The local construction community’s lack of faith in City Hall caused some City Council members to rethink a 22-month endeavor to revamp trade licensing and testing.

It’s difficult to weed out the self-serving aspects of the building trades’ arguments, but this much seems sincere from recent meetings and back-and-forth with the city: A broad spectrum of homebuilders, electricians, plumbers and other contractors don’t think the city can handle its current, relatively small licensing and permitting program, so they don’t want to see the bureaucracy bite off more.

Some are also convinced that a bigger licensing program will require bigger fees, and again they’re not convinced they’ll see any meaningful improvements at the end of the day.

The city — namely Customer Assistance Director Sam Barber and City Manager Vince Capell — want licensing standards to be applied evenly to all trades. Consistency and public safety are their chief stated concerns. For instance, plumbers take a practical exam to get their license; electricians take a standardized test; and mechanical/HVAC and general contractors have no testing.

In a meeting Sept. 17 with tradespeople and City Council members — city staff was asked not to attend — one person involved in homebuilding described city relations as “as bad as it’s ever been.”

In a meeting Wednesday, the frustrations of several plumbing, homebuilding and HVAC contractors began to boil over at Mr. Barber. Some said Mr. Barber had misrepresented them as being in favor of certain changes, and most felt the changes were taking too long and were too broad and cumbersome.

It all led five City Council members on Wednesday to opt for a back-to-basics approach.

Councilman Bill Falkner owns a plumbing company and has led the effort to give contractors more input. He organized a meeting in November 2006, in which contractors raised most of the issues that Mr. Barber now proposes.

“I’m for a lot of these licensing (changes),” Mr. Falkner told Mr. Barber on Wednesday, “but I’m afraid right now how we’re going about it, we’re going to have a cluster ... If we do this broad licensing, I don’t think you guys can handle it. You need to clean up your department first.”

Mr. Falkner urged the city to “lay the foundation” — improve service and efficiency, and give the city’s building trade boards another chance to make suggestions — before the council makes any decisions.

All the council members at Wednesday’s meeting — Mayor Ken Shearin, Mike Hirter, Donna Jean Boyer and Gary Roach — supported Mr. Falkner’s idea.

Mr. Barber asked during the meeting if Mr. Falkner intended to “change the direction 180 degrees,” but after the meeting he said Mr. Falkner’s suggestion to build the foundation and work through the issues “is a great proposal.”

Still, Mr. Barber contends that there are two major disputes that will guide everything else: whether to create a board that would oversee licensing for all trades; and whether to standardize testing for all trades.

“These are the two areas that from Day 1 we said that we are going to agree to disagree,” Mr. Barber said.

But even little issues that Mr. Barber said were not in dispute — such as signage on the side of work trucks and continuing education requirements — had to be thoroughly rehashed Wednesday.

“It appears to me that these noncontroversial issues are pretty controversial,” Mr. Hirter said.

Joe Blumberg can be reached

at joeblumberg@npgco.com.