Senecas Threaten To Collect Tolls On Thruway
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- January
- 13
Seneca Nation President Barry Snyder said today that the nation plans to design a “system for the nation to collect tolls on the New York State Thruway in Chautauqua County” and charge the state $2 per car.
The tribal council has rescinded a 1954 agreement that authorized the Thruway right of way across 300 acres of the Cattaraugus reservation.
In protest to then-Gov. George Pataki’s attempt to collect sales taxes on the reservation, the tribe burned tires and shut down part of the Thruway in 1997.
They also claim the state owes them compensation for past land use, a $1 per car since May 12, 2007, which they now say has grown to $20 million.
All of this comes in reaction to attempts by Gov. David Paterson to collect taxes on cigarettes sold in the reservations.
“The Council believes the state is once again intending to take action to impose an embargo on tobacco products, which poses a grave threat to recent progress the Nation made to recover from the historic economic limitations inflicted on the Seneca people by the state and federal governments,” Snyder said in a statement. “This justifies taking any and all prudent actions to protect and defend the Nation’s economy and the way of life of the Seneca people.”
The Council authorized Snyder to spend as much as $1 million to retain “emergency response personnel” to “assist with medical care to Nation residents, make sure that children can get to school, and that all residents can go about their daily activities without interference.”
The Council also authorized Snyder to invoke the provisions of the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 and ask President-elect Obama to provide federal troops “in the face of the state’s threatening laws and past history of aggression against the Seneca people.”
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 2:56 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
