Councilmembers OK pledge for aquatic center; Carla Mead named vice mayor in annual staff reorganization
The Buellton City Council were ready to discuss policy on renting out two meeting rooms in the city’s library at 202 Dairyland, and eventually passed the item give direction on limits on renting out the rooms for meetings, but not before some contentious dialogue entered into it.
In the business item during the Thursday, Dec. 11, meeting staff brought up a subject that was touched upon during a June City Council meeting.
With the completion of the new library at 202 Dairyland, two meeting rooms were constructed with the anticipation of use for public and community meetings. Council discussed the potential for community meeting room rentals and types of use in the June meeting. In that discussion, council determined that the meeting room use should start with just meeting uses and not for public parties and events. Staff prepared a revised draft rental application package for discussion at this meeting. The rental application provides rules, regulations and requirements, along with requested information for the rental use details. The application package is based on the templates from CJPIA, the City’s insurance and risk management agency, as well as applications from other similar publicly owned rental facilities in the area. The areas available for potential rental are the two meeting rooms and the south lawn.
Councilmember John Sanchez brought up the first objection when he saw that one of the regulations was “no music” in the meeting rooms.
“No music at all? That seems extreme,” said Sanchez, who pointed out that he saw a violin recital there earlier this year.
Buellton City Manager Scott Wolfe answered that the rule was in there to prevent people in the lobby from being bothered, but also pointed out that it would be very easy to circumvent that with a special event permit if the music was acceptable.
It wouldn’t be the last time Sanchez raised an objection.
A few minutes later, Councilmember Carla Mead stated she wanted to have a policy about who to let rent the rooms, fearing that they could potentially be controversial.
“I would like to see this policy more defined about who is using the space and the purpose of using the space,” she said. “For example, in my mind, this space will be used for education, youth development, civic engagement, social services, stuff like that. Things we might want to exclude are partisan politics.”
Mead said she was concern that renting out the space a politically active group could lead to more extreme “hate groups” wanting to use the space.
Her words got some pushback from Vice Mayor Elysia Lewis who asked if that would open up the city to “legal liability, just picking and choosing who can use it.” And City Attorney Greg Murphy said “I’ll have to look into that to see where the guardrails are on that.”
Sanchez was more adamant in his opposition.
“We shouldn’t have restrictions on people we don’t like,” he said. “If the NRA wants to have a meeting they should come, if the Democratic Women of Santa Barbara want to come, we should let them. You can’t tell people you can’t do it because you don’t like their politics.”
Later, Wolfe suggested they could for an ad hoc committee to hammer out a policy, which Sanchez objected to saying any talk on policy should be discussed with the council at large instead of two people, although Silva and Hornick pointed out to him that it would be discussed.
Mayor David Silva later suggested limiting the rental of the rooms, once they are available, to 501(c)3 nonprofits and government entities, and the city could monitor the policy to see how it works.
Hornick moved to accept Silva’s proposal with rentals not being taken until the new parking lot behind the library is done. The motion passed 4-1 with Sanchez dissenting.
In other business, being that this was the last meeting of 2025, the council did its staff reorganization, assigning committee representative assignments, and appointing a new vice mayor. As Wolfe stated, the appointment was solely the choice of Silva, and he first asked Hornick if he wanted the position. Hornick refused, and then when Lewis turned down a chance to stay on as vice mayor, Silva asked Mead, who accepted the appointment, with the council approving on a 5-0 vote.
The council also OK’d the $500,000 pledge toward the Santa Ynez Valley Aquatic Center, ending a back-and-forth with the City of Solvang, where both agreed to pledge that amount for the project.
The City Council will meet next on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, at 6 p.m.
