January 23, 2025 | By Rick Miller | Republished from the Olean Star
ALBANY — Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca said in Albany last week that New York has dragged its feet over negotiations for a new gaming compact — the latest in a series of mistreatments by the state that have injured the Senecas.
Seneca and members of the Seneca Tribal Council were in Albany for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s State of the State Address and met with State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, who is considered a strong supporter.
The governor did not mention the compact with the Senecas during her address.
It has been almost three years since Seneca negotiators and representatives of the governor’s office began preparing to negotiate a new compact. The compact expired Dec. 9, 2023. It has been automatically extended every three months since then.
The current 25% of net slot machine revenue translates into about $10 million a year for the state. Localities including Salamanca and Cattaraugus County receive a share of that revenue from the state.
President Seneca, who took office in November and has already begun to hold community meetings to discuss terms of the compact.
“Over the past 20 plus years, the Seneca Nation has had a major economic impact on Western New York and even the state,” Seneca said in a video message from Albany last week.
“The state really has to get on the move,” Seneca said. “They really got to start to engage, and we need to make sure we do everything in our power — our people and our leadership — to craft the best compact for our people.”
Seneca also said people want to challenge the state’s seizing of $800 million from Seneca bank accounts that was “wrongly taken” to settle an arbitration ruling that found the Senecas had improperly withheld payments. “Our people want that money back. It was wrongly taken. We want them to take action in regards to returning that to us.”
There are a number of issues still on the table besides the compact, Seneca said. “They are trying to erode our sovereignty. They are trying to impose restrictions upon us, trying to impose their regulatory laws on us. We’re not going to go for that.”
Seneca also listed a number of other ways New York State has mistreated the Seneca people. “We want to point out that we could go as far back as the boarding school era. The many years that the Thomas Indian School had existed on our territory, the mistreatment of our children, the taking of the children from their families during the time period their school operated, and the continued mistreatment of our people through the Kinzua Dam era, the New York State Thruway, Route 17, the list goes on and on.”
He renamed Hochul’s State of the State Address the “State of Mistakes against Native People and against the Seneca Nation.”
