Opinion: Ron Tutor responds to Steve Lopez

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If you read Steve Lopez’ column ‘Watching a hole fill up with money’ last week, you’ll be interested in this rebuttal from Tutor-Saliba president Ron Tutor, whose company is doing the contracting work described in that column:

Gentlemen:

Of course, I spoke to Mr. Lopez and read his article in the Los Angeles Times. If I was rude to your reporter, it was unfortunate; however, the sarcastic and negative tone of his questions and his obvious attitude was so unacceptable that I found myself angry that I could be approached in such a negative context. And yes as I spoke to Mr. Lopez, I do not believe that our company has ever received fair treatment from the Los Angeles Times and the majority of its reporters despite our literally billions of dollars of public works built for this city and state.

Lopez asks, “If the city is so nervous, why did it hand this job to Tutor-Saliba?” The absurdity of that remark is that the city never hands anything to anyone. We were the low bidder after the city tried for months to find competition from all over the country. Tutor-Saliba was the only company that finally tendered a bid and after long negotiations agreed on a revised price to build this project. To somehow create something negative out of that is just the typical outrage that’s put forth in the press. We did not construct the circumstances of the bid, we only responded as a company based in Los Angeles that has performed work for the city for some 40 years.

And yes one of the reasons that Tutor-Saliba was the only bidder was because, in fact, construction companies in the state of California as well as the entire United States have been struggling, going out of business on a basis such that the ability to get competitive bids in public works contracting is diminishing to dramatic levels. The city engineer himself could confirm this. Numerous other major projects have received only one bid; and because they had no other alternatives, the owners have awarded on that basis.

And finally Mr. Lopez’s innuendo concerning my $25,000 contribution to relax term limits, as if that were something wrong, is just another example of the cynicism of the media. The clear inference that this contribution might generate favor is inappropriate and a continuing example of the attitude expressed by this reporter reflecting negatively upon both our company and the city council he mentions.

I would end this letter with the hope that “some day” Tutor-Saliba Corporation and the construction industry will receive fair and reasonable reporting and the facts will be portrayed as they really are rather than on the basis of what makes for a “better story.”

Very truly yours,

TUTOR-SALIBA CORPORATION

Ronald N. Tutor
President