If voters decide in 2003 to make the Shenango Valley a single city, the city's interim administration would be elected in 2005 and take office in January 2006, according to a preliminary plan discussed Thursday at a Shenango Valley Intergovernmental Study Committee meeting.

From that discussion:

An 11-member council would make the 44,000-person city's decisions and pass its laws while an appointed city manager would run the day-to-day operations.

The interim council taking office in 2006, for a four-year term, would be made up of one council or board member from each of the five existing communities and six council members elected at large. That group of 11 would pick a council president/mayor in 2006 and 2008.

The single city would be divided into 10 wards, each with about 4,400 people, for the 2009 elections, with each ward picking a council member. To stagger terms, lots likely would be drawn to decide which five winners get four-year council seats and which five get two-year seats.

Lots would only have to be drawn once after the first election.

Every odd-numbered year the city would have five races for four-year council seats.

In 2009 there also would be an at-large race for council president/mayor.

The race for that four-year seat could attract some of the valley's more widely known politicos, but the council president/mayor's vote would not carry more weight than other council members'. Officials elected in 2009 would take office on the first Monday of 2010, completing the transition period for what would be the largest effort of its kind in state history.