LEWISTON – Saying she’s tired of city politics, Council President Renee Bernier said she won’t seek re-election this fall.

“I just wanted to announce early enough to give the people from Ward 2 enough time to start running for that seat,” Bernier said. “It’s time for somebody else to step in.”

Bernier blamed friction between Mayor Larry Gilbert and councilors for her decision not to run.

“I think it’s pretty obvious about what’s been going on lately,” she said. “It’s old school Lewiston politics, the kind of thing we’ve tried to get rid of for so long.”

Voters will elect a new council and mayor in November. City Clerk Kathy Montejo said candidates can begin circulating nomination petitions in July.

Bernier and Gilbert began squaring off in December, before Gilbert had won the mayor’s chair in a special election. Gilbert had urged councilors then to delay appointing new boards. That job should be left to the newly elected mayor, he said.

They clashed again last month when Gilbert announced his appointments to a new Downtown Development Board. Bernier criticized his picks, saying she was unfamiliar with many of them and wanted more long-term residents appointed.

Bernier, Gilbert and Councilors Stavros Mendros and Normand Rousseau have repeatedly squared off in council meetings this spring. Rousseau stormed out of the council chamber during one meeting last month. Bernier said Mendros had made “an idiot of himself” during Tuesday’s meeting.

“As long as I’ve been on this council, I’ve never seen these kinds of problems – not until the new mayor came on,” Bernier said. “We have had our differences, but we managed to work them out.”

Bernier has served four terms as a city councilor. She was selected by councilors as president in 2001, requiring her to lead council meetings if the mayor is absent. She served two terms on the Lewiston School Committee before winning the Ward 2 council seat.

“It’s a huge commitment,” she said. “The real critics of the city, they’re the ones that need to get out and run for those seats.”

Bernier said she won’t be the last councilor to call it quits.

“I’m trying to convince them to announce soon so people in their ward have time to run,” Bernier said.