitro, the Kanaw County Courthouse, because the only way I
- 7:39can check on whether a release was recorded that I need to help a cloud
- 7:46of mine settle on a state is to go look it up on the computer
- 7:50which is sitting on a counter at the corner of Virginia Street and Knaul Boulevard.
- 7:56Now, if that was in Pottnham County, Cabal County, Wayne County,
- 7:59Green Pendalton, Monroe, Logan, any number of other counties around the
- 8:03state, I could sit at my desk and go online and look that up
- 8:07and I wouldn't have to charge my client or take the time to run to
- 8:11the courthouse for whatever reason. And I haven't heard I guess I've heard nobody
- 8:18ask the question. It's not very exciting, but I haven't heard any county
- 8:20commissioner address the issue. Why are your records not online? When almost every
- 8:26surrounding county and almost every county in the state has some online record search capacity.
- 8:35That's up to the people in kanaw County. I mean, if you
- 8:37want to put up with it, put up with it. We wouldn't put
- 8:39up with it. In Putnam County, we started computerizing records. Brian Wood
- 8:46did probably twenty years ago. I'm proud of the fact that we represented the
- 8:52county and a dispute against their insurance carrier because they had declined to pay a
- 8:56claim arising from some deputies PA and we ended up recovering on the counties behind
- 9:03several hundred thousand dollars, which Brian then glommed on to. Some of that.
- 9:07I want some of that because I want to start putting these records online.
- 9:11And now we are. You can look at everything, well not everything
- 9:16when there's some books in the old books. But if you're a citizen in
- 9:20kanawh County and you have to see one of these county commissioners, they just
- 9:24ask who Mark Slotnik does title work. Now he's an interim he's only serving
- 9:30an unexpired term. But once whoever's going to win this race, it's either
- 9:35going to be Walters or Natalie Tennant. They just should answer that question.
- 9:41Somebody should pose it, they should answer it. Three oh four three four
- 9:45five fifty eight fifty Harvey. Payton's here three oh four, three four five
- 9:48fifty eight fifty eight Harvey. I wanted to get your take. You know,
- 9:52you keep up with the news, obviously your take about Saturday. What
- 9:56happened in Butler. It was horrible, Yeah, absolutely horrible. I mean,
- 10:01but you know, we've got a violent history in the United States.
- 10:07Andrew Jackson was the subject of an assassination attempt. Abraham Lincoln was murdered McKinley
- 10:15Garfield Kennedy. There was an attempt on Truman's life. Teddy Roosevelt was shot
- 10:20as a candidate. FDR was well. When he was a president elect.
- 10:26He was in a car with Anton Sermac, the mayor of Chicago. There's
- 10:30an attempt on both their lives. The mayor was killed, Reagan was shot.
- 10:35Gerald Ford was two legitimate attempts on his life. There was actually an
- 10:39earlier attempt on the life of Jack Kennedy before he took office in December nineteen
- 10:46sixty. After he was elected, he was vacationing with his family in the
- 10:50Palm Spring, Palm Beach, when a man with a car load of explosives
- 10:56was sitting outside the house waiting for Kennedy to come out to detonate the bomb
- 11:01and kill him. M Kennedy came out, but he had Jackie and Caroline
- 11:05with him, and the guy just crumpled. The Secret Service got him and
- 11:11they eventually found the guy. He had written some notes who fell fell from
- 11:13Wisconsin crazy and we'll find out that, you know what, not much you
- 11:18can say about the shooter. It's like all of them, it's like they're
- 11:22all mostly all they're all lone wolves that we know about. And he's ever
- 11:26going to know what was in this fella's mind. He was looking on his
- 11:28phone for images of both Biden and Trump. So Donald Trump may have just
- 11:33simply been the target of opportunity. If it had been Joe Biden, it
- 11:39could have been the same attempt. It's terrible, just terrible. But we'll
- 11:43see, you know tonight. I guess is the Trump acceptance? He has
- 11:48the Trump acceptance. Let's see what I mean. I refer to as President
- 11:52Trump because it's an honorific I mean, he's the former president. But I
- 11:56think you know, if you talk about President Bush or President Clinton or President
- 12:00Obama. I mean, it's a term that stays with you. He was
- 12:03once elected president of the United States. But I'm not for him. That's
- 12:07just a given fact. But I don't hate him, and everybody has an
- 12:15opportunity for redemption. Donald Trump is cast as an amoral, prevaricating person and
- 12:22that, but that doesn't say that that person can't be better. I mean
- 12:26he could accept. I mean he surrounds himself with preachers. I think they
- 12:35can impose upon him to look, just open your heart, open your life,
- 12:37to accept this higher power and live like the person God man you to
- 12:41be, and govern this country that way. And he could say that publicly
- 12:46and boom, it'll be interesting, Series says to absolutely. If I go
- 12:50to the line now and Jay is on the line, Jay, go ahead
- 12:54your own Harvey j H. To answer answer your question about the county.
- 13:01There are six counties in the state that don't have online access now. Mingo
- 13:07County is going on the end of this month, according to their clerk.
- 13:11But it's can all Clay Braxton, Webster pleasants and Jackson and Jackson is supposed
- 13:18to be on this here. Well, I appreciate. I mean, thanks
- 13:22Jane, thank you very much. Jay. Again, my question is why
- 13:28not well carper about this quite a bit. I mean, that's the question
- 13:31for the people of Kanaw County to ask their elected officials. The County Commission
- 13:37controls the budget. I mean, I don't think you can simply say,
- 13:39well, the county Clerk doesn't want to do it. You control the county
- 13:41clerk's budget, So if you control the purse strings, you control what goes
- 13:48on. I don't understand. I can't understand it. I know I recognize
- 13:52Jay's voice, and he is a person who is quite familiar with real estate
- 13:58and the necessity just the lawyers, it's people like engineers who need to look
- 14:03up a piece of property, surveyors who need to get started on a project
- 14:07by looking up looking up deeds and descriptions. It's real estate agents and brokers
- 14:13who need to take a quick look to find a dealer description. It is
- 14:18people who are bankers who want to see if a particular release may have been
- 14:22recorded or not. It's across the board or just a member of the public.
- 14:28Can I tell people all the time here if you want to go look
- 14:31at something in Putnam county. Just go to this website. Go to the
- 14:33county Clerk's website, signing as a guest out. There may be a little
- 14:37charge to do it as a guess. We have an open account. But
- 14:43access this and you can look and see what If you want to see your
- 14:46dad's will, well I've never seen that will. And maybe this person lives
- 14:50in Ohio or Kentucky or Florida. So well, no matter where you are,
- 14:54go online. If you've died sometime after nineteen ninety two, will book
- 15:00record is online. And if you want to see what was listed as a
- 15:03part of his estate, the appraisement forums there and if you want to see
- 15:09who has identified as heirs, that's on the appraisement forum, along with the
- 15:13final order closing the estate. So and that heads awful lot of acrimony among
- 15:22families. Well I don't know anything. Well maybe you don't understand. Just
- 15:24go online and look at it. Now. I look at records online.
- 15:26For people that have on the phone all the time who call about a question.
- 15:31He end up saying, look, you don't really need a lawyer on
- 15:33this is This is not the sinister thing you think it is. This is
- 15:37all on record. And if you want it, you can go online,
- 15:41pay a fee and get it, or you can go to the courthouse and
- 15:43get it for a fee. Why it's not done in the capital city.
- 15:48What's now still I think the most populous county in the state. It won't
- 15:52be. And Berkeley County is going to lap Kanall County I think in the
- 15:56next clearly in the next census. But before then, before then, I
- 16:00think, sorry very much for the info. And uh, six counties left.
- 16:06We're maybe maybe maybe four after Jackson did I knew Jackson wasn't online,
- 16:12but Jackson has a pretty good clerk's office exactly. Okay, let's uh oh,
- 16:17I have take this text comment. Okay, Harvey before we go to
- 16:21the break now with the home title insurance ads, I'm glad to hear that
- 16:25we're protected by knagh County isn't online. I feel my property is more secure.
- 16:30Well what's about what about the security about? Well, I mean it's
- 16:36a secure as if you go online and buy buy a pair of underwear or
- 16:40socks and give somebody your credit card number, and I mean how secure is
- 16:45that transaction? It's secure? Is it's going to be? I mean that
- 16:48is one of the things you pay for UH is UH is the security on
- 16:55the site. And I'll let me say another thing about this. These ads
- 16:57about buy this insurance against fraud on your own, well, it's a rip
- 17:03for West Virginia period paragraph. I have my own opinion about title insurance,
- 17:10you know, the title insurance that's forced on you by lenders when you borrow
- 17:15money to buy a house. Mix. He had a conversation with one of
- 17:18the title insurance regional representatives that they weren't happy with. But you know,
- 17:23why is it that you can hire an agent, you know, employ these
- 17:27lawyers as agents to sell your product, and say the premiums eight hundred dollars.
- 17:33And the lawyer, because he sells your insurance, he gets the referral
- 17:38to do the other work. He charges six seven hundred dollars to do a
- 17:41title and to do to some document prep. And then there's a separate charge
- 17:48of seven or eight hundred dollars for title insurance. And nobody discloses to the
- 17:52consumer that the lawyer is getting sixty five or seventy percent of that is a
- 17:56premium. Right, he's doing it to generate your business. And when you
- 18:03get paid your premium, which is only like thirty percent or thirty five percent
- 18:07of the total that the customer pays. Your total payout of claims is less
- 18:12than one percent nationwide. Now tell me why that's not a ripoff, why
- 18:17that's not an abuse of consumer protection laws. But apparents it's not. President
- 18:23Biden through his administration. I think they're going to take some action. They
- 18:26took the action has been taken already about and I trust aspects of multiple listing
- 18:34services where you have the buyer pays both sides of a transaction. And if
- 18:41you want to talk about lowering some costs, take a look at the title
- 18:42insurance industry that's making a heck. They're all billionaires. The people have owned
- 18:48these companies and with good reason, they don't pay any claims. Very few,
- 18:52if less than one percent. You know, as State Farm what they
- 18:56pay out, and they're the best underwriting company in the world. Ari State
- 19:00Farm probably pays out twenty percent as a loss ratio, and they I don't
- 19:06think that's acceptable. They don't like to pay any claims. But it's no
- 19:10if you're concerned about security. I haven't seen any great rash of of fraudulent
- 19:18lean recordings and free citizen recordings and all that stuff in Putnam County and we've
- 19:22got a different system from most other counties and those other counties. I don't
- 19:27hear anybody complaining and they've been online for ten years, so well, thank
- 19:33thanks for the text question. Thank yea and three O four three four five
- 19:37fifty eight fifty It's eight forty one. Harvey's with us lines are open.
- 19:41The text line is open, and give us a caller, give us a
- 19:44text. It's eight forty one back with Harvey on five eighty WHS. This
- 19:48is Tom Payton, my father, Harvey and I are the Peyton Law Firm.
- 19:52We live here, we grew up here, and we take pride in
- 19:55representing you and winning against the most powerful members of the insurance end street.
- 20:00If you want an experienced law firm that understands your needs and gets results,
- 20:03contact Peyton Law Firm. When you've been hurt in an accident and times are
- 20:07tough, you need lawyers you can trust. That's us Peyton Law Firm.
- 20:12Contact us at Peytonlawfirm dot com or visit us at our office in nightrip Hey.
- 20:18It's stay valid for Parmer stores. And now that the warm weather monster
- 20:22here, you know where you need to be your local Parmer store, heading
- 20:26to the lake, the ballfield, or your favorite picnic side are just working
- 20:30around your place. Parmer has everything you'll need from gas, to grocery,
- 20:33snacks, and much much more. Download the Palmer app and sign up for
- 20:37the Parmar Rewards card Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania and
- 20:42Virginia. If there's not a par of Our store near you now, there
- 20:45will be set. Wow, it feels like summer just started, but time
- 20:49sure is flying by, and before you know it, school will be back
- 20:52in session this school year. Members Choice West Virginia can help you check off
- 20:56everything on your school shopping list with a back to School line now through August
- 21:00first. You can get all the school supplies you need with a back to
- 21:02school loan of up to fifteen hundred dollars with rates as low as seven point
- 21:06nine nine percent and at the twelve months to pay back. Apply today at
- 21:08two to one Ohio Avenue in Charlson, or visit MCWV online at members choicewv
- 21:14dot com. Lea's are Suption credit rovle Deditional restartions may apply. Make sure
- 21:18you're retirement ready with City Wealth Management, a division of City National Bank.
- 21:22Call your local city branch to schedule a complimentary review of your current accounts.
- 21:26Good morning, here's your traffic update. In Boone County. A disabled vehicle
- 21:30on US one nineteen south at Conall County Line. It's on the right shoulder
- 21:36bridge Deeck repairs on West Virginia sixty one from mile marker twenty seven to mile
- 21:41marker twenty seven point two. The eastbound right lane is closed. And a
- 21:45disabled vehicle on I sixty four east at mile marker forty one, right before
- 21:49Saint Aubans. Drive safely. I'm Chapel in the WCCHS Network traffic studio.
- 21:56What the boy on the side. We have the court room experience such a
- 22:03need, we never give up. We're prepared to fight for your rise.
- 22:11When you need action. Count on us puts the power of pains on your
- 22:18side, the power of and it's a forty three on five any WCHS the
- 22:23voice of Charleston. Don't forget that. You can call us. Call Harvey
- 22:26Harvey, Payton and the Peyton Law Firm in Nitro three oh four three four
- 22:30five fifty eight fifty eight to be on the air, or the text line
- 22:33is three oh four nine three five five zero zero eight. Three oh four
- 22:37nine three five five zero zero eight, and Tim is on the line.
- 22:41Tim, go ahead, You're on with Harvey. Tim. Are you there?
- 22:47Yes? Okay? Go ahead, Tim, go ahead, you're with
- 22:48Harvey. Okay. I see ads for the last couple of years in the
- 22:53paper from a now of state legal firm advertising that if you had worked at
- 23:00FMC prior to nineteen eighty two and suffered from a form of cancer, that
- 23:07you may well have the grounds for acclaim. So I guess I've got two
- 23:14questions, you know. Number one is this worth pursuing? And it would
- 23:18concern actually my father? And the other question is why would I want to
- 23:25do it with an out of state law firm. I'll hang up and listen
- 23:30to the answer. All right, all question Harvey in reverse order. There
- 23:36really would be no benefit to dealing with an out of state law firm.
- 23:41We have more than perfectly competent lawyers here in West Virginia, in Kanaw County
- 23:49and Putnam County, and our office Wheeling, Eastern Panhandle, all of whom
- 23:57either as small for our practitioners like us or as part of larger firms,
- 24:06deal with environmental employment issues with regularity. And even if it is a claim
- 24:17that, for instance, in our office we may not deal with that particular
- 24:22expertise with regard to an FMC claim, we can certainly listen to the history
- 24:32that you have and then pick up the phone and call one of our brethren
- 24:37at the bar here in West Virginia who can guide us and you through the
- 24:45process and get you to some place where you can sit down and talk to
- 24:49a lawyer here. Now, let's not to say that lawyers here may not
- 24:56be affiliated with National Counsel on some matter. There's affirm ingm Ness Motley down
- 25:02in South Carolina that they don't solicit clients to hire them as South Carolina attorneys.
- 25:14They work with local attorneys to see that you get the best possible advice
- 25:19and if need be representation that you can get. Now, I'm not saying
- 25:26that whoever ran that ad may not be competent. I don't know. I
- 25:30don't know who ran the ad, but I'm saying there's no advantage to you
- 25:37in answering that ad. Now, the question about your father and whether it's
- 25:41a viable claim, certainly many of these claims are worth pursuing for relatively significant
- 25:52amounts of money. A lot of that depends on work history. It depends
- 25:57on the type of answer, the day to death and things of that nature.
- 26:02So my advice would be, if you're just even thinking about we can
- 26:04call us. You can call me or talk to Tom and we'll get some
- 26:08history from you. We'll see if we can't uh, if we can't help
- 26:12you, we can point you in the direction to get somebody right here who
- 26:18can do the job for we. S'll have an office you can actually go
- 26:21to and sit down in and talk to your lawyer. Yeah, does that
- 26:25make sense? Yeah, thank you, Tim. Yeah, he hung out,
- 26:27he's hung up to Okay, Well, well thanks a lot, Tiam.
- 26:30I mean that would be my answer. Yeah, three oh five,
- 26:32seven five five fifty fifty five fifty six. That's correct. Yeah, seven
- 26:36five fifty fifty five fifty six. I got another call Harvey. Good popular
- 26:40God this morning. Mark. You're on the line with Harvey Payton. Go
- 26:42ahead, good morning, Harvey. Uh. Hey, I got a tip
- 26:47yesterday that Harvey was going to file a lawsuit against the state or the governor's
- 26:51office or the Cultural Affairs office regarding baby Dog being depicted in the murals at
- 26:56the Capitol. Is that true? And what would be the grounds for the
- 26:57lawsuit? Okay, this is leads right into it. Well, I want
- 27:00to talk about it a little bit. Go ahead, Thank you, Mark.
- 27:06There have been a couple of stories I mean, and a column in
- 27:11the gazette called Capital b and I Think or whatever it is on Sunday,
- 27:15and then on Metro News last evening in an exet this morning about some lawsuit
- 27:21relative to baby Dog. Let me say this. I have some clients who
- 27:26are concerned about the manner in which the mural project in the Capital Rotunda was
- 27:37implemented, and whether that project in Toto in total was implemented and what we've
- 27:45got now, which is going to cost the state over a half million dollars,
- 27:51was done in accordance with the law. The fact that there's a depiction
- 27:56of the governor's pet in the final version simply drew attention to well, wait
- 28:06a minute, if we can make these changes in this project in the two
- 28:11months that elapse between it's unveiling in twenty twenty four, how did we get
- 28:15this thing to start with? And so I'm looking into that on behalf of
- 28:25clients. And we have a purchasing law in West Virginia for a reason.
- 28:32I'm old enough to have sat in a courtroom in Kanah County back in nineteen
- 28:36seventy and observed people being tried for bribery and conspiracy as a part of the
- 28:41Baron administration because they managed to jockey contracts around so that there were essentially no
- 28:48bid contracts. Now, I'm not saying that there's any criminality involved at all
- 28:52in what may or may not have happened with regard to this Bureau project,
- 28:57but I'm saying this. We have a Capitol Building Commission. It's been in
- 29:03effect since the twenties when the Capitol burned down in downtown Charleson. A new
- 29:07building is being built and it has been transformed. Its role has changed into
- 29:15an agency or a sub agency that protects and preserves a building and building complex
- 29:22that we all own, that is the Capitol Building. And there are specific
- 29:26statutes which say that any contract, any contract that involves a change to the
- 29:33physical structure or the esthetic appearance of the Capitol must be approved by the Capitol
- 29:38Building Commission, and the action of the Commission in response to a request for
- 29:45such approval must be in writing and must be submitted within ninety days of the
- 29:49request for approval. Now all I have done on behalf of my clients has
- 29:53asked the Commissioner and the the Department of Administration and the Purchasing Division to show
- 30:03me that document. And the other factor is In twenty ten, Steve Canterbury,
- 30:15who was then the State Supreme Court Administrator, made a motion on the
- 30:21Building Commission he was a member, authorizing the quote preliminary steps to select an
- 30:30artist or company to provide these period That was it preliminary. Now Purchasing acted
- 30:37on that. They actually sent out a request for proposals, which they got
- 30:42in June twenty ten, and by the end of June twenty ten they got
- 30:48actual submissions from vendors. They had people signed vendors affidavits more than one and
- 30:56then in April twenty eleven the vendors were sent a letter from pur saying this
- 31:00project is canceled cncled right, So the preliminary work that was authorized by the
- 31:10motion of Steve Canterbury, which was pursued through the middle of twenty ten,
- 31:15was canceled by the Purchasing Division. Now we know that I have seen the
- 31:21letters. I have asked for the other letters from administration and Purchasing, and
- 31:26they have ignored my Foyer requests. Right, all we want to see is
- 31:30the documents to prove that this was done correctly. We know that project was
- 31:34canceled. Now, what we also know is sometime in twenty nineteen, the
- 31:42then Curator of Arts, History and Whatever sent a request over to Purchasing to
- 31:48treat this mirror project as a quote impossible to bid project. So what we've
- 31:56asked for is what was the justification for converting a project that was submitted through
- 32:02the bidding process in twenty ten? How did it become converted to an impossible
- 32:08to bid project that can be so that the commissioner could select his favorite vendor
- 32:14without bids eight years later, and again that was a Foyer request to the
- 32:20Purchasing Division and to Mark Scott an administration that they simply have not responded to
- 32:25in a timely fashion. There is a specific provision in the Purchasing Manual,
- 32:34it's captured capital structure changes CAPATL not capitalism in money, which says no contract
- 32:47can be awarded or let without for any change subject to the jurisdiction of the
- 32:57CBC Capitol Building Commission US that contract is first approved in writing, and all
- 33:05we've asked for is, well, let's see that writing. Where is it.
- 33:10I attended the meeting of the Capitol Building Commission yesterday not because I care
- 33:15about baby Dog. We all know about that debacle. But I just wanted
- 33:20to see what their normal procedures are. And I watched while the Capitol Building
- 33:23Commission listen to a contractor who's already been awarded a contract to rehabilitate and restore
- 33:31the Holygrove Mansion, ask for approval about the wallpaper patterns, the paint color,
- 33:38the height of a banister, the angle of a roof. I listened
- 33:43to the Capitol Building Commission consider and approve the paint color and a third floor
- 33:47bathroom in the west wing of the State House, the tile pattern on the
- 33:52floor of that bathroom, and the appearance of the pedestal sinks right. So
- 33:59in my mind, my question is I've just asked them to tell me,
- 34:01well, if that's what you consider. I know that three years ago they
- 34:05spent a whole meeting talking about replacing flood damaged carpeting with floating floor. If
- 34:13that's the case. Tell me my clients, who represent the people of West
- 34:17Virginia, they're citizens. Why these murals were not submitted, why there is
- 34:24no and if there was a motion and an approval by the Capitol Building Commission,
- 34:32where is it. I don't want to bring a lawsuit. My clients
- 34:37don't want to get involved in litigation. But in order to have jurisdiction to
- 34:40sue if we have to, we had to send a notice that we were
- 34:45going to we may bring an action. That's all we did. That gives
- 34:52us at least we can't do anything for thirty days from the date of that
- 34:54notice. And I'm thinking, Okay, we'll send them the notice, We'll
- 34:59ask for the information, and if we get the information showing that this is
- 35:02not what it appears to be, well that may be the end of it.
- 35:07Because what it appears to be right now, I mean, there was
- 35:10a written contract signed by this canning company dated April twenty twenty two. But
- 35:20where is the minutes or the order of the decision of the Capitol Building Commission
- 35:25to approve that contract. I mean, I'm getting a transcript prepared of an
- 35:30interview that the Secretary of Arts gave to Hopy Kerchival where he said, oh,
- 35:36the contract was all done, this was all approved back in twenty ten.
- 35:39Well, then just tell me why if it was done in twenty ten
- 35:45canceled in twenty eleven, why that validates a contract that was signed in twenty
- 35:52twenty two, And how did you send that over to purchasing and justify it
- 35:57as a no bid contract? A no bid contract. What it looks like
- 36:01is that they got some requests for proposals back in two thousand, some of
- 36:06which were submitted by West Virginia Artists. Twenty eleven, twenty ten, twenty
- 36:12ten. Yeah, found something they liked and then just trotted it over to
- 36:20Purchasing nine years later and said, well, we have to do this on
- 36:24a new bid basis so I can give this job to the people I like.
- 36:30I'm not saying anybody's getting anything under the table. It's just I am
- 36:35the boss and this is what I want. Now. That's just not what
- 36:38purchasing's about. That's not what changes to the State House is about. Now.
- 36:43It's got these people on the Capitol Building Commission and a crack. I
- 36:45think you had Dave Marshall, an architect, Janelle Armstrong. You know an
- 36:52engineer, Brent Boggs. So I forget Michael the fell from wheelings on.
- 36:57There. You know, what are they going to say. I mean,
- 37:01I suppose they could issue a statement to the press say well, we actually
- 37:05did approve this, and here is the letter decision we made to approve it,
- 37:08and we specifically discussed this contract back in April twenty twenty two and approved
- 37:14it to spend a half million dollars on murals that had not yet been formulated,
- 37:23they were in development. Now that's all this is about. It's not
- 37:25about baby dog. That was the instigating factor to do attention to this.
- 37:32It just to me it is unless it appears to be simply another extension of
- 37:39the arrogance and disregard for the law that it appears who followed this project.
- 37:45So there that's my answer. Peyton Law Firm in Nitri in Nitro. We're
- 37:49thorough, we're good, and we're here to help you if you've been injured,
- 37:52if you've suffered a loss in your family or financially or your property.
- 37:57Tom Payton is the best lawyer under fifty in the state of westernin into practicing
- 38:00right now. We're certainly the best law firm to represent your interests. If
- 38:05you've had a problem in Patnam or Mason or Kanaw County or the Southern District,
- 38:09go online to Peyton Lawfirm dot com. Send us an email. We'll
- 38:13get right back with you, all right. That's three or four, seven,
- 38:15five, five fifty five fifty six is the phone number. Then right
- 38:20along first avenue there in nitro Ok. Stay tuned. ABC News is next
- 38:22on five eighty WCHS.