AUBURN — The group working to draft a plan uniting the Twin Cities is nearly finished with their first review, Chairman Gene Geiger said.

“We now have 15 or 20 important things we have to circle back to, firm up and agree on,” Geiger said. “We’ve talked through the easy stuff, and now we have to get serious about what our position should be.”

The Lewiston-Auburn Joint Charter Commission is scheduled to continue its work at 6 p.m. Thursday in Auburn Hall. Topics include an ongoing review of the current charters from Lewiston and Auburn as well as a draft charter created by the National League of Cities.

Commission members have been reviewing those charters, picking out potentially contentious issues that demand deeper debate. Those include the role of the mayor, the number and location of city wards, schools and financial issues.

“Plus, we have all the implementation provisions to figure out,” he said. “If we agree, for example, on giving the mayor a four-year term we then have to figure out what that means and how we will get it put into place. “

Twin Cities voters selected the six charter commissioners — three from each city —  in June 2014. 

The group began working in July to draft a foundation document combining Lewiston and Auburn into one city. The group has no deadline, no budget, no staff and whatever plans they come up with must go the public for debate and an eventual vote.

The current plan is to put the matter before voters in November 2016.

“By the time we begin to hone down on those critical decision points, we should have material we can take out and show and discuss with people,” he said. “Then we can start testing our ideas, listening and probing. Then we can have a real discussion with the community for the last half of the year.”

Geiger said he expects the group will wrap up its first review during the next couple of meetings and begin tackling the harder issues.

He expects the commission will begin meeting with interested groups later this summer.

“We have probably two months, sometime in the middle summer, before we can come to conclusions about what we think makes sense,” he said.

He’d like to have a rough draft sent to lawyers by the end of the year, kicking off several months of public review, debate and revision.

[email protected]