The Westbrook City Council is in no rush to push through a process for recalling elected officials, and residents won’t likely vote on any new provision until November 2016.

At the City Council’s Committee of the Whole meeting Monday, councilors discussed specifics of a draft recall ordinance, which was first introduced in August 2014. In September, the Westbrook City Council voted unanimously to table any action on a recall amendment until January 2015, citing the need for more time to decide on the details of such a change to the city charter.

However, a similar sentiment was displayed Monday, as councilors mulled the language of a proposed amendment.

An amendment to the Westbrook city charter would require a citywide referendum and 30 percent, or roughly 2,053 registered votes, for or against, in order to be valid.

According to City Administrator Jerre Bryant, the next election to likely yield a sufficient voter turnout to pass a new city charter amendment would be the next presidential election, in November 2016.

“From a practical standpoint, if the council ultimately develops a charter amendment they want to put out to the voters, we would not recommend it go out before that date, because more than likely the results would be invalid,” he said. “There would not be an adequate number of ballots cast.”

Westbrook’s city solicitor, Natalie Burns, drafted the potential ordinance. Included in the information provided to councilors was a look at what neighboring communities have in place. Most outlying communities already have such a provision.

In order to recall an official, a certain percentage of registered voters are required to sign a petition, a number that Westbrook has set at “25 percent of the registered voters at the time of the last municipal election.” Other neighboring communities require numbers ranging from 10-25 percent.

Also included in the discussion, to be added as a separate but related provision, is a “removal procedure” for elected officials.

In the summer of 2014, the Gorham Town Council adopted a recall ordinance, and in November, Gorham voters approved a charter change to define “moral turpitude,” which previously appeared in the town charter, but was deemed vague. The issue was prompted after councilors Susanne Phillips and Ben Hartwell were charged with operating under the influence, in 2012 and 2014, respectively. With the new definitions, town councilors violating the moral turpitude clause would be removed from the council, if convicted of a class A, B, C, or D crime, which includes drunk driving.

On Monday, several Westbrook councilors criticized the draft provision, including limiting multiple special elections for back-to-back recall petitions, and the need to define causes for a recall or removal from an elected position.

“It would make more sense to have just one election instead of four,” Council President Brendan Rielly said, referring to how Old Orchard Beach handled an election last year in which six of seven town councilors were ousted.

“I would like to have more definitions of why you can recall,” Councilor John O’Hara said. “There has to be more that someone coming along with a petition and saying, ‘I didn’t like the way O’Hara voted on something.’”

Councilor Michael Foley said the council needed to “hash out” more details of the draft propsal, and suggested scheduling a special workshop in the near future.

The council also voted Monday to “table indefinitely” a proposal to impose restrictions on the city’s short-term house/room rentals ordinance. In November, Berkeley Street resident Kelly Milewski came to the council with concerns about a home in her neighborhood that is being rented on the website Airbnb. She said that the rental was bringing commercial use to a residential neighborhood.

Councilors agreed that placing restrictions would infringe on residents’ private property rights, and would place unneeded work on Westbrook code enforcement.

At the City Council meeting that followed, councilors voted unanimously to support an amendment to the Gateway Commercial District zone to permit auto dealerships in the portion of the zone lying north of the Westbrook Arterial.

This amendment stemmed from past council concerns that a piece of land between the arterial and Stroudwater Street, recently acquired by Portland developer J.B. Brown & Sons, could be developed into an auto dealership. However, concern also came from existing auto dealers in the gateway zone, who were currently unable to expand on their existing footprints due to the zoning language.