If you live and vote in Langley, Daniel Prewitt is going to try to convince you to get rid of your mayor — the elected kind, at least — before you cast your ballot in August’s primary.

He hasn’t convinced himself yet, however.

Langley voters will decide in 11 weeks if they will keep their current form of government, the so-called “strong mayor” version where residents choose their mayor directly, or if they will adopt the council-manager model, where the day-to-day action at city hall is run by someone of the council’s choosing.

The ballot measure was originally expected to land on the November ballot, but council members — most of them oppose any switch in government — decided last month to pull it forward instead.

A few deadlines for the special election have already come and gone; Langley officials submitted the official request for the election and the ballot language for Proposition 1 to the county auditor last week.

And at the city council’s upcoming meeting on June 6, council members will pick the people to write the “pro” and “con” statements on the ballot measure that will be published in Island County’s voters’ guide.

And this is where Prewitt comes in, again.

City officials said late last week that three people had volunteered to write the nays and the yeas for the voters guide; Prewitt has offered to promote the change, and two others — former mayor Neil Colburn and Ursula Roosen-Runge — have asked to be on the just-say-no committee.

But while Prewitt is one of a handful of folks who helped spearhead the speedy and low-key petition drive that forced the change-in-government question onto the ballot, he said he’s not yet sure he’ll vote for the switch.

“I really haven’t made up my mind. That’s the honest truth,” Prewitt said.

He added that he can see advantages of both systems.

A professional manager, Prewitt said, would have experience and training in the administration of city government.

“There’s a strong argument that a city manager will bring more skills to the job than the average elected official,” he said.

“On the other side … with a city manager, they only need three people on the council to do whatever they want. They are not going to be more responsive to some of the more subtle issues on the community’s health, and what needs to be done,” he said.

Having an elected mayor also means greater access for residents to city government.

“That is a valid argument,” Prewitt said.

In a recent letter to the editor, Prewitt discounted newspaper articles that characterized the citizen’s petition drive as secretive, though he is only the third person to publicly acknowledge being involved in the effort.

Prewitt said the work to get the idea on the ballot started when the League of Women Voters held its forum on government models this spring, though he added that “a couple of other discussions in low-key environments” have also been held on the topic.

After the league forum, Prewitt said a group of nine or so of the attendees got together over coffee at Barbara Seitle’s home to talk about what to do next.

Collecting signatures for a ballot proposition, he said, would “start the ball rolling” for the town to talk about the idea.

Prewitt stressed that the private discussion among those gathered to talk about a petition drive covered both the benefits and the disadvantages, and the “talking points” that petitioners were supposed to use later on to get signatures included both the good and the bad.

He also said the election was not meant as a referendum on current Mayor Paul Samuelson, though some of those who have been involved in the petition effort have privately complained of Samuelson’s performance as mayor.

“This is not about Paul Samuelson. It’s not about whether the current system is good or bad,” Prewitt said.

Others don’t need convincing about whether or not to keep the status quo.

Kathleen Waters, a former candidate for city council, said a group of roughly a dozen Langley residents met Sunday to talk about the upcoming election.

The group will host a town meeting to talk about Proposition 1 at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 7 at Langley United Methodist Church.

“People will be more encouraged to run if they know the current form of government has proponents and has people actively working to keep the current form of government,” Waters said.

If voters adopt the change, Samuelson will give up his seat as mayor as soon as the election is validated, and will serve out the remainder of his term — until the end of 2011 — as a sixth member of the city council.

The council will then pick one of its own members to serve as a ceremonial mayor.