Reports due on claim status
May 3, 2000

By R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

UTICA — Lawyers from all sides in the Oneida Indian land claim have until the close of business today to file their recommendations on the status of the case with U.S. District Court Judge Neal P. McCurn.

McCurn will decide whether to send the case to court or to order the parties back to the bargaining table one more time. A year and a half of talks broke off last month with no resolution in sight.

The Oneida Indian Nation is seeking reparations for some 250,000 acres it claims was appropriated illegally from it by New York state in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

David Pendergast, assistant to Oneida County Executive Ralph J. Eannace Jr., said the lawyers will tell McCurn why he should or should not declare a formal impasse in the talks and put the issue on his trial calendar.

“There’s been a recommendation (for an impasse) from (settlement master Ronald) Riccio to the judge, but that’s all,” Pendergast said. The negotiations have not been formally suspended, he said.

Oneida Indian Nation of New York spokesman Mark Emery said Nation lawyers filed their papers with McCurn last week before the judge extended the deadline until today.

While Oneida and Madison county officials and Oneidas leaders have said they want to return to the bargaining table, they continue to fight a public relations war in the media.

Nation Representative Raymond Halbritter last week floated a plan he said would protect landowners in the claim area from any penalty as a result of the land claim. County leaders said the offer was a smoke screen that could be lifted by the Oneidas at any time.

Over the weekend, the Oneidas took out full-page ads in local newspapers to promote their view of the debate.

Monday, the counties issued a news release, challenging the Oneida Nation’s view of the situation and again calling on the Oneidas to drop the landowners from the claim.