Seneca-owned site in Collins off tax rolls
From: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/comm...icle862104.ece
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WASHINGTON — Despite the concerns of Town of Collins and state officials, the federal government has allowed the Seneca Nation of Indians to take nearly 55 acres it purchased in southern Erie County off the tax rolls, essentially adding it to the tribe’s Cattaraugus Reservation.
Seneca officials confirmed this week that the Department of the Interior has allowed the tribe to take the land, a former farm, into what’s called “restricted fee status.” The Senecas hope to build a planned community, including up to 100 homes and a park, on the Collins site.
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The state questioned whether the Senecas had the right to take the property off the tax rolls without a more thorough review, but the Senecas contended they could do so under the Seneca Nation Settlement Act, the 1990 federal legislation that renewed leases in the Seneca-owned City of Salamanca.
That legislation granted the Senecas $30 million to buy land near its reservations and get it placed into restricted fee status with far less federal review than the nation would otherwise have to endure.
In a letter last November to Larry Echo Hawk, then the assistant secretary for Indian affairs at the Department of the Interior, a lawyer for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo argued that the Senecas may not have been able to use that $30 million pot for the land purchase because the money might be gone.
A federal audit, “according to sources, found [Seneca Nation Settlement] Act funds fully depleted,” wrote Robert Williams, assistant counsel in the governor’s office.
That audit has never been made public. Respect for the Seneca Nation’s sovereignty has prevented the release of the details of such federal reviews of Seneca finances over the years.
But Porter discounted the audit.
“That was never a report that was accepted by the government,” he said. “That was the opinion of one administrator.”
Williams asked Echo Hawk to delay approval of moving the land into restricted fee status until after state and local governments had seen the audit of Seneca Nation Settlement Act funds.
But under that law, Seneca land purchases automatically go into restricted fee status 60 days after they are made unless the Department of the Interior stops the move, which the agency did not do.
