Southampton Councilman Slams Shinnecock Seal Removal

Town of Southampton officials have removed the Shinnecock Nation seal from the town board’s meeting room after members of the tribe demanded it be taken down as relations between the two deteriorated.

Southampton Councilman Michael Iasalli bashed the town board’s decision to remove the Shinnecock Nation’s tribal seal from its meeting room.

“The removal of the seal only furthers the erasure and deconstruction of the Shinnecock People, who are a crucial part of our community,” he wrote in a statement. “It is divisive and only worsens the marginalization of Indigenous people in public spaces, a nationwide issue that advocates have been trying to reverse.”

Their success marks a sharp break in relations between the Shinnecock Nation and the Town of Southampton after years of mounting tension. The latest conflict between the entities centers on a zoning dispute involving the Nation’s Westwoods property.

In December, the Town of Southampton announced it would file a lawsuit against the Nation for its plans to build a gas station and travel plaza on Westwoods. The Nation maintains that the parcel, because it’s tribal land and therefore sovereign, isn’t subject to the town’s zoning code.

The town’s operating view is that Westwoods, while Shinnecock-owned, is not part of 2010’s federally recognized reservation, so development on the land ought to be regulated.

A Suffolk County State Court decision echoed this view, though the Bureau of Indian Affairs sided with the Shinnecock earlier this year. A few weeks ago, The Interior Board of Indian Appeals declared that BIA’s decision would stand unless a federal court rules otherwise.

The Town of Southampton is still pursuing litigation and Isalli was one of two board members who voted against the lawsuit.

“I am disheartened in this moment,” he wrote at the end of last week’s statement. “I hope that one day the majority of the members of the Southampton Town Board will find the merits of ending legal action, and work together with the Shinnecock people in a collaborative manner that will invite an inter-governmental path to solving this issue and that benefits all in the community.”

Shinnecock Nation leaders didn’t respond to a request for comment.