Over the past four months, conversations surrounding Solvang Mayor David Brown’s tourism app—an independent business venture not affiliated with the city—warranted his recusals from several public hearings.
His latest departure from the dais was during the Solvang City Council’s June 22 meeting, when his peers took part in a discussion about increasing copyright protections for certain city assets, such as photos and videos on the city’s website.
When Councilmember Elizabeth Orona first raised her concerns about Brown’s app, Solvang Passport, in early March, she mentioned video footage of downtown Solvang that appeared to have been lifted directly from Solvang’s city website.
Discussions between city staff and Brown about that specific concern prompted the mayor to inform City Attorney Chelsea O’Sullivan via email on March 16 that he removed the video footage from his app.
That same week, Brown added the following disclaimer to the app: “Solvang Passport is not connected, authorized, sponsored, funded, or endorsed by the city of Solvang. The city neither expresses nor implies any approval, association, or endorsement of Solvang Passport. Play at your own risk of having fun.”
At the council’s June 22 meeting, Elizabeth Orona proposed that staff take steps toward registering Solvang’s city website for formal copyright protections, while Councilmember Claudia Orona (no relation to Elizabeth) suggested that adding additional language to the website would be more appropriate.
Their comments followed a presentation from a visiting consultant and copyright lawyer, Matthew J. Smith, who informed the council that it would need to comb through different aspects of the website while seeking individual protections for each item.
Logos, for example, would need different types of formal protections than photos or videos. New content added to the website in the future would need to undergo separate protection applications, he said.
“Is it really worth it if in six months or one year we’re going to have to do it again, when in the history of the city—being a tourist destination since the 1960s—this [issue] has come up one time,” Claudia Orona said. “And the public shame, I think, took care of the problem.”
Councilmember Mark Infanti agreed with Claudia about simply adding new disclaimers to the city website about basic copyright protection, which Smith assured the council is automatic for the works it creates, such as its website.
“I’ll go along with Clau, I don’t want to do a whole lot more than that right now. I don’t think it’s worth it,” Infanti said.
Councilmember Louise Smith said she was also in favor of the disclaimer additions “without having to go a lot more deeper on this.”
“I’m hearing three of you say—which would be a majority—you would like to direct staff to ensure there’s proper disclaimers for copyright protection on all of the city’s websites,” City Attorney O’Sullivan said. “And if a city asset that we own is being used without permission, that we send a letter to say stop using it.”
Elizabeth said she disagreed with the majority shortly before Mayor Brown walked back into the room.
“I hope no one steals any of our stuff,” she said.
This article appears in June 25 – July 2, 2026.
