Carlito Pablo offers Ladner’s ousting of Sullivan as an explanation for the NPA defeat [“Coup blamed for NPA loss”, November 20-27]. Recent history provides a reason for both a West Side drop in NPA turnout and for a dramatic shift away from the NPA in an increased East Side immigrant vote. A sudden mass-rezoning proposal that violated the city council–approved Renfrew-Collingwood Community Visions provoked the June 2007 formation of Norquay Neighbours. That group’s first public action saw about 40 people, diverse in age and ethnicity, picketing and leafleting the city’s June 23, 2007, EcoDensity forum.

In that setting, Norquay residents established connections with other anxious neighborhoods from across Vancouver and found ongoing support for their opposition to a reckless EcoDensity. Acquaintances developed further during the unprecedented seven nights of public hearings on EcoDensity in the spring of 2008 at City Hall. Not voting for and voting against are two sides of the same ballot.

> Joseph Jones / Vancouver