YOUNGSTOWN — Even though Reg Martin is about to be removed as receiver for troubled SOBE Thermal Energy Systems LLC that has failed to provide consistent steam heat to its downtown Youngstown customers, his attorney filed an objection to the city’s request to intervene in the utility’s court case.

Kenneth R. Goldberg, Martin’s court-appointed attorney, on Friday filed opposition to the city’s motion to intervene in the case with Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Donofrio, who is overseeing SOBE’s receivership.

Arguing Martin “failed to provide necessary and adequate steam service” to downtown Youngstown and “inexplicably” blamed its customers for the problems, city lawyers requested permission Feb. 2 to intervene in the utility’s court case. Because the county clerk of courts struggled to figure out how to include the city’s request to intervene, the motion wasn’t placed on the docket until Monday.

The city’s motion states it should be allowed to intervene because SOBE, through 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.”

Goldberg’s response reads: “The motion to intervene seeks to introduce additional claims and oversight into the receivership proceedings. However, the existing parties, including the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the receiver, are already addressing the operational and regulatory challenges faced by SOBE. The city’s interests are adequately represented and its intervention is unnecessary to achieve the goals of the receivership.”

Not mentioned even one time in Goldberg’s response is a Wednesday unopposed motion from the PUCO requesting Donofrio remove Martin as SOBE’s receiver and replace him with John C. Collins, an Akron attorney originally from Youngstown.

Martin has faced criticism and calls for his removal by SOBE customers because of the company’s repeated and lengthy failures to provide steam heat to 28 buildings, which make up most of downtown Youngstown, and for accusations that he wasn’t responsive to the problems.

Goldberg wrote Martin “consistently acted in good faith to mitigate these issues and to comply with obligations under Ohio law. The receiver has also engaged in transparent communication with customers, including filing detailed reports with the court and addressing customer concerns.”

In Goldberg’s second report to the court on Jan. 29, he downplayed the inability to provide heat during days with sub-zero temperatures and wrote SOBE determined the problems to “be caused by the failure of the customers.” Several customers, including the city, strongly denied that, placing the blame on SOBE.

In the Friday filing, Goldberg wrote the city should be denied “intervention as a matter of right” because its “interests in public health, infrastructure preservation and financial harm avoidance (terms used in Youngstown’s filings) are generalized concerns that do not rise to the level of a direct and substantial interest in the receivership estate. Courts have consistently held that intervention as (a) right requires a legal interest in the property or transaction at issue, not merely a general interest.”

Goldberg wrote: “The type of help the city concludes it is uniquely positioned to provide to the court is in understanding the scope of a problem which PUCO is already exclusively tasked with. Like any other customer of a public utility, the city has an existing administrative remedy. The city’s natural familiarity and logistical comfort with the area affected does not entitle it to co-opt the power of a state agency and bypass the administrative process.”

Goldberg also argued the city’s “indirect interests in this action are adequately represented” by the PUCO and Martin, and that the motion to intervene is “untimely” because his first receiver report to the court on Dec. 9 “highlighted ongoing issues with SOBE’s infrastructure and finances,” Martin has been running the utility since Sept. 26 and the city “chose not to intervene and instead monitored the situation.”

To allow the city to intervene at this time, Goldberg wrote, “would disrupt the progress made in the receivership and complicate the court’s oversight by occupying the receiver with tangential claims which the court does not have jurisdiction to adjudicate.”

Goldberg added the “city’s claims are not sufficiently related” and “intervention will unduly delay these proceedings.”

Martin was appointed SOBE receiver Sept. 26 by Donofrio at the request of the PUCO as the company was about to go out of business and walked away from its responsibility to service most of downtown.

SOBE had its 800-horsepower boiler repossessed Sept. 30 over nonpayment. The repossession would have made the insolvent company unable to provide utilities.

Martin was able to rent a 650-horsepower boiler that was hooked up about 10 days after the repossession.

Because of $750,000 Martin received for SOBE from Enbridge Gas Ohio’s settlement of the 2024 Realty Tower gas explosion investigation by the PUCO, he rented a 200-horsepower boiler. But the two boilers couldn’t provide enough heat for customers starting Jan. 27 and lasting for a week.

Martin also used the Enbridge settlement money to rent an 800-horsepower boiler, which arrived Jan. 30. But that and the 650-horsepower boiler failed last weekend with heat not restored to buildings until Thursday.