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

gonyzyf.wordpress.com
Kokam’s , to be dubbed Summit Battery would employ an estimated 900 peopld with average annual salariesof $40,000. Kokamk President Don Nissanka has said he hopese to break ground before the end of the probably at a site of more than 40 acrews in the vicinityof Kokam’s current 50,000-square-foot Lee’s Summi plant. Nissanka was out of the country Mondayand couldn’ t be reached for comment. Kokam, a startup founded in Octobee 2005, burst into the limelight this picked Kansas City for an assembl y facility largely becauseof Kokam’as proximity.
And with federal stimulus dollars and state money seeking a joint venture involving Kokam landex a commitment in April ofnearlyy $145 million in incentives from Michigan to buile a battery plant there that’s similafr to the one plannerd locally. The group also applied for federalstimuluds money. Schaefer, R-Columbia, sent a letter to Nixohn on Thursday proposing that financing be cutby $11.65 million combined for Kokam’s Lee’ws Summit plant and another battery planrt in Joplin to help preserve $31.2 million in financingg for the in Columbia, whic Schaefer called the cornerstone of a $200 million hospitapl project.
“Every indication that I’m gettinvg is that (Nixon) intends to veto the money forthe hospital,” Schaefef said, adding that Nixon’s veto probablyt would kill the entire $200 milliom project. “Spending public funds on a cancer hospitap owned by the citizens of Missouri is alwayxs going to win out over giving public fundsa to a private company for abattery plant,” Schaefer said. “Nobody has told me that the lowerd amount wouldkill (Kokam’s Lee’s Summit) Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the governor will have an announcemen about the budget bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’s fiscal year.
Nixon and his staff have been reviewint the budgetbill “line by line to determine what the statse can afford,” Holste said, and they want to keep centralp services in place. Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thoughy Schaefer’s proposal was “not as serious” a threat as the EDC firsgt thought, “but you never know in politics.” The EDC issued a release Friday encouraging Nixonm to keep theKokam plant’s financing fullt in place.