01:00 AM EDT on Friday, August 10, 2007

By Maria Armental

Journal Staff Writer

WESTERLY — Charlestown’s solicitor on Indian affairs and his predecessor reiterated yesterday the ongoing legal battle over 31 acres of Narragansett Indian tribal land is about state and local sovereignty.

Their statements came during a public meeting yesterday, organized by the Washington County Regional Planning Council, to discuss a recent federal appeals court ruling concerning tribal land.

The Narragansetts say it is about economic development.

At the center of the debate is the possible construction of a casino.

Last month, a federal appeals court ruled the federal secretary of the interior could hold in trust the 31 acres that have been set aside to build housing for the tribe’s elders.

State and town officials have said the decision could pave the way for the tribe to establish “Indian country,” a federal reservation in which tribal and federal laws would take precedence over local and state law.

The governor, the state attorney general and the town have said they will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court by Oct. 18.

“Hopefully, we will be heard to correct this legal wrong,” said Charlestown’s current solicitor on Indian affairs Joseph S. Larisa Jr., in a prepared statement. “If not, Congress stepped up in the past to save the state with the Chafee amendment; we may be forced to call upon it to do so again and affirm the deal made with the tribe some 30 years ago that all land and persons in our state would be subject to our laws equally,” wrote Larisa, who co-authored the so-called Chafee amendement, referring to the 1978 Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act.

The 1996 Chafee amendment, which requires the tribe seek state and local voter approval to open a gambling venue on tribal land, only applies to the settlement lands.

Therefore, Larisa said, while the latest legal battles have focused on Charlestown land, where the tribe is based, the repercussions of the federal appeals court decision would affect the entire state, allowing the tribe to request other lands it purchases be held in trust, exempting them from state and local control as well as property and income taxes.

(The income tax exemption would only apply to income from businesses located within tribal land that is held in trust).

By law, Indian lands can be used for gambling if they were taken into trust before 1988, if the property is within or contiguous to a tribe’s reservation or if the Department of the Interior finds — and the sitting governor agrees — it would be in the tribe’s best interest and not a detriment to the surrounding community.

Moreover, Larisa said, speaking with Bruce N. Goodsell, his predecessor as Charlestown’s solicitor on Indian affairs and now involved with the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, the ruling opens the door for private developers to pursue business partnerships with the Narragansetts to circumvent state and local control.

Paula Jennings, one of two Narragansetts who attended yesterday’s meeting, dismissed Larisa’s statements as “scare tactics.”

“We don’t want the development that is going on in Charlestown, Westerly, or all of South County,” Jennings said.

“I love every grain of sand, every tree. It breaks my heart to see the development going on here,” she said. “No one, no one loves this land more than the Narragansett people.”

“We love the state, but we must be allowed some sort of economic development that is not going to destroy the land,” she added.

The discussion grew more tense as Charlestown Town Council Vice President Harriet A. Allen quoted a statement attributed to [Indian] Chief Joseph in Elaine Devary Willman’s Going to Pieces: The Dismantling of the United States of America.

“Chief Joseph and his people were chased by the U.S. Army from their home,” said Dawn Dove, also a member of the Narragansett tribe, “and he was begging to please let the people have a piece of” that land.

Similarly, she said, “God gave us this land. We only have a bit of it, and you want to have all of it.”

Responding to statements that the legal battle aimed at applying the law equally to everyone, including the Narragansetts, Dove said the state already has gambling venues at Lincoln and Newport and extends tax-exempt deals to certain businesses.

Westerly

marmental@projo.com