Uncertainty fuels landowners’ fears
Mar. 28, 1999

By MEG SCHNEIDER
Observer-Dispatch

VERONA — Tina Bombardo was halfway into a massive house remodeling project on her 26-acre Verona farm when the Oneida Indian Nation bought the farm next door.

Then the Oneidas bought two other farms on Bombardo’s road.

“I’m a little worried, because they can do whatever they want. I don’t know if I’m going to be surrounded by farmland or by an amusement park,” Bombardo said. “And when they bought the land on this road, there was this veil of secrecy. Why? It breeds distrust. What are they hiding? What do they want?”

Those are questions everyone has these days — especially since the Oneidas, frustrated by years of stalled negotiations in their decades-old claim to 250,000 acres in Madison and Oneida counties, decided to go back to court Dec. 8. With that move, the Oneidas threatened some 20,000 private property owners and brought renewed scrutiny to their land purchases.

Oneida Nation representative Ray Halbritter said the bulk of the Oneidas’ land buys has been in Verona because of efforts to make Turning Stone Casino Resort a “four-season destination resort.” That requires more property to add amenities such as championship golf courses, he said.

In the past, the Oneidas have talked casually about other potential development ideas, including building an amusement park and adding tennis courts to Turning Stone.

“I think by our development here and bringing so many people in to visit, we may need a little more land in Verona because we don’t know what kind of opportunities might arise in the future,” Halbritter said. “Maybe someday we will use them for something for this resort or for this area, I’m not sure. But I think it’s a good investment.”

No firm goal
Halbritter doesn’t discuss specific plans for specific plots of land. Asked if the Oneidas have a “master plan” for the land they’re buying, he answered:

“We just want what’s fair, and we’ll accept that. As far as a grand master plan, we just want to be successful economically and prepare for future generations, that’s all.”

Upstate Citizens for Equality, a vocal citizens group that has been fighting the attempt to add individual property owners to the land claim, believes the Oneidas do have a master plan — for a massive reservation in the middle of New York.

Upstate Citizens president Scott Peterman points to a 1991 proposal from the Oneidas to settle the land claim. The Oneidas sought 20,000 contiguous acres as a reservation, plus another 30,000 acres that didn’t have to adjoin the reservation.

“If that’s what they wanted in 1991, I’ll guarantee you they want even more now,” Peterman said.

Halbritter said the details of the 1991 proposal shouldn’t be considered the Oneidas’ demands now, because profits from Turning Stone have allowed the Oneidas to do for themselves much of what they asked the state to do eight years ago — such as providing health care and educational scholarships, and buying back land that once belonged to the Oneidas.

Observers and those involved in the land claim say the proper place to resolve all these issues is in a negotiated settlement.

“The resolution is the solution,” said Christopher Vecsey, director of humanites at Colgate University and co-editor of the 1988 book “Iroquois Land Claims.” “They need to get their fingers dirty and resolve it.”

UCE Homepage Attorney John Campanie said he doesn’t see any particular pattern in the Oneidas’ purchases, except that they are buying “really the most strategic, commercially, sites in both counties.”

For example, the Oneidas own land that abuts Verona Beach State Park, long stretches of the New York State Thruway and parts of the Barge Canal system. In addition, they have bought several large farms, including the Curtin Brothers dairy farm in UCE Homepage, which was one of the largest dairy operations in the state.

Vernon Town Councilman Myron Thurston, himself a dairy farmer, said it’s easy to see why farmers are willing to sell to the Oneidas.

“In a month, we’re going to lose 40 percent off the price of milk,” Thurston said. “You can’t make a living. If somebody comes and offers to take the farm off your hands, aren’t you going to do it?”

Sale prices drop
Michael Gaiser, owner of Taylor Creek Realty in Vernon and a member of Upstate Citizens, said the land claim is affecting both property values and sales — even the prices the Oneidas are willing to pay for property.

Two years ago, the Oneidas consistently paid two and sometimes even three or four times the assessed value for property they wanted.

At the time, Halbritter said the inflated purchase prices were a way of telling property owners that the Oneidas “recognize that you are innocent in this and we don’t want you to be hurt.”

But now, according to Gaiser and to county real estate records, the Oneidas’ generosity seems to have waned. For example, when the Oneidas bought the 500-acre Moore farm in the UCE Homepage town of Lenox earlier this month, the purchase price was almost $20,000 below the assessed value of $271,000.

“I have sold to the Nation and I have seen the prices they’re offering drop,” Gaiser said. “Right now, they’re forcing people into contracts that are less than assessed value or right at or right below market value. Of course, how can you say it’s below market if that’s what people will sell for?”

Bombardo, who would like to sell her farm and move to a warmer climate, said she and her husband approached the Oneidas about buying their property but never got an answer.

An auction last summer brought no offers for her farm, and a deal to sell part of the property fell through when the buyers became alarmed about the Oneidas’ lawsuit.

Halbritter said the Oneidas don’t buy every property that’s offered to them, but they negotiate “a fair price that we think is reasonable” for the properties they do buy.

He said he doesn’t know how much land the Oneidas need to secure their economic and cultural future.

“When we have enough, we’ll stop buying,” he said.

Here’s a list of citizens’ groups and legislators involved in the Oneida Indian Nation land claim.

GROUPS
Upstate Citizens for Equality Inc.
What it does: Holds public meetings every two weeks; organizes rallies, protests and legal challenges to the Oneida land claim and related issues. Represented by Utica attorney Leon Koziol.
Contact: David Brewster, 363-8034; email: ucesignup Holds public meetings; circulates petitions and letters to state and federal officials; organizes legal “notices of claim” against the state to protect property owners in the land claim. Represented by Syracuse attorney John B. Carroll.
Contact: John B. Carroll, 474-5356.

Central New York Fair Business Association
What it does: Holds public meetings; supports non-Indian-owned businesses; researches legal challenges to the land claim and to the Oneidas’ status on property and sales tax issues. Represented by New York City attorney Charlie King and Rochester attorney Ron Mittleman.
Contact: Susan Galbraith, 662-7529; email: cogitodreamscape.com