by Randy Garbin

[This notice was emailed out to over 350 registered members of RoadsideOnline.com]

I don't like to write these letters, but this is one of some urgency.

On Saturday night, National Public Radio aired a piece on "Weekend All Things Considered" about Haven Brother's Diner and used Daniel Zilka as their resident "diner expert" in the piece. They have also put him on their website with links to his bogus museum. As of tonight, Saturday, July 8 at 7:30, you can still see it at www.npr.org. Please call National Public Radio at 202-513-2000 and ask for Debbie Elliot and tell her that she has potentially caused great harm to the cause of diner preservation.

It's one thing when small-market newspapers with rookie reporters write glowing pieces about Zilka, it's quite another when an internationally respected news organization like NPR does it.

We need to inform them in no uncertain terms that what they have done was to propagate an ongoing fraud being inflicted upon the preservation community.

As most of you know, I have published my ongoing investigation of Mr. Zilka's activities on our website. I know that I have received considerable criticism in some camps for my efforts, but I can assure you that I expended considerable resources to ensure the integrity of this investigation. I have NEVER published anything I did not believe to be true. Nothing else I have ever published was more thoroughly researched. I used extreme caution composing every word because of what was at stake. The fact that it has remained on my site for more than three years without a challenge or a response from Mr. Zilka should speak for itself. I have repeatedly invited him to provide his side of the story. To date, he has not even sent me a "no comment."

That invitation remains open.

I have always believed in the value of preservation, and that to drape one's self in that mantle and deliberately act with opposite intention is at the very least a crime against our culture.

To put it simply, Mr. Zilka's activities have hurt people. He has mislead, obfuscated, and directly and indirectly destroyed diners. He has made himself the pariah of the preservation community. NO ONE who has actually contributed anything substantial to the body of research or who has conducted actual restoration will have anything to do with this individual.

To call yourself the "director" or now the "acting director" of something called the American Diner Museum conveys a credential to the unsuspecting potential donors of artifacts and money. After all, to most people, what possible controversy could be behind saving diners? When that controversy amounts to the flagrant abuse of a 501c3 non-profit status, the amassing of nearly a quarter million dollars in diner-related ephemera, and the deliberate lying to the media about a future opening date, then the public needs to know.

I am asking you as a true friend of diner preservation to please call National Public Radio at 202-513-2000 and ask for Debbie Elliot, the reporter and host of Weekend All Things Considered and at the very least suggest that she do her homework and remove all mention of Mr. Zilka and his fraud from the NPR website. If you have any personal experiences with Mr. Zilka, by all means, relate those as well.

Feel free to call her attention to my website and investigation at www.dinermuseum.COM. I've already done this, but she needs to hear from a LOT of people on this, so that she is aware of the outrage.

Thank you.

Please spread this email around to others you know who will be similarly concerned and will be motivated to take action.

Regards,

Randy Garbin