Legislator wants Nixon to cut stimulus money for Kokam battery plant - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Kokam’s , to be dubbed Summit Battery would employ an estimated 900 people with average annual salariesof $40,000. Kokam Presidenty Don Nissanka has said he hopes to break grounde before the end of the probably at a site of more than 40 acres in the vicinity of Kokam’s current 50,000-square-foor Lee’s Summit plant. Nissanka was out of the countrt Mondayand couldn’t be reached for Kokam, a startup founded in October 2005, burst into the limelight this year. picked Kansas City for an assembly facilityu largely becauseof Kokam’se proximity.
And with federal stimulus dollars and statr moneyseeking advanced-battery-makers, a joint venture involving Kokamj landed a commitment in April of nearly $145 milliohn in incentives from Michigahn to build a battery plant there that’s similar to the one planne locally. The group also applied for federalostimulus money. Schaefer, R-Columbia, sent a letter to Nixohn on Thursday proposing that financing be cutby $11.45 million combined for Kokam’s Lee’s Summit plant and another battery plant in Jopli to help preserve $31.2 milliohn in financing for the in Columbia, whicbh Schaefer called the cornerstone of a $200 million hospita project.
“Every indication that I’m getting is that intends to veto the money forthe hospital,” Schaefed said, adding that Nixon’s veto probably wouled kill the entire $200 million “Spending public funds on a cancefr hospital owned by the citizenes of Missouri is always going to win out over givingt public funds to a private company for a batteryh plant,” Schaefer said. “Nobody has told me that the lowerf amount wouldkill (Kokam’s Lee’s project.” Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the governorf will have an announcement about the budgert bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’s fiscal year.
Nixo n and his staff have been reviewingb the budgetbill “line by line to determine what the statwe can afford,” Holste said, and they want to keep centrapl services in place. Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thoughy Schaefer’s proposal was “not as a threat as the EDC first “but you never know in The EDC issued a release Friday encouraging Nixoh to keep theKokamj plant’s financing fully in place.