SENECA FALLS - The Seneca Falls Community Center was aflutter with American flags and full of protest signs that read: “No trust lands” and “I am a Native American. I was born here and I pay taxes.”
Seneca County held its public hearing Monday night on the proposed settlement with the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York to limit the acreage the tribe can apply to take into sovereign status in exchange for a Las Vegas-style casino in the Catskills and hold harmless payments to Cayuga and Seneca counties.
The Seneca County Board of Supervisors also announced the postponement of its vote on the settlement from June 26 until a still-to-be-determined date.
Fourteen people addressed the Seneca County Board of Supervisors from the audience of 130.
The audience loudly applauded all of the speakers who expressed sentiments of equality.
“The Upstate Citizens for Equality stands for equality, legality and morality, not creating a special privileged group for $13 million, for so-called blood money from casinos,” said Peter Shuster, a farmer who wore a straw hat and flag-colored suspenders.
UCE had a strong presence at the meeting, partly because of a pre-meeting rally organized by the anti-Indian sovereignty citizens group. Dick Tallcot, chairman of the UCE Cayuga-Seneca chapter, estimated 100 people attended, including some who came for the rally but skipped the meeting.
David Dresser, Ovid town supervisor and chairman of the Seneca County Board of Supervisors' Native American Affairs Committee, was the sole speaker in favor of the settlement.
He said that he agrees with the UCE's philosophy but he is supporting the settlement because of the high probability the federal government will continuously take the Cayugas' land purchases into trust.
The counties will be left without any hold harmless payments, control over gaming or limitations on how much sovereign acreage the Cayugas have, he said.
“The problem is sovereignty has been the center of federal Indian policy for 200 years. We're not going to change it by voting this settlement down,” Dresser said.
He also referred to a hand-out with an excerpt of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the city of Sherrill v. the Oneida Indian Nation case that said tribes couldn't have their open-market property purchases within their land claims automatically revert to sovereignty but said the land-in-trust process “provides the proper avenue” to reestablish sovereign authority over territory last held � years ago.”
Both tribes applied for their land holdings to be taken into trust following the decision. The federal government's decision on those applications are still pending.
Roswell Parks, of Fayette, wearing a John Deere baseball cap, questioned the prudence of the advice of the counties' attorney Brian Laudadio, of the Harris Beach law firm, because past Harris Beach attorneys advised to settle even though the Cayugas' land claim was dismissed in federal court.
He believes there's never been land-in-trust in New York and worried if the counties would still get payments if the Cayuga's leadership changes.
He also presented the opposition of the Seneca County Farm Bureau to the settlement.
John Saeli, an organic crop farmer from Varick, questioned the worth of the settlement when the Cayugas would have sovereign land forever, but the county's hold harmless payments are contingent upon the success of the casino; he asked what would happen if the casino failed financially or if a religious revival inspired an abhorrence of gaming.
Dresser also presented a revenue-sharing proposal to the localities within the land claim area who would lose the most tax money from sovereign land.
He proposes the village of Seneca Falls, the Seneca Falls School District and the towns of Fayette, Seneca Falls and Varick receive a payment from the county equal to an amount twice the actual loss of taxes.
According to Dresser's analysis, if all 3,333 acres allowable in Seneca County entered restricted fee status, the county would receive $6.33 million from the tribe and the state in casino revenue, but $2,899,422 in tax money would be lost from the county's tax rolls.
He believes the county could pay the localities twice what they will lose in taxes, keep $529,680 against the county's hypothetical losses and still have $1,060,836 left over to reduce county taxes.
Dresser's numbers were based upon a Wall Street analysis of what a hypothetical Catskills casino could earn in revenues, minus its pay-outs to gaming winners.
The proposal must be taken up by committee.
Peter Same, Seneca Falls town supervisor, said the proposal does not sway his opposition to the settlement and does not address the “entire revenue package.”
Laudadio noted this settlement would make Cayuga and Seneca counties the only counties in the country receiving revenues from a casino located in another community and able to prohibit tribal class II, or bingo hall, gaming within their jurisdiction.
Laudadio disagrees with federal Indian law, but is proposing the settlement because opposing land-in-trust applications is an uphill slog; despite lobbying efforts by wishful reformers, “the lobbying power of tribes is so strong at this point and it's unlikely to change,” Laudadio said.
In the proposed agreement, the Cayugas would give up their right to continuously apply to the federal government to take their open market property purchases into trust; to run class II, or bingo hall gaming without getting county approval first; and to their claim to their 64,000-acre historic homeland surrounding northern Cayuga Lake that is based on a disputed 1700s-era treaty.
The counties would get a portion of the casino's net slot drop. The tribe would be able to have up to 10,000 acres kept in sovereign status, but the acreage would be limited to three groups and make up no more than 20 percent of any municipality in the land claim area.
Only 3,300 acres in Seneca County and 6,600 acres in Cayuga County could enter restricted fee status.
The Cayugas would get a state gaming compact for a casino, most likely in the Catskills.
Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net
The Seneca County Board of Supervisors also announced the postponement of its vote on the settlement from June 26 until a still-to-be-determined date.
Fourteen people addressed the Seneca County Board of Supervisors from the audience of 130.
The audience loudly applauded all of the speakers who expressed sentiments of equality.
“The Upstate Citizens for Equality stands for equality, legality and morality, not creating a special privileged group for $13 million, for so-called blood money from casinos,” said Peter Shuster, a farmer who wore a straw hat and flag-colored suspenders.
UCE had a strong presence at the meeting, partly because of a pre-meeting rally organized by the anti-Indian sovereignty citizens group. Dick Tallcot, chairman of the UCE Cayuga-Seneca chapter, estimated 100 people attended, including some who came for the rally but skipped the meeting.
David Dresser, Ovid town supervisor and chairman of the Seneca County Board of Supervisors' Native American Affairs Committee, was the sole speaker in favor of the settlement.
He said that he agrees with the UCE's philosophy but he is supporting the settlement because of the high probability the federal government will continuously take the Cayugas' land purchases into trust.
The counties will be left without any hold harmless payments, control over gaming or limitations on how much sovereign acreage the Cayugas have, he said.
“The problem is sovereignty has been the center of federal Indian policy for 200 years. We're not going to change it by voting this settlement down,” Dresser said.
He also referred to a hand-out with an excerpt of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the city of Sherrill v. the Oneida Indian Nation case that said tribes couldn't have their open-market property purchases within their land claims automatically revert to sovereignty but said the land-in-trust process “provides the proper avenue” to reestablish sovereign authority over territory last held � years ago.”
Both tribes applied for their land holdings to be taken into trust following the decision. The federal government's decision on those applications are still pending.
Roswell Parks, of Fayette, wearing a John Deere baseball cap, questioned the prudence of the advice of the counties' attorney Brian Laudadio, of the Harris Beach law firm, because past Harris Beach attorneys advised to settle even though the Cayugas' land claim was dismissed in federal court.
He believes there's never been land-in-trust in New York and worried if the counties would still get payments if the Cayuga's leadership changes.
He also presented the opposition of the Seneca County Farm Bureau to the settlement.
John Saeli, an organic crop farmer from Varick, questioned the worth of the settlement when the Cayugas would have sovereign land forever, but the county's hold harmless payments are contingent upon the success of the casino; he asked what would happen if the casino failed financially or if a religious revival inspired an abhorrence of gaming.
Dresser also presented a revenue-sharing proposal to the localities within the land claim area who would lose the most tax money from sovereign land.
He proposes the village of Seneca Falls, the Seneca Falls School District and the towns of Fayette, Seneca Falls and Varick receive a payment from the county equal to an amount twice the actual loss of taxes.
According to Dresser's analysis, if all 3,333 acres allowable in Seneca County entered restricted fee status, the county would receive $6.33 million from the tribe and the state in casino revenue, but $2,899,422 in tax money would be lost from the county's tax rolls.
He believes the county could pay the localities twice what they will lose in taxes, keep $529,680 against the county's hypothetical losses and still have $1,060,836 left over to reduce county taxes.
Dresser's numbers were based upon a Wall Street analysis of what a hypothetical Catskills casino could earn in revenues, minus its pay-outs to gaming winners.
The proposal must be taken up by committee.
Peter Same, Seneca Falls town supervisor, said the proposal does not sway his opposition to the settlement and does not address the “entire revenue package.”
Laudadio noted this settlement would make Cayuga and Seneca counties the only counties in the country receiving revenues from a casino located in another community and able to prohibit tribal class II, or bingo hall, gaming within their jurisdiction.
Laudadio disagrees with federal Indian law, but is proposing the settlement because opposing land-in-trust applications is an uphill slog; despite lobbying efforts by wishful reformers, “the lobbying power of tribes is so strong at this point and it's unlikely to change,” Laudadio said.
In the proposed agreement, the Cayugas would give up their right to continuously apply to the federal government to take their open market property purchases into trust; to run class II, or bingo hall gaming without getting county approval first; and to their claim to their 64,000-acre historic homeland surrounding northern Cayuga Lake that is based on a disputed 1700s-era treaty.
The counties would get a portion of the casino's net slot drop. The tribe would be able to have up to 10,000 acres kept in sovereign status, but the acreage would be limited to three groups and make up no more than 20 percent of any municipality in the land claim area.
Only 3,300 acres in Seneca County and 6,600 acres in Cayuga County could enter restricted fee status.
The Cayugas would get a state gaming compact for a casino, most likely in the Catskills.
Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net
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TheAuburnian wrote on Jun 20, 2007 10:09 AM: