From the Argus Leader and KELO-TV;

The Ground Round Restaurant was closed April 1, putting 54 employees out of work.

The restaurant at 1301 W. 41st St. was shut down at the direction of MinnWest Bank of Sioux Falls, which owns the land and building, restaurant general manager Dan Dammer said.

The business had been operated by United Enterprises GR LLC, which is co-owned by businessman Kent Vucurevich. He has been battling financial problems.

Notice that Costello lists United Enterprises GR LLC as one of his business ventures in his first financial report;

So if Kent isn’t paying the bills are his business partners? Maybe someone should ask Costello about it?

UPDATE:

A reporter sent me this info today;

Costello told me Kent asked him to help manage the restaurant in 2008. He helped out for four months, but after realizing it was a mess got out of that deal in December 2008. The only reason he put it on his financial report is because the report asked for any business ventures he had been involved in during the past year, which would have been from August 2008 to August 2009.

When combing through the court papers about the foreclosure of the restaurant Kent Vucurevich and Colin Steen were the only two mentioned in all of the filings concerning the Ground Round.

We debated long and hard yesterday about whether we should include Costello in the story or not. We ultimately decided not to include him because he was not involved in any of the legal proceedings or involved when Vucurevich and Steen started going into foreclosure.

While this is good news for Pat, it still doesn’t change the fact that Pat has done business with Kent in the past. It makes you wonder what other scrupulous characters Pat does business with?

3 Thoughts on “Is it time for Costello to come clean on his association with Kent Vucurevich (H/T – Poly)

  1. Costner on April 2, 2010 at 2:32 pm said:

    The fact is he has a relationship with Vucurevich and it should be disclosed. He can claim he “helped out” but he was obviously profitting from both investments. If Vucurevich only asked him to help out, why was he collecting investment income from 41st Real Estate Holdings LLC which owned the physical property? I can see Vucurevich giving him a minority stake in the resturaunt if he could turn things around, but why was he affiliated with the actual real estate property?

    I’m going to have to see some documentation with verifiable dates before I believe this story. Seems like someone is just trying to cover for Costello.

    Perhaps a more interesting question is, if Costello is elected Mayor is he going to head into that office… find out it is a mess, and then resign right away after four months? Do we want the type of guy who ‘pulls a Palin’ and gives up when the going gets tough just because everything wasn’t perfect?

    If he can’t turn a 50 employee resturaunt around and make it profitable, what reason is there to believe he can run a whole city with thousands of employees and a budget of over $300 Million?

    The risk is too great – and if the voters knew this information I’m quite sure they would agree. The Argus, KELO, and all the other media outlets have a duty to report the whole truth and inform us instead of dancing around the issue until after the election and it is too late.

  2. Plaintiff Guy on April 2, 2010 at 3:16 pm said:

    Costner makes sense.

    I’m sure Argus/KELO are worried about defamation. Nevertheless, give a mention and connections to this local scam. Seems not long ago that a scoop such as this would put a gleam in a reporters eyes and sell media. Now, there’s this network of local fat cats everyone is afraid of.

    Being involved with the real estate but not the operation is suspicious. Did this happen after the restaurant got into trouble. Are the land assets being kept aside from bankruptcy?

    If it looks and acts like a criminal, it’s a criminal.

    The problem here is the mayor is absolute dictator with full control of city assets and budget. Part of the ballot (via city attorney’s explanation) gives the mayor full authority without any spending review by the council. There’s no such thing anywhere in the free world and there shouldn’t be here.

    Can’t we return to mayor and council system with access to the courts and constitutional liberty for the citizens? I really miss it.

  3. Plaintiff Guy on April 2, 2010 at 3:40 pm said:

    The reason to not vote for Castillo is he’ll be pulled into this ENRON. He has nothing to give the city if his time is defending himself. He’d be trusted with city assets and budget. Some of which will be diverted toward his defense. The mayor’soffice would become a keep out of jail card.

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