And now:Sonja Keohane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From Syracuse Online:
<http://hotnews.syracuse.com/cgi-free/getstory.cgi?n0359_BC_NY--OneidaLandClaim&
SYR&news&syroneida>
Oneida Nation leaders welcome appointment of mediator
The Associated Press
2/25/99 1:07 AM
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- A law professor was appointed settlement master in a
decades old land claim lawsuit brought by the Oneida Indians of New York,
Wisconsin and Canada.
Ronald Riccio, who is Dean and Professor of Law at the Seton Hall
University School of Law in South Orange, N.J., was named by U.S. District
Court Judge Neal McCurn Wednesday to negotiate a settlement in the suit.
The tribes are trying to recover more than 250,000 acres of ancestral land
in Madison and Oneida counties.
Tribal officials issued a press release saying they were pleased with
Riccio's appointment as mediator in its negotiations with the state, which
have stalled.
The tribes sued in 1974 and 1985, claiming the land was wrongfully ceded to
New York state in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in 1985 that the Oneidas were entitled to compensation.
In December, the suit was amended to include some 20,000 property owners in
the two counties east of Syracuse in a move the tribes said was meant to
jumpstart the negotiations.
