A new centre-right Vancouver civic party will have three incumbent councillors on its slate in the October election.

Rebecca Bligh, Lisa Dominato, and Sarah Kirby-Yung plan to seek reelection with ABC Vancouver, which was previously known as A Better City.

The party's mayoral candidate, businessman Ken Sim, headed the NPA slate in 2018, narrowly losing to Mayor Kennedy Stewart.

Sim was backed by wealthy businessmen Peter Armstrong and Chip Wilson when he sought the NPA mayoral nomination, winning comfortably that year over park commissioner John Coupar.

Bligh, Dominato, and Kirby-Yung were elected on the NPA slate in 2018 after being appointed as candidates by the board of directors.

Last year, Dominato and Kirby-Yung quit the caucus after the board announced that Coupar would be the mayoral candidate in 2022.

In 2019, Bligh quit the NPA caucus after new directors were elected with ties to conservative causes.

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Earlier this year, the trio of councillors hosted a forum on public safety. A Vancouver public-relations firm, the Pace Group, provided publicity for the event.

Later, the Pace Group's founder, Norman Stowe, informed the Straight that this was done on a voluntary basis. Around the same time, Dominato insisted in an interview with the Straight that the public forum was not a partisan political event in which the Pace Group was providing campaign services that needed to be reported to Elections B.C.

Stowe has managed political campaigns in the past, including the Non-Partisan Association's unsuccessful bid in 2011 to retake control of the city from Vision Vancouver.