LEWISTON — Members of an elected group working to combine the Twin Cities said an Auburn City Council resolution up for a vote Monday amounts to political obstruction.

Auburn councilors are scheduled to vote on a resolve Monday night that would forbid city staff from cooperating with members of the Lewiston-Auburn Charter Commission through July 2017.

“This is just one big obfuscation,” Charter Commissioner Chip Morrison said Thursday night. “There are some people who have already said they are against this, and I get it. But are they so sure they are right that they don’t want the people of the city to even get information? That’s not representation; that’s ground for recall.”

The charter group has been meeting since June 2014 to write a charter for a combined Lewiston-Auburn. The group released a draft of its charter in January and began working on a plan for combining the cities, showing how services including police, fire and schools would work and how much they’d cost.

The commission wants to create public committees to draft that plan, made up of councilors from both cities, citizens and experts in the field. Experts would mean city employees from both Lewiston and Auburn — police officers and firefighters serving on a public safety committee, public works employees on a public safety committee and teachers on an education committee.

Auburn Mayor Jonathan LaBonte said Thursday that is part of the Auburn City Council’s objection. City staff is busy enough and cannot be expected to put aside their jobs to do the charter commission’s work.

“The city of Auburn has work it needs to do to grow the economy, to deliver services, to implement reforms,” LaBonte said. “That’s work under the auspices of the City Council. Staff is in a position of being asked to take on more work that’s not related to the work of Auburn government.”

LaBonte said there is also reluctance among Auburn councilors to support the charter group’s work in any way. At least four members of the sitting council have joined a group aimed at defeating the charter commission’s work.

“What the Charter Commission has to realize is that they are politicians; they are a political body and the Auburn City Council is a political body,” LaBonte said. “It’s already crossed a line, where the Charter Commission is trying to pull in Auburn staff to do their work. The staff reports to the manager and the manager reports to the council.”

Auburn Councilor Leroy Walker, along with Councilors Bob Stone and Jim Pross, wrote Monday’s resolution.

“I cannot support the merger in any way,” Walker said. “I just think it’s a dead-end road. It doesn’t have a chance to pass; neither city will vote in favor of it and I can’t convince myself to be part of it when I am against it.”

The agenda for Auburn’s Monday night meeting was released at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, 90 minutes before the Charter Commission’s monthly meeting. The group had planned to discuss its progress in filling the committees but spent more time reacting to the Auburn resolution.

Commissioner Chantel Pettengill said it could put any work the public committees do at risk. Auburn opponents could complain about any eventual findings if no Auburn employees were involved in writing them.

“We have to make it known, publicly, that we want to include Auburn,” Pettengill said. “If we don’t, then it feeds the idea that this is a ‘Lewiston takeover.’ Right now, we don’t have a choice because they are not allowing their people to participate. But we need to make sure everyone knows we are trying; we are inviting people to participate.”

Commissioner Morrison, who represents Auburn, said he would continue to try to enlist Auburn city councilors to participate as elected officials.

“We may not have employees. We won’t know until they pass the resolve,” Morrison said. “Employees work for the manager but councilors do not and I have every intention of asking them.”

The three councilors who wrote Monday’s resolution and Mayor LaBonte said they would not serve on any of the Charter Commission’s committees if asked. Stone and Walker said they do not support the effort and Pross said he’s too busy.

LaBonte said the group is simply overstepping its bounds. The group was elected to draft a charter, and they have done that.

“Nowhere in state law does it ask a Charter Commission to create a management plan,” LaBonte said. “State law says they need a name, a city hall and give me a charter — and figure out how the debt gets apportioned. Nowhere does it say they should create a department of public works. They have chosen to make this political by trying to prove there will be operational savings.”

staylor@sunjournal.com