In a vote that he interpreted as driven by disagreements over tribal gaming issues, Shinnecock Indian Nation Tribal Trustees Chairman Lance Gumbs lost his seat on the panel in tribal elections on Tuesday evening.

Randy King, Charles Smith and James Eleazer were the top three vote-getters in Tuesday's election, securing each a seat on the trustees board; Mr. King and Mr. Eleazer were reelected as Tribal Trustees, and Mr. Smith was returned to the panel, of which he was a past member.

Approximately 180 members of the Nation voted at Southampton Town Hall on Tuesday, a relatively high turnout, but vote totals were not available on Wednesday.

Mr. Gumbs, who has served as a member of the tribal council or as a tribal trustee for the last 14 years and was a key figure in the tribe's efforts to develop a casino, said he was not sure of the vote totals either, but he acknowledged that he missed being reelected to the board for a fourth term by a considerable margin.

Mr. Gumbs said he was not bitter about his ouster but said that he thinks it was driven by a group of tribal members who have been unhappy with his handling of the tribe's efforts to secure federal recognition and rights to a gaming casino.

"There's a lot of things that are going on right now that I just don't agree with," Mr. Gumbs said in a phone interview on Wednesday morning. "If you don't roll with the punches, sometimes you get rolled out."

Mr. Gumbs would not detail the disagreements that some members of the tribe have had with his leadership, but he said he thinks people felt he was "being too careful" in his handling of the tribe's gambling future. He said that while he has faith in the leadership of Mr. King, the new tribal chairman, he worries that some members of the tribe are letting "certain things" cloud their judgement regarding the tribe's future in gaming.

"There is a definite lack of understanding of the magnitude of what we've gotten into," he said forebodingly. "I thought things should proceed a certain way ... I am not a puppet. I am not angry or mad or sad—there's no time for that. There's a lot of work to be done."

As tribal chairman for the past year, Mr. Gumbs, who has been the tribe's spokesman on gaming since its plans to seek a casino were unveiled in 2002, twice testified before a Congressional subcommittee investigating the federal recognition process by which tribes gain approval to open and operate casinos. Mr. Gumbs consistently railed against the process, which threatened to delay the Shinnecocks' federal recognition application for a decade or more despite being one of the best documented and organized Native American tribes in the country for hundreds of years.

Mr. Gumbs said that word of his ouster as a Shinnecock Tribal Trustee has already spread around the country. By mid-morning he said he had already received two offers from other tribes seeking to hire him as a consultant to their own federal recognition and gaming efforts. He said he has also been approached with a book deal about the rise of gaming in Native American communities and the intricacies of the federal recognition process.

"Some other leaders have said to me that you're always least appreciated in your own community," Mr. Gumbs said. "I have a lot of options on the table, and if I get a really good offer from another tribe, I'll probably look into it."

Mr. Gumbs, who owns the Shinnecock Indian Outpost, did not rule out that he would run for the position as a Shinnecock Tribal Trustee again next year but said it would depend on what he does in the interim. He said that regardless, he would continue to be involved in the tribe and the efforts for federal recognition.

"I am not going anywhere," he said. "I started a lot of things in this community, and I will see them finished."