Millinocket officials grow impatient over GNP's overdue taxes
Great Northern Paper Co. must pay $1.18 million in overdue property taxes to Millinocket by Thursday, or else the town will place a lien on property it is in the process of selling.
The Bangor Daily News reported that the Millinocket Town Council voted Monday to set the Thursday deadline as part of an amended agreement with GNP. Two councilors said they have grown impatient after waiting for GNP, which owns a shuttered paper mill in town, to pay its overdue tax bill.
“We are tired of being pushed around,” Town Council Chairman Richard Angotti Jr. said, according to the BDN. “The council has spoken. If they don’t pay up, the lien goes back on.”
If GNP doesn’t pay the town by its Thursday deadline, Millinocket would place a lien on the company’s property, essentially freezing GNP’s planned sale of paper equipment that would be used to pay off its debt to the Internal Revenue Service and the town. GNP also owes East Millinocket $657,900 in late property taxes for a mill that its hoping to reopen later this year.
The newly amended agreement approved by the council also allows GNP to pay the town only $1.18 million instead of the $2.26 million in gross taxes it owes. Because of a tax increment financing agreement for the industrial park where GNP’s mill is located, the town was already expected to pay the company back half of what is due in delinquent taxes. The amendment will help speed up the payment process, Town Manager Peggy Daigle said.
GNP was formed by Cate Street Capital, a New Hampshire-based investment firm, that plans to start a $140 million wood pellet plant in Millinocket through Thermogen Industries, a company the firm manages. Thermogen lost $20 million in anticipated investment recently after CEI Capital Investments said the plant was no longer eligible for funding.
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