Kite Rewards Peterson For His Generosity With Your Tax Dollars

Bart Peterson was very good to Kite Realty when he was Indianapolis mayor. He gave the large contributor to his campaign committee $25 million to build the 23-story Conrad Hilton building downtown and another $6.5 million to help bail out the company's struggling Glendale Mall on the city's north side. Indianapolis taxpayers got stuck with the bill in the form of a 65% increase in the local income tax to cover all the property tax diversions to the TIF funds, also known as the mayor's slush fund, which are used to subsidize businesses like Kite that seek public subsidies for their private development projects.

Today, the IBJ informs us that Peterson, now an Eli Lilly vice president, has been appointed to the board of trustees for the realty's trust group. Peterson will be paid $42,500 annually to serve on the board, and he'll be receiving first-year stock awards worth $62,000. It really pays for our politicians to be generous when it comes to handing out our tax dollars to favored businesses. There's always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for them. For the rest of us, there's just a tab to pick up in the form of higher taxes.