Letters

After reading the recent article “Sticker Shock at the Cost of Lawsuit Over Shinnecock Gas Station Project” [27east.com, June 4], I am appalled at the amount of money being spent on the town’s litigation. The amount of money being spent hourly on attorneys is more than most people’s weekly salary!

The Southampton Town government received a letter on January 2 stating that the Shinnecock people were never removed from or abandoned the Westwoods territory, and that the land is their “Aboriginal” territory. Yet the Southampton Town Board is paying lawyers $1,500 an hour ($1.4 million in total so far) to distort illegal land deeds in order to push a false narrative that the Shinnecock Nation abandoned its land and/or sold it in the 1600s. These assertions have already been disproven by the Department of the Interior’s three-year-long review of the Shinnecock Nation’s land holdings at Westwoods.

Regardless of the Department of the Interior’s findings and their own designation of the land as “Indian Reservation” on their tax maps, the Town of Southampton continues to spend taxpayers’ money in attempt to take dominion over the Shinnecock Nation’s Westwoods territory.

When are the residents of Southampton going to demand an end to these blatantly oppressive and colonial tactics?

If you support the Shinnecock Nation and don’t want your tax dollars being used to oppress the Shinnecock people, please speak out. Write to the Southampton Town Board and demand an end to the nonsensical, ill-advised and destructive litigation against the Shinnecock Nation.

Bryan A. Polite

Member

Shinnecock Nation