LEWISTON – An initiative to create a charter for Androscoggin County is gathering momentum.

The reasons: two years of controversy and growing pressure to save money.

“We all want to see county government be an asset,” said Ron Potvin, an Auburn city councilor who has led the initiative. “Instead, we have watched it get worse and worse and worse.”

Last fall, Potvin began meeting with selectmen, councilors and municipal managers from around the county. Some have signed on to a petition requesting the formation of a charter commission.

Such a commission would be tasked with writing a set of rules for the county. They could include creating new roles for county government, the adoption of a full-time administrator and expanding the county commission from three members to five.

A charter might also clarify the power structure inside the county building, something that has spawned two lawsuits in two years.

In 2007, Sheriff Guy Desjardins sued the County Commission for the right to hire a deputy after the position had been funded by the Budget Committee. A judge ruled against him and Desjardins dropped the case.

In December, County Commissioner Helen Poulin sued Gov. John Baldacci to maintain her commission seat after she moved out of her district. Poulin argued that she planned to move back and had the right to stay in office. In a preliminary motion, a judge ruled against her.

“The county would be served by professionals,” said Dana Lee, Poland’s town manager and the treasurer of the group. “We’ve seen the controversy in the county. I believe a charter might help.”

For Potvin, the work has been a kind of crusade.

With so much talk of Lewiston and Auburn cooperating to save money, people have forgotten about the county, he said.

“This is one big neighborhood,” said Potvin, who also works for the county as a corrections officer at the jail. A person who lives in Sabattus might work in Lewiston and shop in Auburn. The municipal lines are crossed every day, he said.

“I scratch my head when we talk about greater consolidation,” he said. Chores usually completed at the town and city level, such as assessing or animal control or emergency dispatching, might be more efficiently handled by the county, he said.

With three new county commissioners taking office in the past month, Potvin hopes the charter idea will be warmly received.

Commissioners have already scheduled a discussion with Potvin and others for their first nighttime meeting, to be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 18.

Two of the commissioners, Elaine Makas and newly elected chairman Randall Greenwood, said Saturday that voters ought to decide whether to create a charter.

“I don’t see any disadvantage to doing it, if that’s what people want,” Makas said. It may at least clarify for people how the county works and what the people in it do for work, she said.

Greenwood is uncertain about whether he would personally support a charter, but he will work to make sure the concept goes to voters, he said.

The remaining commissioner, Jonathan LaBonte, said he hopes to have a discussion among all of Androscoggin County’s 14 towns before the charter talk goes too far.

In part, it’s a matter of voters’ faith in the county to take on a larger role, he said.

If people believe the county can absorb new duties such as assessing or dispatching, then it would make sense to have an administrator and a bigger commission, he said.

If not, the local economy is too tight to be adding payroll, he said.

Any charter would take two county-wide votes: one to approve the creation of a charter commission and another to adopt a charter.

In the late 1990s, Androscoggin County voters rejected a charter.