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

http://www.jekotia.net/mt-bin/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&id=5&blog_id=5
Kokam’s , to be dubbef Summit Battery Park, would employ an estimatedc 900 people with average annual salariesof $40,000. Kokanm President Don Nissanka has said he hopes to breako ground before the end ofthe year, probablg at a site of more than 40 acreds in the vicinity of Kokam’ s current 50,000-square-foot Lee’s Summit plant. Nissanka was out of the countru Mondayand couldn’t be reached for Kokam, a startup founded in Octoberf 2005, burst into the limelighty this year. picked Kansase City for an assembly facility largelhy becauseof Kokam’s proximity.
And with federal stimulue dollars and state money seeking a joint venture involving Kokam landex a commitment in April ofnearly $145 million in incentivees from Michigan to build a batteryu plant there that’s similar to the one planned locally. The groupp also applied for federalstimulues money. Schaefer, R-Columbia, sent a letter to Nixohn on Thursday proposing that financing be cutby $11.r5 million combined for Kokam’s Lee’es Summit plant and another battery plant in Jopli n to help preserve $31.2 million in financing for the in Columbia, whicyh Schaefer called the cornerstone of a $200 milliobn hospital project.
“Every indication that I’m getting is that intends to veto the money forthe hospital,” Schaefer adding that Nixon’s veto probably would kill the entire $200 million project. “Spendingb public funds on a cancer hospital ownef by the citizens of Missouri is always goingy to win out over giving publicc funds to a privatse company for abattery plant,” Schaefer said. “Nobody has told me that the lowee amount wouldkill (Kokam’s Lee’s Summit) Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the governor will have an announcemenf about the budget bill before June 30, the end of Missouri’s fiscal year.
Nixon and his stafdf have been reviewing the budgetbill “line by line to determine what the stat can afford,” Holste said, and they want to keep centralk services in place. Jim Devine, CEO of the l, said he thought Schaefer’s proposal was “not as a threat as the EDC first thought, “but you nevere know in politics.” The EDC issued a release Friday encouraging Nixom to keep theKokam plant’s financing fully in