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Letter from the President of the Seneca Naton
March 25, 2007 12:29PM
By Joe
This is a letter from the President of the Seneca Nation Maurice John. This was in the March SNI Newsletter.
From The President�s Desk
Greetings to the Seneca People:
I would like to bring oyu up to date regarding the latest news articles appearing in the newspapers.
Recently, the newspapers, specifically the Buffalo News reporters, hve been wrting about the National Indian Gaming Commission�s review o the Nation�s use of gaming revenues. I would like to give you a brief summary of this review.
Several weeks ago, the National Indian Gaming Commission informed the Nation that it was conducting a review of the Nation�s uses of gaming revenues. We understand that this tpe of audit is quite routine in relation to the Commission�s responsibility for ensuing compliance with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. As a result, I directed the Nation and the Seneca Gaming Corporation officials to provide the relevant documents requested by the Commission auditor.
During the course of the review, confusion arose concerning the scope of the Commission�s document requests. The Nation then requested from the NIGC clarification of the scope of the document request and for their authority under IGRA to request Nation records, which did not appear to be related to gaming.
This requested resulted in the issuance of an administrative subpoena by the NIGC, which clarified the document request. After discussion with NIGC officials in Washington yesterday afternoon, the Nation and the NIGC have come to an agreement on the scope of the remainder of the review and both the Nation and the Seneca Gaming Corporation are in the process of collecting the remaining documents requested by the NIGC for review by the NIGC audit staff when they return to complete their review.
Recent conversations I have had with two of the sponsors of the IRGA, former U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campell of Colorado and former Congressman Gerry Sikorski of Minnesota, confirm that Congress� intent in passing IGRA was to protect sovereign Indian nations from organized crime, not to interfere with our self-government.
It is unfortunate that the Nation�s valid request to the NIGC to provide us with clarification and justification for certain of the records is characterized as �uncooperative�. As Nation President, my job is to enforce Nation law and to protect the best intrests of the Nation and its people. We believed that the scope of the initial document request went beyond the jurisdictional authority of the NIGC and are satisfied that the completion of the review, as clarified by the subpoena and our discussions yesterday, can move forward now.
Looking back into our early history, the first annuities where established by the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 when the Federal Government pledged a fixed amount of money and cloth in the Treaty to be distributed to all members of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Seneca Nation received a proportionate amount. Through the years, due to our increasing Seneca population, the annuity money became only a symbol of the Treaty.
I would like to point out that the Seneca Nation has issued annuity checks from land rentals to its members long before Congress enacted the IGRA. The Nation has always tried to provide annuity funds to Seneca members to assist them.
As the elders will recall, these early annuity amounts where small, sometimes ten dollars; and sometimes fifteen dollars which seemed like a large amount then. These were derived from Seneca Nation land in the form of lease rentals, other types of lease rentals, and sand and gravel payments. When we were giving these small amounts to the Seneca people, federal agencies were not interested in our annuity monies then. Today, they are demonstrating a great deal of interest.
March 21st will be the first day of Spring. I am looking forward to seeing the first wild onions, pussy willows, and fragrant arbutus. Today, I saw a flock of geese heading north in their usual V formation, a sure sign of Spring.
I hope everyone is well.
Maurice A. John, Sr., President
SENECA NATION OF INDIANS