Members of the New York state Senate and Assembly, hear me out. The agreement that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed for the Oneida Indian Nation should only guarantee it a casino compact and exclusivity zone for Turning Stone in return for 25 percent of its slot machine revenue to the state. Motor fuel and cigarette taxes, property taxes, and land-into-trust issues should not be a part of this agreement.
They were not part of exclusivity zone agreements with the Seneca or Mohawk tribes and they pose serious economic, legal and jurisdictional problems, not only for Madison and Oneida counties, but for Cayuga, Seneca, and other counties as well. Legislators must realize that these tax and trust concessions adversely affect all New York taxpayers. This extensive agreement patronizes the Oneida nation, while presenting negative impacts to the state.
Madison and Oneida counties were, moreover, coerced into accepting this settlement.
The Oneida, Cayuga and other Indian tribes have for years sold cigarettes and motor fuel without paying state taxes, thereby driving non-Indian stores out of business and creating enormous state and county tax losses. The proposed settlement would create nation excise and fuel taxes that the Oneidas would keep, still allowing for unfair price differentials for competing businesses and no revenue for state taxpayers. The settlement proposes to reimburse Madison County for unpaid property taxes, but if the Oneida nation gets its land taken into federal trust, it will forever be taken off the Madison and Oneida county tax rolls.
Litigation is in process in the federal courts challenging the right of the Oneida nation to have land taken into trust, but the settlement agreement calls for the state and the counties to cease opposing the Oneidas in any and all trust applications, now and in the future, up to 25,370 acres. The Oneidas are a wealthy Indian tribe and do not need sales or property tax incentives that come at the expense of state taxpayers and private businesses.
Once a tribe gets land in trust, it can start all sorts of tax-exempt enterprises — malls, landfills, horizontally hydrofracked gas wells — while non-Indian businesses that pay local and state taxes are closed down, never open, or must suffer unfair competition. What the Oneida Nation wants is essentially a 25,370-acre Indian reservation, and a checker-boarded one at that, despite the complications and extra cost that this would present for municipal infrastructure, social services, schools and ordinary private citizens.
For the governor to walk away from lawsuits and agree to give up 25,370 acres of sovereign state land, turning it over to the federal government, albeit in trust for an Indian tribe, would be a violation of Article 2, Section 10, of New York state law, which requires the governor to defend state sovereignty and jurisdiction.
For all of these reasons, the state Assembly and Senate must amend the agreement with the Oneida nation to include only a legitimized gaming floor and an exclusivity zone for the Turning Stone casino in return for the state receiving the standard 25 percent of its slot machine revenue.
David L. Dresser is the former supervisor of the town of Ovid in Seneca County.