Indianapolis Taxpayers Now Being Asked To Pay Carson's To Stay In Circle Centre Mall

There is simply no end to the greed and selfishness of the Simon family. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were poured into Circle Centre Mall for the benefit of Simon Property Group. Taxpayers were forced to give up a prime piece of one of the few green spaces in downtown across the street from the State House for the billionaire Simons to erect their new office tower, along with about $25 million in public subsidies and free parking for their employees to boot. And forget the more than $200 million taxpayers have been forced to subsidize billionaire Herb Simon's Indiana Pacers. The Simons' private endeavors have been subsidized to the tune of over a half billion dollars to date. It's not enough. You're now being asked to pay $450,000 over a three-year period to keep Carson Pirie Scott from closing its doors. Nordstrom's, which paid no rent for its anchor spot in the mall, pulled out just ahead of the Super Bowl. And that's just for starts until a permanent deal can be worked out.

DMD Director Adam Thies tells WTHR's Mary Milz it would be "devastating" to downtown if Carson's pulled out of the mall. The unelected Metropolitan Development Commission is scheduled to vote on the taxpayer subsidy at its December 17 meeting. According to Milz' report, Simon Property Group is sharing in the cost of the subsidy. Yeah, right. What's that supposed to mean when Carson's doesn't even pay rent for its anchor position in the mall? So we're paying their share of maintenance fees as a mall tenant? Where does it end?

Downtown has been subsidized billions of dollars at the expense of the rest of the City, which is falling apart in many areas and in dire need of city assistance. We hear a constant drumbeat from the downtown mafia of how much all of these investments in downtown are paying off, particularly the investments in the Colts, Pacers and downtown convention business. Yet all of that traffic and spending they're supposedly generating downtown isn't enough to provide adequate revenues to keep the mall's rent-free anchor tenant in business. It is absolute insanity. At what point do the taxpayers rise up and revolt against these corrupt bastards who keep stealing are public tax dollars to give away to their cronies stuffing money in their campaign pockets?