Central Coast city council OKs Pride banners despite protests: ‘We need to move forward’

After two hours of comments, the Solvang City Council narrowly voted Monday night to allow Pride Month banners to be displayed on street lights for two weeks in June.

However, later Monday night and after threats of pro-Second Amendment and Right to Life banners, the council voted to prohibit all non-city banners in the future after already-approved requests by Pride and Solvang Theaterfest are fulfilled this year.

Council members voted 3-2 to allow the Pride banners on light poles. Mayor Mark Infanti joined council members Elizabeth Orona and Claudia Orona, who are not related, in voting in favor of the motion for eight banners.

Voting against allowing the banners were council members Robert Clarke and David Brown.

After getting rejected for its initial design and time span, Rainbow House Inc. reapplied seeking two weeks, not a month, to display the banners and adding the word “Solvang” to the banner. The selected proposal now reads, “Solvang Pride” and “All Welcome,” with a rainbow and a windmill.

Elizabeth Orona said the banner design had been modified to align with others approved in the city.

“I want to acknowledge this is probably very uncomfortable for many people who don’t understand this community, but that is the point,” she said. “We need to move forward and accept some change and accept some discomfort.”

The banners will enhance the already approved Pride event, she said.

“To add eight banners out of a hundred is really pretty simple,” she added.

Noting that he approved last year’s Pride parade and festival, Clarke proclaimed that he’s not a bad person and lashed out at the hate and vitriol directed toward him in recent weeks. In emails and texts, Clarke has referred to people in favor of the banners, including colleagues, with derogatory names.

“Who’s next for an entire month of an agenda to hang banners in this town?” he asked. “I don’t want it for anybody.”

The council’s vote came after nearly two hours of public comments in the standing-room-only council chambers.

Jeff Paaske said he attended last year’s Pride parade.

“I was hearing rumors that people thought we were going to take our clothes off and stuff. What a disappointment,” Paaske said, prompting laughter from the audience before becoming serious. “It was so well done.

“It is not political. It’s a day of celebration, which is why it’s called Pride.”

Members from the LGBTQ community shared about struggles growing up in the Santa Ynez Valley.

“I didn’t have representation because I lived in the Solvang snow globe,” Laurel Shires added.

Other residents spoke out against allowing the banners.

“The dogged pursuit of the matter by the applicants is fomenting divide in our community and the community supports Pride Month and the parade,” Colleen Estrada said.

Renee Condit, from a family with six generations of Solvang residents, also spoke against the banner request.

“To have someone, namely the sponsor of this proposal, stand up and say this special place is something other than a kind and welcoming town, that’s just flat-out wrong. That’s just not true,” Condit said.

Near 11 p.m., the council revisited its banner policy and decided to allow only those from the city. That means other longtime banners for the Elverhoj Museum of History & Art and the Solvang Chamber of Commerce’s Music in the Park won’t be allowed.

Existing city banners include the Danish flag with a crown, which has proven popular for people taking pictures, interim city manager Brad Vidro said.

“That flag has been on those street poles a long time,” Vidro said.

The panel ultimately voted 4-1, with Clarke opposed.

“It sucks, but yes,” Claudia Orona said as she cast her vote, adding, “Just to clarify, it’s not the motion that sucks, it’s the fact that we are in this position.”

This story was originally published April 27, 2023 at 8:32 AM.