As the Lawrence City Commission prepares to vote on a $300,000 loan guarantee for Wicked Broadband, commissioners are raising new concerns that a co-owner of the company is improperly trying to manipulate the city’s approval process.

Wicked Broadband co-owner Joshua Montgomery on Friday sent a letter to city officials asking that Commissioners Terry Riordan and Bob Schumm recuse themselves from voting or participating on the proposal by Wicked Broadband, which is seeking the loan guarantee as part of a pilot project to bring high-speed, Google Fiber-like broadband service to a portion of the city.

Montgomery’s letter comes on the heels of Riordan and Schumm receiving an email from Montgomery that insinuated Montgomery could deliver nearly 1,200 votes to the campaigns of Riordan and Schumm if they voted for the loan guarantee and other incentive requests Wicked has before the city. Both Riordan and Schumm are running for re-election to the commission and previously had expressed concerns about Wicked’s proposal.

The pair of commissioners this week publicly took Montgomery to task for what they felt was the inappropriateness of the email. On Friday, both commissioners said they viewed Montgomery’s request for recusal as a political game. Both Schumm and Riordan said they would continue to vote on Wicked matters.

“This is absolutely an attempt to manipulate the system,” Schumm said. “The concern I have now is this looks like a complete act of desperation to accomplish the loan guarantee, which makes me even more suspect of what we’re getting involved in. It doesn’t even pass the smell test anymore.”

Montgomery — who is the husband of Lawrence City Commission candidate Kristie Adair, who also is a co-owner of Wicked Broadband — declined to comment for this article. His letter to city officials was unclear on why Riordan and Schumm would have a conflict of interest that would require them to recuse themselves. The letter notes that Riordan had asked the city attorney to determine whether the email created any legal concerns.

“Dr. Riorden (sic) was publicly quoted as saying ‘the whole thing looked just too much like a quid pro quo proposition,’ which he clearly feels creates a conflict of interest,” Montgomery wrote in the letter asking for recusal.

But Riordan said Montgomery “totally misunderstood” his reasons for asking for an opinion from the city attorney.

“I was saying that if I did meet with him (Montgomery) after that email that it could cause a conflict of interest,” said Riordan, who said the city attorney advised him to not meet with Montgomery, given the email’s content. “I didn’t meet with him, so I don’t have a conflict of interest.”

Riordan said it was nonsensical to think that a commissioner would have to recuse himself from a matter simply because someone sent him an email.

“That would make it pretty easy for anyone to create a situation where a commissioner couldn’t vote on a matter,” Riordan said.

Mayor Mike Amyx said he saw no reason why Schumm or Riordan would need to recuse themselves from the vote. Amyx said he “had some concern” about Montgomery’s original email to Schumm and Riordan.

The latest dust-up comes as the City Commission received a new report from its consultant and staff members on Wicked’s incentive request. A new staff memo raises a series of questions about whether the city has enough information to provide a $300,000 loan guarantee to the company. The memo — which is from the city’s two assistant city managers and the city attorney — raises concerns that were brought to light in a previous Journal-World article. The city does not have any current information about the company’s finances, such as its profit and loss position, its debt totals and other such information.

The memo states that commercial lenders in the community said such information is critical to evaluating whether to provide a loan guarantee to the company.

The city also received a report from an outside consultant who was hired to evaluate whether a portion of Wicked’s proposal related to “common carriage” was feasible. Montgomery is asking the city to adopt a policy that would require any broadband company that hooks onto a piece of city-owned fiber to make its entire network in the city open to other carriers to use. Montgomery previously has said the policy will spur competition and reduce duplication. But other broadband companies have said the policy will serve as a disincentive for them to invest in Lawrence.

The city-hired consultant, CTC Technology & Energy, largely agreed, saying the policy also could cause the city to become embroiled in lawsuits with other broadband providers.

Commissioners will consider the issue at their 5:45 p.m. meeting on Tuesday at City Hall.