On Tuesday, many landlords in Lewiston came to the City Council to protest a new city action started in the wake of an August fire that killed a 9-year-old girl, Taylor McQueeney.

The action was this: The city would post placards on apartment units without power, telling tenants and landlords they would be fined if electricity was not restored. Landlords seemed to think that meant they should foot the tenant’s overdue bill.

No. It means landlords have responsibility for their properties. A landlord should know, and respond, when a disconnection happens — to protect their buildings, other tenants and neighbors.

That was the purpose of the new action. As Phil Nadeau, the acting city administrator in Lewiston, said Tuesday, “The goal isn’t to get [landlords] to pay. The goal is to get [tenants] out.” For their own self-interest, landlords should want to know the status of electricity service in their units.

It is a safety issue. The fire on River Street started because the building’s landlord didn’t know a tenant was stringing extension cords like tinsel from apartment to apartment. Any landlord would have been outraged to discover this setup. Levying fines for failing to restore power is appropriate to prevent another tragedy.

Beyond Lewiston, this issue of landlords, tenants and power needs to be addressed by lawmakers, to clarify and simplify the bizarre rules defining their relationships.

Today, landlords can know if the power is disconnected in one of their apartments, but only if they secure their tenant’s consent. This should be a mandate. The Legislature should require utilities to notify landlords when service is disconnected involuntarily.

After all, if a tenant voluntarily stops service, the landlord is notified. Why shouldn’t this be true for all disconnections?

Also, if a landlord is facing a disconnection, tenants are notified, in order to to give them a chance to assume service in their name. Landlords are not afforded this same courtesy. Instead, if a tenant gets disconnected, they are literally left in the dark.

These existing provisions don’t make sense and should be changed.

Disconnections are literally a last resort. The state maintains a $7 million fund for low-income utility assistance, which targets customers struggling to make ends meet. In winter, utilities are prohibited from disconnecting customers. There are ways to avoid disconnections. Only blatant non-payers get cut.

And landlords should know when they do. It isn’t a matter of who pays the bill, but rather whose responsibility it is to act when a disconnection happens.

Letting bad situations — like a lack of power — go unaddressed, either for not knowing about it (or worse, not caring about it) is unacceptable and dangerous.

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