The Hyack Festival Association is considering legal action against the former coordinator of its Miss New Westminster Ambassador program.
Hyack president Peter Goodwin isn’t impressed that former coordinator Lynn Radbourne is helping to launch a new New Westminster Youth Ambassador Program.
“I could not believe she went forward with that. I’ll tell you in a nutshell the reason why: she has got all Hyack’s material, all our information, all our confidential stuff that she’s been using while she’s been on Hyack for the last several years,” he told The Record. “Then she has the gall to make an appearance before city council to denigrate Hyack in front of them and in front of the public – and she is using Hyack’s assets, Hyack’s proprietary assets and information to do that. I think that is just terrible.”
Goodwin is unhappy with Radbourne’s efforts to establish a new ambassador program.
“You can’t have somebody else competing with us when they are using our assets to do that,” he said. “They learned everything, they know everything from working for Hyack – now they are using it against us. I’ve got a problem with that.”
Goodwin, who was recently elected as Hyack’s new president, said Hyack is looking to leave its troubles behind. He’s written to city council to let them know Hyack is “ready to go” and to alert the city to potential problems with the new ambassador program.
“She cannot do this using our assets, our proprietary information. I have told them if she insists on doing so that we will take action against Lynn,” Goodwin said. “We wrote Lynn nice letters in the fall saying you have to return this stuff. She completely ignored us. Now she is using it against us. That’s just not fair.”
Radbourne received a copy of the letter Goodwin sent to the City of New Westminster.
“I don’t have anything. If they want to get a search warrant and search my house, I don’t know how many ways I can tell them I don’t have anything,” she said. “What I did have in regard to applications from the girls, I always shred and destroy as soon as the girls are accepted.”
Radbourne said the only items she has are souvenirs from pageants she’s attended with the Miss New Westminster ambassadors through the years.
“I emailed him back and said if you are talking about the souvenir programs I have had from pageants I have attended, those are my personal souvenir programs. If that’s what you want back, then good luck Charlie Brown,” she said. “I am like any other citizen of New Westminster who would save a program as a souvenir.”
Radbourne said she has no documents related to the Miss New Westminster Ambassador program. Having coordinated the program in the 1990s, she said Rick Molstad asked herself and Tammy Goodwin to take over the program in 2011.
“I received no manuals, no nothing. Whether or not Tammy did, I have no idea because I was never ever privy to that,” she told The Record. “I do know for a fact there is a manual at the office because I had seen it in Douglas (Smith’s) office, on his shelf.”
Radbourne said she never read the manual to coordinate the Miss New Westminster Ambassador program, as she gleaned information by talking to other coordinators of other programs.
“I don’t even know what is in that manual. I never looked at it. I never needed it. Doing the ambassador program for so long, I can do it in my sleep,” she said. “I don’t need a manual to go by.”
Radbourne said she didn’t put down the Miss New Westminster Ambassador program when speaking to council. She told council she thought it was more important for ambassadors to be traveling in B.C. representing New Westminster than waiting in a field with the float waiting to be judged at parades in the United States.
“There is no way I said anything disparaging about Hyack,” she said. “We are not competing with their program. This is a different type of program we are building.”
A day after making her presentation to council, a donor provided a donation to help with one of the scholarships being offered as part of the new program.
“I have already had three kids express interest in this new program because it’s going to be different,” she said. “It is not going to be a competition. We are not going to have a selection evening. We will have a selection process for the kids. – I don’t want anybody in there who is just in it for a lark. What we are trying to do, it’s not just me, I have a committee who are very interested in doing this, I cannot see what the problem is about having two programs. They represent Hyack and the city in the States. That’s part of their mandate belonging to Northwest Hosting. We probably won’t be going to the states. I would say 99.9 per cent sure we would never go into the states.
What I am interested is bringing the kids around to British Columbia and represent our city in British Columbia and the Lower Mainland, to teach them some skills.
Radbourne said she would like Hyack to tell her exactly what documents it is seeking, noting she has no manuals or correspondence related to the Miss New Westminster Ambassador program.
“I have none of that,” she said. “Anything that I had with regard to the girls application, that was all shredded.”
Radbourne said she is “appalled” at how she is being bullied and isn’t pleased that people are saying “libelous” things about her.
“Isn’t this a free society? If it wasn’t me who wanted to do an alternate program, if it was Jane Smith down the street, they wouldn’t be saying anything,” she said. “But because it’s me, it’s a personal vendetta.”
According to Radbourne, she received a letter from Hyack stating that she had been let go as the Miss New Westminster Ambassador program coordinator on because she had had aligned herself with the “wrong faction” of the embattled association.
