In response to the Los Angeles Community College District’s Press Release issued on October 18, 2011, FTR International Inc. categorically denies each and every allegation.

First, it should be known that a lawsuit is currently pending in the Los Angeles Superior Court between FTR and LACCD concerning two of the three issues mentioned in the press release.  FTR is confident that our legal system will properly adjudicate these matters and is content to wait until the evidence is presented to a State of California Superior Court judge.

In an apparent effort to supersede the Court, The LACCD Board has initiated its own “court”, comprised of members selected solely by the District. With all due respect to Board President Miguel Santiago, who stated in the District’s aforementioned press release:  “. . . our Board of Trustees must reserve judgment until the matter is properly before us after the hearings later this year . . . “, FTR believes that this process would be anything but fair, equitable or unbiased.  Furthermore, we believe that these proceedings circumvent the proper legal process.

On October 19^th, 2011, the Los Angeles Times significantly mischaracterized the issues regarding the Los Angeles Valley College Allied Health and Science Center project.  While we understand a newspaper’s need to advance such a controversial story, we believe that no fair evaluation of alleged job defects related to FTR’s work on this project was made.

For example, it was stated that students and faculty arrived at the building in August of 2008 with “missing exit signs and fire extinguishers and hanging light fixtures that were not securely attached to buildings.”  In truth, the job reached “substantial completion” in September 2, 2008, and students did not actually occupy the building until later that month, only after the Fire Department had approved the structure’s fire safety and issued a Certificate of Occupancy.  Contrary to the Times’ article, FTR’s work was officially completed and signed-off before the District brought in a multitude of its own contractors to perform additional work worth several millions of dollars that was outside of FTR’s contract.  We believe that defects from this additional work is what caused the conditions observed by the users as described in the article.  None of these contractors were even mentioned by the Board or invited to participate in the LACCD “court” hearing.

LACCD’s proposed “hearing”, scheduled for December 2011, purports to rule on the very issues that are pending against it in the Los Angeles Superior Court.  This action, in our opinion, would perpetuate damaging acts of misrepresentation.  Instead of a “media trial”, FTR believes that these issues should continue to be heard and decisions rendered through legitimate court proceedings, with fair and truthful presentation of all the facts and evidence, before an actual superior court judge.

FTR was the original whistleblower, exposing corruption dating back to 2006 in the District’s inspection department.  Despite the fact that FTR submitted substantial evidence of this, the LACCD Board appears to be proceeding with a “blame the messenger” approach in order to satisfy legitimate public concerns over misuse of taxpayer funds, without regard to the severe harm that these actions are inflicting upon our Company.

We believe that the Board’s apparent obfuscation of the internal mismanagement of its BuildLACCD Bond Program as exposed by the Los Angeles Times is, nevertheless, not a valid reason to malign FTR’s reputation and the good work that FTR has performed on behalf of the taxpayers of the City of Los Angeles for many years.  Should the LACCD Board execute its apparent intent to terminate FTR’s contracts, significant and incalculable damage will be made to this Company, its staff, subcontractors and vendors, both in the present and in the future.  Therefore, FTR intends to vigorously defend its work and reputation as an award-winning contractor that has successfully completed many iconic projects throughout Southern California since 1984.

We believe that when the existing disputes are thoroughly reviewed by a duly appointed judge in the Superior Court of the State of California, the current false charges against FTR will be found baseless and unsubstantiated. Despite the Board’s advancement of a political agenda in response to the Times’ repeated allegations, we are confident that justice will prevail and that FTR will be fully vindicated.