ORONO — Officials here have picked up the pen with which they will write a recall provision, a change in the charter recently called for by a small group of petitioners.

A group of residents seeking the change filed a petition last month, although the document had only 85 recognized signatures. The first order of business in discussing the request, said Councilor Scott Thomas, chairman of the Ordinance Committee, was deciding whether they “want or need to have an ordinance of this type.”

Currently, the town council basically is a self-governing body, and has the power to remove its own members. And although the petitioners fell far short of the required 1,068 signatures necessary to force an ordinance change, no one on the council objected to the idea on Monday, which, for some councilors, was something of a change from previous discussions.

“I think this is a reasonable request, and I’d like to see us proceed,” Councilor Terri Hutchinson said.

“The public,” said Councilor Lawrence Pixley, “should have the right to redress grievences.”

On Monday, councilors perused copies of recall provisions from other area towns, borrowing sections they liked to form Orono’s new document, including provisions that would issue a six-month moratorium between recall petitions for each official, a necessary two-thirds vote to oust an official, and a stipulation that would let the official run for office again.

“If he’s nuts enough to run again …,” Thomas quipped.

After the meeting, however, a member of the group that spearheaded the effort said that requiring a two-thirds vote to remove an official was unfair.

“I think you’re stacking the deck a little bit there,” Anthony Worster said. Worster said he would rather see a requirement of 55 to 60 percent rather than about 67 percent.

A public hearing will be held on the matter during an upcoming meeting.