Local business leaders deserved to be consulted about a city plan to require business registration.

Surely, this is not the planning example city commissioners wanted to set — or is it? Lawrence City Commissioners this week caught area business leaders off guard by approving a policy that will require all companies in the city to register with City Hall.

Commissioners at their Tuesday meeting said the registration system was needed because it would allow them to better track the number of businesses in town and thus be better informed when making decisions about future commercial rezoning requests.

That may be true, but it seems city leaders could have done more planning themselves. For example, someone should have made a call the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce and alert it to their proposal. Larry McElwain, chairman of the chamber’s board of directors, said he “had no conversation with anyone” about a registration system.

Such lack of communication is troubling. It suggests either an alarming degree of absent-mindedness or a callous lack of concern for what the business community thinks. Either way, it doesn’t engender much confidence in the city’s ability to create a workable registration system. More likely, it creates another reason for businesses to be suspicious about what lies ahead.

Mayor David Dunfield pointed out that there’s still plenty of opportunity for the business community to comment on the registration system. Tuesday night’s vote didn’t create the system, but rather required that a system be created. You can bet that more debate is ahead.

But what about those business leaders who would have liked to have been involved in the question of whether a registration system is necessary? If given time, perhaps the business community could have suggested alternatives — maybe a system that makes better use of existing sales tax data to determine the number and type of businesses in the city. But didn’t have that time. The proposal quietly came to light Friday on the city’s Web site, and many business leaders first learned of it by following the news Wednesday morning.

It is clear the process was flawed, and that is why city commissioners should back up and restart their deliberations on the registration issue. It is not unreasonable to ask our city leaders to take a moment and alert groups when City Hall is preparing to debate a subject that will affect such a large segment of our community.

Just as the city should alert neighborhood groups to potential projects, the business community deserved a heads-up on this issue. Public policy, after all, should always involve the public.

Whether a business registration program is a good fit for the city remains to be seen. That will be determined by the details of the plan.

But there is a point that already is abundantly clear: If entrepreneurs are required to register their businesses, it is only fair that they first be allowed to register something else — their concerns.