The Clutha District Council will ask the government for more time to figure out who to amalgamate with.
Councils were given three months to submit reorganisation plans under the Head Start process or it might be done for them as part of the government's push to simplify local government.
The deadline is 9 August.
Clutha District mayor Jock Martin said there was still a lot of work ahead to decide on the best path and their biggest concern was about losing rural voices.
"While we may not be ready just yet for a Head Start proposal, we are ahead of the Backstop, but we clearly need more runway to work through potential proposals with our neighbouring councils and the detail," he said.
The Backstop process was aimed for areas that did not provide a proposal so reforms would still happen across the country, but it did not have clear details yet.
Councillors met on Wednesday for a workshop to discuss the reforms with the mayor suggesting a single unitary council covering Clutha, Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes with possible additions including Gore and the Strath Taieri.
They could include developing community boards or electing councillors for representation.
None of his suggestions currently included Dunedin.
At the workshop, councillors also received advice put to the Otago Mayoral Forum from Morrison Low Advisory - the group comprises of mayors of Waitaki, Dunedin, Central Otago, Queenstown Lakes and Clutha as well as the chair of the Otago Regional Council.
Martin said he had also put forward his suggested Rural Otago Unitary Authority to the forum.
"Feedback I've received from the Otago Mayoral Forum is that they are keeping an open mind to all options," he said.
"As councils we will be making decisions in this Simplifying Local Government process that will have an impact for future generations.
"People need to take a wide-eyed approach to consider all possible options to ensure nobody is left behind."
Councillors will meet again next week to decide on their next steps in an extraordinary meeting.