The feedback from ballots recently mailed to residents of Solvang’s Skytt Mesa neighborhood will determine the fate of a proposed lighting project estimated to cost $50,000.
City staff expects to tally up the mailers’ results by June 1, while the Solvang City Council will vote May 13 on a potential 2 percent maintenance fee increase for Skytt Mesa’s 169 households that accounts for the project’s budgeting, regardless of whether it moves forward.
During the City Council’s April 22 meeting, City Manager Randy Murphy explained that if the fee increase gets approved but the majority of Skytt Mesa residents vote against the project—to install lighting near the neighborhood’s entrance off of Highway 246—then the projected $50,000 expenditure will be reserved for future projects in the area.
“These funds can not be spent anywhere but Skytt Mesa,” Murphy said. “That just means next year there’s no increase or a lesser increase than there otherwise might have been.”
Maintenance fees for the Skytt Mesa neighborhood are assessed annually, in accordance with the conditions of the Solvang Mesa Landscape and Lighting Maintenance District, formed in 2004. According to the staff report, there have been six years in which the assessment remained unchanged since 2004, and one year where a fee reduction was approved.
“During the other years the assessment was increased as necessary based on increases in the cost of services, and to maintain adequate reserves,” the staff report states. “The intent is also to keep the district’s reserves in good financial standing.”
If the City Council approves staff’s recommended 2 percent fee increase for the 2024-25 fiscal year, each of Skytt Mesa’s homeowners will pay $1,388.02, about $28 more than last year, Murphy said. This would support a $265,180 maintenance budget—including the $50,000 lighting project—for the district.
Skytt Mesa homeowner Denise El Amin spoke during public comment at the April 22 meeting and said the neighborhood’s lighting issue should have been resolved years ago.
“I bought this house 10 years ago. Ten years now, and we still don’t have a light,” El Amin said. “Every year we get raised. … We have got nothing but promises.”
Murphy told the City Council that staff is “now at a point where we’re going to do something—although, maybe not. … Again, it depends on the majority of what the residents want to do.”
Skytt Mesa resident and former Solvang Planning Commissioner Justin Rodriguez also spoke at public comment and suggested building a roundabout near the neighborhood’s entrance off of Highway 246 rather than install new lighting.
“There’s a lot of families in there with young children making a left turn and all it takes is one drunk driver,” said Rodriguez, who added that a lighting project could require trenching and leave “an unsightly trench patch.”
“I’d just like to urge, for the time being, a no vote from my neighbors,” Rodriguez said.
At its upcoming May 13 meeting, the City Council will have the option to deny the recommended 2 percent fee increase, but Murphy said that may affect the city’s general fund if Skytt Mesa residents vote in favor of new lighting or if a separate maintenance project moves forward.
“If something major happens next year and diminishes or depletes the reserves for the lighting district, something will have to be done that may impact the general fund,” Murphy said.
