NORTHAMPTON - A special committee overhauling the city's charter is poised to recommend a four-year mayoral term, rather than a two-year term as is the case now.

That change - as well as removing the mayor as chair of the City Council - are among several recommendations the Special Act Charter Drafting Committee is expected to sign at its final meeting tonight before formally presenting the revised charter to the City Council Thursday.

The committee, established last year to analyze ways to update the city's 129-year-old charter, last week reached informal consensus on all major points of the proposed revisions.

The council is expected to study the new charter for a couple months. Should the council approve the charter changes, it would go to the state for approval and, ultimately, to the public for an up-or-down vote in November.

"We hope we are putting together a consensus document that will govern the city," said David Stevens, chairman of the nine-member special committee. "It is the de facto Constitution of our city and we want to make sure we get this right."

In addition to establishing a four-year term for mayor and having the City Council president preside over council meetings, the charter committee also recommends creating special elections to fill mayoral vacancies; simplifying School Committee elections by making all terms run concurrently and for two years; and creating a separate line-item in Council-approved budgets that details compensation for elected officials.

The committee did not take a position on appropriate levels of compensation. Instead it recommends establishing an independent commission to study the issue and make recommendations.

The committee calls for another new commission to study alternatives to the current preliminary election system, including "instant runoff voting" in which more than two candidates can run in a general election and voters cast their preferences in ranked order.

Changing the length of a mayor's term and removing the mayor as council present were two of the more hotly-contested issues. Stevens said many people feel the mayor is handcuffed by the current two-year term system that, in most cases, forces campaigning to begin after only a year in office.

Some residents favored a three-year mayoral term. That idea, however, would conflict with state election laws that require municipal elections to take place only in odd years. To implement three-year terms, the city would have to move the elections to May instead of November. The committee felt that change was too dramatic, said Stevens.

The committee also considered increasing the terms of councilors, but decided against it.

"The idea is to keep the City Council on a two-year cycle, so if there is a concern about the direction the mayor is taking the city, the public can weigh in with council elections to change that," said Stevens.

In exchange for keeping the mayor in office longer, the committee agreed to hand the gavel at council meetings over to the City Council president. The mayor, however, will remain chair of the School Committee.

The committee also recommends establishing a council vice-president who would fill in when council president is absent.

In this scenario, the president would set the council agenda in consultation with the mayor. The change would align Northampton with a majority of the cities in the state. Northampton and Tauton are the only cities in the state where a mayor presides over the city council.

The charter committee expressed concern that the School Committee's election cycle is confusing. For example, the School Committee's ward representatives serve four-year terms and are elected on a staggered basis, while the at-large representatives serve two-year terms. Some felt the four years might discourage people from running for office.

"We felt it was important to clarify and put everyone on a two-year cycle with the exception of the mayor," said Stevens.

He said the committee did not take yes or no votes on individual changes, but rather relied on a model of consensus in which the majority opinion won out. Those opinions were crafted after a series of public forums, a discussion with former and current elected officials and several written recommendations from the public.

Stevens said the next two months are critical because the charter, once approved by the council, can't be changed when it heads to the state for approval or when it goes before voters in November.

"If the public wants to input on any of these decisions, they have basically two months to do so," he said.

Once the council approves the charter, it heads to the state Legislature, the governor's office and the Secretary of State's Office. The Legislature and the governor both must approve it, and the secretary of state's office must allow it to be placed on the ballot.

In addition to Stevens, the nine-member committee, which officially dissolves Thursday, includes Madeline Weaver Blanchette, Richard Greene, Thomas Miranda, Gail L. Perlman, William Scher, Todd Thompson, Marc Warner and Megan Murphy Wolf. The committee was formally aided by Stephen McGoldrick, deputy director of the Edward J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston, which provides charter reform assistance to cities and towns throughout the state.

Two previous attempts to revise the charter, in 1973 and 1995, were unsuccessful.

Chad Cain can be reached at ccain@gazettenet.com.