They called it the "demerit system." And last week Seneca Niagara Casino kingpin Mickey Brown spent two days on the Allegany and Cattaraugus reservations telling Seneca casino employees how he would now do away with the system he created in the first place.
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"The managers were required to attend every meeting, and he had two on Wednesday and two on Thursday," a casino source told the Reporter. "Mickey knows how to work a crowd, but by the end of the fourth one I wanted to throw up."
The demerit system imposed by Brown was specifically directed at Senecas working at the Niagara Falls casino, sources said. Many young Senecas lost their casino jobs after racking up four demerits for being a few minutes late to work after their one-to-two hour drives from the reservations.
Fewer than 300 of the more than 7,000 Senecas are currently employed at the tribe's Salamanca and Niagara Falls casinos.
Many Senecas now feel that a vote on Election Day for Seneca Alliance Party presidential candidate Cyrus Schindler is a vote for Mickey Brown, the smooth-talking New Jersey lawyer who convinced a majority of the tribal council to grant him power of attorney and sign off on the tribe's precious right of sovereign immunity.
Schindler, who lost badly to Barry Snyder in the Seneca Party's Sept. 27 caucuses, formed the renegade Seneca Alliance Party to further serve Brown's interests. With no record of accomplishment to run on, the ticket stands foursquare on a platform that would maintain the status quo.
Since signing the Treaty of Canandaigua with the Americans in 1795, the Senecas have fought and died to uphold their sovereignty, an acknowledgement that they exist as a separate nation unbeholden to the United States in matters regarding taxation and courts of law.
But, in August of this year, Brown and a majority of the Seneca councillors now siding with Schindler signed those rights away.
Brown's last-minute announcement ending the demerit system was seen by many as a blatant election-year ploy.
"He refused to say whether those fired under the system would get their jobs back," said Al Jacobs, a Seneca working for the election of Schindler's opponent, Barry Snyder. "As far as I'm concerned, eliminating the system will just create a quicker and harsher way of getting rid of people." Brown also announced that November would be "charity month," in which the cash-strapped Seneca schools, veterans' group and lacrosse program would receive contributions.
"That money belongs to the Seneca people," Jacobs said. "How can he say he's giving us anything?"
While Snyder has vowed to give every enrolled Seneca man, woman and child a $6,000 annual stipend from revenue generated at the Niagara Falls and Salamanca casinos, and Schindler has defended spending profits on further development, most agree that money isn't the main issue in the election.
What is at issue is the conflict of interest on the part of Seneca councillors who also sit on the board of the Seneca Gaming Corp. and lawyers from the firm of Aiken, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, who represent both the tribe and the white-controlled corporation.
Brown was found to be in contempt by the Seneca Court of Appeals earlier this year when he sent a draft for $38 million to the State of New York as its share of the casino proceeds.
Tribal councillors, headed by Schindler and outgoing Seneca President Rickey Armstrong, later overruled the judges' decision following the intercession of the Aiken, Gump attorneys.
In a letter to the tribal council, the attorneys wrote: "In effect, the Nation very likely will not be able to access the capital markets for municipal bond financing and the Seneca Gaming Corp. may not be able to go back to the markets for additional financing for completion of the expansion projects."
The financing referred to is a $300 million loan Brown is currently trying to obtain that Seneca children will be paying on for more than a generation.
Ironically, Brown used the sovereign immunity argument to shield himself from sanctions by the tribal courts while giving it away wholesale in his pursuit of the $300 million loan for casino expansion.
In documents filed before the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nation specifically gives up its right to sue in the Seneca Peacemaker Court and Appellate Court, and submits to the jurisdiction of the United States District Courts for New York, the New York State Supreme Court and any federal or state court having jurisdiction over them.
The documents -- signed by tribal officials Cyrus Schindler, Natalie Hemlock, Bruce Snow, Bergal Mitchell, Rickey Armstrong, Adrian Stevens and Annette Mohawk Smith -- further give Brown power of attorney for board members and casino executives.
In effect, this gives Brown the ability to make unilateral decisions concerning the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars borrowed in the name of the Senecas, while at the same time absolving him of any responsibility under the tribe's 1848 Constitution.
Sources on all sides of the argument agree that Brown is the central issue in the campaign. Bob Jones, who is running for the presidency as a longshot third-party candidate, said that Brown's promises have not been kept.
"We were told the corporation would be a buffer between the tribe and any possible financial liability," Jones told the Reporter. "But now we find out that the corporation is a liability in and of itself."
Al Jacobs, a Seneca who graduated in 1972 from Salamanca High School and has spent the past 30 years in the gaming industry, said he smells a rat. While the Niagara Falls casino takes in more than $1 million a day, Jacobs sees the Seneca people falling deeper and deeper into poverty.
"The Seneca Nation is, right now, at the most critical point that it has been in my lifetime," he said. "When you look at what's going on now, you see that greed has taken over common sense. But you know what they say, common sense isn't too common anymore."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Nov. 1 2004 |