By Ashley Zavala
It has been more than six years since California's Historic State Capitol Commission last met.
The government advisory board had been around for decades to preserve the historic integrity of California's Capitol building. The commission was established during the California Capitol Restoration Project, which began in 1976.
But drama over the secretive and costly California Capitol Annex project, which is under construction now, resulted in the loss of the advisory group.
Meeting documents show when the commission last met in October 2019, the Legislature's Joint Rules Committee overseeing the project refused to allow the leader of the commission, Dick Cowan, from seeing the project's overview and plan.
Six years later, the same committee has been refusing to release public records and provide basic cost updates to taxpayers who are funding the construction.
"The Joint Rules Committee elected not to replace the commissioners who termed out or resigned," Cowan said in an interview on California Politics 360. He resigned from the commission. "There is no quorum, no commission," he said.
"It was entirely the annex." Cowan said.
It has been years since state lawmakers provided a public update on the project's total cost estimate at about $1.1 billionin 2021.
KCRA 3 has been reporting over the last couple of years on the secrecy surrounding the project, the thousands of people who were forced to sign confidentiality agreements related to the project, and the Joint Rules Committee's refusal to provide key cost information.
The last time the Legislature held a hearing on the project was in 2021.
The leader of the Joint Rules Committee, Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, released a statement earlier this month stating that she hoped to provide an update before the end of the year.
"I think it was largely the KCRA 3 pressure that led her to that decision," Cowan said. "I don't know why she needed to wait. I'm sure the professional staff and professional consulting firms that the legislature hired have that information right at their fingertips at least once a month in a formal report," Cowan said.
"Perhaps the news is even worse than we fear or explaining it is more difficult than we might appreciate, that must be the reason why it's taking so long," Cowan said.
Watch the full interview with Dick Cowan in the video player above.
