Longmont’s City Council members voted unanimously Tuesday night to give their preliminary approval to a $3 million agreement with two oil and gas operators, TOP Operating Co. and Cub Creek Energy, that city officials have said will essentially end oil and gas drilling within Longmont city limits.

Council members defended the proposed pact, contained partly in an ordinance that will be up for final council action on May 22, as the best the city could achieve under current state laws and court rulings limiting local control over oil and gas operations.

Under the agreement, Longmont would pay Lakewood-based TOP Operating Co. $3 million in return for the company’s plugging and abandoning of eight active wells, abandoning or removing flow and gathering lines associated with those wells, relinquishing 11 future drilling sites, abandoning 80 potential well permits, and never again drilling from within city limits, according to the city’s announcement.

As part of the agreement, Highlands Ranch-based Cub Creek Energy LLC, the second company involved in the proposed pact, will commit to forever relinquishing any right to drill inside Longmont city limits or on city-owned property — if the state approves Cub Creek’s proposed well location in Weld County northeast of Union Reservoir.

Any payments due to TOP would be made from royalties Longmont gets from Cub Creek in return for Cub Creek’s production of oil from deposits of oil and gas for which the city owns mineral rights — rights the city would lease to Cub Creek.

The council’s preliminary approval of that ordinance came over the objections of most of the nearly 20 people who spoke earlier in Tuesday’s meeting in opposition to the council taking any action on the proposed agreement that night.

Many of those speakers called for disclosure of the details of negotiations the city staff has had with TOP and Cub Creek, as well as disclosure of what the staff reported to the council during closed-door executive session reviews of the status of those negotiations.

Many also urged the council to schedule a public forum before proceeding any further toward adopting an agreement with TOP and Cub Creek.

“We deserve an unbiased description of the pros and cons of this deal in a public forum,” said Dylan Podel, a Hawthorne Circle resident.

Kristen Burris, a Carolina Avenue resident, said allowing even horizontal drilling deep underneath city-owned properties would be “a misuse of our open space lands.”

Brian Governson, a Judson Street resident, said oil and gas companies “are working to make their money. They don’t care about us.”

Kymbre Governson was one of several members of the public warning about the cancer risks and respiratory ailments they said oil and gas exploration and production can cause.

“These are not just hypothetical concerns,” said Kymbre Governson, urging the council members “to stand up” to oil and gas industry executives “who have no interest in protecting lives.”

But at least one person, Third Avenue resident John Coe, saluted the proposed agreement as being at least “a starting point” — one he said he believed was negotiated “in good faith by the city.”

Council members defended their staff and the way the negotiations were handled, as well as the resulting agreement.

Councilwoman Polly Christensen said she had supported the Longmont fracking ban the Colorado Supreme Court overturned in 2016 and that the city is limited by that court ruling and other state laws about what it can permit and what it can prohibit.

Christensen called the agreement “a very nuanced attempt to get the best that we can.”

Councilwoman Bonnie Finley told the people attending Tuesday night’s meeting that the oil and gas companies “can legally drill now” without having to limit themselves to the drill-site locations in Weld County outside Longmont’s city limits and the other conditions in the new agreement.

Councilman Aren Rodriguez acknowledged he ran for council “on an anti-fracking platform” last year and that he supports state legislative candidates who feel that way.

Until state laws are changed, though, “it’s important that we move this process forward” with the kind of agreement up for consideration now, Rodriguez said.

Councilwoman Marcia Martin told the people attending the meeting that it was necessary for the staff negotiations with oil and gas company representatives to take place confidentially.

“Otherwise, the city could not have achieved the deal that it got,” Martin said.

Mayor Brian Bagley said the council did not have a legal choice between oil and gas companies engaging in fracking — the process of injecting a mixture of sand, water and chemicals to free up underground oil and gas deposits — and not allowing fracking anywhere inside or near Longmont.

“There was one executive session on this topic,” Bagley said. “There weren’t 10.”

He said the council instructed the city staff to negotiate. Initially, he said, “the oil and gas companies did not want (the latest) deal.”

At the end of the day, “I don’t want oil and gas on the eastern side of Longmont,” said Bagley, an area he said where “heavy industry does not belong.”

This agreement “is the only way that Union (Reservoir) doesn’t get fracked,” he said. “It’s away from it.”

Councilwoman Joan Peck added: “I will support this, hesitantly.” She said the only way that Longmont’s authority over oil and gas activities can increase would be changes “at the state level.”

John Fryar: 303-684-5211, jfryar@times-call.com or twitter.com/jfryartc