Towns ask for state help

FROM THE ARCHIVE

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DECEMBER 8, 2000

Anticipating federal recognition, casinos, land claims and other issues, several towns in northwestern Connecticut are asking the state to provide them legal and financial assistance.

A coalition of 10 small towns plans to ask lawmakers to approve funding in case they need to defend themselves from three tribes who might receive federal recognition. The Golden Hill Paugusset Tribe, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, and two Nipmuc tribes based in Massachusetts all have decisions pending.

Relations with tribes in the southeastern part of the state vary from friendly to fiery. The town of Montville negotiated a $3 million water project and a yearly donation of $500,000 from the Mohegan Tribe prior to the tribe's recognition.

In contrast, the towns of Ledyard, North Stonington, and Preston have spent more than $1.3 million fighting the expansion of the Mashantucket Pequot reservation. They have also spent $163,000 opposing the federal recognition of the Eastern Pequot and Paucatuck Eastern Pequot tribes and at least one town is spending more.

Neither effort has paid off so far. The towns and the state lost the Mashantucket case in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and are asking the Supreme Court to review the issue.

Although a final decision on the two other Pequot tribes is not due until next year, research and other evidence presented by the towns against the tribe has been called faulty and unreliable by BIA researchers.

Get the Story:
State's help sought as towns grow wary of Indian gaming, land-claim impacts (The New London Day 12/8)