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TUSCARORA RECORDS STAY LOCKED UP: WHAT DO HENRY, PATTERSONS FEAR?

By Mike Hudson

When it opened to great fanfare and media attention in August of last year, the Tuscarora Nation House was hailed as the center of a 21st-century tribal government that would lead its people to prosperity, thanks to the $100 million Power Authority relicensing settlement the Tuscaroras began receiving in 2007.

But like so many things on the Tuscarora Reservation, the promises of August have turned to bitter disappointment just six months later. The official public records kept on behalf of the Tuscarora people remain squirreled away like so many nuts by those for whom an open accounting would be disastrous.

The construction project had not been without controversy. While the federal government and an independent appraiser tagged the cost of the building at $2 million to $2.5 million, tribal leaders Leo Henry and Neil Patterson Sr. claimed to have spent $7 million on the 38,000-square-foot building.

To make matters worse, it was revealed that Patterson had received $87,000 for less than six months work as a "building liaison" on the project, despite the fact that he has no experience whatsoever in construction or anything else that might come in handy on a building site.

Furthermore, the land the Nation House was built on belonged to Henry, and had once served as the site of his outhouse. How much the tribe paid for this well-fertilized piece of property remains a secret to this day.

Still, the building opened and there was much hoopla.

"There's nothing like it in Western New York," Patterson Sr. told the Niagara Gazette. "As you walk through, look at the building, you'll see symbolism, there's tons of symbolism in the building."

The apparently symbol-minded Gazette writer who covered the story was content to let it go at that, though numerous Tuscaroras who spoke to the Niagara Falls Reporter on the afternoon of the opening gala said they thought the entire project to be symbolic of the greed and corruption that runs rampant in the upper levels of tribal government.

In the Buffalo News, Patterson Sr. defended the fact that there was no open public bidding process involved in the construction project.

"We just didn't want to sit there and look at all sorts of bids," Patterson Sr. said.

Like the writer for the Gazette, the News scribe apparently forgot to ask whether the $87,000 he received for whatever his role was in the building's construction influenced his decision not to bother with a bidding process.

Patterson told the News the community center would store nation records such as an accounting of the Power Authority settlement funds, which would be accessible to the public. But he didn't "know why they would want to see them," he added.

He was lying, of course. Because even as long ago as last August, he knew that many on the reservation believed the $12.5 million the tribe had already received had been misappropriated.

They had good reason to want to see the records, if such records even existed. Patterson lied as well about moving the records from his private Upper Mountain Road residence to the Nation House. They remain in

his basement or bedroom or kitchen today, inaccessible to anyone other than Patterson himself, his son Neil Patterson Jr. and his wife, Francine Patterson.

Francine Patterson, by the way, claims to be a clan mother of the Tuscaroras, despite the fact that the "Sand Turtle" clan she claims to represent does not exist. In a rift that attracted considerable media attention during the 1960s, a disgruntled former chief simply invented the clan, hoping to retain his status.

Asked about the controversy surrounding the decision-making process that led to the Nation House project, the phony clan mother talked about tribal history.

"It's the system that's been working for thousands of years, and that's the way it's always been," she said.

Part of that system, apparently, is the handing out of cash-stuffed white envelopes to those who are a part of the fraudulent regime that currently governs the tribe. Just last week, Francine Patterson was seen passing an envelope to Leo Henry, who was heard to say by several witnesses present that day at the Tuscarora Nation House that he could now get some of his bills paid.

One other member of the Patterson family who profited from the Nation House project was Neil Sr. and Francine's son, Neil Patterson Jr.

His company, Tuscarora Environmental Project, receives substantial subsidies and grants from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Tuscarora Environmental was also supposed to have moved into the Nation House, but its offices are still located at his mom and dad's house.

But his reticence to move into the public building did not stop Patterson Jr. from profiting from "green technology" used throughout the building, including a highly sophisticated well-water treatment plant that many Tuscaroras who now can drink only bottled water because of environmental concerns could use.

Clearly, the entire Patterson family -- and Leo Henry -- have personally profited from the construction of the Nation House, from the Power Authority settlement, from their relationships with National Grid, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other private corporations and governmental entities, and the gullibility of much of the local media.

If the house of cards they've carefully constructed was not meant to conceal evidence of wrongdoing and possibly even criminal activity, why in the world wouldn't they move public records into the public building that was built to house them?

The dishonest attempts by Neil Patterson Sr. and Neil Patterson Jr. to install themselves as chiefs, Francine Patterson's phony claim to being a clan mother and Leo Henry's feeble attempts to legitimize the whole thing in order to maintain control over millions of dollars of funding meant to benefit the nation as a whole are disgraceful.

An honest government is an open government, regardless of the society or culture being governed. The Tuscarora Nation once had an open government, an honest government, and it wasn't Francine Patterson's thousands of years ago. The only thing that prevents its return is Henry and the Pattersons themselves.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Feb. 14 2012