LEWISTON — A proposed blueprint for changes in Androscoggin County government has been released, calling for more county commissioners, new rules for removing elected leaders and a full-time administrator.

“We need some professionalism,” Richard Grandmaison, vice chairman of the county’s charter commission, said. “We need some on-site responsibility. I think the commissioners try their best. But they can’t manage day-to-day activities of the county. The commissioners have their own lives.”

The result is a 20-page document, a draft of a charter that would remake Androscoggin County government.

An elected nine-member committee has been working on the proposal since March, meeting on Thursday nights in the county courthouse, examining charters from other counties and talking about the kind of government they envision.

“We all worked together very, very well,” said Richard Gross, who served as chairman. “Most everything we did, we did by consensus.”

In part, their path was prepared for them.

People have been calling for a charter for several years, arguing that the current three-member commission offered too little representation and could be too vulnerable to a single commissioner’s agenda.

Gross said there was little argument within the committee that the number needed to expand. However, members were unsettled on whether there ought to be five or seven members, the only other choices allowed by Maine statute.

In the end, they sided with seven, particularly to give some of the county’s smaller towns a better chance of electing someone to the commission. Small towns such as Livermore and Livermore Falls feel disconnected, Grandmaison said.

The price of a seven-member commission is that it will be more unwieldy.

“It’s going to be harder to get the seven people together,” Gross said. “But it’s worth it.”

The new document has a recall provision that gives voters a chance to oust a commissioner. It also gives the commission the ability to remove a commissioner who doesn’t attend meetings, behaves poorly in the meetings or displays “moral turpitude.”

It also calls for the instant removal from office of a commissioner who moves out of their elected district.

When the group gathered, there was no debate over the need for a full-time administrator, Gross said. The county’s $10 million budget demands that level of oversight and someone to coordinate between the county’s departments, he said.

The draft proposal is headed to a lawyer for examination and likely revisions. In January, it will likely be the subject of a countywide information campaign.

Before the document is voted upon next June, the committee plans to create a computer slide show presentation and visit each of the 13 communities in the county.

Partly, they will be talking about the details of the plan. But there will be a secondary mission, reminding people that county government is still here, still operating the jail and sheriff’s patrols, still housing the Superior Court and probate and still watching over every parcel of land.

“A lot of people don’t know what the county really does,” Grandmaison said. “Maybe we can change that a little.”

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