LEWISTON — Voters could see plans to give the mayor more power on the municipal ballot in November 2012.

Members of a city Charter Review Committee gave city councilors Tuesday a list of changes that could be made to the City Charter.

“While we are advancing a number of charter changes, the consensus of the committee is that the charter has served the city well and dramatic changes are not required,” said Lucien Gosselin, chair of the Charter Review Committee.

Gosselin said the committee is recommending steps to modernize the document, eliminating some confusing language and some gender specific language and adding some tweaks of the mayor’s role. That could include letting the mayor vote whenever a councilor misses a meeting and increasing the mayor’s term limit.

“Since the mayor basically serves in a leadership position, one way to exercise that leadership is to vote,” Gosselin said. “Short of giving the mayor total voting authority in all matters, we opted to limit those to cases where a super majority is required as well as when a city councilor is absent from a council meeting.”

The current charter was adopted in 1980. Councilors created the committee in August  to review the charter with an eye toward changes. Big changes would require voters to elect a charter commission in 2012. The commission would work on the changes for year, and voters could vote on a new charter by 2013.

Smaller changes, like Gosselin proposed Tuesday, could simply be adopted by voters in 2012.

Other changes proposed by the committee are:

• Increasing term limits for the mayor from two terms of two years to three terms.

• Eliminating the prohibition of appointed officers or employees to be candidates for city offices.

• Eliminating the two alternate positions on the Planning Board and Board of Appeals.

• Expanding term limits for the Planning Board and Board of Appeals to two consecutive five-year terms.

• Requiring official write-in candidates to register with the City Clerk at least 30 days before an election.

• Requiring write-in candidates to receive at least as many votes as they’d need for nomination to win an election.

• Allowing the City Council to appoint a city councilor if one is not elected at a regular election.

• Allowing the City Council to appoint School Committee members in case of vacancies.

• Adding a provision that would make elected or appointed officials forfeit their seat if they missed three consecutive meetings. That would apply to the mayor, councilors, School Committee members, Planning Board members and members of the Board of Appeals.

Councilor John Butler said he was in favor of most of the changes, but not for giving the mayor more chances to vote. Currently, the mayor can only vote to break ties.

“It just doesn’t feel right,” Butler said. “There was a certain role the mayor was supposed to have, and I respected that role. Maybe it’s history, or maybe it’s just my belief. But I have a problem with that.”

City Administrator Ed Barrett said a decision about the charter and committee’s proposed changes would be up to the next City Council, scheduled to take office Jan. 3. They will get a written copy of the committee’s report and review it in a workshop meeting.

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