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Decades-long Mohawk land claim settlement negotiations appear to be progressing

MASSENA — Parties appear to be growing closer to a settlement in the decades-long land claim dispute between the Mohawks, Franklin County and St. Lawrence County.

On Aug. 31, Alan Peterman of Barclay Damon LLP, attorney for the counties and several other municipalities, and agencies comprising the defense asked the judge overseeing the case to extend the stay as settlement negotiations continue. Language in Mr. Peterman’s letter indicates significant progress in the proceedings over the last year.

“The County and Towns have engaged in meaningful discussions with the State concerning the settlement of the Land Claim,” Peterman wrote. “The parties have significantly narrowed the issues. In addition, the County has a meeting scheduled with the Tribe on September 9 to discuss the situation. The County and Towns, with the concurrence of the State and the Plaintiffs, request an additional thirty days to try to resolve the remaining areas of disagreement, which are not numerous.”

At Monday’s meeting of the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators, Chairman Joseph Lightfoot, R-Ogdensburg, said the parties were scheduled to hold a meeting Thursday and alluded to a possible resolution in the near future.

“I’m not at the liberty to discuss any of the strategies or the outcome of those meetings at this time, but it’s a continuing effort at the behest of the federal court to come to some kind of a conclusion to this multi-year, multi-decade, back and forth over the land claims issue,” Lightfoot told the board. “So, hopefully by month’s end we’ll hopefully have some good news, not great news, I don’t expect any money for it coming, but good news.”

According to court filings made with the U.S. District Court Northern District of New York, parties were regularly meeting earlier this year, including an in-person conversation in the state Capitol building in January. In March, a federal appeal of the case to the Second Circuit was formally withdrawn at the request of both sides, an indicator that talks were growing closer to a settlement. Talks seem to have been stymied in late March as state officials were stymied amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parties have been ordered to provide an update to the court on Sept. 28.

The land claim dispute has been ongoing since the St. Regis Band of Mohawk Indians first filed its lawsuit in 1982. The original suit argued that an area south, just off the existing Akwesasne reservation known as the Hogansburg or Bombay Triangle, is Mohawk territory, according to an 18th-century treaty with European settlers. In 2014, the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators authorized the chair to sign a memorandum of agreement with the tribal government that would effectively settle the suit and exchange the land for several million dollars in tax revenue along with a number of other provisions, but that agreement is null until signed by Franklin County.

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