ORANGE - The Orange Public Library remains closed, according to a city official, until final lead and asbestos content test results are received.

"We're waiting to get results of a final 'wipe test' that the contractor has done," said City of Orange Township Business Administrator John M. Mason just before the June 1 council meeting. "The test is to show if there's any more lead or asbestos present. It takes about two weeks to get the test results."

Mason, Orange Public Library Board of Trustees President Rev. Verenander L. Hughes and Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. had said last month that lead paint and asbestos remediation the library is undergoing was "on target for" a reopening after May 31.

City Health Officer Vincent DiFilippo had closed the library April 30 on a March complaint of paint containing lead peeling off the library's interior walls. DiFilippo's closure prompted the library trustees to hire a Paterson contractor, for $395,000, to remove the hazardous substances and repaint the affected areas. The trustees had also suspended 15-year Library Director Doris Walker for a to-be-announced employment hearing.

Public libraries around Orange have found themselves taking on more city residents for their lending and Internet services in the interim.

OPL's closing has forced one group to move their annual event. Members of the University of Orange, at the council meeting, said that they have had to move their June 19, 2010 graduation ceremony to the First Presbyterian Church of Orange.

Mason, however, would not give a specific date of the 110-year-old Stickler Memorial building and 1970s northwest wing's reopening.

"It will not be long," said Mason, "but very soon."

The library, which remains closed as of 12:30 p.m. June 2, has no indication of its current remediation, let alone a re-opening date, either on-site or electronically. The building, indeed, appears as if it is still on an extended Memorial Day weekend holiday.

One who would have gone to 349 Main St. before the library's usual 9 a.m. opening June 1 would have found no problem walking up the front steps. The red danger tape barring access had been removed since at least May 27. Four delivered newspapers remain set by the door. The "Danger - Lead Hazard" and "OPL Closed May 1-28" signs have been removed.

One would have also found a man waiting at the library's front door since 8:57 a.m. He peered around the remaining "Closed" sign, hoping that someone from inside would turn on the lights and unlock the door.

"I don't know what's going on," said the man turned away, cane in hand, at 9:02 a.m. "Nothing," was his reply when Local Talk asked him what he was doing while the library was closed throughout May.

"The library's been closed all month," added a second man who was riding his bicycle west on the sidewalk.

A turn south on South Essex Street at 9:03 a.m. found an OPL library employee by her car among a crowd of four. She was on her cell phone, trying to find out the library's opening status.

Local Talk then left a message to Mayor Hawkins with his office secretary at City Hall; Hawkins was said to be in a meeting. Local Talk found Mason's office closed at 9:15 a.m.

Local Talk last saw the library - still closed - at 9:30 a.m. and at 6:45 p.m. - just prior to the council meeting. Phone calls were meanwhile placed to Mason and Rev. Hughes' Bethel Baptist Church office about the library's status.

A subsequent check on the library's Web site found no updates or changes on its re-opening.

Calling the library's main number found Walker's recorded message, saying, "We're unfortunately unable to answer the phone now," and gave the library's operating hours.

The message was the same as Local Talk found it May 12. The media outlet did not stay on long enough to determine whether Walker's additional message about the May 1 closing and "We intend to reopen after May 28." was still on.