A16 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 3, 2003

Towns can keep, but not sell seized Skeena assets

By JEFF NAGEL NORTHWEST towns have won a court order that lets them hang onto equipment they’ve seized from New Skeena Forest Products - but not sell-anything,

Administrators for Ter- race, Prince Rupert, Port Edward and New Hazelton appeared in B.C, Supreme Court Nov. 25 to argue it’s

not necessary to return the |

seized equipment.

Justice Donald Brenner agreed, altering part of his Nov. 19 order that placed New Skeena in creditor protection and required seized assets be returned,

Documents filed in court show the Cily of Ter-

‘race has so far spent

$8,000 seizing and remov- ing equipment from New Skeena, .

Allowing the towns to hold onto the equipment for now avoids incurring a similar expense to send it all back.

Terrace and the other councils had planned to quickly sell the seized equipment to recoup some of New Skeena’s unpaid property lax bills.

Terrace is owed $2.5 miilion - most of that ia unpaid taxes for 2002 and 2003 but about $580,000 for older taxes to be repaid over eight years under a provision of Skeena’s previous restructuring.

In making their case, Terrace officials laid out in greater detail than ever before what they claim are the effects of New Skee- na’s non payment of taxes here.

The City of Terrace has cut 20 per cent of its staff -— a reduction from 106 to

85 employees — resulting jj in a drop in service, chief — |

administrative officer Ron Poole stated in his affida- vit to the court.

The court documents filed by the city also in- clude a complete list of the equipment seized from New Skeena,

Included on the list are

24 Ford and Chev pickup

trucks, 14 Cat forklifts, five Cat loaders, two Cat grappleyarders, a grader, seven water trucks, a flat- deck truck, a Linkbelt buncher, a portable saw- mill and various tires and accessories.

— Poole.said the bailiffs indicated none. of the seized machines were be-

ing used and many were | inoperative and couldn't,

be started:

One piece of equipment was returned’ by the cily —a snowplow New Skeena workers here said they needed al the mill.

The next round in the court battle comes Dec. 8, when the towns appear be- fare Justice Brenner to ar- gue where they should be ranked in the line of credi- tors.

NWBC Timber and Pulp, New Skeena’s parent company also owned by Dan Veniez and George Petty, is the main secured creditor.

The towns hope to con- vince Brenner that their tax bills should be paid out in a liquidation ahead of any money going to NWBC.

“We the cities will ar- gue that tax relief as with other government-Lype se- curily takes precedence

over the usual secured said , mayor- Jack Talstra. “That will be.

creditors,”

the argument and we’ll see

what develops from there.” - - On Dec. 9, New Skeena

is scheduled to present ils plan for moving forward.

Other creditors. will then’:

get a chance to support, oppose or propose amend- ments to the plan.

Also anticipated isa first report of the court-ap- pointed monitors from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Call 1-866-734-9425

or visit www. medicaleri.ca

| @MedicAlert

Lets You Live Life,

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SEIZED NEW Skeena Forest Products assets can stay in the possession of Terrace and other northwestern towns, but they can’t be sold. The towns had planned to sell seized equipment to cover unpaid property taxes, but New Skeena went to court asking for their return.

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