Emotions high over land-claim settlement
Dec. 9, 2004

KRISTA J. KARCH
Observer-Dispatch

VERONA — It was a lackluster reaction Wednesday in the windy farmlands of a region at the heart of the land-claim settlement reached Tuesday with one of three American Indian tribes claiming ownership.

Less than 24 hours after a proposed settlement with the Wisconsin Oneidas in the three-decades-old dispute was announced by the state, area business and landowners were skeptical as to whether the proposal would stand in the face of the owners of the Turning Stone Resort and Casino — the New York Oneidas — who were not a party to the settlement negotiations.

The settlement awarded the Wisconsin Oneidas 1,000 Central New York acres and a Catskills casino. The state also settled with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans with 333 acres near Monticello and a Catskills casino. That tribe claimed land elsewhere in the state.

The state said the settlement ended all Oneidas’ claims to 250,000 acres of land in Oneida and Madison counties the Oneidas say was illegally bought or taken from them in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The settlement must now be approved by the state Legislature and the U.S. Congress, a feat some say won’t happen without objection from the New York Oneidas.

“At this point, this announcement does not settle the Oneida Nation land claim,” Nation spokesman Mark Emery said Wednesday.

The Thames Band of Oneidas in Ontario, Canada, also were not involved in the settlement.

Instead of jubilation at a possible end to years of strife, some landowners are headed for the door.

“I’m just tired of the fighting,” said Deborah Anderson-Gaiser, owner of The Big Red Barn on Route 5. “I’m tired of neighbor against neighbor, and that’s what you have here. I’m just tired.”

Anderson-Gaiser and her husband, Mike Gaiser, plan to put their shop full of Christmas whimsy and their stately yellow home up for sale in the spring. The home, once a bed and breakfast, faltered, they said, because of casino hotel competition.

The couple left the conservative Upstate Citizens for Equality in 2000, they said Wednesday, because the group lost its focus on the land claim and landowners’ rights. They are now members of the American Land Rights Coalition, another landowners’ lobbying group, but have little faith in the region’s future.

“We don’t see any help for us,” Anderson-Gaiser said, standing in the gift shop that was to be her retirement. “No relief.”

Passions of landowners have been inflamed since 1998, when the three Oneida tribes in the land-claim dispute listed the landowners in the lawsuit. Landowners were sued again in 2002 by the Wisconsin Oneidas.

Anderson-Gaiser said the lawsuits have pushed land value into the ground.
“There’s a cloud over my property,” she said.

At Esengard’s, a Western-themed store on Poppleton Road in Verona, owner Karl Esengard said he has watched his once-thriving business flag to a near halt.

Once a saddlery supply, the rural outpost now deals in Western wear and hunting equipment. Esengard said he won’t be happy until the New York Oneidas pay taxes on casino sales and the 17,000 acres they own in the region.

“I just don’t like the idea of super-citizens in the United States,” he said. “They get representation without taxation, and a couple hundred years ago, that led to a war.”

Esengard said he’d move out of the area if someone offered the right price for his 83 acres.

“I’d move somewhere where there were no Indians,” he said.

Local lawmakers are hopeful the settlement could bring peace to the region.
U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford, a longtime advocate of settlement, said in a statement Wednesday that he and his staff are in the process of reviewing the proposal.

Oneida County Executive Joseph Griffo said in a statement Wednesday that it’s premature to speculate on the success of the proposal. The settlement could bring Oneida and Madison counties each $5 million per year.

Meanwhile, John Tabner, a court-appointed mediator in the New York Oneidas’ case, said he doesn’t know anything more about the settlement than what he’s seen in the media.

Verona Town Supervisor David Reed said the land-claim settlement could be just the last cry of wolf.

Reed is a former Verona town judge who was once active in Upstate Citizens for Equality, which criticized the Oneidas’ tax-exempt status and land claim. Since becoming town supervisor, he has expressed recognition of the positive impact the casino has on the town.

Reed sat at a desk filled with plans for private, non-Indian development along Route 365, the soon-to-be expanded road that feeds tourists into the casino. His windows face the winter-barren fields at the center of the debate.

He said he fears the cost if angry residents turn violent.

“Our constitution has two great fallacies: blacks and Indians,” Reed said. “It didn’t address either one. One of them, we had a civil war over. I hope we don’t have it again over the Oneidas.”

Contact Krista J. Karch at kkarch@utica.gannett.com