Elected leaders in Solvang plan to take another look at how the city surveils its 5,000 residents and millions of annual visitors.
A year after adopting it, the City Council at its regular Monday night meeting will revisit a policy that governs how officials collect, access and use data from six Verkada Inc. cameras installed and serviced by XIT Solutions—as well as three more not yet deployed.
The policy review—and potential revisions—come amid a three-year, $187,889 pilot of the cameras. And it comes amid heightened public scrutiny of Verkada, Flock Safety and similar surveillance systems that have proliferated across Santa Barbara County and the United States.
“I’d like to bring the policy around the use of those cameras back for a more thorough review to strengthen that policy,” Councilmember Elizabeth Orona recently told her council colleagues and Solvang city staff members.
Orona made that request on Sept. 14, adding the policy might not adequately address who can access data. In addition, she said the policy might not do enough to address added functionality that includes artificial intelligence tools and facial and license plate recognition—or live up to people’s expectations of privacy.
A day later, the Santa Barbara City Council separately abandoned plans to contract with Verkada. That decision that came two weeks after the council canceled a contract with Flock Safety and removed 12 cameras.
An expanding program
Solvang attracts an estimated 5 million visitors annually. The city’s surveillance program has evolved over the past two years.
The Solvang council in July 2025 unanimously approved a $147,407 contract with XIT for six cameras through December 2028. It was the first of three key expenditures.
The cameras, according to an August report, record Solvang City Hall, the City Hall Annex and Solvang Park outside its public restrooms. They also surveil one spot along First Street and two more at Alisal Drive at Oak Street and Alisal at Copenhagen Drive.
In September 2025, City Manager Randy Murphy approved a $5,055 change order that upgraded the Solvang Park camera. It changed from a single view to a multi-sensor device that captures a crosswalk, park property and a parking lot entrance.
The First Street and Alisal Road cameras are also multi-sensor, officials say.
In August of this year, the council voted 4-1 to approve an additional $35,425 to expand the pilot. Three more cameras were planned along Mission Drive at Fifth Street and at Atterdag and Alisal roads.
Orona voted no.
“I don’t want to Trojan horse a bunch of functionality in here that gets turned on later,” she said at the time. “People need to come to Solvang and not feel like they’re being surveilled.”
On Sept. 14, Orona suggested the city revisit policies that govern the pilot. “We agreed to an installation. What we didn’t do was really investigate what that camera technology really does and where the data gets stored, who has access to it and who’s governing that access.”
City leaders: focus is public safety
The current Solvang policy, adopted on Sept. 8, 2025, frames camera surveillance as safeguarding public safety.
“Monitoring of public areas to enhance safety and security and to deter criminal activity, vandalism and property damage” tops the list of authorized uses, which include providing video to law enforcement. The policy also calls for “safeguarding the city’s unique Danish-inspired architecture and cultural preservation.”
In May, footage assisted in the investigation of a burglary, leading authorities to three suspects, according to the city.
The policy expressly prohibits audio recording and targeting individuals based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation.
The policy makes no mention of facial recognition capabilities. It mentions license plates once, acknowledging they’re sometimes visible on private property from public vantage points.
The policy does mention AI, describing the city’s system as “AI-enabled” and authorizing AI enabled analytics “for object similarity search, motion detection and event triggering.” In addition, it allows AI-enabled features for “traffic flow optimization to enhance infrastructure management and safety.”
‘Time-limited and logged’
With headquarters in San Mateo, California, and regional hubs in nine other U.S. cities, Verkada offers several services. The company also has international offices in eight countries including Australia, Taiwan, and Poland.
Verkada camera technology uses artificial intelligence to “locate footage of suspects or vehicles in seconds with powerful AI analytics,” according to the company.
In Solvang under the existing policy “cameras operate in passive mode by default,” according to a report by Uribe-Mutal to the council ahead of Monday’s meeting. “Footage is recorded continuously and reviewed only after a reported incident or service request.
“Active monitoring is permitted only during a documented incident in progress, an emergency or Emergency Operations Center activation, at the request of a law enforcement agency, or under a pre-approved special event operations plan,” the report states.
“The city manager or designee must authorize active monitoring, and each instance must be time-limited and logged,” according to the report. “Cameras are fixed position with no pan, tilt or zoom capability.”
