City of Powell River councillors were asked to rescind the city’s tax revitalization bylaw for the Catalyst Paper Tis’kwat (pronounced Tees-kwat) mill.
At the December 14 city committee of the whole meeting, Ryan Kosloski, a mill employee, asked, in correspondence, if it was not time to rescind the bylaw “allowing Catalyst to pay less than its fair share of property taxes?”
Under the tax revitalization bylaw, Catalyst has an annual tax bill of $3.2 million, which would waive $8.4 million in city taxes over the three-year term of the tax revitalization bylaw, signed October 30, 2020.
Kosloski stated he believes the bylaw was put in place so the mill would keep running and employ people.
“I know they say it’s an indefinite curtailment, but we all know it’s just their way of not having to give us employees severance while they shut down,” stated Kosloski. “I believe rescinding the bylaw will put a little pressure on them to find something else to do with the site or sell it, along with taking some of the pressure off of our other tax base.
“If they come back with an idea for the site and it makes sense to reinstate the bylaw, that’s great, but until that day comes, it would be great to leverage a little pressure on them.”
Councillor George Doubt said Kosloski is talking about the mill revitalization tax agreement and suggests in his correspondence it be rescinded. Doubt said he wanted to take this opportunity to ask staff if a quick outline could be provided on how or if the city would go about rescinding the agreement.
Chief administrative officer Russell Brewer said the question has been put to the city’s legal council.
“In reviewing the language in the revitalization tax exemption bylaw, it’s not obvious right now that we would be able to rescind it; we’re still looking into it,” said Brewer. “One thing I want to highlight is we have time because we couldn’t rescind it until the 2023 year regardless, so we have until October of 2022 to look into it further, whether we could in fact rescind it based on the language in the bylaw.”
The committee voted to note and file Kosloski’s correspondence.
