Residents of the East Hampton Village Manufactured Home Community, a mobile home park on Oakview Highway, held a second meeting on August 7 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church to discuss current issues facing the community.

While an earlier meeting in July addressed residents’ most pressing concerns – frequent and prolonged power outages – the follow-up meeting last week addressed electrical problems as well as septic, road and general safety issues. The meeting was chaired by Minerva Perez, executive director of the Organizacion Latino-Americana of the East End (OLA).

“The city should take care of us because we are the working people,” said Paola Castro, who has lived in the community for six years. Ms. Castro, who has two young children with her husband, Jhonny Castillo, plans to complete her nursing degree at Adelphi University later this year.

“The rich people love us because we work for the rich people,” Castillo said, echoing his wife’s words in a conversation at their home.

Before the meeting, many residents had received a notice from RHP Properties, the Michigan company that owns and leases the property, offering them a $300 rental voucher for losses incurred during the recent widespread power outage, which lasted about four days in mid-July. Since then, residents have reported isolated power outages.

“LIPA is responsible for all construction, maintenance and repair of the main electrical distribution lines in the community,” RHP President Joel Brown said in an emailed statement. “However, to mitigate any inconvenience East Hampton Village residents may have experienced due to the interruption of service from the LIPA line, we have offered residents a rent credit.”

“Why are they choosing this now?” asked Carlene McCoy Douglas, who has lived in the community for 14 years, about the $300 rent voucher. “Now we’re raising our voices, right?”

“Since the last time, the power has been on and off,” Lucia Martinez, another resident, said of the power outage. Another resident, Sandra Gutama, said she had no power all day on August 3.

In addition, between the mid-July power outage and the August 7 meeting, the Town of East Hampton prepared an electricity report, which was subsequently presented to RHP Properties.

“There were several building code violations that contribute to the current overheating and overloading,” the report said, concluding that certain systems were “improperly wired, improperly grounded and overloaded.”

Ultimately, it was recommended to replace the electricity distribution network and restrict the “use of certain devices” in individual households that place greater strain on the grid.

“After being notified of the power outages at Oakview Manufactured Home Park, the City contacted the property owner and assigned an electrician to investigate the situation with the Fire Marshal,” the city said in a statement. “Now that power has been restored, the City is working with the park management to permanently resolve the issues residents recently experienced.”

“We are here because we believe in community and we don’t like tyrants,” Ms. Perez said at the start of the meeting, which was conducted bilingually with the help of a Spanish interpreter.

At the meeting, Ms. Perez urged tenants to avoid creating a divide within the community and then introduced the first of three tasks she had planned for participants. Ms. Perez asked residents to write their two most pressing concerns about living in the trailer park on a Post-it note.

For Paula Lazo, who has lived in the park for 12 years and works as a teaching assistant in the East Hampton School District, it was electricity and septic tanks. She said last year her sewer line backed up into her shower, a problem other residents reportedly had as well.

For Mrs. Castro, it was electricity and safety for children. Her husband, Mr. Castillo, mentioned roads and electricity in his note.

Residents taped the Post-it notes to a wall, where Jeison Pinilla, OLA’s crisis counselor, wrote down the responses.

“My biggest concern is my children,” Ms. Castro said later, “especially my daughter.” Ms. Castro and Mr. Castillo said their rent recently went up from about $1,200 to $1,300. At the trailer park, tenants pay rent for the property and property maintenance, but own their homes.

Next, Ms. Perez asked residents to name two benefits of standing together as a community. “Being heard” and “having a voice” read one note. “Standing together no matter your race” and “the power of collective action” were two more.

Finally, she asked them to develop two “beautiful visions” for the community.

“They should be happy to come home,” local resident Annie Barbetta said aloud as she reflected on her vision for the community.

Ms. Castro wrote “beautiful streets.” “Live like people, not like animals,” Ms. Lazo wrote in Spanish, her native language. “Enjoy my home without being afraid when it rains or is too hot,” read another note. Two young children wrote “playground” and “pool” on separate notes and added drawings. Many adults echoed this request.

Ms. Perez invited Courtney Spellman of Nassau Suffolk Law Services to provide legal insight at the meeting. Ms. Spellman spoke about “intimidation tactics” and explained to residents some of the legal nuances of tenants’ rights, particularly as they relate to eviction proceedings. During the meeting, Ms. Perez held up red eviction notices that some residents had received.

“Every landlord has the right to evict their tenants,” Ms. Perez said by phone after the meeting. “But how and why you evict is extremely important. And these eviction notices that are being issued right after people complained about a four-day power outage are absolutely suspicious and considered retaliatory and are absolutely against the law.”

Some of the eviction notices, Perez said, stem from problems that arose in May. When the original incidents occurred, RHP Properties gave residents 10 days to resolve the issue.

“If you just look at the timeline, nothing happened until after that power outage in July when these people complained,” Ms. Perez said. Since RHP Properties started the eviction process “after the person complained, what else are you supposed to think?” she later added.

“While some residents currently have outstanding violations to resolve, no lease terminations are pending and we vehemently deny that any resident will be retaliated against for raising concerns,” Mr. Brown said in the email statement.

Towards the end of the meeting, Ms Spellman discussed specific tenant rights, including freedom from “unreasonable” rules, the right to only one rent increase per year and a telephone number for complaints.

As for who was responsible for the outages, PSEG said the wiring was “consumer property,” while the transformers were PSEG’s property. The problem, Ms. Perez said, stemmed from a problem with the “primary cable,” which RHP Properties allegedly took responsibility for. Work on that cable was scheduled to begin Wednesday, according to RHP Properties.

“We recently received the necessary documentation from the owner that will now allow us to replace the old, customer-owned equipment and power new PSEG Long Island equipment throughout the district, which should resolve future reliability and outage issues,” Elizabeth Flagler, a PSEG representative, said in an email last week.

“RHP is kind of misrepresenting the reality, which is that they are responsible,” Ms. Perez said by phone, adding later, “They still want to hold onto the idea that none of this was their fault, but it was.”

Since the July power outage, OLA has been in contact with PSEG about the outages. Ms. Perez also informed the regional representative of Governor Kathy Hochul’s office about the problem.

RHP Properties held a “productive meeting” with city officials last week and the company said it is working “closely” with the city to discuss possible future repairs.

“Communication, respect and transparency should be part of this process going forward,” Ms. Perez told the group. After the July power outage, OLA sent claim forms to RHP Properties. The claim forms listed the losses residents had incurred as a result of the power outages.

At the next meeting, Ms. Perez hopes to provide clarity to residents. Over the phone, she explains that she wants to bring in representatives from East Hampton Town and PSEG to help the community better understand the situation.