Testy exchanges between Solvang City Council members over something their mayor built is becoming more common than it should be.
Mayor David Brown’s treasure-hunt style Solvang Passport cellphone app was the topic du jour at yet another City Council meeting and promises to come up again in the future. Apparently, the city doesn’t have other, more pressing matters to attend to.
After Brown recused himself from the discussion, Councilmembers Elizabeth Orona and Claudia Orona (not related) went at it. Claudia’s business, the Solvang Trolley Ice Cream Parlor, is part of the Passport app—as in, Solvang Trolley is paying Brown a monthly fee to be included as part of the app.
And Elizabeth, for some reason that I don’t quite understand, has a giant, angry bee in her bonnet about the whole thing. She asked staff whether Claudia should also recuse herself from the discussion due to potential bias. Wait, what?
That’s a little presumptive and aggressive.
“OK, first of all, it is up to each individual council member to decide whether they have a potential bias or conflict of interest,” Claudia responded. “Each individual council member is the one that’s going to take the heat, the fines, the public scorn.”
“Personally, I think [the app] doesn’t represent any financial gain to me whatsoever,” she continued. “If anything, it’s cost me an ice cream cone that I have to give out for free.”
As part of the Passport app, users can get a free cone by scanning a QR code at the Solvang Trolley Ice Cream Parlor—and goodies elsewhere, too, with the help of a QR scan at the respective participating businesses.
Councilmember Louise Smith wondered whether the council could ask Brown to “slow down” or pause his work on the app until the council got more clarity on the issue. Elizabeth wanted to amend the city’s internal ethics policies about self-reporting conflicts of interest.
It sounds a little like these two want to police the activities that other elected officials get up to off the dais. So, if you start a new business without the council’s permission, you get into trouble?
The city attorney warned against telling Brown “to stop doing his business.” Duh. It’s a free country.
It’s already up to elected officials to self-report their potential conflicts, and Brown did ask the city attorney last year about potential future conflict of interest issues that could be tied to the app.
Claudia pointed out that the Fair Political Practices Commission [FPPC] literally exists to do exactly what Elizabeth is trying to get the city to do.
“Just like any other city official,” a staff report said, “the mayor would face personal liability for any future failure to comply with applicable conflict of interest rules.”
“If we think that a public official is not doing something right, anybody can file a complaint,” she said. “That’s what the FPPC does. We already have the tools to deal with this sort of thing.”
Then, she went further, telling Elizabeth to file a complaint against the mayor if she was so concerned about his activities.
“They’ll do the investigation. They’ll do the work for you,” Claudia said.
That seemed to quiet Elizabeth down. She didn’t say much after that.
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This article appears in March 26 – April 2, 2026.