AUBURN – Councilors and Mayor John Jenkins will meet quickly in Lewiston tonight to name their delegates to a citizens joint services group.

They narrowed a list of 21 applicants down to five during a 45-minute executive session Monday night at the Auburn Public Library. They emerged from their closed-door meeting saying they had selected their delegates but needed to wait to name them until they could have a public vote.

They’re scheduled to meet with Lewiston’s City Council at 7 p.m. today in a joint meeting. They plan to use a spare room in Lewiston City Hall at 6:45 p.m. for a short meeting to name and vote on their appointees.

One topic of the joint meeting with Lewiston is efforts to share services.

“We’re under the gun here,” Jenkins said. The Auburn council’s next regular meeting is Feb. 26.

“We can’t wait for two weeks to let these folks get started,” Jenkins said.

The new committee is different from other city committees, according to Councilor Eric Samson. He urged fellow councilors to choose the members of the committee carefully.

“This is not an appropriate place to pay off political favors,” Samson said. “These people will have a lot of influence on the future of the city. They may be on this committee a lot longer than you or I will be on the council.”

The new Citizens Commission on Lewiston Auburn Cooperation continues a joint services effort that began late in 2004.

The first commission was appointed by the mayors of both cities and tasked with finding ways to save money by combining services between the two cities. That group released a report one year ago calling for consolidation of the city’s bread-and-butter services over the next five years. It also suggested appointing a joint city services coordinator to lead the effort and a committee to help that person.

The group’s first job will be sorting through a stack of resumes for a joint services coordinator job.

The Lewiston City Council named its five members to the new Citizens Commission on Lewiston Auburn Cooperation last month. Lewiston’s appointees include Anthony Ferguson, Ron Farris, Bette Swett-Thibeault, Mark Carrier and Ron Bissonnette.