STN Preservation Committee Requests Your Assistance

Dear friends and family

We need your help in gathering as many signatures (out of state included) as possible to stop the destruction to the Schaghticoke Reservation and your participation in the protest in Hartford on January 29th, rain or shine. Your support is needed. Please let me know if you can make it. Rost has threatened Tribal members and has desecrated almost 10 acres of land, including burial sites, habitats, streams, wetlands, and indiscriminately carving his way towards the top of the Schaghticoke Mountain . These hate crimes MUST STOP.

Just an FYI--Rost was arrested in 2004 for the same destruction, criminal mischief, threatening, and a cease and desist was issued by the State of Connecticut to stop his destruction then.
Why not now?

Every signature and any amount of time at the protest will be greatly appreciated. Please mail, fax, or scan all petitions to me by January 22, 2008 and bring the rest to the protest. Your family, friends or supportive organizations are welcome.

Kathy Velky
Home--203-263-0439 Fax--203-263-3584
626 Washington Rd.
Woodbury , CT 06798

From: semideyke@msn.comTo: semideyke@msn.comSent: 12/27/2008 10:00:08 P.M. Eastern Standard TimeSubj: STN Preservation Committee Requests Your Assistance

Dear Tribal Members;

This letter is to inform you of our progress since our Annual Tribal Meeting this past October. As you may recall, we formed a Tribal Committee to look into destruction that was occurring on our reservation. Predominantly, this destruction was being done by an invited guest of Gale Harrison and June Hatstat, a non-Schaghticoke Tribal Member, Michael Rost, since November of 2007. The purpose of the Committee was to find out why our state officials have not listened to our request being made by Council Member Joe Velky and complaints by others to the Governor, Department of Environmental Protection, Attorney General, and the Department of Public Safety, State Police. After the preceding two months of the Committee working the concerns and falling on deaf ears, we have determined the damage to our land can only be considered as hate crimes. Not only by Michael Rost, but also the State of Connecticut. This desecration, destruction, threatening of Tribal members with a rifle, despoliation of our sacred lands and the disturbance of burial remains and documented archaeological sensitive sites must be STOPPED.

What is happening at our Reservation today can accurately be called a hate crime, an unmistakably violation of our sacred land. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will not issue a cease and desist order against this volatile intruder. In 2004, he committed the same crime and was prosecuted. The CT General Assembly State Statutes are clearly defined, but our state officials refuse to adhere to their fiduciary duties and laws. Instead, they allow non-Schaghticoke people to indiscriminately damage our Ancestral land by digging in documented sensitive sacred sites and by removing and damaging artifacts, your artifacts.

Despite constant opposition from now many Schaghticoke members, the State of Connecticut chooses to close their eyes to justice and allow these hate crimes to continue. This desecration does not end; our sister, daughter, mother, cousin, aunt, grandmother, friend and respected deceased Elder Paulette Crone-Morange’s sacred burial site has also been desecrated by Michael Rost.

Now, as Schaghticoke Tribal Members, it is your turn to support the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Preservation Committee, and to protect our Ancestral land. We are requesting your presence, your friends and neighbors to help at a protest scheduled for January 29, 2009 starting at 10 am at the State Capitol building and Legislative Office Building located at 231 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT. (I’m sure you all remember January the 29th 2004 is when we received our recognition and for that purpose this date was selected.) What your Committee needs now, is for you to participate for a minimum of 2 hours during our protest times of 10-3 pm.

In order for this protest to be a success we are asking that you please contact Linda Gray at the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Office at (203)-736-0782 or by email: http://us.mc343.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lindag@schaghticoke.com or Katherine Saunders at http://us.mc343.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=semideyke@sbcglobal.net to confirm your support. Kindly supply a time and how many will be in attendance including you, your friends and family. We hope to have 250 in attendance to help send a message, loud and clear to the state of Connecticut, that this will not be tolerated.

Additionally, please find attached a petition addressed to Governor Rell. Your support in gathering signatures is needed. At the end of our protest we intend to hand deliver these petitions to her, so please get as many as you can to help make this understood, that we will not stand by and allow our land, our history, and our culture, be destroyed.

Thank you,
Schaghticoke Tribal Nation
Preservation Committee
Members

FINALPetition.doc (47KB)