The New Boston School Board found themselves entangled in two hotly debated issues during their meeting Thursday night. Typically conducted in the treasurer’s office on the first floor of Glenwood High School, the meeting was moved to the library upstairs to fit more people who had come to listen and discuss options concerning the new school building.

Rich Murray, executive director of the Ohio School Facilities Commission (providing 83 percent of total construction cost), attended the meeting to discuss cost and safety issues with a retaining wall that engineers now say would be needed at the new school site to hold back the hill.

“If you were trying to challenge contractors and engineers and construction managers by trying to find the most challenging site in the village to build, I think you’ve accomplished that,” Murray said.

Stacy Thomas, project manager of the OSFC, explained that architects designed where the school would initially sit on the land, but were forced to move it slightly when new reports showed the floodplane farther than they had expected. By moving the building back, closer to the hill, that created the need for a retaining wall and additional studies.

The wall was originally estimated to cost $1.5 million and would have had a serious impact on the school’s budget. Murray said the OSFC, as the principal investor, was going to hire an independent survey to see if they could bring that cost down. That estimate is expected to be available next week, and should not affect the school’s deadline too much, he said.

“We are building a school to last 40 or 50 years, and the wall being built on the hillside needs to last that long. If we build a 20-year wall and a 50-year school, something doesn’t work there,” Murray said.

The further away from the hill the wall is, the smaller it needs to be, and that saves money. But also the further away from the hill the wall is, the closer it gets to the school building. Current plans have the wall 12 feet from the building. One concern is that it would not be enough space to bring in heavy equipment to repair the wall, should it ever need it; and what danger could a hill fire pose that close to the building?

New Boston School Board President Joe McGraw pressed Dennis Paben, of the Columbus-based architect firm Legat & Kingscott, with questions on how such a big problem could have shot up seemingly unexpectedly, and how they could avoid more in the future. Paben responded that it came to just as much a surprise to his firm as it did the school board.

“When we knew how this building was going to sit, and how it would affect the hillside, we needed to get further reports. We had no idea what was under there. We had no idea the composition of that hillside. When the reports came back it was worst-case scenario,” Paben said.

That “worst-case scenario” he said examined what it would take to make the site work at its worst possible conditions, and that was what prompted the initial wall estimate of $1.5 million. When they looked at it again, they found they could reduce the height and length of the wall and save money.

“Since then we have come up with a design for the retaining wall that is minimal compared to where those numbers were back in October, and having taken a second look at the composition of that hill has allowed us to what we believe safely site this building and construct it,” Paben said.

McGraw said he hopes new estimates of the wall could be less than $500,000, and briefly considered stopping design pending the findings of the OSFC surveys. For more than an hour that followed, the room ignited in heated exchanges between the school board, the architects, the engineer and the OSFC — looking for someone to blame for the setback this retaining wall could create.

“From the beginning, I think the construction team, the architect and the OSFC said we felt we were on a little bit of a fast-paced track. We were given dates you guys (the New Boston School Board) wanted to be in the building and we were doing our best to get it done. But repeatedly in core meetings, it was mentioned that we’re going to need more time, and we kept being pushed to keep moving and keep the project moving, so everybody was doing their best to keep the timeframe within the limits that we had been — I don’t want to say given, but that you guys expressed to us,” Thomas said.

After tempers cooled, the school board moved on to new business hoping to leave arguments and controversy behind — but sitting across from them was a room full of local union members still waiting their turn to speak. The hour-long retaining wall debate was quickly overshadowed by a three-hour long debate about the school’s options of selecting either a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) or a Model Bidder’s Criteria (MBC) for construction.

Under the PLA option, which was not eligible for OSFC projects until 2007, the school could choose to accept bids only from members of local trade unions. If the chosen contractor was not already a member of the local union, they would have to join for the term of their contract with the school. Under the MBC option, however, the school could modify an existing state agreement to either accept union or non-union contractors.

Members of local trade unions showed in force to express their preference for union labor.

“I definitely want to see the schools be built with as much local labor as possible. The PLA has that in it. You can also put that kind of language in a model bidder’s agreement. Having the money spent locally, and having that money run through our economy and the profits staying in our economy rather than going other places, is pretty important to me,” McGraw said.

He said he wasn’t sold on the idea of a PLA at first, but said independent research suggests the school would do better to hire skilled tradesmen who would do the job right the first time, instead of paying more to go back and repair lesser-quality work. Board member John Whisman also supported the PLA option, while board member Elaine Evans sided with an MBC saying the school could still include specifications giving preference to local labor unions.

As an incentive for the PLA, Steve Burton, of the Tri-State Buildings and Construction Trades Council, said local unions have already agreed to a penalty of $10,000 per work shift for any work stoppage which may occur on the site. Burton also read letters recommending union labor from schools in South Point and Ironton.

Some New Boston teachers argued that a non-prevailing wage agreement (the MBC option) might save the school money which could be used to put back some of the $1 million in cuts already made to the building plans. That money cannot, however, be used to recover square footage. For that, the school would be required to pass a Locally Funded Initiative (LFI) and pay 100 percent of the extra cost.

At the end of the discussion, the school board voted 4-1 in favor of adopting a PLA, pending contract review and approval by their attorneys.

The board still had much work to do — renewing teacher contracts and evaluations, reviewing vehicle purchase bids, and recognizing fall sports awards — but the room quickly emptied of spectators, having already said what they came to say.

RYAN SCOTT OTTNEY can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 235, or e-mail pdtwriter@ryanscottottney.com.