EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Thanks to the $5.4 million bankruptcy sale of the local paper mill last week, the town has been paid almost all of the $767,392 in pro-rated property and real estate taxes it is owed by the facility’s former owner.
The estate of the Great Northern Paper Co. LLC mill wired $712,435 to the town on Monday afternoon, town Administrative Assistant Angela Cote said. That amount is about 94 percent of the total owed.
“We are pleased that we have gotten payment on past-due taxes, and it will go into the reserve account,” Cote said Monday. “The town was covering the mill’s portion for the last year and a half with its reserve accounts. Those funds go a long way to restoring the town reserves, and I suspect we will probably get the balance of taxes owed [later]. Or at least I am hopeful that we will.”
The town’s attorney, Rob Crawford, estimated during the Great Northern Paper Co. bankruptcy proceedings that began in September that, as a secured creditor, East Millinocket was owed $767,392 for the 2013-14 fiscal year and the first part of the current fiscal year which began July 1.
The mill closed in late January and eventually all but a half-dozen or so of the mill’s 256 workers were laid off. The mill was the region’s largest single taxpayer and employer.
Hackman Capital Partners of Los Angeles wired funds and finalized the mill purchase agreement with bankruptcy trustee Pasquale J. “Pat” Perrino on Friday, in exchange for the bill of sale and deed to the buildings and equipment at the mill site. A federal court judge approved the sale plan earlier in the week.
Cote said she hopes that the town will collect the last of what it is due when the bankruptcy proceeding pays the mill’s unsecured creditors. Those creditors must file claims with the bankruptcy court sometime next month, attorneys have said.