Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 01:13:45 -0400
Sender: Taino-L Taino interest forum <TAINO-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
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Subject: TAINO-L Digest - 20 Feb 1999 to 22 Feb 1999 (#1999-19)
To: Recipients of TAINO-L digests <TAINO-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 15:18:51 -0500
From: Pedro Guanikeyu Torres <ttcj@DANDY.NET>
Subject: Fw: From the Hartford Courant
-----Original Message-----
From: Pablo Lonesome Wolf <lonesomewolf@surfree.com>
To: Taino Tribal Council of Jatibonicu <ttcj@dandy.net >
Date: Saturday, February 20, 1999 5:14 PM
Subject: From the Hartford Courant
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a tentative appeal of a landmark federal court ruling that bars the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe from expanding its reservation beyond boundaries set by Congress.
You have to file the appeal before the deadline runs. So we've
done that,M/q> Assistant U.S. Attorney John B. Hughes in New Haven
said Friday.
Now you wait, and you see if [officials in
Washington] want to pursue it.M/q>
In Washington Friday, a Justice Department spokeswoman said this
week's filing is a way of buying timeM/q> before the solicitor
general decides whether to challenge U.S. District Judge Robert
N. Chatigny's ruling, which blocked federal approval of the
Mashantuckets' bid to annex land. Chatigny's decision, issued
in December, was a milestone in a three- year legal battle and an
exhilarating victory for state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and
residents of three towns that border the Mashantucket reservation in
Eastern Connecticut.
The case has national significance and is being watched closely in other states where officials want to prevent Indian tribes from annexing off-reservation property.
The Mashantucket Tribal Council has not commented on Chatigny's ruling and remained quiet Friday.
The case began with the tribe's application to annex 165 acres outside the boundaries of its 2,200-acre reservation area established by Congress in 1983 to settle aboriginal land claims. Tribes can extend reservation borders only with the permission of the federal government, and in May 1995 U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt approved the Mashantucket request.
Blumenthal and the towns of Ledyard, Preston and North Stonington went to court to block Babbitt's decision because the land would be removed from state and local control, no longer subject to taxes and zoning laws and the jurisdiction of state courts.
Capitalizing on the success of their Foxwoods Resort Casino, the Mashantuckets have bought thousands of acres in Eastern Connecticut off the reservation. They have unfulfilled development plans for some of it, such as two golf courses at a former Boy Scout camp across Route 2 from the reservation and the casino.
Friday the tribe celebrated the seventh anniversary of Foxwoods.
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