In a courtroom in Kankakee County, Illinois, residents with the group Concerned Citizens of Manteno are trying to force a Chinese battery plant out of their community.

Barred by Illinois law from recalling the officials who approved the deal, they have taken the one route left—a lawsuit, now in its third year, alleging that the Gotion factory on the edge of their village is a fire and chemical hazard prohibited by the town’s code.

Local officials negotiated an agreement that would cap Gotion’s taxes at $2 million per year for 30 years, regardless of how much the plant produces. Only about 7 percent of that money would go to a local fire department now tasked with protecting the town in the event of a lithium battery fire.

The residents of this small Illinois community are not the only ones who are wary. Gotion is the U.S. arm of a battery maker whose Chinese parent’s corporate documents describe a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee and party branches. It has met strong resistance elsewhere in the United States.

Michigan declared Gotion in default on a separate project and is trying to claw back roughly $24 million. Congress has barred the Pentagon from buying the company’s batteries beginning in October 2027. A new federal tax law moved to strip it of the credits most American battery plants depend on.

The state of Illinois is the exception—it welcomed the plant as the largest electric vehicle battery investment in state history and has paid Gotion $165 million in cash.

‘Project Unity’

The deal was negotiated under a nondisclosure agreement that kept the company’s name from the public for more than a year, according to records reviewed by The Epoch Times. Manteno’s residents found out about the Gotion agreement as it was being signed.

The hunt for a site ran through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and a private site consultant, under a nondisclosure agreement that the county’s economic development group signed in September 2022—more than a year before the deal was announced.

An official from that group—the Economic Alliance of Kankakee County—later testified that the agreement never named the company. Even the group’s own slide presentation laying out the tax break, which residents obtained through records requests, never says “Gotion.” Instead, the document is titled “Project Unity.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced the deal at a September 2023 “powering up” event in Manteno.

By then, Amanda Piker, a Manteno nurse, had already started filing records requests after asking about Gotion on the village’s Facebook page and getting no clear answer.

The records Piker obtained show that the village spent public money on a Chicago public relations firm, Jasculca Terman Strategic Communications. The firm was brought in as the rezoning moved through town hall in late 2023—after the project was public and residents had begun to organize against it.

What Michigan Did

Gotion’s first planned U.S. factory was in Green Charter Township, Michigan. Residents there stopped it before the company could break ground—not in court, but at the ballot box.

Green Charter Township residents recalled their entire township board. Voters similarly recalled the supervisor of a neighboring township over his support for the project. And newly elected Mecosta County commissioners—who had run on their opposition to Gotion—then withdrew support for the planned factory.

In response, Gotion sued the township in March 2024 and won a preliminary injunction that cleared its way. Despite this, it never broke ground.

No Way to Recall

Manteno’s residents cannot do what Michigan’s did, but most don’t learn that until they go looking.

The Illinois Constitution lets voters recall exactly one official—the governor—with a power that voters added to the state constitution in 2010. It says nothing about mayors, village trustees, or county board members. Towns can write their own recall rules, and almost none have.

There’s another obvious difference. Gotion never broke ground in Michigan, but in Manteno, it moved into an existing building. So when the fight began, the company was already inside.

The Epoch Times sought comment from Gotion and its attorneys, the village of Manteno, and B&F Construction Code Services, the firm that handles the village’s plan reviews. No response was received by publication time.

—Sean Tseng; Stacy Robinson

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