photo by: City of Lawrence screenshot

Mayor Lisa Larsen asks Assistant City Manager Casey Toomay questions about the proposed changes to a resolution governing the work of the Community-Police Oversight Work Group during the commission's meeting on April 4, 2023.

City leaders have decided to reverse course on a plan to specifically include previously developed draft changes regarding how complaints against police are handled by the city as part of a new effort to improve the complaint process.

As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission voted unanimously to adopt a resolution that removes the previously agreed-upon direction for the Community-Police Oversight Work Group to review a draft ordinance regarding police complaints that the Community Police Review Board developed. After city staff said that the work group could still reference the ordinance if it wanted to, commissioners agreed with the changes.

Mayor Lisa Larsen, who was on the commission when the ordinance governing the review board and the handling of police complaints was drafted in 2018, said that the ordinance and accountability needed to be stronger. Larsen said she thought the draft ordinance was “a good piece of work that should not be just dismissed.” Larsen voted for the resolution Tuesday only after confirming with city staff that the work group could still reference the draft ordinance created by the board and recommend changes to the current ordinance as part of its broader efforts.

“I feel like it’s broadening (the effort) by allowing the work group to have this in the discussion,” Larsen said. “And I do want the ordinance to be changed. I don’t think that it provides enough, I don’t know if oversight is the right word, but at least accountability for our police as well as our community. And so I just want to make sure that’s not lost in this whole discussion as we move forward.”

Assistant City Manager Casey Toomay told the commission at the beginning of the discussion that in an effort to encourage the work group’s progress, staff recommended that the direction that the work group review the board’s draft ordinance as part of the process should be removed from the group’s charge, and the work group should instead be allowed to determine its own suggestions for ordinance changes to improve the complaint process and enhance citizen oversight. Toomay clarified that the change would not mean that the work group would not be allowed to consider the draft ordinance, and that it could still inform the group’s work along with other information.

However, the work group, which was supposed to convene for its first meeting by the beginning of September of last year, has yet to meet. That’s in part due to a series of resignations from the police review board, which has lost several members since February of 2022. That in turn affects the work group, which has three representatives from the board.

Commissioner Amber Sellers said that while she’d previously expressed that she didn’t think the work on the ordinance governing the review board should necessarily have been combined with the charge of the work group, she thought the group could continue to use the draft as guidance while looking at the issue at the systems-level.

“We have a resolution in front of us that will be able to give this group a broad brush to be able to look at the system,” Sellers said. “They can use the draft as guidance. It is not the only thing.”

Following a request from the commission in the summer of 2020, the review board took approximately a year to develop a draft ordinance to strengthen its oversight over police complaints. However, following the commission’s charge to the board, the commission also hired an outside consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the Lawrence Police Department, which resulted in a recommendation in the summer of 2021 to convene a more collaborative work group that also included police representatives to consider the city’s police complaint process, the role of community oversight, and the community’s relationship with police more broadly.

Before the commission’s vote, board member Stephanie Littleton, who has been on the board since its inception in 2019 and was a member of the board subcommittee that worked on the ordinance, urged the commission not to change the direction for the work group. Littleton noted that the board engaged the public, collecting input on an early draft of the ordinance changes, conducting a community survey, and incorporating that input into the current draft.

“All of which we compiled and we utilized in our revised ordinance,” Littleton said. “I feel like we should not allow the voices and our efforts to go unheard.”

The board’s draft ordinance called for the board to review all complaints filed by residents against police and the police department’s investigation, among other changes. Under the 2018 ordinance that created the board, which continues to be in place, complaints against police filed both internally and by members of the public are investigated by the employee’s direct supervisor or by a division of the police department. The board only reviews complaints dealing with racial and other bias and only if the person involved appeals the department’s decision in writing within 14 days. Because of the narrow parameters, the board has only reviewed one complaint since its inception.

Littleton also asked for the commission to consider appointing her to the work group. While Larsen expressed interest in doing so, the rest of the commissioners said they were fine with the current appointments.

In other business, the commission:

•Received a presentation on the draft Lawrence Douglas County Affordable Housing and Homelessness Community Strategic Plan. The Douglas County Commission received the presentation last week. As the Journal-World reported, the plan lays out goals on a year-to-year basis for a handful of priority areas geared toward reducing homelessness. The goal is for policy, system and environmental changes to pave the way for the county to achieve “functional zero” homelessness by 2028, meaning the number of people experiencing homelessness never exceeds the community’s capacity to move folks into permanent housing. Final approval of the plan is expected in June, following listening sessions with various stakeholder groups throughout April and May.

•Discussed the possibility of increasing or eliminating the cap on the number of Airbnbs and other short-term rentals allowed in nonresidential areas. Larsen suggested the discussion with the goal of preserving the city’s neighborhoods. Currently, the city caps the number of short-term rentals that one person or ownership group can operate at three regardless of the location. Commissioners did not express an interest in further discussing such changes at this time. Commissioner Courtney Shipley expressed concern about the perhaps unintended impact that could have on residential housing in the commercial district downtown and apartment buildings. Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said he didn’t think the conversation could be had without having a larger conversation about the regulations.