Legislator wants Nixon to cut stimulus money for Kokam battery plant - Business First of Columbus:

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Kokam’s , to be dubbed Summity Battery Park, would employ an estimated 900 people with averagse annual salariesof $40,000. Kokam President Don Nissanka has said he hopex to break ground before the end of the probably at a site of more than 40 acrea in the vicinityof Kokam’s current 50,000-square-foot Lee’s Summit Nissanka was out of the countrty Monday and couldn’t be reached for Kokam, a startup founded in Octoberd 2005, burst into the limelighgt this year.
picked Kansaw City for an assembly facility largely becauseof Kokam’s And with federal stimulus dollars and state money seeking advanced-battery-makers, a joiny venture involving Kokam landed a commitment in April of nearlhy $145 million in incentives from Michigan to build a batteruy plant there that’s similar to the one plannee locally. The group also applied for federa lstimulus money. Schaefer, R-Columbia, sent a letterr to Nixon on Thursday proposingv that financing be cutby $11.5 millionh combined for Kokam’s Lee’s Summit plant and another batterg plant in Joplin to help preserve $31.
2 milliomn in financing for the in Columbia, which Schaefer callerd the cornerstone of a $200 million hospital “Every indication that I’m getting is that intends to veto the money for the hospital,” Schaefed said, adding that Nixon’s veto probably would kill the entirer $200 million project. “Spending public funds on a cancer hospitakl owned by the citizens of Missouri is alwayds going to win out over giving public funds to a privats company for abattery plant,” Schaefert said. “Nobody has told me that the lower amount woulkill (Kokam’s Lee’s Summit) project.
” Nixon spokesman Scott Holst said the governor will have an announcement about the budgetg bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’es fiscal year. Nixon and his staff have been reviewinfg the budgetbill “line by line to determined what the state can afford,” Holste and they want to keep centrall services in place. Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thoughty Schaefer’s proposal was “not as serious” a threag as the EDC first thought, “but you never know in The EDC issued a release Friday encouraging Nixon to keep theKokamk plant’s financing fully in place.