Vancouver city hall will almost certainly find itself in a legal battle with police officers if the Non-Partisan Association retains control of council and continues to expand the Downtown Ambassadors program.

Tom Stamatakis, president of the Vancouver Police Union, told the Straight his organization will revive a suit it filed in January before the B.C. Supreme Court that sought to overturn a council decision allocating $872,000 in taxpayers’ funds to the expansion of the private security program.

NPA mayoral candidate Peter Ladner has promised in his platform to extend the presence of the red-jacketed security guards to new areas.

“I can tell you that if the NPA councillors are reelected, and they continue to have a majority in council and they intend to expand the program, then certainly we’ll follow up, because I still have a number of concerns around the use of tax dollars to fund that program,” Stamatakis said.

Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson has pledged to roll back the Ambassadors expansion. This means the suit, which Stamatakis said his union is withdrawing for now, won’t be refiled if Vision gains control of council.

“If the Vision group gets elected and we see a new mayor on that side, well, they’ve been quite clear that they don’t think it’s appropriate for tax dollars to be used to fund what are essentially private security guards working for only a very small constituency in the city,” Stamatakis said.