City Council — August 10, 2026

All right. We will call this meeting

Council Member Hornick,

here.

Council Member Lewis, here. Council Member Sanchez,

here.

Vice Mayor Mead, here and Mayor Silva,

here Is there any reordering of the agenda tonight? Mr. Mayor we have no reordering agenda this evening All right so we'll move on to presentations and it looks like tonight we have one from our community organization support grant update with Veggie Rescue

Good evening, Councilmembers. I appreciate the opportunity to share an update on the impact that Veggie Rescues had with the support of the City of Buellton with grant dollars. Thank you very much. Because of the support of the City of Buellton, we've been able to directly impact the City of Buellton through the Santa Ynez Valley Community Outreach in 2025 with over 111,000 pounds of food rescued and donated to them to help with their food distributions, outdoor food pantry, meals on wheels programs affecting seniors, families and veterans alike.

Using the standard government metric, that equals $189,284 of savings directly to the Santa Ynez Valley Community Outreach that they would not have to spend on food otherwise to allow those dollars to be freed up for other program services. Outside of the city of Buellton, we also impact other organizations in the valley that are community-facing that I know take advantage of by Buellton residents. And we calculated that we have also delivered rescue produce to almost about 40,000 pounds of produce Community organizations serving the S.Y.V. Valley to a savings of about $65,000 that could otherwise be done. So the impact of the grants funding from the City of Buellton has had direct and significant impact on the City of Buellton and its nonprofits and the people who are accessing these services to allow them to get nutrient-dense food that they might not otherwise be able to get This last year, Veggie Rescue is also starting a organic farm just outside of Buellton.

I don't know if the address is Buellton or not. I'm not 100% sure. It's off 246th. I am not familiar with where the line is drawn but it's really close and we, it's a 20-acre farm that we are growing food specifically to give away only and we believe that this farm when fully operational will be able The city of Buellton has donated about 400,000 pounds of food across the valley but also specifically in a substantial amount in Buellton.

So yeah, those are some of the impact numbers and impact that the veggie rescuers had in the city of Buellton and in the little quarter of the valley there that has been a direct result

I think you're, are you still there sir?

Yes I am.

Okay so we still have audio just uh we cannot see you here in the audience but uh you have a very omniscient present now where are we going?

That's spooky!

But while we get this resolved i guess since we can still do the Q&A part or if there's any questions. I don't know if anyone any of the council members had any questions at this time for um Veggie Rescue? No no questions okay.

What was what was the address of the farm? I saw the

answer. Sir, could you provide the address of the farm if that's the question?

Yeah, I wish I had the address with me. I don't have the address with me. It's off of 246 and Mill Road. I don't know if that's technically in the city of Buellton or outside the city limits.

Gotcha. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for the presentation and thank you for everything you're doing. I know that food insecurity is a big issue facing a lot of our community members so we really appreciate all what Veggie Rescue does and we're grateful to have you as a partner in our community.

Thank you and likewise Veggie Rescue is grateful to the City of Buellton for investing in Veggie Rescue and allowing us to help support the great work that's being done in the City of Buellton

Thank you very much again and I think at this point we'll take a quick little recess while we figure out what we need

to do. We did confirm, Mr. Mayor that we are live online okay it's just the monitors in the room okay so under the Brown Act you're allowed to keep going. Okay we have now moved

to radio. Okay well then thank you very much sir again for being here tonight and we appreciate your time.

Thank you

for all your hard work.

Yeah

thank you. Okay we will now move to public comment

We have a couple public comments. The first one is Mr. Steve Palmer.

Good evening,

let's put this on here so it stays up here

My name is Steve Palmer. I'm the president, presently the President-Elect for the Solvang Rotary Club but more importantly for tonight, I was a chairperson for this year's Solvang Fourth of July Parade, the committee within our club and I'm here first of all tonight to say thank you for participation. I believe we had 100% participation of the City Council here participating in the Solvang Parade. I think you may have beat the city of Solvagng in participation on the City Council so congratulations on that.

And also just in general for the support that City of Buellton has provided for Rotary Clubs in general and the community. So, but on behalf of the Rotary Club of Solvang I wish to present the City Council and the City of Buellton with a gift What we had done, we had a commemorative Declaration of Independence put together with no signatures on it. And we had it signed by all the members of the Solvang Rotary Club.

Also took her to the American Legion and the VFW post in Solvange and had signatures put on there. No included down here is at least one signature of a World War II veteran. I know Scott has been hugely So I say that's pretty much about it. I think it's oh, we wanted to read the inscription and put into the record. So July 4th 2026 Solvang California on this day July 4th 2026 marking the historic 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We gather to reaffirm our devotion to the nation's founding ideals We do solemnly pledge our commitment to the sacred principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. By our signatures below we honor the legacy of those who founded this republic and dedicate ourselves to preserving the unalienable rights, justice and equality that define the American spirit for generations to come.

This was presented to the city of Buellton by the Rotary Club of Salt Lake. I will turn this over to the capable hands of the city I have to run to Solvang

I mean, if you have the moment for us to at least take a picture with you. We'd always love that. We love a good photo. I don't want to interrupt too much but

sure. Okay we'll do that

and then we'll let you go okay?

Yeah we'll get up here.

If you made the trek out already sir.

Thank you for all your hard work. public comment is from AJ.

Afternoon Council, A.J. Tarman here to speak about three things. Firstly meetings set on Mondays I'd like to see them sit on Saturdays so seniors can come out in a more convenient daytime. Second a short history lesson in 1908 the California reform governor Hiram Johnson said to avoid one-party corruption typical of East Coast cities Buellton City offices are supposed to be non-partisan.

Yet Mayor Silva outspent Mayor King 10 to one, $35,000 to $3,500. Silva's money came from 80% outside sources. The lion's share came from out of town Democrat PACs. We taxpayers are onto the goal of UCSB graduates to make this county a one party machine Our system is based on checks and balances. One-party systems, as per Hiram Johnson, lead to corruption and cronyism.

Red China operates like this as DSA crept into tiny Buellton. I call on David Silva to agree to a $10,000 campaign limit. That would level the playing field, not a 10-1 margin, to win by 100 votes. Thirdly, to consider a raise for City Manager Wolf is wrong. He makes $200,000 a year. The average Buellton household makes 67,000. This is for a one and a half square mile city Candidly, urban blight is up under the city's management. We had another traffic fatality, increased speeding on 246.

The historic piece of billboards are now eyesores. Mr. Manager for 2200,000 a year it would be up for me to go repair those billboards. I think it's really sad for all the people who've come to Buellton and seen those beautiful billboards and they're graffitied That's like our entranceway. And if you dare, walk across the street to the sheriff and ask the cycle officer what gives with all this speeding? And Waldorf School is an eyesore. So thank you for listening. I hope I wasn't a skunk at the picnic but this is what a lot of your voters are saying and they will be speaking soon. Have a good evening.

Thank you very much for being here tonight.

Any further public comment?

That concludes the public comment.

All right, we'll move right along. Next up we'll go on for our consent calendar. Do I have a motion for approval or any items that wish to be folded at this time?

I move to approve.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

All right, we could do a vote.

don't have any

comments.

Okay. Council Member Lewis?

No comment.

Council Member Sanchez? I have one thing. We were invited over to Lompoc to visit the Lompoc Theater Project It's a big deal, the whole city block or most of the city block is where the theater is. And I grew up there and I used to go there as a kid so it was quite a treat for me to get to go back in the theater. And it's a big project. There was somebody in, I don't have the name Andy but from Montecito came in with $5 million and another million dollar matching fund It's a pretty high percentage.

Take you for a tour. Anybody else?

Yeah,

for the introduction stuff so maybe with the arts and culture committee we may do something that has something to do with theater in Lompoc too because it's quite a cultural center or going to become a cultural center and I just wanted to thank the Lompoc committee for inviting me over showing interest so we can show interest in them

I just have a couple of things. First of all, I wanted to thank the Buellton parks and rec department for putting on the barbecue. It was a great day. I'd like to also thank our public works department for putting on the inclusive playground workshop and all that attended. That was last Sunday. Next I just want to announce that Nature Track and Triumph Foundation, two organizations that we've had come and speak here. They're having an accessibility beach day at Avila Park on the 22nd of August from 1-3pm. It's a free event and anyone can sign up at naturetrack.org And lastly, I just would like to remind everyone about the movie in the park event. It's coming up on Friday August 28th or showing et you can go to solving cinema arts dot org to learn more and reserve your meal for that evening.

So I just wanted to remind some people about the upcoming events as well as thank people for the previous events. ≫ Thank you.

South County and North County have different funding sources planned through the Measure A funds that take place. South County puts more funding into Safe Routes to School and that programming than North County does, and there are grant opportunities available that require matching funds from local jurisdictions. So they were hoping to maybe come and speak before our council if there's consent for us to invite them back about a funding request that they'd like to see if we'd be interested in what that programming would look like to create a better program for getting kids I'm looking for consent for them to come and give a full

I'm not aware of the agenda that was on it.

≫ Thank you. ≪ I'm not trying to get your attention,

I would like to have them come back and give us a presentation so we can work on funding to create safer ways to get to school. I just have a couple of things. So this past week, I met with Congressman Carbajal and his district administrator Eric Reyes and basically the conversation was just basically to discuss federal grant opportunities for Buellton. So this idea of looking into more federal grant opportunities so as Buellton looks at their priorities hopefully some of these federal grants will help fund things like the S.Y.V. River Trail 246 I went to a community task meeting.

Basically, Vandenberg is reporting that there's going to be an increase about 800 jobs. This is our second meeting of this task force and basically how that impacts Buellton is we should be looking at the way this base is growing So looking at that and like there's many, many people involved in this conversations. That's it.

Thank you very much. Council Member Lewis, any committee reports? None for me so we can move on now to our business items

Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council our first business item is ordinance number 26-07 an ordinance of the City Council of the city of Buellton readopting chapter 8.12 of the Buellton Municipal Code pertaining to the 2025 California Fire Code as adopted and amended by the County of Santa Barbara this ordinance is brought to you this evening for introduction and first reading I am your staff contact so I will ≫ Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dan Buellton and I'm the city manager for the county fire department. As mentioned this is the adoption of the 2025 fire code as adopted by the County of Santa Barbara. We are adopting the county's code by reference. Essentially what has gone on here is the county has incorporated changes from the 2025 revision to the California Fire Code the county to provide service for us, we need to adopt this by reference.

So there are multiple pages in here if you have questions on it I'll do my best to answer it but I am not an expert on the California Fire Code suffice it to say this is necessary to keep our fire protection services in line with what's being provided to us by the County of Santa Barbara

Sorry to interrupt, but could we do a quick five-minute recess just for Council Member Lewis? We just need to do a reset really fast. Can we do it quickly? Yeah thanks very

much so if we can just take a quick five minute recess okay She said that she doesn't

mind waiting until, she doesn't have strong opinion on six because it's a presentation piece to it. So she just said we can keep moving and she'll join in when it becomes available. All right?

Okay. I'm sorry? Just

saying

if you give it a minute,

she's going to have to log back in

to be in the vote. I'll announce it all. What she was saying is she's okay with us continuing on this item so that she didn't want to have us waiting the entire time it takes for her to get out. Unless we'd all like to wait for her. We can wait till she gets settled. We will resume our

meeting now. Thank you for that interruption. For the benefit of the public at home, Council Member Lewis announced in the room that she is feeling ill under the Brown Act provisions illness, the newer Brown Act provisions that have gone into effect over the last few years, communicable illness is a reason to be able to attend a meeting via remote access. She asked and we confirmed that she could in fact go home and continue the meeting by remote access. She asked us to please move ahead with the current item, and she will join by Zoom when she does her camera will stay on throughout the rest of the meeting. She will announce if anyone over the age of 18 is in the room with her and all I'm sorry all votes from here on out will be roll call even if normally they would just be raising hands consensus.

Moving to the item, when you adopt by reference it's kind of an inverted way to do it. On your consent calendar today you had a second reading of an ordinance When you adopt by reference, the first reading is kind of the second. It's a much shorter presentation and all your voting to do is have staff give public notice, schedule a public hearing at which things will be really gone through in a bit more detail. The public has a chance to opine at that point and then you have the major vote. So this is kind of a perfunctory item anyway so if Council Member Lewis doesn't get back in time for the vote she'll still have a chance to ask questions at the second reading. Back to you Mr. Mayor.

And

back to you, City Manager Scott Wolfe. Thank

you. I think that about sums it up. I'm happy to answer any questions that the City Council may have but as Mr. Murphy mentioned this is very perfunctory. It's really necessary in order to continue receiving fire prevention services from the County Fire District.

thank you. All right any public comment on this item? All right, we will then bring it back to council for further discussion and a possible motion.

I'd make a motion to approve. Second.

Mr. Mayor, would we like to continue with this or do you want to hold off another minute or two and wait for Council Member Lewis?

I think we can keep going with it if we're good.

That's fine with me. All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council.

Good evening, Mayor Silva, Vice-Mayor Mayne and members of the City Council. Before you tonight is a recommendation to reclassify the Recreation Center Coordinator position to the existing Recreation Coordinator classification. The recreation center was established in 2007 and has grown significantly over the years. As the department has grown, the recreation center coordinator and the recreation coordinator positions have taken on essentially the same duties. This change will allow both recreation coordinators to work interchangeably, provide coverage for each other and give the department more flexibility.

The Recreation Center will continue to have one recreation supervisor and two recreation coordinators. The fiscal impact is approximately $2,570 and staff will bring back a budget amendment this fall to cover the additional costs. Therefore, staff recommends that the City Council authorize the reclassification of the Recreation Center Coordinator position to the existing Recreation Coordinator classification and adopt the revised salary schedule effective August 24th. That concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions!

Thank you very much. We'll start with questions from Council. Council Member Hornick, any questions? Council Member Sanchez?

We're going to have two recreational coordinators so it will be a shared position. They may not both have the same job. Thank you. Vice Mayor

Mead, any questions? No question, thank you. And Vice Mayor Mead, any public comment on this item?

There are no public

comments. All right we'll bring it back to council for a possible motion or further discussion. Do I have a motion?

I'll make a motion to authorize the reclassification of their recreation center coordinator to their recreation coordinator and adopt a revised SOMBRI schedule.

I'll second

Oh, oh. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Lewis did text. It seems like her condition has gotten a bit worse and she may not be able to log in.

Okay then we will just continue on then and if she decides to join we will do so.

If she decides to join yes this would count as one of the four times per year that she could appear remotely without putting the place the location We can go back to some items being done by consensus and not having to follow all the rules. So we will treat this meeting as any other meeting unless she does join us, in which case we'll switch to the alternate Brown Act rules. Thank you Mr. Mayor. The suspense is palpable! We'll see what

happens it's like live theater right now okay

All right, thank you. Item 8 is a discussion of potential future rehabilitation of city identification billboards. I'm your staff contact this evening so let me bring this forward here we'll At the June 25th meeting of City Council directed staff to return with an agenda item this evening. To bring back for discussion two items pertaining to city identification billboards.

One of these billboards exists within the city limits, I will be referring to that as the southbound billboard The other billboard is on the far south side of the city. It's actually three miles south of the city limits. And it is the northbound billboard, is how I'll refer to that because it faces the northbound lanes even though There are two different things going on here. The first issue has to do with the southbound sign.

On the southbound side, as was mentioned previously by our public comment is in a state of disrepair. It has been declining for some time while the property owner has been deciding what I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment on what the plans are to do with this particular sign. If the City Council decides to go this direction, it would require a change to our Municipal Code. The sign itself has been for some time and exists currently as a legal non-conforming sign with the purpose of city identification only.

And it holds a permit through the California Department of Transportation for that purpose. The permit was renewed, it had actually been revoked a few years back, was renewed I believe in late 2024 With the understanding that the renewal was for continued operation as a city identification sign, however if the City Council made changes to the municipal code which would allow for its use otherwise we would let the Department of Transportation know and they would change the permit appropriately.

So that is one question before the City Council this evening. Now the other issue has to do with Now, the northbound sign to the south of the city. I'm confusing myself. The northbound sign as I mentioned sits on about three miles to the south of the city on the west side of Highway 101. It simply says Buellton Three Miles. It's got an image of Happy and Pee Wee.

This is a sign that identifies the city of Buellton. It also is in a state of disrepair, although not to the same state of disrepair that the southbound sign is at. This sign belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and the chamber This is a Buellton-centric identification sign. It's a Buellton-centric The Chamber of Commerce is asking for funding assistance with that. So I'm happy to dig into this a little bit more, we have two different items on the agenda. We can go either direction with it whichever way you'd like to go as far as which one you'd like to hear first. I will dig into a little more and answer questions but I think we should probably take them one at a time to avoid confusion

I would

like to request that we do the northbound sign first, because that was the original when I made the request about the signs. The other one was added in. But this is something for funding with the sign and that's a separate thing but there's going to be a lot less things

This is the one that's the northbound side and the southside of the city that we're talking about with funding partnership with the chamber. So why don't we take that one first so that we don't have to keep going back and forth with direction?

I think given the setting of it right now, essentially the Chamber of Commerce is asking for financing assistance. They estimate the cost of such repairs and preparation to be between $30,000 and $40,000. They would like the City to possibly come up with half of that funding. From the standpoint of a city expenditure this is something that falls in line with our economic development efforts. The Chamber of Commerce I will leave it at that. If you have specific questions about

I know we might have questions, but Ms. Vreeland if you wanted to come up and share anything or do you just want to see if we have questions and go from there? I don't know if you had anything else that is missing. Okay well I know I will have questions at some point so if you want to start mazing your way up there. But we'll start with Council Member Hornick any questions at this time? I don't think so. Council Member Sanchez any questions?

The price of the sign, there's a rent for the sign too is there? Yeah. What's the cost of having this sign?

We pay rent $3,000 a year sorry for that sign. This sign used to we used to partner with PSU Anderson so they actually paid a portion of rent on that sign as well for the land rent basically we rent the land and we own the sign we pay the utilities any maintenance land rent on the sign. So, Pea Soups used to pay a portion and it would go up each year a certain percentage but now they're no longer there they're not receiving that part of it at all they're just receiving our share of that rent so...

Um, yeah, we'd love to keep the sign and continue to have a built in message. I know they're iconic and I know everybody loved happy and peewee, but it's no longer here. And so it's just time to put a new face on Buellton and like, you know, make it happy in another way,

change the sign like you do the 1 on McMurray.

Yeah, it would be very similar to that. And so the monies is it goes towards refacing you can't use the face that's there. It's all plywood. It's old. It stated its rotting. So it has to be completely restructured. They come in and do a whole new face on that sign the same size it has to face in the rules with the county and the state has to face exact same way, same size we can't change any of those dynamics on it. It would just be something that we could then change the vinyl and will continue to maintain the vinyl pay the utilities the lighting It'll have new down-facing lighting on it. So, it's just updated and a new structure that we can then work within. It would be good for a long, long time to come but then new vinyls can go on with whether it's welcome to Buellton or so many miles to Buellton.

That sign is pretty much directional. So it would have to be like the one up north of 154 that's so many miles to Buellton and then we can still change the imagery on it or maybe list our exit numbers where they could exit in town We utilize those signs for that purpose, just to let people know there's other exits to use and try to move traffic around town.

That's what that would be used for. It's a directional sign. There's a whole lot behind these billboards. Some of them are welcome too, some are directional. There's just different uses and purposes for them and that one is so many miles to your destination. So that's what that is for. Thank you. This

is a one-time expense

for the council. Does this come out of an economic development pot that we have?

Just a couple with it one being is a 30 to 40,000 off of any written estimate or just kind of what usually goes for

not a written but I have spoke to the person that's kind of the ballpark it would be in. Okay and that's what we paid on the other one when we did it was about 37,000 I'm sure things have gone up a little bit since we did that so I'm saying 30 to 40 okay yeah

And then my other question was just, and this is just to confirm. So the chamber owns the structure? So you guys own the structure and the permit and all that so there's no issue with that okay. That's all I just wanted to make sure of that so you guys can, you guys have the full responsibility for

it. Yes oh absolutely yeah now we have the permit with the state and again we pay the utilities PG&E, we do the maintenance on it any of the vinyls, the graphic design, the printing of the vinyl, the installation of them, all that would fall on us. Okay perfect. Yeah it would just be the help with the structure itself and then I'm going to take it

from there. If this was approved tonight, do you have an idea of timeline that you're

expecting? I don't yet. I just have to get all the ducks in a row on that to figure it out but hopefully we could have it within the next couple of months or so depending on the builder and if they're available and what their time schedule is like but yeah sooner the better um if we could but again it's it's there it's standing it's okay it's holding its own

Thank you very much.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Do

we have any public

comment on this item?

There are no public comments.

Okay another question there used to be a sign in Rio Grande or Napomo did we lose that sign?

That's Pea Soup. Pea Soup owned that sign I shouldn't say pea soup the Guja Enterprises who owned Pea Soup Milk Guja they own multiple restaurants and so they use that now I think for one of their restaurants in Pismo Beach maybe or somewhere I forget.

Is that not the

one? That's a different one. Yeah, there is one for long I've seen that too but that's not owned yeah we didn't own any that far north that was actually the restaurant owner operator he owned that billboard and so they changed it up they took pea soup off of that one as well and it's now um I can't remember they have umpteen restaurants crab is there a cracked crab or something like that I think I know I've driven by it but it's changed But that's their, that's their sign. We don't have anything to do with that one.

We just had the ones north and south

when you're done.

Yeah go

ahead. So if we approve this today like what is that a $15,000 to $20,000 authorization in the discretionary window for staff or do you come back with another?

It would be I would suggest authorizing an expenditure not to exceed twenty thousand dollars depending upon a written based on a written estimate. We pay fifty percent of that We're not entering the contract. Okay?

And I can come back with a written estimate, too. I'm happy to do that when I get that. So whatever works. Okay.

Thank you so much. Appreciate that.

Anything else? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We will bring it back to Council for further discussion or a possible motion at this time?

And I think it's a big deal to have a beautiful sign on the freeway. It's worth every bit of it, and I would make my motion to actually pay more than half of it but that's since we don't have a partner at Pea Soup anymore. But I'd entertain that for a thought as well.

So, do you have a number attached to that? I'm sorry. I don't know

exactly what your motion is. I wouldn't make a motion to pay for the whole thing since it's part of town, part of the legacy. It's kind of a landmark and it's kind of a historical thing too. And so big value to the city.

You would be making a motion to pay for the $30-$40,000 authorization basically not to exceed 40,000? We have a motion on the table from Councilmember Sanchez for a motion to not exceed $40,000. We can leave for further discussion or have a second on that? Is there a second on this Councilmember Sanchez's motion? Okay hearing none would anyone want to do a different type of motion at this time?

I would move to authorize up to half

I would move to authorize the city staff to pay for up to half of the estimated repair. So not to exceed $20,000? Not to exceed 20,000 dollars. All

right we have another motion available for Council Member Hornick to not exceed $20000. Do I have a second for that?

So I've kind of given you the background on that. We know where this sits, the request we have from the property owner Mr. Norman Williams as well as a potential lessee or lessor of the sign visit SYV. We do have Mr. Shelby Sim here with us this evening and he's got a brief presentation to talk about what his proposal is, and then following that we can walk through what kind of changes would need to take place to the Municipal Code in order to make that work should the Council decide to go that direction.

All right? Perfect. Mr. Sim, thank you for being here

tonight.

Mayor Silver, City Council, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity.

Let's see. Oops. And there we go. Okay. Nope. Oh, no. The

beautiful logo of the City of Buellton

California. That

is not right. Let's try this again here.

Yeah, that's what happened but it wasn't. It didn't

share. Let me try this again.

Let me go back to Zoom and

see where

is...

Oh, it's already posted public comments.

Let me

know if you want to share your screen.

I don't want to pause it. OK, let's see. Stop the share. All

right. Share the screen and try it again. Let's see. Host tools, share settings. We'll make sure it's set up here. OK. That should do it. There it is.

≫ There

we go. As the city manager mentioned and the speaker before, it's not looking so good. But a couple of months ago it looked like this. You can just go ahead and scroll down.

Let's just go back to the other one here.

It doesn't have to be full screen.

We can just go back to what we had. That's fine, let's use that here. All right

next slide please. Thank you. All right now just a couple months ago it was prettier and now if you have seen it does look pretty bad That is not existing.