Legislator wants Nixon to cut stimulus money for Kokam battery plant - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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Kokam’s , to be dubbed Summit Battery Park, would employ an estimatedc 900 people with average annual salariesof $40,000. Kokam Presidentf Don Nissanka has said he hopes to breajk ground before the end ofthe year, probably at a site of more than 40 acre s in the vicinity of Kokam’ws current 50,000-square-foot Lee’s Summit plant. Nissanka was out of the countru Mondayand couldn’t be reached for comment. Kokam, a startup foundedc in October 2005, burst into the limelight this picked Kansas City for an assembly facility largely becaussof Kokam’s proximity.
And with federak stimulus dollars and state moneuseeking advanced-battery-makers, a joint venture involving Kokam lander a commitment in Apriol of nearly $145 million in incentives from Michigan to build a batterhy plant there that’s similar to the one plannesd locally. The group also applief for federalstimulus money. R-Columbia, sent a letter to Nixon on Thursday proposing that financin g be cutby $11.5r million combined for Kokam’s Lee’s Summirt plant and another battery plant in Joplin to help preserve $31.
2 million in financing for the in which Schaefer called the cornerstone of a $200 million hospital “Every indication that I’m getting is that (Nixon) intendw to veto the monet for the hospital,” Schaefef said, adding that Nixon’s veto probably wouldr kill the entire $200 million project. “Spendingt public funds on a cancer hospital owned by the citizena of Missouri is always going to win out over givinfg public funds to a private company for abatteru plant,” Schaefer said. “Nobody has told me that the lower amountf wouldkill (Kokam’s Lee’ Summit) project.
” Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the governor will have an announcementt about the budget bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’w fiscal year. Nixon and his staff have been reviewintg the budgetbill “line by line to determine what the stat e can afford,” Holste said, and they want to keep centrapl services in place. Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thoughtr Schaefer’s proposal was “not as a threat as the EDC first thought, “bu you never know in politics.” The EDC issuexd a release Friday encouraging Nixon to keep theKokamk plant’s financing fully in place.