Westbrook residents will get a chance to vote in June on whether to drop political parties from the ballot for local candidates and whether to change the city clerk from an elected to an appointed position.

Those two questions will appear on the ballot June 12, along with the bond to build a new junior high school .

On Monday, residents can weigh in on all three issues during public hearings at the Westbrook City Council meeting, starting at 7 p.m. in room 114 of Westbrook High School.

Councilor Ed Symbol has proposed taking candidates’ political affiliations off the ballot, which is counter to a long-standing practice in the city. Symbol said he believes removing the parties would help candidates get elected on the merits of their own ideas rather than through the influence of a party.

Some councilors have said they disagree with the proposal, preferring the current system where candidates are selected at caucuses held by the parties. At a meeting of the council’s Committee of the Whole March 19, Council President Brendan Rielly said he thought the caucuses were important vehicles for getting people involved in the election process.

Right now, Westbrook candidates looking to run as an independent must collect 25 signatures from voters in their ward. Additionally, candidates cannot run as an independent if they are registered with a political party.

The second public hearing concerns a proposal to shift the city clerk’s position from an elected one to an appointed one.

Longtime City Clerk Barbara Hawkes has announced she will not seek re-election in November, and that announcement sparked the debate over changing the position.

Having an appointed city clerk is consistent with a statewide trend. According to the Maine Municipal Association, Maine has 195 elected city or town clerks and 248 that are appointed.

In a previous interview, Symbol said he believed the position should be an appointed one. “It’s evolved from a different position 10 or 15 years ago,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a position where you can just step in off the street and do anymore.”

The last public hearing centers on putting the new junior high school project on the ballot for voter approval.

In 2005, Westbrook placed ninth on the state’s priority list of schools needing renovation or replacement, qualifying the city for state money to build a replacement for Wescott Junior High School.

School Superintendent Stan Sawyer said that the junior high school building committee decided this week to recommend to the city council that the project be split into two ballot questions.

The first question would ask voters to approve spending approximately $26 million in state money and about $3 million in local money to build the school. The second question would ask voters to approve spending $4 million in local money to build a 1,000 seat auditorium at the junior high school. The state will not contribute any money toward the cost of the auditorium.

Staff writer Charlie Smith contributed to this report.