Vision Vancouver councillor George Chow isn’t comfortable that some key members of his party have come out early to openly endorse their preferred candidate for mayor.

Councillors Tim Stevenson and Heather Deal, and Vision Vancouver executive member Greg Wilson, are supporting NDP Vancouver-Fairview MLA Gregor Robertson. Another executive member, Marcella Munro, emceed the launch of Robertson’s nomination campaign.

And yet another member of Vision Vancouver’s executive, Mike Bruce, is involved in councillor Raymond Louie’s campaign to secure the party’s support as its mayoral candidate.

“I actually disagree with this kind of party-endorsement thing so early in the game,” Chow told the Straight. A respected figure in the Chinese community, Chow hasn’t come out in support of either Robertson, Louie, or Allan De Genova, the third candidate seeking the party’s endorsement.

De Genova has previously noted to the Straight that, unlike Robertson and Louie, he has no one openly identified with him who is sitting on the Vision Vancouver board.

“We also have people [on the board] who do not take sides, and they may be the ones who are most suited to run the [nominating] election, right?” Chow noted of the planned June 15 Vision nomination meeting. “The board ultimately decides on the procedure, and I hope that it would certainly be an impartial thing.”

Referring to Stevenson and Deal’s endorsement of Robertson, Chow remarked: “As an elective official, you want to be more impartial at the earlier [part] of the game.”