Land-claim parties hope to continue taking strides
Feb. 23, 2000

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

Key players in the Oneida land claim will meet Thursday for the second time in a week as talks accelerate in hopes a settlement can be found.

“They know they have to move quickly,” settlement master Ronald Riccio said. “That’s why they were making progress last week and they’re going to meet again this week.”

Mark Emery, spokesman for the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, agreed there was some progress in the talks.

The latest sessions, however, are proceeding without Oneida representatives from the Wisconsin and the Canadian Thames Band factions of the tribe, Riccio said.

He said the absence of the two Indian branches in talks last Friday and this Thursday “doesn’t mean everything’s worked out with them” or that they are boycotting the negotiations, he said.

“It only means we were working with the New York Oneidas, the counties and the state,” Riccio said, calling the crucial talks “a brick-by-brick process.”

Since the Oneidas went to court 14 months ago seeking to add 20,000 individual landowners to its 30-year-old land-claim lawsuit, the mediation process led by Riccio has been seen as the best hope to reach a workable agreement and ease tensions in Madison and Oneida counties. If mediation fails, it will be up to a federal court to decide the fate of the Oneidas’ efforts to regain some 250,000 acres wrongfully taken from them two centuries ago.

Madison County Board of Supervisors Chairman Rocco DiVeronica said the Wisconsin and Canadian Oneidas were not invited to the current talks because, “it was just to talk about our concerns with the Oneidas of New York.”

A representative of the Canadian Thames Band recently violated U.S. District Court Judge Neal McCurn’s confidentiality order and released details of what he said was a $500 million offer to the Oneidas to settle the land claim.

He said he broke the silence surrounding the talks because the offer left out the 5,000 Canadian Oneidas.

Riccio, who is participating in the new talks by telephone, said he would end the discussions, “if there is not a significant breakthrough soon.” He would not define “soon,” however.

Emery said as long as negotiations continue, “it’s good news.”
DiVeronica could not say if an agreement is near.

“I wish I had a crystal ball,” he said.