AUGUSTA — The mural that Gov. Paul LePage ordered removed from the Maine Department of Labor last weekend is safely in storage somewhere in the vast Central Maine Commerce Center building on Commerce Drive in Augusta, according to Kevin Mattson, one of the building’s owners.

The Department of Labor is the largest tenant in the 311,000-square-foot building, which has about a dozen tenants.

Mattson, a Democrat, said he doesn’t know the exact location of the mural in the building.

“I know it’s secure in the property,” he said in an interview today. “I know it’s in there somewhere.”

He said the building’s facilities staff removed the mural over the weekend at the request of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services.

LePage said he ordered the mural to be removed because some business owners had complained that the it presented a one-sided view of labor history.

The 36-foot-wide mural was installed in 2008. It depicts several moments in Maine labor history, including a 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston and “Rosie the Riveter” at the Bath Iron Works.

 


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