ORANGE, NJ — It was recently revealed that the FBI warrant and subpoena served on the Orange Public Library and City Hall respectively are tied to a $48,000 federal Housing and Urban Development Department grant received through Essex County and then repaid to the county after questions about its origin and use arose.
How did a grant from H.U.D. wind up at the library in the first place? That question was put to Orange Housing Authority Executive Director Walter McNeil on Monday, Sept. 12, during that agency’s Youth Scholarship Golf Tournament at the Brooklake Country Club in Florham Park.
“There are a lot of different grants for a lot of different things that you can apply for and get approved, as long as you meet the application requirements,” McNeil said Monday, Sept. 12. “Without knowing which grant they applied to, for what, there’s really no way to tell what it was supposed to be used for. The only people that would know for sure are the ones that applied for it and the ones that approved it.”
According to published reports, the $48,000 H.U.D. grant the Orange Public Library received via the county was to have been used to repair its HVAC system. But when questions arose at the county level about how those funds were being used, county officials asked the library to repay the money, something that wasn’t done until after the F.B.I. raided the library Thursday, July 21.
Murphy Wilson, a city resident and former member of the Orange Public Library Board of Directors, resigned from that body in January 2013, after serving for six months during the period of time when the longstanding issues about the institution’s HVAC system, roof and other badly needed repairs surfaced.
“It was known that the HVAC system needed replacing for years,” said Murphy on Monday, Oct. 3. “The issue was similar to the one at City Hall — keep putting a Band-Aid on it or get the necessary funding to replace it. During my brief term with the OPL board, I do not recall any H.U.D. grants being on the agenda.”
But Wilson said that just because she didn’t recall the library applying for or receiving H.U.D. grants doesn’t mean it did not happen.
“I do recall that the executive director at that time had a list of various grants she wanted to apply for, once the budget was approved and the financial state was clarified,” said Wilson. “She had extensive knowledge and experience with grants and how to leverage them and she was very forward-thinking. To my knowledge, all grants, private or government, have specific constraints.”
Depending on those constraints, Wilson said, “Some grants will be applicable and some will not.”
“My exit from the board was January of 2013; I think I served six months,” said Wilson. “I don’t remember who appointed me. I wanted to serve because of my concerns about the library. The building was decaying, the resources were there, and the town – taxpayers – pays over $750,000 a year to the library. I wanted to know what was going on and why the library was in such a state. I grew up in libraries, because my mother was a librarian. I have a financial background and I thought I could help.”
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