The tight race for Vision Vancouver's council slate has left less prominent aspirants like Philippines-born former health-workers'-union representative Rey Umlas fending for themselves in the face of cross-endorsements among the better-known contenders.

Umlas, a supporter of councillor Raymond Louie's failed bid for Vision's mayoral nomination, once served as a Filipino-community liaison for then–NDP premier Glen Clark. Umlas isn't among the four new council candidates being endorsed by Louie.

Louie said he is supporting the bids of Geoff Meggs, former executive assistant to then-mayor Larry Campbell; UBC medical professor Kerry Jang; former Vision executive Heather Harrison; and known federal Liberal supporter and South Asian community leader Kashmir Dhaliwal.

"He [Umlas] could be in there," Louie told the Straight on September 8, explaining that it depended on how many council candidates Vision would run.

Later that day, Vision and COPE released details of a tentative agreement, whereby Vision would run eight candidates for council and COPE two. With that slate configuration, Umlas won't likely be endorsed by Louie. The same could be said for other Vision council hopefuls, such as lawyer David Eby, Vancouver Pride Society board member Ray Lam, and education activist Catherine Evans.

On September 8, Vision mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson endorsed Louie and the three other Vision councillors: Tim Stevenson, Heather Deal, and George Chow.

As of September 9, there were 17 listed Vision hopefuls for the party's council slate.

Jang told the Straight that he has been promoting Meggs—who backed Louie's mayoral-nomination bid—when signing up supporters. But Meggs, according to Jang, won't be in the campaign materials that Jang, Dhaliwal, and Andrea Reimer will be sending out to their supporters, urging them to vote for all three.

Reimer, a former Green school trustee, cochaired Robertson's mayoral-nomination campaign. According to Jang, Meggs and Reimer aren't backing each other's council bid—at least not yet.