Once powerful NPA down to 1 council seat

Vancouver's Non Partisan Association was nearly wiped out in Saturday night's civic election.

The party that was once a civic powerhouse elected just one city councillor, one park board commissioner and two school board trustees.

NPA mayoral candidate Peter Ladner lost to Vision Vancouver's Gregor Robertson by nearly 19,000 votes.

Speaking to reporters Saturday night, Ladner said internal polls showed months ago the NPA was destined for a fall.

"The polling was looking very grim for the NPA, and that's why I took on the leadership to see if I could do better," Ladner said.

He stopped short of criticizing Vancouver's mayor-elect Gregor Robertson, but Ladner said it will be a matter of waiting to see if he can deliver on his campaign promises.

However,Robertson's loudest critic at NPA headquarters Saturday was Allan De Genova, who actually challenged Robertson for the Vision Vancouver mayoral nomination.

"Gregor Roberson?Nice guy, looks good, speaks well.Has zero experience, zero knowledge to find his way around town," De Genova said. "Thank God he has Raymond Louie and Geoff Meggs to run the show. But we got another Sam Sullivan a guy who is going to follow and not lead. But he looks good, and that's what people wanted."

De Genova was referring to long-time city councillor Raymond Louie, who was elected in 2002, and Geoff Meggs, a Vision Vancouver founding member and executive assistant to former mayor Larry Campbell who won a council seat Saturday night.

NPACoun. Suzanne Anton will go it alone on Vancouver city council against Vision Vancouver and COPE.

The city's secretive, in-cameravote to loan $100-million to the developerof the Olympic Athlete's Village hurt the NPA, Anton said.

She said Vision Vancouver was wrong toleak details of the loan negotiations to the public.

"I do think it had a lot of affect. It was, politically, obviously very clever, but did it have integrity? No. And was it good policy? Absolutely not," Anton said.

The NPA's showing Saturday night was even worse than it was in 2002 when Ladner and Sullivan were the only two councillors elected in a COPE landslide.