LEWISTON — A combined Twin Cities could be governed by an 11-member City Council, members of the Lewiston-Auburn Joint Charter Commission said Thursday.

An 11-member council would mean each councilor would represent about 5,400 residents of a combined Lewiston-Auburn, according to Commission Chairman Gene Geiger. That’s roughly the number of residents councilors in either city represent.

“We’ve talked about numbers and the right size,” Geiger said. “Five is too small. Seven might work. Nine might be ideal. But 11 allows us to say that it’s the same number of persons per councilor that there are today.”

Geiger said charter commissioners had not yet settled anything. The group has been meeting since July, wrestling with the questions of how to combine two Maine municipalities.

“Some of these hot-button issues are not going to be resolved until we are almost ready to finalize,” member Lucien Gosselin said. “But once we do put it in writing, people are going to have opinions. There’s not going to be any shortage of opinions.”

The group has downloaded a model charter created by the National Civic League to use as a starting point. That charter covers basic rules for cities, including how councilors and mayors are elected, how voting districts are determined and how ordinances are created and approved.

They have matched the relevant portions of the model charter with those in the current city charters for Lewiston and Auburn. Over the next few months, they’ll go over the three charters section by section, reviewing and debating the best options.

On Thursday, the group discussed the potential makeup of a new city council. Geiger said he worried that an 11-member council might be too big, but member Holly Lasagna said it was important that people realize their representation won’t change.

“I feel that people knowing that they will continue to be represented by one councilor is good,” she said. “If you have double the number of people represented by one person, people may feel that they are losing representation.”

The group also said it would be open to having wards that included parts of Lewiston and Auburn and that councilors should be elected in their own wards, not at large by the city as a whole.

Most of the members favored three-year terms for councilors that would be staggered; three councilors elected each year.

Next, the group said it wants to meet with city councilors and mayors to get their opinions. They plan to draw up a list of questions for the councilors.

Twin Cities voters selected the six charter commissioners in June, three from Auburn and three from Lewiston. Meetings are scheduled twice monthly, alternating between Lewiston and Auburn.

The next meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 24, at Auburn Hall.

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