Despite what they say, there's no question that the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York timed the announcement of new land purchases last week to put increased pressure on county lawmakers considering the tribe's proposed settlement over the land claim issue.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have made inflammatory statements in their press release.

“Absent an agreement with the counties, the Nation is free to put the entire 64,015 acres of its claim area into trust,” Cayuga Nation attorney Dan French said.

Put aside for a moment the gross misrepresentation of the situation in that statement.

The mere fact that the Cayugas took this tactic, days before Cayuga County's Legislature is expected to vote on the proposed deal, does not portray them as the good neighbors they claim they want to be.

Most importantly at this point, however, is for the community to see through this gamesmanship. The Cayugas have purchased a few hundred acres on the open market. They're no where close to the 10,000-acre cap that could be given sovereign status under the terms of the proposed settlement, and they're no where close to the 64,000 original land claim area.

And while we agree that the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is likely to allow the tribe to take some land into trust, it would never allow it to happen to a section as large as the original land claim area. Moreover, the tribe will never be able to purchase all of that land.

While we agree with the concept of a deal to limit how much land the tribe can ultimately make sovereign, the 10,000-acre limit is too high. The deal also limits the percentage of a municipality that can be taken off the tax rolls to 20 percent, another figure that must be lower.

So despite last week's scare tactics, the right move for legislators at this point is still to say no to the proposed deal and work for a better one.