The Solvang City Council on Monday night called for changes to an evolving surveillance program—as questions swirled and officials sought a better grasp of how the city’s public-facing AI-enabled cameras work.
“We need policies that define all of this,” Councilmember Mark Infanti said as Councilmember Elizabeth Orona led the push for more clarity.
Had the city added functionality in recent months? Who owns the software? How often is the system employing artificial intelligence? How—and how easily—are features turned on and off, and by whom?
In yet another complication, City Manager Randy Murphy told the council he considers the city’s three-year, $187,889 pilot of the six Verkada Inc. cameras installed so far by XIT Solutions a failure.
“It’s been very minimal usage,” Murphy said, calling red tape stalling three more cameras along the state-owned and Caltrans-managed Highway 246, or Mission Drive, a big part of the problem.
“Honestly, I would consider our trial a failure at this point,” Murphy said, “It hasn’t provided us the data we’ve anticipated.
“There has been one request for video from the Sheriff’s Department on a burglary that occurred six, eight, ten months ago,” he said. “We were able to identify some suspicious looking folks that may have been involved, but they haven’t been able to identify who they are.”
Murphy said he’s personally monitored other activity: “I’ve looked at it a few times to kind of check and see what’s going on—did an employee come in when they said they did?—and look at the video.”
Pitched by officials as a benefit to public safety, the cameras 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, officials say.
Murphy and Olivia Uribe-Mutal, assistant to the city manager, administer the system.
On strike for higher wages, Solvang city employees have privately questioned the cost of the pilot program.
The city’s policy review comes amid heightened nationwide public scrutiny of Verkada, Flock Safety and similar surveillance systems that have proliferated across Santa Barbara County and the United States.
The city of Santa Barbara in September abandoned camera surveillance.
Solvang Councilmember Orona on Sept. 14 separately suggested the city strengthen its camera policy, originally approved in Sept. 2025.
On Monday, she led the council in proposing several revisions.
One change would clarify what data is subject to public records requests while another would more clearly define technology features turned on or off.
In addition, “log files at a minimum should come back to the council on a quarterly basis,” Orona said.
The council also told staff to ensure license plate and facial recognition capabilities are off. In yet another proposal, the council would be notified if City Hall leaders change who has access to the system.
After confirming Verkada not XIT owns the surveillance software, the council also asked staff to ensure the city is notified by Verkada of any security breaches.
Orona disagreed with Murphy that the pilot to date is a failure.
“It’s unproven,” she countered.
In its current form, the city’s camera 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.”
Solvang has 5,000 residents and attracts an estimated 5 million visitors a year. It’s not a high crime location.
As Monday’s meeting drew to a close, Mayor David Brown described the cameras as a public service.
“Our mission statement here is for a safer community,” Brown said. “In addition to police services, this is what we can provide for the lost purse, for crowd control, for educational purposes, and for detectives and people that either are trying to solve a crime or arson.”
