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

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Kokam’s , to be dubbed Summig Battery Park, would employ an estimatefd 900 people with average annual salariesof $40,000. Kokam President Don Nissankwa has said he hopes to break groundd before the end ofthe year, probably at a site of more than 40 acrezs in the vicinity of Kokam’d current 50,000-square-foot Lee’s Summit plant. Nissanka was out of the countr y Mondayand couldn’t be reached for Kokam, a startup founded in October 2005, burstg into the limelight this year. picked Kansa s City for an assemblyg facility largely becauseof Kokam’se proximity.
And with federal stimulusa dollars and state moneyseeking advanced-battery-makers, a joint venture involving Kokam landeds a commitment in April of nearly $145 millioh in incentives from Michigan to build a batteryg plant there that’s similar to the one planned locally. The grouo also applied for federalstimuluds money. Schaefer, R-Columbia, sent a letter to Nixo on Thursday proposing that financing be cutby $11.5 million combined for Kokam’s Lee’s Summigt plant and another battery planr in Joplin to help preserve $31.2 million in financinfg for the in Columbia, which Schaefere called the cornerstone of a $200 millionj hospital project.
“Every indication that I’m gettinyg is that (Nixon) intends to veto the moneyy forthe hospital,” Schaefer said, adding that Nixon’sw veto probably would kill the entiree $200 million project. “Spending publix funds on a cancer hospital ownerd by the citizens of Missouri is always going to win out over givin g public funds to a private companty for abattery plant,” Schaefe r said. “Nobody has told me that the lowefr amount wouldkill (Kokam’s Lee’s project.” Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the governor will have an announcemengt about the budget bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’zs fiscal year.
Nixon and his staff have been reviewinf the budgetbill “line by line to determinwe what the state can afford,” Holste and they want to keep central services in Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thought Schaefer’es proposal was “not as a threat as the EDC firsf thought, “but you never know in politics.” The EDC issued a releas e Friday encouraging Nixon to keep the Kokam plant’x financing fully in place.