By David L. Shaw 

Gary and Priscilla DiLallo bought their home on Great Gully Road in Springport in 1978.

 They moved to the old farmhouse and its 16 acres of peace and quiet from suburban Washington, D.C. They wanted to get away from what they felt was an increasingly unsafe big-city environment.

 Their decision to move was hastened when Gary, an Auburn native and a Washington police officer at the time, was shot on duty.

 Gary got a new job with the Army Reserve Unit in Rochester. The family settled into country living, raising their three children in a new, peaceful environment.

 Now, they face another threat.

 The Great Gully Road area was mentioned in a recent news leak as purportedly being part of an offer of land and money to the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York to settle its nearly 19-year-old claim to its former reservation in Cayuga and Seneca counties.

 The DiLallos paid only passing interest in the Cayuga claim after it was filed in November 1980.

 Not any more.

 "We just paid off our mortgage last August. Now we don't know what the future holds for our property if the news in the leak is true. It has really put our lives in turmoil," Priscilla DiLallo said.

 The Great Gully area was included in the 64,027 acres of land the Cayugas wanted back. The gully, which runs from Route 90 to Route 34B, holds significance to the Cayugas. It was the site of a major Cayuga settlement until General Sullivan's campaign pushed them out of the area after the Revolutionary War.

 "We'd heard of news about the claim off and on over the past 18 years, but didn't pay a lot of attention because we didn't know what it meant to us. Nothing much happened for so many years, we just went on with our lives," she said.

 That all changed last week. Officials of Upstate Citizens for Equality, an anti-land claim citizens' group representing property owners in Madison, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca counties, obtained the terms of what they say is the latest settlement offer from the state to the Cayugas. The group then released the terms to the public.

 That offer is for 4,500 acres of land and $110 million. The land offer reportedly includes the state-owned 3,120-acre Howland Island Wildlife Management Area in the Seneca River near Mentz, plus some privately owned land, even though that was earlier said to have been ruled out as part of a settlement or a court award.

 The offer reportedly includes about 500 acres in the Great Gully area of Springport.

 "We adopted the philosophy that, even though we're put in the claim area in 1980, the government would work it out. We'll be OK. They wouldn't let 7,000 property owners get hurt, we thought," Priscilla DiLallo said.

 Gary DiLallo shares his wife's anger. "I'm very upset," he said.

 "It seems like things are being done behind our backs in an underhanded way, with no regard for the rights of landowners. They have failed to keep us informed," he said.

 Gary DiLallo said living on their property for 20 years and the prospect of losing it would seem to require elected officials keep him and other property owners informed.

 "The Constitution says we are all equal, but it doesn't seem that way. Our rights are violated, and it's wrong. We are not being represented at the bargaining table. Instead, we're kept in the dark over something that directly affects our lives," Gary DiLallo said.

 In 1994, U.S. District Court Judge Neal P. McCurn of Syracuse ruled the Cayugas had a valid claim to the land.

 "Nothing much had happened in the case until then. That got our attention, and we started paying closer attention," Priscilla DiLallo said.

 The DiLallos were further startled when McCurn heard arguments last September on the issue of eviction of property owners as a possible award to the Cayugas for having a valid claim. He has since ruled out any residential eviction.

 "I was a customer of Connie Tallcot's bookstore in Union Springs. She and I talked about the matter. I began to read the newspapers and listen to what the UCE people were saying. The settlement leak has really hit home," Priscilla DiLallo said.

 "I feel let down by elected officials at all levels. They were supposed to represent us, yet we've had little information and communication from them," she said.

 "I don't think they understand what's at stake here. It's our lives."

 The DiLallos have invested money in fixing up their 1889 farmhouse. The gully runs through their back yard, abutting their property line. As their children grow up and Gary retires, the DiLallos say they may want to sell and move to a smaller home.

 "Now we have this huge cloud hanging over our property. And it's not just us. It's many property owners in this area who would be affected by the Cayugas getting all this land. We're worried about the future for all of us," Priscilla DiLallo said.

 "Who would want to buy property in the land claim area and especially property mentioned as part of a settlement offer? And the value of our property is probably less under these circumstances," she said.

 Priscilla DiLallo has adopted the UCE position that the only fair solution is to ratify the 1795 and 1807 treaties by which the Cayugas sold the land to the state of New York.

 "If it stays in court, who knows which way it would end up? We just have a lot of questions and no answers at this time. It's very frustrating," she said.

 The DiLallos say they fail to see the logic of upholding a 200-year-old claim.

 "We never thought it would get to the stage of possibly losing our home," Priscilla DiLallo said, shaking her head. 

Sunday, July 4, 1999