County Officials Scramble to Protest Change
By Martha E. Conway
(Wampsville, NY
– Jan. 14, 2010) Madison County Planning Department Director Scott Ingmire discovered some drastically changed Census data recently.
“I was in the process of reviewing some recently released Census 2010 GIS data for Madison County when I stumbled onto this rather disheartening bit of data,” Ingmire wrote in a Jan. 6 email to County Attorney S. John Campanie and Administrative Assistant to the Madison County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mark Scimone. “The first map shows the Federally Recognized Oneida Indian Nation Reservation as of the 2000 Census. The second map shows the Federally Recognized Indian Reservation as of the 2010 Census. Obviously this has been the subject of debate for awhile, but I didn’t expect to see this.”
The 2000 Census map shows the 32-acre Oneida Indian Nation Territory as Federally Recognized Oneida Indian Nation Reservation; the 2010 Census map identifies Federally Recognized Oneida Indian Nation Reservation as the entire northern half of Madison County and parts of neighboring Oneida County.
Campanie responded after speaking to special counsel David Shraver of Nixon-Peabody.
“…[Shraver] is forwarding the maps to the lawyers at the [Attorney General’s] office working on the case,” Campanie wrote. “Obviously, this is a serious issue and we need to get it changed. We would like to try to put something together that we could present to our federal [representatives].”
Campanie went on to write that the existence of the reservation is before the U.S. Supreme Court in one of the county’s current cases.
“We have taken the position that it has been disestablished or at least diminished,” Campanie said.
In an email to Chairman John Becker, Campanie and others last week, Ingmire wrote that he has “…formalized the error discovered in the Census data in a memo that hopefully better describes the Census Boundary Annexation (BAS) process. I also improved the maps a bit and have included them in the memo.”
The Courier was unable to reach county or OIN officials before press time for this article.
