New York Governor Kathy Hochul is under fire for the Seneca-state dispute. Last Real Indians published an in-depth analysis of Delaware North and the company’s part in the dispute. A day later, the Albany Times-Union, published an article even more of the connection. And in the Buffalo News, Rep. Tom Suozzi published an editorial, calling for a public hearing on the $564 million the Seneca Nation paid the state.
“Who knows if these are all coincidences, yet why was this ‘deal of the century’ announced with only four days before the state budget was due and is being rammed through without so much as a public hearing?,” Suozzi wrote.
The Times-Union uncovered state filings which reveal that Albany lobbying firm Dickinson & Avella lobbied four top budget officials including state budget director Robert Mujica on behalf of Delaware North. The topic was the Seneca Nation compact.
Late last year, according to the state Division of Budget, Delaware North wanted “changes to operational restrictions placed upon them by the Seneca compact,” the paper wrote.
Kathy Hochul’s secretary, Karen Persichilli, is married to Michael Keogh, a lobbyist who filed a barrage of reports between lobbying firm Bolton-St Johns and Delaware North in recent years. Keogh is also considered a lobbyist on other gaming advocacy contracts for Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe.
Suozzi wrote “The secretary to the governor – the highest appointed position in the governor’s office – is married to the chief lobbyist for Delaware North. Yet as was reported by The [Buffalo] News, Hochul’s recusal letter assigns the responsibility of dealing with Delaware North to her secretary. There is no justification for that whatsoever.”
This past February, BSJ took on Seneca Nation of Indians as a client representing gaming issues including the compact, for $15,000 a month.
On March 8, BSJ signed an agreement with the city of Niagara Falls to represent them through February 2023 for $4,000 a month “to provide the City of Niagara Falls with legislative and regulatory representation in New York State.”
The city, which hosts one of the Seneca casinos, gets almost $39 million from the $564 million payment. The agreement with BSJ was approved by Mayor Robert Restaino without consent from city council.
The Seneca Nation of Indians paid New York State $564 million on March 28, The next day, Governor Hochul announced that $418 million from the Seneca payout would help fund the new Buffalo Bills stadium. The same day the Department of the Interior issued new draft regulations that could have tipped the scales in the Seneca’s favor, had they not rushed to pay the state just one day earlier.
The Seneca Nation has gone back and forth with the state of New York for five years over the status of the gaming compact and the money owed the state. The Senecas say they don’t owe the money and want the Department of the Interior to enter its comments. The state says they do have an obligation.
So far, the state has won in court.
When the Senecas still refused to pay, Governor Kathy Hochul, ordered the Seneca nation’s financial institution, KeyBank, to freeze the accounts.
Confirmation of the news was given in an evening statement, issued by President Matthew Pagels, leaving the Seneca Nation dangling precariously on the precipice of economic disaster, Seneca member, Leslie Logan, wrote in Indian Country Today.
During a three hour debate members urged the leadership to seek a court order to invalidate the action and further litigation procedures. A resolution to release the payments was tabled. The session was adjourned so that council could consider the options.
A couple hours later council reconvened with a resolution to release the payments; all indicated it was a difficult decision. No one was happy but they explained they had no choice. “Come Thursday, we’re not going to be able to make payroll,” said Councilor Billy Cannella. The resolution passed by unanimous vote.
Odie Brant Porter, a resident of Allegany, and a former comptroller of the Nation, said, “The state did it with the help of the financial institution that the Nation did business with for more than 30 years.”
The day after the Nation released the payments, Pagels said “New York’s hostile and shameless greed was laid bare for the world to see. We will not let New York state strangle the Senecas and the people of Western New York.”
In her public statements to the media, Hochul openly admitted to exerting strong-arm tactics with the Seneca that sounded like a Scorsese film crime-syndicate extortion stating, “I wasn’t going to have one word of a conversation about that (compact) until the money was in the bank.”
Then it was brought up that part of the money from the Senecas was going to the state to build the new stadium for the Buffalo Bills.
It was also revealed that Hochul’s husband William is general counsel and senior vice president of Delaware North Corporation, operator of Buffalo Raceway and Hamburg Gaming, a racino in Seneca’s “exclusivity zone.”
Delaware North is also the concessionaire for the Bills stadium—so there is extra gain for the Hochul’s and their business interests.
President Pagels issued a recorded statement following the governor’s announcement committing monies to the Bills stadium saying, “I’m sure that was welcome news to the governor’s husband, whose company not only operates video lottery terminals within the Seneca Nation’s supposed gaming exclusivity zone with the state’s blessing, but the company will also make millions of dollars in concession business in the state-owned stadium.”
The National Indian Gaming Commission conceded that their review still ignored the seven-year extension, questioned the value of the tribe’s remaining exclusivity, and required further analysis.
“Since 2017, we’ve been trying to get a fair shake,” said Maxine Jimerson, a member of the Mothers of the (Seneca) Nation. “We want a fair shake, not a state shakedown.”
The Senecas contend that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, designed to regulate tribal gaming, favors states, strips tribes of control over operations, and limits tribe’s abilities to contest questionable findings.
John Kane, Mohawk, a talk radio commentator with a local radio show “Let’s Talk Native” said, “It’s not just the recent editorials. The Buffalo News has been on a smear campaign against the Senecas for over a decade.”
In the March 11 letter to the nation, National Indian Gaming Commission Chief Compliance Officer Tom Cunningham wrote: “It is clear that the state has benefited substantially more than anticipated under the Compact while the Nation has received less. Whether the remaining exclusivity is still worth the bargained percentage of slots revenue would require further analysis.”
For the Seneca people, the past three months have been like a roller-coaster, with no brakes and a gun to the head.
“As a Seneca, and a founding member of the 2022 iteration of the Mothers of the Seneca Nation, I can say that after this experience, we’re still recovering from the shocking state-inflicted economic stranglehold and what felt like bitter defeat,” Logan wrote.
A dedicated and growing team of grassroots Seneca, armed with few resources—outside of passionate voices, strong convictions, tenacity, and grit—are continuing the fight, scrapping for footing in the New York landscape, seeking recognition of our significant cultural and economic footprint.
The Seneca Nation is spending lots of money on TV and radio ads to bolster their position. The target of these ads is Governor Kathy Hochul not so much because she tightened the financial screw to force the Nation to pay $564 million in withheld monies. But what got their ire up was the $418 of that money allocated to the Buffalo Bills new stadium.
The television commercials are only showing in the Buffalo area, but the radio spots are aimed at a larger audience in upstate New York, according to Spectrum 1 News.
The TV ads will run for a week, while the radio ads will run until April 18.
“The state of New York just received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Seneca Nation,” the radio commercial begins. “The additional funding gave Governor Hochul a great opportunity to help repair our roads, build hospitals, fix our bridges and support our schools. What did she do instead? She gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to build a football stadium for the NFL.”
What the Senecas really wanted was to keep the whole amount until a ruling from the Department of the Interior that the Seneca Nation no longer had to pay the compact fees.
The advertisement aims at the stadium expenditure not how the state forced the nation to pay up.
“We’re football fans but with skyrocketing inflations and stretched budgets, handouts for the NFL which makes billions of dollars in profit every year is the wrong way to use this money,” the narrator said.
The Senecas also pinpoint a concern which is now the focus of an ethics complaint against the governor.
“There’s also a serious conflict of interest for Gov. Hochul. The governor’s husband serves as a senior executive for a company that stands to make millions of dollars selling concessions in the new stadium. This is just the latest chapter in the state of New York’s long history of misusing public funds. The NFL gets a new stadium. New Yorkers pay the price. Gov. Hochul, New York deserves better,” the ad ends.
Hochul’s office has said Delaware North had nothing to do with the stadium negotiations nor is it guaranteed the company will continue to contract with the Bills in the future.
