Celgar highlights importance of dialogue in city dispute
By Kyra Hoggan
Zellstoff Celgar manager Al Hitzroth said it’s a relief for his organization to head into the New Year with some framework in place for resolving its tax dispute with the City of Castlegar – this, after Celgar, last night, made an almost-half-million-dollar payment to the city and committed to monthly payments to reduce the outstanding $2.7 million in unpaid municipal taxes. (See City/Celgar reach accord for more details).
“It’s in recognition of the ongoing dialogue we have with council,” Hitroth said, echoing mayor Lawrence Chernoff’s statement that, “there’s still lots of work to be done.”
Hitzroth said that, while negotiations prior to this point may have appeared to observers to be bearing little fruit, such was not the case.
“Through those discussions, we’re arriving at some commitments both sides can make, and live with,” he said. “I think we’ve arrived at a better understadning of the issues and the potential solutions. Every time we got together, I think we advanced our understanding a bit more.”
He said he’s not sure if, or how, this new arrangement will impatc the court case, which is still on the books.
“The way I see it, (the court case) is kind of put in abeyance … pushed back …at this point,” he said, explaining the time will come for the stakeholders to decide whether to forge ahead with the case or remove it from the table altogether, “but we’re not at that stage today.”
He said the solution will still require a lot of time and effort from both parties, and it won’t come over night – but issues like engaging the provincial government may become more manageable if the city and Celgar are working in concert.
“We’ve even made commitments on that – to jointly approach the provincial government with possible solutions so we can convince them to come on board and engage in the process,” he said. “To put something constructive in front of the province and say, ‘here, this is how you can support a solution,’ instead of just demanding they fix it.”
Both city and Celgar representatives said they’re happy to be entering 2010 with a new optimism and mutual understanding that they hope will ultimately lead to a solution to the dispute which garnered nation-wide headlines in 2009.
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