Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured on May 3, 2016.

Local leaders were supportive of a new process proposed for handling complaints against the Lawrence Police Department, but made clear they want public feedback on the proposal.

“I think that we should seek as much input as we can possibly get,” said Mayor Mike Amyx.

The draft ordinance presented to the City Commission Tuesday would authorize a community board to formally accept complaints against the police department from the public. The proposal would also change the name of the current Citizen Advisory Board for Fair and Impartial Policing to the Community Police Review Board.

The board would be allowed to fully review the results of investigations related to racial profiling if requested by the person making the complaint. If the board disagreed with the police department’s findings, it could forward an alternative finding to the city manager’s office for review. Currently the board receives only summaries from the police department at the end of the investigation.

The complaints, review and deliberations involving the board would be confidential and not open to the public, which city attorneys said was required by law and the contract between the city and the department’s employees.

“Complaints can be made and could be found to not be sustained, and we would not want to ruin the reputation of an officer,” said city attorney Toni Wheeler.

Police Chief Tarik Khatib emphazied that those protections were not, however, to protect officers from being held accountable.

“If you’re doing wrong, you’re going to be held accountable,” Khatib said. “…It’s not to protect people that shouldn’t be there.”

The police department is also proposing body cameras for officers and a new race data collection system to keep track of times that officers make any contact with people, such as traffic stops and calls for service.

Local leaders of the NAACP and ACLU praised the effort, but some residents didn’t agree that investigations reviewed by the board had to remain confidential. Lawrence resident Steve Smaczniak said he thought the process could be made public and still follow laws and agreements regarding anonymity by redacting identifying details of the complaints.

“What you have now is an insular way of keeping it shrouded,” Smaczniak said.

Commissioners suggested there be a formal way to accept more feedback on the proposal, and Amyx indicated the process would move slowly.

“Please if you know someone that needs to get us information, pass it along that we will be getting that information,” Amyx said. “I would imagine as we go through this process and we ask questions about it, it’s probably going to be over the next several weeks.”