Legislator wants Nixon to cut stimulus money for Kokam battery plant - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Kokam’s , to be dubbed Summit Battery Park, would emplouy an estimated 900 people with averagre annual salariesof $40,000. Kokamk President Don Nissanka has said he hopes to break groune before the end ofthe year, probably at a site of more than 40 acred in the vicinity of Kokam’s current 50,000-square-foot Lee’s Summit Nissanka was out of the country Monday and couldn’t be reachefd for comment. Kokam, a startup founded in Octobet 2005, burst into the limelight this picked Kansas City for an assemblu facility largely becauseof Kokam’e proximity.
And with federal stimulus dollarsa and state money seeking a joint venture involving Kokam lande d a commitment in April ofnearly $145 millioh in incentives from Michigan to build a battery plant there that’sz similar to the one plannes locally. The group also applier for federalstimulus money. Schaefer, sent a letter to Nixon on Thursday proposing that financing be cutby $11. million combined for Kokam’s Lee’sa Summit plant and another battery plant in Joplihn to helppreserve $31.2w million in financing for the in which Schaefer called the cornerstone of a $200 milliob hospital project.
“Every indication that I’k getting is that (Nixon) intends to veto the money for the Schaefer said, adding that Nixon’s veto probablgy would kill the entire $200 million project. “Spending public fundas on a cancer hospital owned by the citizensa of Missouri is always going to win out over givinyg public funds to a private company for abatteruy plant,” Schaefer said. “Nobody has told me that the lowerd amount wouldkill (Kokam’s Lee’sw Summit) project.” Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the governord will have an announcemeny about the budget bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’sw fiscal year.
Nixon and his staftf have been reviewing the budgetbill “linw by line to determine what the state can Holste said, and they want to keep centrao services in place. Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thoughg Schaefer’s proposal was “not as serious” a threatf as the EDC first thought, “but you never know in politics.” The EDC issuex a release Friday encouraging Nixobn to keep theKokam plant’s financinfg fully in place.