Oneidas welcome grant applications
Feb. 26, 2002

By R PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

CANASTOTA — A property-tax-compensation deal between this Madison County village and the Oneida Indian Nation prompted the Nation Monday to encourage other communities to apply for similar relief.

The Oneida Nation has agreed to pay the village of Canastota $100,000 this year through its Silver Covenant Chain program. The Nation also will pay for fire protection and sewer service for its SavOn service station on the north side of the village.

The Oneida Nation is a sovereign government that does not pay local property taxes on land it owns within the 250,000-acre area involved in the Oneida land claim.

The Silver Covenant program is designed to make up for any property taxes that Nation-owned land would have generated were the land not owned by the Nation. The Nation has awarded more than $3 million in Silver Covenant Chain grants to school districts in which it owns land since 1996.

Canastota Mayor Todd Rouse said the grant represents nearly 4 percent of this year’s $2.2 million budget and will be included in the 2002-03 budget proposal that he will present to the village board next month.

“The board wants to be able, as a minimum, to hold down taxes with this additional income,” Rouse said Monday. He said there are no plans to use the new money for capital projects.

Rouse said the $100,000 lump sum payment would more than make up for the $85,000 that Canastota has lost in property taxes on Oneida Nation property.

Other communities are welcome to apply for grants, Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said Monday, as long as negotiations are done “in the spirit of open discussion, cooperation and respect.”

Nation spokesman Jerry Reed said Monday that Canastota is the only local government that has asked to receive a grant. He said terms of that pact were negotiated during the past 10 months.

The Nation expects to have a payment formula for all communities worked out in two or three months, he said.

David Andrews, spokesman for Oneida County Executive Ralph Eannace Jr., said the county Board of Legislators probably would wait until then to consider participating.

In 1998, the Nation offered the grant to any government within the land-claim area. Oneida County was the only one that accepted the offer, and it got $287,214 during 1998 and 1999.

The Nation cut off those payments in early 2000 when Oneida County terminated a deputization agreement it had with the Nation’s police department.