Opponents of Patrick Farm won a major victory last week. The Army Corps of Engineers, reversing an earlier finding, wrote a letter saying that the developer, who had the town’s support, was in error in claiming there was no need for a determination by the corps of the extent of the wetlands and waters on the property.

(All of these controversies are separate from the troubles in Spring Valley, which is partially in Ramapo. The village’s mayor, Noramie F. Jasmin, and her deputy, Joseph A. Desmaret, were arrested and charged in April in a bribery scheme that also ensnared State Senator Malcolm A. Smith and three others.)

Mr. St. Lawrence, a Democrat, has had little to say about the investigation, and did not return phone calls. He spoke briefly to reporters last week and on a local radio show, saying he was cooperating with the investigation. “They didn’t question or say anything,” he said on the radio show. “That’s really about it. I don’t have much more to say about that. We’ll see what plays out.”

Last year, in the wake of the state audit, he defended the projects, saying everything by the town and development corporation was done lawfully.

“We have never circumvented any procurement practices on either of the projects,” he said.

Ramapo’s population of 126,000 is a diverse, contentious mix: longtime suburbanites; an influx of Hispanic, Haitian and Asian immigrants; and a growing ultra-Orthdox Jewish population, housed in vast apartment complexes, that has transformed the look and politics of the town in recent decades. With their ability to vote as a bloc and in overwhelming numbers, observant Jews have become the dominant voting group whether in the town, where they have supported Mr. St. Lawrence, or in the East Ramapo Central School District, where the students are mostly black and Hispanic and the school board is controlled by Orthodox Jews who send their children to private yeshivas.