Oneida cite opportunity for cooperation in BIA land-into-trust decision.
By Jerry Reynolds -- Today staff
WASHINGTON - The Oneida Indian Nation called for cooperation to improve everyone's lot in their upstate New York region following a BIA environmental impact statement favoring the transfer of 13,086 tribally owned acres into federal trust status. As with the assets of all governments, the trust lands of tribal governments are exempt from state or local taxes and regulations.
The OIN has long sought trust status for its lands, pleading the need for economic development beyond the confines of its 32-acre reservation centered in Oneida, N.Y. It has cast its development plans as a boost for the economically stalemated region around it, arguing that the spread of its prosperity will more than make up for taxes lost to state and local governments. In much the same way, the nation contends, and independent study has confirmed, that its Turning Stone Resort and Casino in nearby Verona, N.Y., has brought economic vigor to a previously disinvested surround of towns and counties.
The OIN has issued one official response to the BIA's Feb. 22 recommendation. Spokesman Mark Emery said the nation had declined to bus employees to a rally in support of trust status for tribally owned land at a local public hearing March 6. ''[The] focus should be positive, with an emphasis on making this an even better region to live and raise a family. Hearings that divide our community do not serve that end. It's time to move forward and plan for the future with an atmosphere of cooperation and a renewed spirit of optimism. We agree with [Oneida] County Executive Anthony Picente's recent call for an end to more than 30 years of costly litigation and strife.''
A considerable number of nation employees attended the meeting on their own volition, and came away recounting familiar scenes - anti-nation people and organizations on hand, determined to oppose Oneida expansion; others respectful of the nation's plans and not obviously biased against them; still others receptive of the employees' views, characterized by one as pretty much all positive.
''I think it's time to stop the lawsuits and it's time for everyone to sit down and hash things out instead of dragging it through the court systems,'' said David Baffle, assistant operations manager of OIN's SavOn convenience stores.
''Negotiations have to be in order. The nation has proven what they can do,'' said Michelle Fischer, floor supervisor at Turning Stone. ''Everything that they say and what they can do - they have accomplished. Working against them is not helping. We are all working toward the same goal.''
That goal is a better economic future for the area.
Comments on the BIA position (or rather positions, as the bureau lays out nine land-into-trust options but reserves a preference for only the 13,086-acre one) were due March 24, and not all of them will be positive. The bureau's executive summary contends that its preference is a compromise between the nation's goal of placing more than 17,000 acres in trust, and the resistance of some local opinion; between ''the immediate and shorter-term needs of the Nation to re-establish a sovereign homeland and ... the New York state and local government's request to consider a more compact and contiguous trust land grouping.''
But Picente, as quoted in the Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch newspaper, found the decision ''unfairly balanced'' in the nation's favor. Upstate Citizens for Equality, vehemently outspoken against the tribe's trust-land goals on previous occasions, continued to rail in the pages of the same newspaper, as president David Vickers gloated over a presumed ''knock-down drag-out fight'' and, without citing evidence, foresaw the proposed trust lands as a lawless enclave.
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Members of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union Local 112 (Binghamton, Utica and Rome) attended the meeting in Utica as well. Their stance was in support of taking the land into trust.
Todd Burt, assistant business manager for the union, sat through the meeting listening to everyone's side before he spoke.
''The point I wanted to get across was when we started we didn't have a relationship with the nation,'' he said. ''We got off on the wrong foot. Once we came to terms, we had a great working relationship.''
Burt said there were some people dead-set on the nation not getting the land into trust.
''People seem to think they have a wall up and they don't,'' he said.
Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y., with his 24th district office in Utica, called the BIA decision ''seemingly one-sided'' in a statement e-mailed to Indian Country Today. [His press secretary was provided with full disclosure that the newspaper is a subsidiary of Four Directions Media, a company owned by the OIN.] Arcuri's full statement read:
''A negotiated settlement is the preferable way to resolve the Oneida Indian Nation issue. Any settlement must include the amount and location of tribal land, taxes or revenue sharing, zoning, environmental as well as other labor standards. Unfortunately, a negotiated settlement does not appear likely due to the recent, seemingly one-sided, decision by the BIA.
''During a conversation with Assistant Deputy Secretary [of the Interior Department, which houses the BIA] James Cason, I raised concerns - both my own and those of my constituents - with the BIA's land into trust process. I will await the final decision regarding the Oneida Nation's case; however, I continue to believe that a negotiated settlement, not a trust declaration, is the best way forward for all parties.''
The BIA can make its official decision as of March 25. Appeals of any decision it makes must be filed within 30 days or the decision becomes final.
Interior and the BIA have received heavy criticism from Indian country for a guidance memorandum on the land-into-trust process, issued at the start of January. Drawing the worst of it was a ''commutable distance'' standard of home reservations from trust land acquisitions. But the Oneida-owned acres under consideration are outside the guidance's bailiwick, as all of the land is well within Oneida ancestral territory and in proximity to the present nation homelands.
