YOUNGSTOWN — Arguing SOBE Thermal Energy Systems LLC’s receiver “failed to provide necessary and adequate steam service” to downtown Youngstown and “inexplicably” blamed its customers for the problems, city lawyers requested permission to intervene in the utility’s court case.

A Monday filing by the city law department requested Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Donofrio and Magistrate Nicole Butler, who are overseeing SOBE’s receivership, permit Youngstown to intervene.

There is a previously scheduled telephone status conference set for today with Butler regarding SOBE’s receivership.

Donofrio and Butler both previously worked in Youngstown’s law department.

Signed by A. Joseph Fritz, senior assistant law director, the city’s Monday motion states it should be allowed to intervene because SOBE, through receiver Reg Martin, has been unable to provide steam service as ordered by the court; the city “has direct, substantial and legally protectable interests that directly related to the receivership, including the protection of public health within city limits;” and “disposition of this action without the city’s direct participation will impair the city’s ability to protect these interests.”

Martin was appointed SOBE receiver Sept. 26 by Donofrio at the request of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio as the company was about to go out of business.

SOBE provides steam heat and hot water to 28 buildings, which make up most of downtown Youngstown. It had its boiler repossessed Sept. 30, which would have made the insolvent company unable to provide utilities.

While city officials have expressed major concerns about Martin’s ability to run SOBE – city hall and the adjoining police department are among its biggest customers – the issue came to a head in recent days when SOBE was unable to provide heat to its customers during below zero temperatures.

SOBE couldn’t provide heat starting Jan. 27 and didn’t have a backup boiler operating until late Sunday. While the heat is working in some buildings, it could take until today for others.

Kenneth R. Goldberg, Martin’s court-appointed lawyer, wrote in a Thursday report to Donofrio that the lack of heat issue was “caused by the failure of the customers to maintain the pressure relief valves and / or the customer use of bypass lines that due to their smaller size provide decreased pressure and flow.”

A flange connected to the water supply line at SOBE broke Jan 27, causing the utility to shut down. SOBE contended it was operating by Wednesday, but its customers were without heat for days.

Goldberg contended in his Thursday filing that SOBE determined the problems to “be caused by the failure of the customers.”

While the city hasn’t requested intervention before to allow Martin to “remedy the numerous significant issues at” SOBE, Fritz wrote “the recent total and complete failure of SOBE to provide heat to city hall and other downtown buildings for six days represents a profound change in circumstance that can no longer allow the city to remain idle, particularly when the public health is at stake.”

Fritz wrote that “this is especially so given” Goldberg’s Thursday report, “which is so lacking in critical information that it prejudices this court’s ability to oversee both the receivership itself and SOBE’s statutory and court-ordered duty to provide ‘safe and adequate’ steam service to its customers.”

Fritz added that Goldberg’s report “inexplicably shifts blame to the building owners” for not having heat, adding, “This is simply not true” in bold.

Fritz wrote: “28 building owners have been dramatically and negatively impacted by SOBE’s complete failure to provide necessary and adequate service. A majority of businesses and tenants in downtown Youngstown have been disrupted and even further damage to the city’s infrastructure is imminent given the complete lack of heat during such cold winter months. Surely this court does not want to wait a week to be informed of something like this.”

In addition to city hall being without heat, Fritz wrote the downtown YMCA “was forced to limit its offerings,” local nonprofits “were without heat,” West 34 was forced to close, tenants at Wick Tower had to be put up in hotel rooms and Domestic Linen “had to dramatically reduce its operations.”

SOBE has operated with a 650-horsepower boiler combined with a 200-horsepower boiler, which provides more power than the 800-horsepower boiler repossessed Sept. 30 because of SOBE’s nonpayment.

But the two boilers were unable to generate heat for its customers last week.

A backup 800-horsepower boiler arrived Friday and was connected late Sunday, bring heat back Monday to some SOBE’s customers, including city hall, though it could take until today for the system to be fully operational.

John Rambo, SOBE’s general manager, wrote in a Monday email: “The extreme cold weather has also impacted the startup as some piping required replacement.”

Martin is renting the backup boiler and the 200-horsepower steam plant with the $750,000 he received as SOBE’s receiver from Enbridge Gas Ohio’s settlement of the 2024 Realty Tower gas explosion investigation by the PUCO.

When SOBE walked away from Youngstown and Martin took over, the company was insolvent, owing more than $4.5 million to its creditors, according to Goldberg.