No progress in land-claim talks
Feb. 25, 2000

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

A year-long search for a negotiated settlement of the Oneida land claim may be nearing an end.

Representatives of most of the parties involved in the claim sat down at the bargaining table in Syracuse for four hours Thursday, but settlement master Ronald Riccio said after the session there were no breakthroughs.

Three days ago, he said he would move to end the talks if there were not a significant breakthrough soon.

“I’m going to be submitting a report to the judge tomorrow,” Riccio said Thursday, but he would not say which way his recommendation will go.

The judge is U.S. District Court Judge Neal McCurn. He is presiding over the Oneida Indian Nation’s federal lawsuit seeking compensation for some 250,000 acres of land in Oneida and Madison counties taken from the tribe two centuries ago in violation of federal treaties.

Riccio participated in the Syracuse session by telephone.

Madison County Board of Supervisors Chairman Rocco DiVeronica declined to comment on the details of the talks or on the upcoming Riccio report.

DiVeronica said negotiators exchanged papers outlining the terms they were offering Thursday, but no settlement was reached.

Oneida County Executive Ralph Eannace Jr. would not discuss specifics of the talks, either, but he did say the counties won’t settle “unless we believe that the terms are something the people of the counties can live with.

“We haven’t gotten there yet,” Eannace said.

DiVeronica said he will meet with his board’s Native American Affairs Committee this morning to report on Thursday’s session.

Eannace said he planned to telephone members of Oneida County’s Indian Affairs Committee.

McCurn appointed Riccio last year to try to mediate a settlement of the land claim out of court. The mediation effort started after the Oneida Nation asked McCurn to include some 20,000 private landowners as defendants in their legal action.

McCurn has not ruled on that request.

Oneida Indian Nation spokesman Mark Emery said Thursday that Nation representatives to the negotiations will not comment until Riccio reveals the contents of his report.