The city council ballot, however, would continue to be based on a proportional representation scheme, which allows voters to rank a number of candidates for the council.

In that system, once one candidate has met a certain quota of votes, he or she is elected, and his or her remaining votes are distributed to the candidates whom those voters selected as second. The process continues until all nine seats have been filled.

In Cambridge, most of the day-to-day functioning is overseen by the City Manager, Robert W. Healy, instead of the mayor. Galluccio and Reeves emphasized that “in no way would [our] changes alter the power” of the mayor, and that increased mayoral influence was not their intention.

Some councillors feared, though, that the proposed model would inevitably expand the mayor’s powers.

Dennis L. Irish, a city councillor in Worcester, which directly elects its mayor, said that Cambridge’s proposed model could easily cause tension between the mayor and the city manager.

“The mayor will become the chief political figure in the city,” Irish said in an interview yesterday.

“While in fact he will have no more authority than he has now, [direct election] will create conflict between the two.”

Supporters countered this claim, sometimes heatedly, arguing that voters ought to select their mayor, and direct election would eliminate the political wrangling among councillors for the mayor’s seat.

“Who could ever argue with sending the question to the voters?” said Reeves. “It seems that several can.”

At one point in Monday’s meeting, Decker suggested that mayors selected by the Council had not been effective leaders of the School Committee, which the mayor must chair.

“I feel obliged to respond,” said Sullivan.

“I’m shocked,” Decker retorted.

—Staff writer Brendan R. Linn can be reached at blinn@fas.harvard.edu.