Purple Reign: Buellton Mayor Pushes Past Partisanship to Make City ‘Simply Fabulous’

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This article was underwritten in part by the Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice, a proud, innovative supporter of local news. To make a contribution go to sbcan.org/journalism_fund.

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[Updated: Fri., June 26, 2026, 12:15pm]

I met Mayor David Silva at Little King Coffee in Buellton one bright morning in late March. Silva ordered an iced coffee and spent a few moments greeting the barista. Then he settled in to talk to me about Buellton, his start in politics, and where he stood now. 

Outside, the day warmed to about 80 degrees. Cars drove down Highway 246, to race onto Highway 101 or turned on to Avenue of Flags (which, once upon a time, was Highway 101), where trimmed grassy medians, statues and park space divided the road. Pea Soup Andersen’s, the billboard-famous restaurant, sat vacant and run-down. 

About 5,500 people live here, surrounded by vineyards and cattle land. Many of them commute an average of 30 minutes to jobs outside of the valley. You’ll pass a Tractor Supply Co. if you enter town from the south. Figueroa Mountain Brewery’s first taproom still serves locals and tourists. And as anyone who’s lived in a small town knows, there are consistent familiar faces at the restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops, and parks. 

Silva is a relative newcomer. He won his mayoral election two years after he first was elected to City Council and five years after moving to Buellton with his husband, Jason. Silva speaks quickly, emphasizes practical solutions over ideology, and is entirely willing to talk to people — whether that’s knocking on doors or hosting town halls. 

About a month after our first meeting at Little King, I met Silva again, this time at Dean Coffee, not too far from Old Town Goleta. Silva popped out of his office at UC Santa Barbara’s campus, where he works full-time in the Office of Development, for the interview. Here is some of what we got into. 

The Start 

The decision to enter the strange and mundane world of local politics came after a “no.” In early 2021, Silva and his husband, Jason, were emerging from COVID lockdown isolation and the shadow of Jason’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a diagnosis he received a year prior. 

“During that time, I basically became his nurse and caretaker,” Silva tells me as he clutches his iced coffee. “So, when we got the first signal that [Jason] was going into remission — that was in January of 2021 — [Jason] said, ‘You need a hobby.’” 

Silva decided to apply for a position on Buellton’s Planning Commission. It’s not an elected role: Buellton’s city councilmembers appoint the five planning commissioners. Silva said that while his knowledge of the inner workings of local government came largely from watching Parks and Recreation, he thought he could provide a fresh perspective as a caretaker. 

Buellton’s City Council did not choose Silva. Two other qualified people applied for the positions, but that wasn’t the reason that stuck with him. 

“A councilmember would go on to say how my lifestyle didn’t match the conservative Christian values of Buellton,” he said. 

Silva said that, whether the comment stemmed from blatant homophobia or from a general distrust of perceived outsiders, it motivated him to email Buellton’s city clerk and ask when he could file to run for city council. About a year later, he put his name in for his district’s seat. 

Over the next several months, Silva knocked on every door in his district, meeting folks who had never voted in a city election. By talking to his neighbors, he said, he found a swath of people interested in new ideas and change. 

“Everyone I met when door knocking really gave me that sense, like, ‘We want to see something happen.’ What can we do to not just be a bedroom community?” 

Silva called the race against his challenger, Planning Commissioner Art Mercado, amiable. 

“I even remember at one point, running into his wife, and she was like, ‘It’s nice that [either of] the two people running will be good for Buellton,” Silva recalls. 

Silva won the election and found himself, for the first time, on the inside of city politics. 

Flags on the Avenue 

In February 2023, as Silva began to learn the ropes of Buellton City Council, the nearby City of Solvang’s council made a decision that grabbed local — and eventually international — attention. The council voted to deny a local organization’s application to display pride banners and paint rainbow crosswalks for the month of June, citing concerns that it made a political message. Silva spoke during the public comment period at that meeting, saying his existence as a gay man wasn’t political. His comment didn’t stop the decision to oppose the crosswalk (two months later, Solvang’s City Council approved banners for two weeks after the mayor of Copenhagen sent a letter urging the city council to give their “full support” to the town’s LGBTQ community.) 

But Silva said it gave him an idea. He said he began to work with Buellton city staff, legal council, and his fellow councilmembers to bring different flags to the town’s famous avenue. It started with Pride flags for June but expanded to include Hispanic Heritage Month in September. This year, flags for Indigenous Peoples Month will decorate the avenue in November. 

The flags were a symbol, Silva said. “How do we get people in our community that don’t feel seen or welcomed to feel welcome, seen, and celebrated?” Once you peel that back, he said, the conversation expands: What do seniors need? What about working parents, or kids with disabilities? 

Silva describes a kind of municipal self-awareness. Between work, commuting, and family obligations, not everyone can carve out time for public comment once a month at 6 p.m., Silva said. 

And even if people are able to make it to a council meeting, they may not have the knowledge to get their concerns heard or their questions answered. Public comment is one specific form of communication — one that does not provide dialogue between commenter and council. 

“That kind of barrier of entry is enough to be like, ‘I have to feed my kids. I have to work a second job.’ Politics is a bit for the privileged,” Silva said. 

The city’s outreach initiatives, Silva said, attempt to address this barrier. As mayor, Silva runs coffee hours at Little King Coffee. Last year, he started regular town hall meetings, which rotate to different public venues in each district. Town halls and coffee hours, Silva said, allow for people to ask questions and raise community concerns in a less formal setting. It doesn’t resolve the inherent lack of access a working person may face when trying to schedule in civic engagement, or clear the way of somehow inevitable paperwork when it comes to government planning, but it does offer a few more time slots and a willing ear for that engagement.

Purple Politics 

In fall 2024, as a strained presidential election brought acute partisanship in Washington and at home, David Silva ran for mayor. Silva took on incumbent and longtime city councilmember David King. Again, that made him the outsider candidate in the race. Now came the return of door knocking, this time to more than 3,000 homes. 

Some social scientists argue partisanship voting lessens in local elections, and perhaps this has played out in politically purple (though more recently bending toward violet) Buellton. The mayorship is a nonpartisan election, but Silva was open about being a registered Democrat. He said he spoke with Democrats and Republicans alike while campaigning, choosing to focus on practical solutions to community-based problems. He told me he recalls seeing “Trump ‘24” and “Elect David Silva” signs in the same yard. 

People across the political spectrum wanted programs that helped people in Buellton. Within this idea of locality, of helping one’s neighbor, Silva said, he began to find common ground. It came as a blend of compassion and accountability. 

Come November, Silva pulled about 52 percent of the vote compared to King’s 47 percent, making him the county’s youngest mayor not to mention Buellton’s first openly queer one. 

Silva has a sense of playfulness. During his first State of the City address as mayor, he called Buellton “simply fabulous.” This year, at Santa Ynez Valley Aquatic Foundation’s polar bear plunge fundraiser to help build a new pool in the valley, he showed up for a dunk with Solvang Mayor David Brown clad in floaties. 

But he frames issues that could easily delve into ideology in concrete, local terms. He centers much of Buellton’s environmental policy, for example, in terms of practical impacts: native plants to make neighborhoods more fire resistant or dark sky mandates to keep the rural character of the town.

Sable, the oil company that recently started pumping off California’s coast again after the Trump Administration stepped in, owns a currently defunct gas pipeline under part of Buellton. During the court battle that preceded the federal government’s actions, Buellton sent a formal letter to the Board of Supervisors requesting the board request the pipeline be moved and ensure the appropriate safety steps should it resume use. Buellton’s concerns, Silva said, were practical ones: what would happen to the houses over the pipeline if it leaked?  

“It’s not: ‘yes, oil, no oil.’ It’s: ‘Are people safe?’” he said. “I do admit I referenced on the dais, ‘I’ve seen Erin Brockovich. I know what happens!’ but we need to be able to communicate to people about what’s going on.” 

Sable did not respond to Buellton’s requests. 

Still, Silva favors a policy approach where the government chips in to provide social services. For him, for example, making sure people stay fed is the government’s job. He voted to fund Meals on Wheels in 2024, when it faced major shortfalls. This spring, he put together a “benefits” fair for people who may need social services, including healthcare, connections to affordable housing, or food resources. 

When he talks to people about social services, he said, he sees a moderate through line he called “compassion, but accountability.” 

“People are willing to provide services, and they’re willing to have their tax dollars go to support people when they can see it’s benefiting someone that they know, someone that’s in the neighborhood,” he said. 

Growth 

While South County cities struggle to hit state-mandated affordable housing quotas, Buellton has the luxury of long-term planning (the city has already satisfied its very-low and low-income regional housing requirements through 2031). Silva said the city shoots for a proactive approach in expanding its urban boundaries, getting the community involved so people have a say in how Buellton grows. 

“If people want local control, you have to do it in the early planning phases,” Silva said. “Local control doesn’t happen when you’re being reactive to state mandates.” 

Buellton has expanded its urban growth boundary to the year 2036 — that’s a step, Silva said, in proactive, tactical expansion. 

During Silva’s mayorship, three affordable housing projects have opened, after years of planning, permitting, and construction. Silva doesn’t take credit for them (the first project’s planning stages started in 2014). But he has worked to inform Buellton and the community on the changes the new housing will bring, and who the units are for. 

“These three projects were scheduled to happen over about 10 years,” Silva said. He called their opening — all three within 18 months — a culture shock for the city, which hasn’t seen that much housing built at once in decades. For Silva, that meant fielding questions: Who could use the housing? Did Buellton have the resources to support it? Would it increase crime? 

The housing projects came alongside new local legislation meant to further redevelopment on the avenue. In March, Buellton’s City Council voted unanimously to require motels on Avenue of Flags to “reconvert” to motel use. City staff and councilmembers aimed to help get low-income tenants on wait lists and into the new subsidized housing projects in the area. 

Silva, alongside the City Council, voted for the motel ordinance, which gives 18 months for folks on waiting lists for affordable housing. Silva personally visited tenants to try to distribute pamphlets and resources. 

The city is now facing a lawsuit over this ordinance, with one motel owner saying it will displace the low-income residents and destroy his business. The ordinance disproportionately affects this owner, who provides the majority of low-income single room occupancies on the avenue. 

The motel ordinance came as part of a broader effort to revitalize Buellton’s Avenue of Flags. Until the late ’60s, Avenue of Flags was Highway 101, and Buellton built much of its economy on motor travel. Pea Soup Andersen’s opened in 1924 as “Andersen’s Electric Café,” before taking on the “Pea Soup” name in 1947. But when the state rerouted Highway 101 in the ’60s, the Avenue’s economic engine began to peter out. 

Now, the goal is to make the avenue a commercial and community center by improving infrastructure and walkability and encouraging redevelopment.

“We want Pea Soup Andersen’s to be a town center element,” Silva said. “We want it to be a gateway to the valley.”

Developer and construction company owner Ed St. George purchased the property in 2024, shortly after it closed down. St. George plans to build 125 condominiums and a new restaurant area. The building will follow art-deco guidelines, put forward by the city as part of the Avenue of Flags Specific Plan in 2017.

Silva said the council plans to uphold those guidelines, even though none of its current members voted on it, to respect the work developers have already put in to adhere to it. And, he said, because frequently changing rules decreases stability for folks looking to build in Buellton.

Silva doesn’t want the art deco guides to distract from the fundamentals of building a commercial and cultural core.

“If Pea Soup Andersen’s is our town center, how do you branch out from there? How do you have interesting things to look at? How do you make it discoverable?” Silva asked.

As for Silva, he’s up for reelection this November and getting ready for his third campaign in Buellton. 

“I think campaigns allow us to have a little self-reflection: ‘Am I doing the work my community put me here to do?’” he said.

The campaign and reflection will occur alongside Silva’s work as vice chair for SBCAG and on the California Air Resources Board, his mayoral work, and his “day” job at UC Santa Barbara. It’s enough to keep anyone busy, even someone with as much energy as Silva.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to add the last eight paragraphs, which were inadvertently omitted from an earlier version of this story.