After several days without electricity, 50 to 60 residents of the East Hampton Village Manufactured Home Community on Oakview Highway, frustrated at the frequency and duration of recurring power outages over the last several years, congregated on July 10 at the on-site property management office searching for guidance.
At around 5:30 p.m. that day, Paola Castro, a resident of the community, had called the police. Her neighbor Paula Lazo reached out to the East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement Department. (Despite its name, the community is outside of village limits.)
“In this case, if something happened, we don’t have electricity,” so what would happen in the case of an emergency? wondered Ms. Lazo, an 11-year resident of the mobile home park.
There were 98 homes — almost half the community — without power, according to a resident who asked not to be named, concerned about retribution. “They were angry. It was like Frankenstein.”
Police arrived on scene and called PSEG-Long Island, which maintains the electrical grid. PSEG said the issue was an “internal problem,” according to the police report. After contacting the property manager, the police determined that PSEG was expected on-site the following morning to fix a transformer. After that, an electrician would come to fix the internal issue, according to the report.
“PSEG Long Island is aware of electrical issues in this community and has been actively working with the property owner on permanent solutions,” Jeremy Walsh, a media contact for PSEG, said in an email on Tuesday. “After being informed of the outage, PSEG Long Island crews worked safely and as quickly as possible with the property owner to identify the issue and necessary follow-up actions required by the property owner to address. PSEG Long Island was made aware the necessary work was completed on Thursday of last week.”
In the end, said Mr. Walsh, “There was no issue found with the transformer. We replaced it as a courtesy to allow for a smoother re-energization process.”
The East Hampton Village mobile home community is owned by R.H.P. Properties, a private company based in Michigan that is responsible for 372 communities in 30 states across the country.
“Despite a legal agreement that PSEG is responsible for the main electric line in East Hampton Village, the on-site PSEG team denied responsibility,” Molly Boyle, a spokesperson for R.H.P. Properties, said in an email on Monday. “In order to expedite electrical service for residents, East Hampton Village independently contracted a vendor to make the necessary repair and restore power. East Hampton Village is working with PSEG to ensure there will be no further misunderstandings regarding the responsibility of the power lines.”
In the community, tenants pay rent for the land — $1,200 per month — but own their mobile homes. There are about 200 mobile homes in the predominantly working-class trailer park, but not all have experienced recurring power failures. Each day, the community empties out around 7 a.m., as many residents leave for work.
Last Thursday the tenants held a meeting, which was led by Minerva Perez, executive director of Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island (OLA). Christine Velia, a housing attorney based in Medford, appeared at the meeting virtually. Ms. Lazo assisted with distributing and gathering paperwork. A resident of the mobile home community asked The Star to attend.
“We can’t advocate if we don’t know what’s happening to people individually and as a collective,” Ms. Perez said after the meeting. Going in, she said she didn’t know what to expect but hoped to learn more about the problems the community was facing and to assuage tenants’ feelings of hopelessness and isolation. “There is no exact map for this,” Ms. Perez said later.
“We are just fed up and we want it to be addressed,” said Annie Barbetta, a resident of the community. Extended power outages have affected the community for years, and often occur in a particular section, according to several residents.
“We are very tired of this,” said Jhonny Castillo. “Every year it is the same problem.”
At the meeting, which was conducted with the help of a Spanish interpreter, Ms. Perez passed claim forms to the residents. On the forms, residents could list losses incurred due to the outage. Ms. Perez asked that residents return the completed forms to her via email or in the mailbox of a designated resident. The plan was to send the forms all at once, along with a letter from OLA.
Eventually, conversation shifted to “scare tactics,” after one resident alleged that the lease contains language about tenant responsibility for paying R.H.P. Properties’ corporate attorneys, should legal action be taken. (The Star asked R.H.P. Properties about this language, but it was not addressed in R.H.P.’s response.)
One resident floated the idea of a rent strike, but the group did not settle on a definitive strategy.
On the third day without power — the day of the meeting — electricians arrived to fix the issue. While they worked outside, the residents strategized inside. Tenants consistently referred to the electrical work as a “Band-Aid.” Power was restored at around 10:30 a.m. on Friday, the fourth day without power, according to Ms. Lazo.
One resident alleged that the previous electrician declined to continue work on the property because of safety concerns about the power grid. The electrician could not be reached for comment.
“Last Wednesday, residents of the Oakview trailer park alerted town staff to the electricity outages they were experiencing during the peak of summer heat,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said in a statement on Tuesday. “The town acted promptly to investigate and do our part to help resolve the issue. During these extreme conditions, our Human Services Department did outreach to seniors living in the community to offer them free lunch and a place to cool off at our senior center. With power now restored, we are dedicated to preventing similar problems from happening going forward. We will employ all necessary resources to ensure that our residents can safely enjoy their homes.”
Ms. Lazo said she had spoken with Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez on Friday. “She was amazing,” Ms. Lazo said. “She called me like three times.”
“During the recent power outage, East Hampton Village’s primary focus was residents’ safety,” Ms. Boyle said on behalf of R.H.P. Properties. “PSEG was immediately notified of the outage, the community office was open for residents to cool down and power devices, and residents were kept apprised of the situation through texts.”
“There’s no communication. There’s no answering. There’s no response. That’s just a blanket thing,” said Ms. Perez of OLA. Residents receive alert text messages in English, which is difficult for the many who speak Spanish as a first language to understand. Communication has been an issue across the board, regardless of language, according to Ms. Perez.
“I really do want to make it clear to the corporate office that these are the kinds of things that people have been contending with for years. . . .” Ms. Perez said. “At this very moment, what [R.H.P. Properties] could be doing to put this in the right direction is make good on their claims, do not run them through a billion hoops . . . and prorate the rent for those four days, and then go from there.”
Ms. Lazo said that residents have scheduled another meeting for early August to continue to discuss the issues faced by the community.
On Tuesday evening, some residents of the park reported losing power once again. Ms. Lazo, who did not lose power, said she went with some 30 residents who did to the property manager’s office that evening, again seeking guidance, this time on one of the hottest days of the summer.
PSEG could not be reached by press time for a comment on this latest outage.
