The Jan. 23 Solvang City Council meeting was awkward. Awkward with a capital AWKWARD.
Newly elected City Councilmember Elizabeth Orona had to share the dais with the person she beat out to claim her seat on the city’s governing body. Why? Because her fellow council peeps voted to appoint that loser to fill a seat vacated by the recently elected mayor.
I know. It’s confusing!
Mark Infanti became mayor in January, leaving behind the two years remaining on his council member term. Someone has to finish out his term. Rather than holding a $40,000 special election, the City Council opted to appoint Robert Clarke to fill the vacancy. This is the very same Clarke who was unelected from his seat on the dais in November, rather than reelected—Elizabeth Orona beat him by 11 votes.
A real nail-biter!
Guess what? Elections apparently don’t matter! You can lose an election in the 4th District and have your friends pick you to fill an at-large seat. Lucky, plucky Clarke!
Some residents weren’t so happy about Clarke’s re-seating. They showed up to the Solvang City Council’s Jan. 23 meeting to complain and question the decision.
“The citizens of Solvang had a right to vote on who the next City Council person was going to be,” Sharon Price said. “It was such an important decision; it wasn’t treated as such.”
It is important, Sharon, and no, it wasn’t treated as something that mattered much at all.
In fact, it seemed like a rather vague decision and included some good ol’ fashioned Solvang intrigue. On Jan. 12, when the council made the appointment, Infanti originally sided with Elizabeth Orona—if you’re wondering why I keep using her full name, it’s because there’s another Orona on the council, Claudia Orona (no relation!)—to appoint one of the city’s current planning commissioners.
But apparently, after receiving a series of mysterious text messages that he was reading during the meeting, Infanti suddenly changed his mind.
“I keep getting interesting texts,” he said, without elaborating on what these texts entailed.
Seriously??! You can’t just say something like that and not spill the tea, Mr. Mayor. I know you’re new here—well, new to being mayor—but if you don’t want to share the content of your text messages with the public, you shouldn’t bring attention to them!
But he didn’t elaborate.
City resident Mary Beth Lee was not having it! She called the mayor out on Jan. 23.
“Mayor, when the council reached an impasse, you refused to open the topic back up to public comments. But, you took public comments via your phone, via text message,” Lee said. “It was after these ‘interesting texts’ that you changed your vote.”
Yes, that’s very interesting.
Those public comment texts should definitely be included in the public record, especially since it seems as if they led Infanti to change his mind during a public meeting and influenced the outcome of the vote. Perceptions matter. I’m very curious, and getting curiouser and curiouser.
The Canary is perpetually curious. Send texts via email: canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 2, 2023.