Instances of theft and vandalism in early 2025 prompted Solvang officials to consider rebooting the city’s surveillance camera operations.
After months of consulting with local law enforcement and a camera contractor, Solvang is set to expand its city-run video surveillance—currently limited to City Hall and a handful of water wells—to cover various corners of downtown Solvang via seven newly installed AI-enabled cameras.
Before giving its final sign-off on activating the new cameras, the Solvang City Council reviewed a new ordinance that outlines strict ground rules about their use, partly to emphasize that “the type of surveillance we’re doing is very prohibitive,” Councilmember Elizabeth Orona said when the policy was introduced in mid-August.
Although the protocol passed its first reading, Mayor David Brown pulled it from the consent agenda during the council’s Sept. 8 meeting after some new concerns came to light, he said.
“We need to identify … fixed video resources, versus movable video resources,” Brown told staff at the meeting. “Why I ask that is our code enforcement officer wears a body cam.”
Brown asked if the policy—that lists dozens of restrictions and procedures tied to viewing footage from the new cameras and the approval process to do so—will apply to city-operated body cams and drones, if implemented in the future, as well.
Assistant to the city manager Olivia Uribe Mutal clarified that the policy was written carefully enough to only dictate how the new downtown cameras are used. Policies on body cameras or drones in the future would require separate resolutions, Mutal said.
The City Council ultimately approved the new video surveillance policy with a 5-0 vote.
Back when the ordinance was introduced, one aspect of the policy that stirred conversation between members of the council and city staff was a ban on audio recording.
“While the cameras have the capability to do audio recording, we recommend including in the policy that recording be disabled by default, and to prohibit it in the policy,” Mutal told the council at its Aug. 11 meeting.
City Attorney Chelsea O’Sullivan weighed in and said the suggestion was based on California’s two-party consent regulations.
“We can’t get everyone’s consent walking down the street to record their audio,” O’Sullivan said.
Mayor Brown brought up a scenario where enabling the audio recording feature and capturing the sound of a gunshot, for example, could benefit law enforcement during an investigation.
“Right. But we can’t selectively record inanimate sounds,” O’Sullivan said. “You’re going to capture too much and get in trouble if we do that.”
Brown joked that “nobody would know what they’re saying” if everyone spoke Danish in downtown Solvang.
“Except for the Danes,” O’Sullivan said after some laughs from the dais.
This article appears in Sep 11 – Sep 18, 2025.