Shinnecock feel stymied by NYS resistance to economic development plans

More than 15 years after the Shinnecock Indian Nation achieved long-sought federal recognition and with it the promise of new financial opportunities, the Southampton tribe's dream of economic development remains mired in a mountain of legal bills. 

From planned casinos and hotels to commercial fishing initiatives and a gas station, nearly all of the Southampton tribe's dreams of empowering its members and lifting them out of poverty have been met with legal challenges from the state or local governments, or enforcement actions by regulators.

"They say the Indian wars have ended, but they haven’t ended in New York," said Lance Gumbs, vice chairman of the Shinnecock Nation’s Council of Trustees and a business owner. "It’s just in a different manner of war now. It’s the subversive way they are doing it by keeping us down economically, so that we have to rely on handouts. But that’s not the way tribes are thinking anymore and it’s not the way Shinnecock is thinking anymore."

Only its digital billboards on tribal land on Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays remain as active revenue producers, and they are acting in defiance of a court order to turn them off, prompting contempt motions by a Riverhead judge. Cannabis stores that have replaced smaller smoke shops along Montauk Highway on tribal land have been operating for more than two years, but a slowdown in sales has led some to lower their ambitious business plans. 

Rulings favoring the state Department of Transportation in a 2019 lawsuit in a case seeking to shut down the billboards have been used by the Town of Southampton to challenge the Shinnecock Nation's gas station/travel plaza on the same tribal land known as Westwoods. The project, still under construction, now sits idle, under a court-order to stop work. 

The nation also received pushback when it sought to open a casino on the same Westwoods land in 2007 and when members attempted to launch commercial fishing initiatives over the past decade, the latter resulting in a state sting operation and prosecution that prompted a lawsuit by three Shinnecock fishermen against the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which is now on appeal in federal court.

At its core the argument among Long Island native nations is that they have a sovereign right over the use of their lands and surrounding waters that trumps state authority.

While the digital billboards continue to generate some income, the legal efforts to block economic development led some native leaders to draw conclusions about the state’s asserted willingness to work to bolster local tribes.

Gordon Tepper, a spokesman for Gov. Kathy Hochul, called the assertion that the governor's policies and actions undermine sovereign tribal rights, including to advance economic development, "false." 

"We recognize that there are strong perspectives among Long Island native nation leadership regarding economic development and broader policy issues, and we take those concerns seriously," Tepper said in a written statement.

He said Hochul is "committed to a respectful, government-to-government relationship and ongoing dialogue with nation leadership to better understand priorities and identify opportunities for collaboration that benefit their communities." 

And while Hochul's office declined to comment specifically on ongoing litigation, Tepper said the state’s actions are "guided by long-standing legal frameworks and the responsibility to apply the law fairly and consistently."

But it's not just the Shinnecock Nation that has felt the paralysis of government opposition to its plans, and some criticize Hochul for promising cooperation but failing to make good on that promise.

In July 2024, Hochul convened a "historic" summit of Native American Nation tribal leaders in Albany to showcase her commitment to the priorities of the state’s original inhabitants.

The meeting, which included a discussion of the governor’s efforts to remove "offensive imagery and distasteful representations" of native populations from State Capitol artwork, came seven months after Hochul’s second veto of a bill that would have restored state recognition to the Montaukett Indian Nation.

Hochul’s veto cited a widely rebuked 1910 court decision that effectively declared the Montauketts extinct, offending tribal leaders anew and drawing a rebuke from bill’s sponsor, former Assemb. Fred Thiele. He called Hochul’s citing of the 1910 decision "outrageous" given that it was "one of the most racist decisions in New York State jurisprudence." Hochul has since vetoed similar legislation two more times.

Sandi Brewster-walker, executive director of the Montauketts, who was not invited to the summit, said efforts like the meeting against the backdrop of the governor’s "cruel" veto demonstrate a mixed message of apparent support even while rejecting the Montauketts that she feels has been long characteristic of the state when it comes to Native governments and communities.

"It is a pattern," said Brewster-walker, a historian who worked in the Clinton administration, alluding to a "romanticizing of natives that sees us as people of the past, not the present."

Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk) said he plans to once again lead passage of the Montaukett recognition restoration bill in the State Senate, where he expects it to pass when taken up in June. He criticized the governor’s office for "making the Montauketts jump through so many hoops, then pulling the rug out from under them."

Gumbs said he believes continuing legal challenges by the state and the Town of Southampton are designed to wear the tribe down financially.

"It’s their attempt to bankrupt the nation, there’s absolutely no question that is their intent," he said.

Last year the Shinnecock sued Hochul, state Attorney General Letitia James, Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez and state Supreme Court Justice Maureen Liccione, who has ruled against the tribe in state court cases.

In the most recent filing opposing Liccione’s effort to be dismissed from the case, citing judicial immunity, the tribe said it’s not her decisions that have frustrated the tribe’s efforts, but the court’s claim of authority over its land, which the U.S. Department of the Interior affirmed has always had restricted status requiring an act of Congress to alienate.

The state contends the billboards pose a hazard to motorists. Its case rests on the validity of a 1959 easement obtained by the state that permitted it to use 3½ acres of Westwoods land for the completion of Sunrise Highway. The easement document contains no tribal signatures, according to a copy of it produced in court, and said service was made to a tribal leader named Charles Smith at an address in Babylon. Tribal offices have always been on Shinnecock territory in Southampton, and the tribe has no record of Smith ever having been served. The building at the address is a nondescript office building.

The Shinnecock nation has never received any financial compensation for the easement. The tribe also contends that because Westwoods has been affirmed as restricted fee land requiring an act of Congress to encumber it, as the state did with its easement, the right of way is invalid.

The state Department of Transportation has declined to comment on the ongoing litigation, but in its court brief opposing the Shinnecock lawsuit said it is "not acting in bad faith" regarding the 1959 easement, particularly after the state itself has previously advertised on the billboards.

"Westwoods was not restricted fee when [the DOT] obtained the easement" in 1959, the state argued in court papers, "nor was the nation a federally recognized Indian tribe at that time. Thus, the nation has failed to show that the state lacks jurisdiction or that congressional approval was required at that time."

Gumbs called that claim incorrect, noting the federal recognition process wasn’t developed until 1978 and the granting of federal recognition to the Shinnecock granted in 2010 was an affirmation of what the federal government long recognized.

"There was no list until after 1978 when they put together a list of who the federal tribes were," Gumbs said. "In 2010 it was clear that we had always existed. It didn’t create us in 2010. It just said you are a tribe and always have been."

Gumbs also expressed frustration with the state for awarding a gaming license to an entity that plans to work with the Seminole Indian Nation of Florida on a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino near Citi Field in Queens. He said the Shinnecock had paused its own efforts for a casino "in the hope that we would be included in the state commercial gaming license." That the Shinnecock plan wasn't awarded was "a real slap in the face." 

Gumbs said the Shinnecock Nation is planning new gaming alternatives.

At the Unkechaug Nation in Mastic, Chief Harry Wallace said his tribe’s treatment by the state shifts depending on which department he’s dealing with. It’s almost always frustrating, he said.

"I think there’s a definitely a bias against our assertion of sovereignty," said Wallace, whose Poospatuck reservation in Mastic has been transformed by gasoline and cannabis businesses. "But how can they argue we don’t have the right to do whatever is right on our land when they have such a spurious documentation of how you got it from Native Americans in the first place?"

Wallace last year lost a case in federal court against the state DEC that sought to affirm the Unkechaug’s aboriginal fishing rights after he said Unkechaug fishermen were targeted by the agency. But he’s had successes as well, including a law enacted in 2024 that requires land developers consult with tribes when there’s evidence of native burial grounds in property under development. He’s attempting to amend language in the bill to increase protections, he said.

Brewster-walker, of the Montaukett Nation, said she’s pushing again this year to advance her bill through the State Legislature, where it has passed with widespread support for the past decade. Hochul and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have vetoed it a combined seven times — most by Hochul, who last year argued certain documentation was still needed. Brewster-walker sees a pattern, she said.

"I feel like the vetoes over last eight years have been like a genocide," she said. "They are hoping we’ll give up and not go for recognition. But we’re never going to give up."

Taobi Silva, a former Shinnecock tribal trustee and former president of Shinnecock Sovereign Holdings, its economic development arm, said every effort he’s made at expanding economic opportunity for the tribe has met with resistance. He was in court just last week following a Hochul administration crackdown on vaping stores that impacted his ability to bank.

He’s seen promises made and broken, he said, to work with the tribe on gaming initiatives and the gas station, and has spent tens of thousands of dollars defending himself on fishing rights cases, including a recently filed federal appeals case. On both Shinnecock and Poospatuck land, local governments have stopped plowing roads after snowstorms.

"We’re trapped in a box, we can’t make a move," Silva said. "We’re obstructed from banking, threatened with law enforcement, constant litigation, significant overstepping of regulatory authority. To me it’s all painfully obvious. ... The message is they’re not going to let us do anything period, end of story."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.