Ex-Harveys Lake zoning officer says she was ‘100% ethical’

HARVEYS LAKE — Former borough zoning officer Maureen Oremus, who was removed at Tuesday’s reorganizational meeting after a decade in the position, said she’s confident a recent FBI probe into the borough will find no wrong doing on her part and that her violation of the state Ethics Act amounts to nothing more than a clerical error.

Council at the meeting voted 7-0 to replace Oremus, who first became zoning officer in 2014, with BHW Construction Consultation Services, a third party company that serves several municipalities across the county.

The decision was made, according to Council President Dave Delaney, due to the findings of a recent state Ethics Commission investigation, as well as the controversy that has surrounded the former zoning officer for the last two years.

Oremus was accused at several council meetings by multiple residents, particularly by Manny Santayana, of selectively enforcing zoning code and favoring her boyfriend and contractor, Jerry Brown, as the builder for choice.

During a phone interview Thursday, Oremus was adamant that her behavior was “100% ethical” and that she did not lie to or collude against the people of Harveys Lake.

She further stated that allegations against her, which she says are unfounded, have hurt her reputation and that she’s afraid they will hinder her ability to get another job.

“I’m not a criminal mastermind. I’ve never done anything but a good job for the borough,” said Oremus, adding, “Why would I rip off the people I’m trying to serve?”

She continued, “I think I did the best job I could have. I was audited every year; I never had any money, not a penny, missing.”

Oremus claimed that Santayana held a grudge against her due to a “falling out” that he had with Brown.

According to court documents, Santayana hired Brown in May 2021 to build a residential home, retaining wall and dock on his property. Brown’s work was deemed incorrect and unsatisfactory and when the contract expired, Brown was removed from the project, but he allegedly failed to return the building materials to Santayana by the agreed upon time.

In August 2022 Brown was charged on allegations that he stole more than $47,000 worth of wood and other items from Santayana.

Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges against Brown in December 2022.

Also in December 2022, Santayana filed a lawsuit against Oremus as an individual, in which he alleged that she shut down a job site on his property, interfered with construction on an improper basis, and purposefully withheld a piling certification for personal reasons. The case was eventually settled by the borough’s insurance carrier.

Santayana filed an ethics complaint against Oremus on May 31, 2022, in which he accused the former Harveys Lake zoning officer of specifically preferencing Brown, who she lives with, as the “builder of choice” for Harveys Lake. In the complaint, Santayana alleged that Oremus had a clear conflict of interest in regards to Brown and that she had demonstrated a “dereliction of duty.”

Oremus called Santayana’s accusations “fake” and “delusional,” adding that despite reviewing five years worth of zoning files, the Ethics Commission did not find evidence to back up his claims.

The Ethics Commission’s findings, released on Nov. 7, found over the course of its investigation that Oremus violated the Ethics Act for failing to file several years worth of statements of financial interest and for backdating those forms, which was prohibited.

Oremus accepted that she would have to pay a $400 fine for the violation, but said that she believed she did file the forms on time and that the forms were misplaced by one of the previous borough secretaries.

“It’s not that I never filled it out, it’s that it’s missing,” she said.

While the charge was ultimately dropped, the commission also found that Oremus failed to list Harvey’s Lake as a direct/indirect source of income for her SFI form for 2017 and 2018. She also failed to disclose her employment with Air Excellence on her 2019 SFI form.

Oremus said that was a “stupid error” on her part and that while “haphazardhedly” filing out the missing paperwork, she neglected to provide all of the information that was required.

It was not her intention, Oremus said, to “hide” anything or mislead the commission.

Oremus addressed the FBI investigation as well, which The Times Leader first reported on in August.

Oremus was confident that investigators “found nothing” to prove the allegations against her or Brown. According to Oremus, investigators reviewed seven years worth of files from the borough and those files were recently returned.

It’s unclear when or whether the findings of that investigation will be made public.