lawyers, Pelcyger recommended that, "You must
essentially control the negotiations and decide who to
negotiated with first, how to build from the ground up,
and how to make sure that a key party doesn't pull
out." TCID, as he said, was not a "key
party."
Senator Reid would later claim the farmers
walked out on negotiations for his bill, and he would
blame them for being unwilling to sacrifice anything for
the good of a settlement. The truth was that they were
never meant to be anything more than the victims of it.
Knowing the science and hydrology of how to
get it done was, as Pelcyger bragged, essential. By the
time Reid's bill was under way, the Pyramid Tribe had
hired its own consulting hydrologist, Ali Sharoody of the
expensive San Francisco-based Stetson Engineering firm,
and another close "networking" friend of
Pelcyger's.
Like Pelcyger, Sharoody would claim liberal
motives on behalf of Native American rights as the basis
for his involvement, but he soon became a fixture in the
company of Pelcyger in constantly advising the
ever-changing tribal council, and in collecting hefty
fees for his studies and advice. His contract with the
tribe called for at least $120,000
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a year to be paid to
Stetson.
The report and recommendations to the tribal
council from the tribe's Water Resources Board in 1993
modestly asked, "Mr. Robert S. Pelcyger, Tribal
Attorney and Ali Sharoody, Tribal Hydrologist, for a 2-5
year 'map' of goals, activities, plans and deadlines with
consideration for the Negotiated Settlement, TROA and
implementation plans for the Economic Development monies
for 1997."
So far as is know, no such "map" was
ever prepared for the tribe.
The brilliant young foe of Laxalt, Joe Ely,
had by then moved on to a new job, with Stetson
Engineering.
Had Sierra Pacific not, after all, been so
"furious" about the tribe's private
negotiations as Pelcyger tried to suggest? Were those old
"networking" contacts of Pelcyger's in the
Justice Department and the Department of the Interior
beginning to pay off?
Did Harry Reid, who seldom, if at all, took
any part in the "negotiations" on his bill know
any of this?
Public Law 101-618 slipped through the
Congress at the last minute in 1990 by a margin of only a
single vote. Barbara Vucanovich, who had walked out on
the Paiutes five years before, personally carried the Act
to President Bush for his signature.
For
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