As winter bears down on the Tuscarora Nation of Indians, many sit shivering in their ancestral homes, denied electrical power by a dictatorial, white-appointed "leadership" that isn't even recognized by majority of the Tuscarora people.
This leadership, consisting of tribal Clerk Leo Henry and the father-and-son team of Neil Patterson Sr. and Jr., has regarded the tribe's access to electrical service as a device to reward or punish individual members of the Nation.
They don't care if their victims are infants or respected tribal elders. If you or a member of your family has suddenly fallen out of favor with them, they have the power to inflict pain, whether it is the denial of electrical service or the cutoff of services offered by the Tuscarora Health Clinic.
That they've used and abused the authority given to them by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the New York Power Authority is a matter of record. How many Tuscarora infants or elderly people have died, their lives shortened by sleeping in frigid cabins or trailers?
Meanwhile, a barbaric leadership waits in the wings, always ready to help a Tuscarora family out, buying properties at pennies on the dollar.
And what are the social costs of the sickness, poverty and misery imposed on the Tuscarora Nation by this corrupt clique? To them, being a tribal leader connotes no more and no less than the opportunity to stuff their pockets with great wads of cash sent from Washington and Albany bureaucrats.
It's a disgusting situation, and one that the state and federal agencies charged with overseeing conditions on the reservation are becoming embarrassed by.
"There's been no change in policy per se," said National Grid spokesman Steve Brady. "What we're doing now is taking a position much like we do in landlord tenant disputes."
Brady said that landlords often ask to have service shut off to residences in order to make it impossible for the tenant to live there.
In the case of the Tuscarora, Henry and the Pattersons have used shutoffs and the threat of shutoffs as a war club with which to keep people in line.
"What they're essentially trying to do is to get (National Grid) to evict someone, and we don't do that."
On Friday, National Grid Supervising Lead Engineer Christopher Raymond met with a Tuscarora delegation on the reservation to discuss the problem.
Raymond was traveling and unavailable for comment over the weekend, but Tuscaroras who were there said they were encouraged.
Touring the reservation, Raymond was astounded that business opportunities were being wasted because of the archaic policy inflicted on the tribe by its leaders, sources said. Henry and the Pattersons have consistently refused requests to allow reservation businesses permission to hook up into National Grid power lines, and what businesses there are -- everything from gas stations and smoke shops to grocery stores and more -- must be run on expensive high-capacity generators.
Some charge Henry and the Pattersons, whose obscene income depends solely on state and federal handouts, with deliberately trying to destroy private reservation businesses in order to keep the Tuscarora people poor and completely dependent.
"National Grid's just invested $1.5 billion in this area, and they want to see a return on that," said a Tuscarora who attended the meeting. "He knows that expanding service here -- to both private homes and businesses -- would create jobs in Niagara County and create jobs at National Grid itself.
"And jobs are what it's all about," he added.
The former chief counsel to the Tuscaroras -- Grand Island attorney Kendra Winkelstein -- abruptly resigned her post last month in the wake of sexual abuse charges made by victims who claimed the perpetrator was and is closely associated with the corrupt regime, which exerted pressure to cover up the whole sordid affair.
Now Henry and the Pattersons are unable to find a reputable attorney to represent them. Covering up the sexual abuse of children, putting lives in jeopardy by denying electrical power, and presiding over the virtual disappearance of more than $12 million meant to benefit the Tuscarora people as a whole constitute quite a handful of horrors.
Any lawyer who would be willing, for money, to step into the fetid, open sewer of their regime would have to be desperate indeed.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Jan. 10 2012 |