Pact With Fluor in Conflict With City’s Apartheid Policy, Mayor Says

Mayor Tom Bradley said Friday that a major contract tentatively awarded to the Fluor Corp. to oversee the $310-million expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center is “clearly in conflict” with the city’s anti-apartheid policy.

The international construction and engineering firm, based in Irvine, did $40 million worth of business last year in South Africa. The Los Angeles City Council, at the urging of Bradley, last month adopted an ordinance that bans some purchases from firms with business ties to the racially segregated country. The restriction applies to about 13% of the city’s contracts, affecting an estimated $107 million in purchases annually.

(Most of the city’s contracts are exempt from the ordinance because of a City Charter requirement to accept the lowest bid.)

The quasi-independent Los Angeles Convention and Exhibition Center Authority tentatively selected Fluor in June as project manager for the expansion. Although the authority was not legally required to do so, its appointed board forwarded the selection to Bradley and the City Council for concurrence.

The contract goes before the council’s Finance and Revenue Committee on Aug. 12 and before the full council sometime in the weeks following. Since the convention board has said it will be guided by the decisions of the mayor and council, the decision of the council is expected to determine the matter.

City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie said he has been advised by the city attorney that the authority can reject Fluor and select “any qualified proposal that meets its social as well as its economic standards.”

Last week, Councilmen Robert Farrell and Zev Yaroslavsky announced their opposition to awarding the contract to Fluor. Bradley had no comment last week, but Friday said a report from the city administrative officer and the city attorney prompted him to take a position against the award to Fluor.

Rick Maslin, a spokesman for Fluor, said the company is “a force for positive change” in South Africa. If the contract is taken from the company and awarded to another, an action a Bradley aide called “all but a fait accompli ,” Maslin said a lawsuit “is an option.”