Editorial: Pressure tactics
Wicked Broadband’s effort to pressure Lawrence city commissioners into supporting a loan guarantee for the company may end up having the opposite effect.
The email the co-owner of Wicked Broadband sent last week to a couple of Lawrence city commissioners who are seeking re-election was something between a threat and a promise.
Either way, the message only adds to the reasons commissioners should deny a $300,000 loan guarantee for Wicked.
In his email, Josh Montgomery advised commissioners Bob Schumm and Terry Riordan that he had organized a block of 1,184 voters who plan to base their votes in the upcoming City Commission race on where candidates stand on broadband issues. He also asked Schumm and Riordan to meet with him to “discuss your position on the issue and how we might be able to work together for the benefit of Lawrence.”
The email struck Riordan as “too much of a quid pro quo proposition,” but just in case Montgomery’s intent wasn’t clear, he told a Journal-World reporter that if Schumm failed to vote in favor of the loan guarantee for Wicked, “I can guarantee those voters won’t vote for Bob Schumm.” (The reporter asked only about Schumm because he didn’t know then that the email also had gone to Riordan.)
Any vote against the loan guarantee, Montgomery said, would be construed as a vote against high speed broadband service in the city, and his voters would respond accordingly.
It’s impossible to predict how Montgomery’s voting block would respond, but a vote against the Wicked loan guarantee is just that: a vote against the loan guarantee, not a vote against high-speed broadband.
Commissioners have been supportive of efforts to provide high-speed broadband in the community but they’ve had concerns about Wicked’s proposal, which is on Tuesday’s agenda. Documents forwarded to commissioners as part of that agenda raise additional concerns about both the policy and financial aspects of this request. Montgomery’s ill-advised email may only add to those concerns.
In defense of his actions, Montgomery said he wanted Schumm and Riordan to understand that he thinks high-speed broadband is going to be a key issue in the commission campaign. At least one candidate, Montgomery’s wife and Wicked co-owner Kris Adair, is likely to make sure that is the case, regardless of what action the commission takes this week. That’s fine. Candidates should share their opinions on an issue that the next commission almost certainly will deal with.
But that doesn’t mean that if current commissioners are convinced the Wicked loan guarantee is a bad deal for the city that they shouldn’t go ahead and reject it. The commission has been considering various Wicked requests for support for more than a year. Montgomery’s heavy-handed attempt to pressure commissioners into supporting his firm actually may make it that much easier for commissioners to say no.