Members of Vancouver municipal political party, the Non-Partisan Association (NPA), have voted against a proposal to change its name to Vancouver First at a general party meeting held Wednesday evening.
When BIV first reported in March that the NPA was mulling a name change, NPA president Michael Davis explained that some party members felt the party’s name – and the fact that it begins with a negative prefix – may give voters the impression that the party doesn’t have any core values.
He said: “The NPA does have core values and core beliefs, and I think that’s what we would have to build any new brand around.”
Davis wrote on his blog following the party’s 36 to six vote against renaming the party that, “Now it is time to focus on our real job: finding excellent candidates to run in the 2011 election and helping them get elected.”
In a letter to supporters before the meeting, Suzanne Anton, who was the only NPA member to win a Vancouver city council seat in the last election, said it would be an odd time to change the name, given that the party is actively putting together a team to run in the November 2011 civic election.
“It is important, however, to change some of the negative public perception which the NPA faced in the last election, and to once again present a positive Vancouver-focused team.”
Michael Geller, who was among the unsuccessful NPA candidates that ran for city council last election, was an early supporter of changing the party name.
“I ran for the NPA as a genuinely non-partisan person, and people, of course, laughed at the fact that you can be non-partisan and run for the NPA,” said Geller in March. “We have to change that.”
To learn more about the debate on the value of the NPA brand, see “NPA mulls makeover and rebranding for next municipal election in Vancouver” – issue 1066; March 30-April 5.