YOUNGSTOWN — With temperatures dipping below zero and wind chills even lower, SOBE Thermal Energy Systems LLC’s 28 customers in downtown Youngstown were without heat and hot water because the beleaguered utility had to shut down its boiler.

SOBE informed its customers, who make up most of downtown’s buildings, by email that a waterline ruptured early Wednesday, requiring it to stop supplying heat and hot water for several hours. The issue was resolved later in the day.

Reg Martin was appointed SOBE receiver Sept. 26 by a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge at the request of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, as the company was about to go out of business.

Martin didn’t respond to requests Wednesday to comment. Despite numerous inquiries by The Vindicator, Martin hasn’t responded to the newspaper since Oct. 31. A message was also left Wednesday with John Rambo, SOBE’s general manager, who didn’t respond.

Andy Resnick, the city’s spokesman, said, “The ongoing issues with SOBE’s ability to provide adequate heating services continue to be alarming and fall well below the standards of their responsibility as a public utility.”

He said, “We continue to urge for immediate intervention from PUCO and are continuously working with the state to find a meaningful and long-term solution to meet the needs of our constituents who depend on their services.”

Among SOBE’s customers is city hall, with city officials questioning Martin’s ability to run the utility.

The temperature inside the building Wednesday hovered around 50 degrees.

Despite SOBE’s email that the line ruptured early Wednesday, city employees said the steam heat at the building wasn’t working Tuesday afternoon.

A rented steam plant that provided heat and hot water services for SOBE’s customers was repossessed Sept. 30 because the company owes $383,214 in back payments to the 800-horsepower boiler’s owner, Wabash Power Equipment Co. of Wheeling, Illinois.

At an Oct. 22 public meeting, Martin said SOBE is “insolvent” with no assets besides its building and a few pieces of equipment while owing about $4 million to creditors.

“SOBE is history,” Martin said at the meeting. “I have to run it. We’re never going to have enough revenue to build a system that’s bigger and better.”

On Dec. 5, a Mahoning County Common Pleas judge awarded a $424,458 default judgment against SOBE by Alcon Mechanical Piping Inc. because the utility company never responded to a July 19 lawsuit. The lawsuit stated that then-SOBE CEO David Ferro gave Alcon a bad check for $400,000 on Sept. 20, 2024, that was returned for insufficient funds.

Martin was able to rent a smaller, 650-horsepower steam plant a few days after the old 800-horsepower boiler was repossessed. But it took 10 days to get it operating.

That boiler from Power Mechanical Inc. of Newport News, Virginia, costs $19,750 a month to rent.

As part of a Dec. 1 Enbridge Gas Ohio settlement of the Realty Tower explosion with the PUCO, the company gave $750,000 to Martin to lease or purchase a much-needed 250-horsepower backup boiler.

Martin had previously said the backup boiler would cost about $12,500 a month to rent.

In a Dec. 9 common pleas court filing, Kenneth R. Goldberg, Martin’s court-appointed attorney, wrote the $750,000 “will put SOBE in a much stronger position to assure the Youngstown community has uninterrupted steam heat and hot water service during the winter months and beyond. However, even with this generous contribution, a permanent resolution to the economic and operational circumstances of SOBE will require significant additional capital and the receiver continues to seek additional funding options in order to find a permanent solution.”

Martin also served as receiver from 2017 to 2019 when the downtown utility, then operated by Youngstown Thermal LLC, financially failed.

Martin was named to run Youngstown Thermal after the PUCO was informed by the company’s CEO that the business was financially failing, which could have caused an energy crisis downtown.

Martin worked out a deal with SOBE, based in Dublin, Ohio, to manage the facility in 2019. SOBE purchased the assets for $250,000 in November 2021.

But SOBE subsequently experienced a number of financial problems, attempted to get state approval for a controversial effort to convert rubber tire chips into synthetic gas, which gutted its previous operations, and could no longer effectively provide utility services to its customers.

Youngstown Thermal is the oldest district heating and cooling system in the country, having begun operations in 1895. It was designed to generate and distribute steam to heat downtown businesses using coal as its main source of fuel.