Good evening everyone!
Well, things certainly took an interesting turn over the past couple weeks, when a person/persons decided that it was appropriate to post some questions on a website they created specifically to express their apparent concerns with the
Queen City Cruise In, and questioning our relationship with the
Chili for Children program. What began as one person asking a pretty legitimate question erupted into what has been dubbed "
#Chiligate" on Twitter.
If you don't have Twitter yet, you miss a lot of the more interesting debates and subjects that get talked about outside of mainstream media; especially when it comes to the subject of our President,
Chad Novak. For those that aren't aware,
Mr. Novak ran for Mayor of Regina in 2012, and garnered a reputation for being "
unruly" at times,
questioning the motives of certain elected officials and certainly not backing down to a good debate on heated subjects. This has since resulted in the creation of many "
Parody" Twitter Accounts by a number of individuals (
or perhaps just one person managing several accounts?) with the obvious intention of taking away any credibility that Mr. Novak was able to gain during the Municipal Election of 2012, thus putting his career and reputation on the line, with no apparent remorse from those individuals. As it stands right now, those individuals continue to harass and malign Mr. Novak on a daily basis on Twitter, but the proper authorities
have been notified and hopefully this situation will be resolved in the near future.
Now, getting to the questions that were posed by the initiator of this "
#Chiligate scandal":
These were what were posed to Mr. Novak:
- How many
people that can be considered a 'at-risk youth' volunteered or were employed
for the Queen City Cruise In?
- How did the Queen City Cruise In display Regina's automotive heritage?
- Considering its size, why do you feel there was a general lack of participation
in the Queen City Cruise In from the local automotive industry?
- Why was the executive decision to donate $1 from every monster truck ride to
Chili for Children reversed?
- Why was the $1/ride claim deleted from public view on your blogsite, and when
did that action take place?
- How much money will be held in trust for Chili for Children, not including what
your household or organization may have contributed? Is it $12?
- Is it true you have or had plans to become President of the Racing Auto Racing
Club?
- Are the grant application's revenue and expense tables posted on NovakUncovered
true to what was submitted to city hall by Prairie Soul Productions?
- If so, can you explain the decision to specifically budget $25,000 for Prairie
Soul Productions staff costs?
- What comments would you like to make regarding the 2013 multi stream grant
application?
- Will there be a 2014 Queen City Cruise In?
To which Mr. Novak has sent a reply this weekend, which seems satisfactory to the individual that requested the above information:
While I do not feel that I need
to defend my actions in any way to yourself, I certainly can appreciate the
nature of your questions, and would much rather you have asked them to me in person
prior to any publishing of this material. If you feel you did ask
these already, I apologize for I do not recall that. I hope you can appreciate
that I do not set every conversation I have with everyone to memory, and I
shouldn't be expected to remember every discussion I had with individuals in
the past.
As you can appreciate, there are many individuals in Regina and in the
"twitterverse" that wait for anything to jump on in
order to put my credibility and reputation into jeopardy. While you (or
whomever you provide the information to) did put a disclaimer on the
website that you do not support these actions by those individuals, any
reasonable person would deduce that the simple act of publishing these
questions on a publicly-accessible website would provide enough fodder for
those individuals meaning to cause me nothing but harm.
As such, I ask that you
immediately cause removal of the novakuncovered.blog.ca
website until such time that you and I are able to meet in person and
discuss these issues like rational human beings. No hidden recorders, no
ulterior motives, just simple honest questions and answers provided. I would
hope that you understand from your past interactions with me, that you know my
intentions have always been for the best. While the end result of the event
certainly wasn't what I had originally planned and hoped for, I would hope that
you can appreciate that, had the requested funding fallen into place (from
the variety of organizations approached, not just the City), those promises
put into writing could have been followed through on. Also, had I
had the continued and promised volunteer support of people like yourself, I
wouldn't have had to bear the burden of handling those extra tasks, in addition
to my own, often last minute. While my intentions were pure for this entire
event, the end result certainly wasn't what I was hoping to provide. I do
not deny this. Was it overpromising and underdelivering? Absolutely.
Was it deliberate? Absolutely not. Overpromising is a common
trait of mine that I must work to correct, but as I've stated to you before,
you can't accomplish big things without thinking big. Perhaps you feel
this is the wrong way to approach life, but just because you have a different
opinion than I do on that, does not mean that I am a bad person by default.
In the end, while I appreciate
your attempt here to somehow try to force me to justify what happened from the
Queen City Cruise In, you need to look at the fact that the 2013 event is done.
Yes, I published the $1 per ride in one press release. Yes, I
went and edited my blog because I honestly didn't want to give my
detractors any more fuel for the fire, so they can use this to publicly
malign me any further than they already have. Was I wrong in doing that?
Perhaps. But, consider the fact that no one had raised any
issue about this before the novakuncovered website raised the question, and
thus, it would be reasonable to assume that the mere mention of that in one
unpublished press release (by unpublished I mean the press didn't do
anything with it) did not cause any member of the general public to think
that any monies from the Monster Truck rides, several months later,
would be donated to any charitable causes. I took a large personal financial
loss because of sponsors not fullfilling their verbal commitments. Was this my
fault? Absolutely not. I have documented evidence of at least two
sponsors/participants being approached by individuals other than yourself that
"warned" them of dealing with "someone like me" and how
"crazy" I am. When I mentioned "people like you" on that
blog post, it was just that, people LIKE you, not necessarily you. My intent by
that statement was speaking about people trying to "warn" spoonsors
about my actions and intentions. It was not to imply that your specific actions
caused anyone to pull sponsorship monies from the event itself. If that is how
you took it, I apologize.
I want to make it perfectly clear
that I have no intentions, at this time, to pursue any legal action
against you personally for anything related on the novakuncovered
website. My posting that day was talking about the constant harassing behaviour
by individuals on Twitter and other forums, which has been reported to the
proper authorities for further investigation. Any legal action that I may take
against those individuals (you're not included in this potential list
at this time) is to be determined at a later date, depending on the outcome
of the investigation.
Thank you for your time and
consideration of this matter. I trust that this can be resolved in a reasonable
fashion, and in a reasonable timeframe. Please do have consideration for the
fact that I do have other priorities in life that I cannot dedicate my
immediate attention to your questions that you may post or email to me.
Best Regards,
Chad A. Novak, CMA
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