Nation employees distribute postcards to county leaders
May 23, 2000

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

As the Oneida Indian Nation invests in paid newspaper ads to build support for its position in the land claim, it has mobilized its approximately 3,000 employees to state its case.

The Nation handed out thousands of preprinted postcards at employee meetings called to discuss the land claim, Nation spokesman Mark Emery said Monday. The cards carried a message from the workers to Madison and Oneida county leaders, he said.

The message reads in part, “I am one of 3,000 employees of the Oneida Indian Nation, a resident of the area and a taxpayer. ... You have been debating and posturing around the land-claim issue, but you have not considered my family’s future.

“I am asking you to preserve my job and my family’s future by constructively working with the Oneida Nation on a fair settlement.”

The message is printed over an Oneida Nation logo and next to a drawing of a man and woman with two children.

C. Lee Hinkleman Sr., Oneida County land-claim liaison, said Monday, “We’ve gotten several hundred of (the cards),” and they have been read along with all other land-claim communications.

“We have had hits on our Web site, phone calls (and) letters,” Hinkleman said. “The vast majority encourage us to have a negotiated settlement.”