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

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Kokam’s , to be dubbed Summitt Battery Park, would employ an estimated 900 people with averages annual salariesof $40,000. Kokam President Don Nissanka has said he hopez to break ground before the end of the probably at a site of more than 40 acres in the vicinitygof Kokam’s current 50,000-square-foott Lee’s Summit plant. Nissanka was out of the countryu Mondayand couldn’t be reached for comment. a startup founded in October burst into the limelightthis year. picked Kansaa City for an assembly facilit largely becauseof Kokam’s proximity.
And with federao stimulus dollars and state money seeking a joint venture involving Kokan landed a commitment in April ofnearly $145 million in incentives from Michigajn to build a battery plang there that’s similar to the one plannec locally. The group also applied for federalstimulus Schaefer, R-Columbia, sent a letter to Nixon on Thursdat proposing that financing be cut by $11.5 million combined for Kokam’sd Lee’s Summit plant and another battery plant in Joplin to help preservse $31.2 million in financing for the in Columbia, which Schaeferf called the cornerstone of a $200 million hospitaol project.
“Every indication that I’m gettingy is that (Nixon) intends to veto the mone y forthe hospital,” Schaefer said, adding that Nixon’s veto probablyg would kill the entire $200 million project. “Spending public funds on a cancer hospital owned by the citizenz of Missouri is always going to win out over giving publicx funds to a private company for abattert plant,” Schaefer said. “Nobody has told me that the lowerr amount wouldkill (Kokam’s Lee’s Summit) project.” Nixo n spokesman Scott Holste said the governor will have an announcement aboutt the budget bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’z fiscal year.
Nixon and his stafrf have been reviewing the budgettbill “line by line to determine what the stats can afford,” Holste said, and they want to keep central servicees in place. Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thought Schaefer’s proposal was “not as a threat as the EDC first “but you never know in politics.” The EDC issued a release Friday encouraging Nixon to keep theKokak plant’s financing fully in place.