SENECA FALLS - Eight seconds were left in Richard Ricci's allotted time to speak.

The fervent anti-land claim advocate and former Seneca County lawmaker called for all those with ardent American patriotism to face the flag hung high on the gymnasium wall.

A clear majority of the audience jumped up swiftly to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

With the call to unity stirred, Ricci was perhaps the most dramatic speaker, but he was not the only one expressing opposition Wednesday to the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York's application to have an estimated 125 acres in Cayuga and Seneca counties taken into trust by the federal government.

The common theme speakers expressed - over a proposal that would hand title of the Cayuga Nation's property to federal holding but would secure sovereign status for the properties - is the concern that sovereign Indian land violates the ideas of equality ensconced in the United States' founding documents.

It's a rhetorical and legal argument that has long been made by the grassroots organization, Upstate Citizens For Equality, and other area residents with similar views. They have argued that opposition to the Cayugas' land claim, and now the land in trust application, is not a matter of prejudice against the Cayugas but a matter of desire for equality.

The Cayugas, they say, will be welcomed to the area on a level playing field of rights, community responsibility and obedience to the same legal code governing property zoning, criminal actions and business enterprises.

Richard Tallcot, chair of the Cayuga-Seneca chapter of UCE, estimated UCE members composed half of the audience at a “scoping” hearing held to assess the socioeconomic impacts of the proposed land in trust application.

“Seneca County welcomes the Cayugas to live and work here as our neighbors, under the same rights and responsibilities as any other members of our community,” said Robert Shipley, chairman of the Seneca County Board of Supervisors, winning the same reception Ricci did. “Clearly, the Cayugas can re-establish a presence in New York and run successful businesses without transferring properties to the United States and putting others at a competitive disadvantage.”

The Cayuga Nation's answer to the majority of speakers at the Chiropractic College's fitness center is that the land in trust application, like the tribe's land claim, is a matter of justice, a matter of repairing a wrong committed more than 200 years ago in treaties between the tribe and the state of New York creating a 64,000-acre reservation cupping the northern end of Cayuga Lake.

“We want this land because the nation seeks a return to our aboriginal homelands,” said Clint Halftown, the tribe's federally-recognized representative.

Halftown also oversees the tribe's business operations, including the LakeSide convenience stores and gas stations on Route 89 in Seneca Falls and on Route 90 in Union Springs and the now-shuttered bingo halls.

The tribe's business provides employment to at least 30 people, payment to area vendors and attractive services to customers, Halftown said.

The nation still has the desire to negotiate a settlement of its land claim with officials, Halftown said.

“Please do not rely on preconceived conceptions,” Halftown said.

Halftown sat in the seat closest to the podium where speaker after speaker pummeled the legitimacy of the tribe's seeking of sovereign territory.

After federal court decisions narrowed the tribe's options to secure sovereign territory within their historic territory, the Cayugas made the land in trust application last year.

A Supreme Court decision, the City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, blocked the tribe buying back land within the land claim on the open market and having it revert to sovereign status. Then the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal's dismissed the Cayuga Nation's and Seneca-Cayugas of Oklahoma's land claim, shutting down a legal option for the tribe to secure sovereign holdings.

The Cayuga Nation's application scoping hearing was different from hearings held in January over the Oneida Indian Nation's application to place 17,000 acres in Oneida and Madison counties in trust.

Those meetings were dominated by the employees of the Oneida Indian Nation's enterprises who asked their jobs be safeguarded through the granting of the land-in-trust application. They drowned out opposing speakers' words.

The bleachers and chairs of the New York Chiropractic College's fieldhouse were half-empty. The Seneca County audience did protest mildly at different points during the meeting, but only the words of anti-trust speakers were drowned out as they received accolades from the audience, including the statement from State Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R-Fayette.

“It is my hope and prayer you will not checkerboard the future of this region by establishing an unfair and uneven system of law and policies,” said Nozzolio with impassioned oratory. “I implore you to reject this trust application of the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York.”

Nozzolio noted the State Senate passed a legislative resolution last April asking the BIA to reject the Cayugas' land in trust application.

Other speakers worried a successful land in trust application would increase property taxes for other landowners.

“Farm businesses, must by necessity, own large areas of land and are therefore strongly impacted by increases in property taxes,” said Kristin Cox, a Cato dairy farmer and president of the Cayuga County Farm Bureau. “It is likely that any loss in the tax base would result in increased property taxes to other landowners.”

George Fearon, Cayuga County Legislature Chairman, called for the BIA to grant restricted fee status to the Cayugas as an alternative to the land in trust status. This status would mean the Cayugas' property could not be foreclosed upon without the U.S. Department of Interior's permission, but would still require the tribe to pay taxes and comply with other laws.

In that situation, Fearon also argued the tribe could receive the same type of economic development concessions any other attractive business would receive from the county government.

“One significant problem with this application is the fact that the seven separate parcels under this trust application create four non-contiguous islands,“ Fearon said. ”If more than one of these parcels is placed in trust the BIA would be sending a message that it accepts checkerboarding.”

The tribe is seeking trust status for the 110 acres it owns in Union Springs, the three it owns in Springport, for 14 in Seneca Falls and for a 2,200-square-foot parcel in Montezuma close to Interstate 90.

Concern over gaming conducted by the Cayuga Nation makes little sense, said Richard Kidder, a resident of Seneca Falls for 40 years, when “every convenience store in town has lotto tickets, and every restaurant and bar has a Quick Draw. They just put up slot machines at the racetrack in Farmington. Gambling is here.” Kidder, “just a carpenter by trade,” said he wants the jobs that enterprises on sovereign Indian land could bring to the area.

The presence of the Cayuga sovereign land would add cultural complexity to the area, something needed in an increasingly global economy with multicultural and multilingual requirements, said Ernie Olson, a Wells College professor of anthropology and religion and member of the Strengthening Haudenosaunee American Relations through Education group, which has the goal of� improving relations between Indians and non-Indians.

Olson videotaped the hearing as he has other hearings during the land claim's 25-year history. It's a means for him to keep a record of history in the making, Olson said, and something he might use with students participating in Wells College's Native American Studies minor.

Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net