Set to expire at the end of this calendar year, a temporary waiver from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) allowed the city of Solvang to add two new gasoline-fueled buses to its public fleet that travels across the Santa Ynez Valley.
Without the waiver, addressing the city’s recent bus shortage would have left leaders with fewer feasible ways forward, according to Solvang’s transit consultant.
“If we had not been able to secure that, our fleet acquisition or replacement options would have been on the battery/electric vehicle path exclusively,” Joe Moore, of Moore & Associates, told the Solvang City Council.
“At this point in the city,” Moore continued, “we don’t have supporting infrastructure for that.”
During the council’s July 13 meeting, Moore mentioned the waiver—which temporarily exempts Solvang from CARB’s Innovative Clean Transit (ICT) regulations—as part of staff’s reasoning in recommending a one-time departure from the city’s formal bidding policy.
Historically, according to the staff report, Solvang’s use of a purchasing cooperative to buy new or replacement vehicles requires a 12-to-18-month lead time. To avoid missing the state waiver deadline, staff asked the council to consider authorizing the purchase of two new gasoline-powered buses “in an amount not to exceed $350,000,” with “immediate” delivery within 30 to 45 days.
Mayor David Brown was the sole dissenter in a 3-1 vote (Councilmember Elizabeth Orona was absent) to give staff the green light.
“I’m trying to look at this methodically. While I don’t know buses, I do know math,” Brown said at the hearing. “I don’t understand the math here and the overage.”
Brown was referring to the buses’ preliminary base prices of $115,000 each (not including taxes, registration, and other fees), in comparison to the staff’s ask for $350,000.
Moore told Brown that staff “wanted to err on the side of every possible expense, rather than have to come back to the council,” when determining the $350,000 total. City Manager Randy Murphy agreed and described that sum “as much more than we anticipate to spend.”
“I don’t want to get a pig in a poke,” added Brown, who also questioned staff’s description of the Santa Ynez Valley Transit (SYVT) program—administered by the city of Solvang—as currently facing “fleet shortages.”
“We’re down one bus,” Brown said. “What’s the true urgency in this? … I don’t want to be antagonistic here, I apologize.”
While the staff report identified two out of the six current SYVT buses as out of commission, one due to a “not at fault” accident in early June and the other due to a damaged wheelchair lift, staff revealed during the hearing that the latter went back in service after being repaired on July 8.
As for the bus in the June traffic accident, city staff is currently assessing repair options with different contractors.
“We expect by the end of this week that we’ll have a response from [a] possible vendor,” Moore said at the July 13 meeting.
This article appears in July 16 – July 23, 2026.
