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Durkin: Don’t cut access to Internet
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Mahoning County Court Judge John M. Durkin
YOUNGSTOWN
A Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge temporarily has prevented the Columbiana County Port Authority from shutting off a nonprofit group’s access to cable fiber.
That order will ensure broadband Internet still will be available for the organization’s clients, which include the Boardman campus of Akron Children’s Hospital.
Judge John M. Durkin granted that temporary restraining order Tuesday, and it prohibits the port authority from disconnecting the Cleveland nonprofit organization OneCommunity’s access to the fiber- optic cable strands and/or network until an Aug. 9 hearing on the matter.
OneCommunity provides ultrabroadband technologies to regional nonprofit organizations and government entities. It has used a portion of two fiber-optic cable strands in Mahoning County that have been owned by the port authority since 2006.
In 2008, OneCommunity began providing high-speed Internet access to Akron Children’s Hospital Beeghly Campus in Boardman, according to court records.
The port authority claims that OneCommunity has not paid for use of the network and equipment for several years. It is requiring OneCommunity to pay $275,000 and repayment for, or return of, all equipment, in a June 28 letter signed by Tracy V. Drake, the port authority’s chief executive.
Drake declined to comment on the pending litigation.
That same letter said OneCommunity’s access to the fiber network in Columbiana and Mahoning counties would be cut off Monday. OneCommunity filed the motion for the temporary restraining order and a complaint for injunction Tuesday.
In court documents, OneCommunity outlines its involvement with the port authority and stated that in October 2006, it gained access to the fiber strands as a donation from B-Telecom Inc., which leased the strands from the port authority in 2005.
The lease between the port authority and B-Telecom ended in early 2009, and the port authority then hired Youngstown-based DRS, LLC to manage the high-speed fiber-optic network built upon the strands, records state. DRS is listed as a co-defendant with the port authority in the complaint.
The port authority then demanded that OneCommunity pay for its past and continued use of the strands and access to the network.
The complaint stated OneCommunity “will suffer immediate and irreparable injury, loss or damage for which it has no adequate remedy at law, including, but not limited to, the disruption of patient care at the Youngstown area hospital that receives broadband-internet service form OneCommunity.”