Port Alice Mayor Jan Allen has confirmed Neucel Specialty Cellulose paid their 2017 property taxes.
The Port Alice pulp mill owed a 25 per cent reduced rate in property taxes totaling $674,435.
Allen shared the good news with the Village of Port Alice via the Facebook Group “Port Alice News and Views.”
“Thanks Neucel Pulp…taxes paid in full!” read the post released by Allen.
Neucel has been in a production curtailment since March of 2015. The pulp mill was originally supposed to be shut down for only six months, but the conditions that existed in March (most notably the declining market price for Neucel’s product), continued to exist after the initial sixth-month curtailment and still exist to this day.
The tax reduction agreement the village entered into with Neucel back in December states that “In recognition of Neucel’s financial circumstances and to seek to limit the risk of the mill being permanently closed, the village has agreed, without having fettered or limited its legislative discretion in any way, to reduce property taxes on the Class 4 Heavy Industrial Lands for 2017 by 25 per cent from the 2016 taxes of $899,260.00, reflecting a total reduction of $224,825.00. In acknowledgment of the village reducing its property tax, Neucel hereby commits to start up the mill operation by Dec. 31, 2017.”
