A new general manager will be taking over the reins at Catalyst Paper Corporation’s Powell River division starting March 1.
Rick Maksymetz, who has held similar positions at Procter and Gamble, Weyerhaeuser Canada Ltd. and West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. over the past 18 years, is joining Catalyst’s operations.
Stew Gibson, mill manager since May 2008, has been appointed manager special projects. Gibson will lead a number of projects in his new role.
In other Catalyst news, City of Powell River Councillor Dave Formosa reported at the February 3 council meeting that city and Catalyst representatives have had one formal meeting to discuss the proposed $750,000 annual fee to treat the city’s liquid waste at the mill’s facility.
Formosa said he, Mayor Stewart Alsgard, Councillor Chris McNaughton and Stan Westby, chief administrative officer, met with Kevin Clarke, Catalyst’s president and CEO, and Brian Baarda, vice-president, finance. The city brought forward the issue of reducing the proposed $750,000 fee to $500,000, Formosa said. “It wasn’t really high on their priority list,” Formosa said. “They didn’t want to speak about it, but I think at the end of the day there was consensus that it would be looked at.”
It was an issue for Clarke, Formosa said, because “he was newly minted and he wasn’t really looking forward to going back to the board to say that he came to Powell River and got beat up for a quarter of a million a year.”
City officials explained that it was in everyone’s best interests that the company looks at reducing the proposed fee if co-treatment is an option that is acceptable to the community, Formosa said.
After that meeting, Westby and McNaughton met again with Catalyst representatives, but Westby said it would be premature to report on that meeting, because negotiations continue. “Certainly it was looked at very favourably,” he said. “There was some discussion of extending the tax revitalization bylaw, sort of a quid pro quo, but we’re not close to finalizing that at this point.”
Last November, council adopted a tax revitalization bylaw that set 2011 major industry taxes at $2.25 million.
