A tense exchange marked a discussion Tuesday among members of the Santa Barbara City Council about whether to send a letter opposing offshore oil drilling. Ultimately, the discussion led to a 5-1 vote to send the letter of opposition, with Councilman Dale Francisco dissenting. Councilwoman Iya Falcone was absent.

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted two weeks ago to send a similar letter.

The letter is part of public comment sought by the Mineral Management Service. It is in the process of updating its leasing program, which it prepares every five years, and the window for comment ends in one week. The program will determine the size, location and timing of oil and gas leasing on the outer continental shelf based on energy needs.

In January, the draft plan for the proposed outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing program for the next five years was released. That same month, the Santa Barbara County supervisors voted 3-2 to approve drilling after a moratorium had been lifted on drilling in federal waters.

With former 3rd District Supervisor Brooks Firestone serving as the swing vote, approval for new leasing made national headlines, all after a deal had been brokered between the Environmental Defense Center and Plains Exploration & Production Co. (PXP), an oil company and backer of a platform off Santa Barbara’s north county coast at Tranquillon Ridge. The EDC’s deal would have required the company to cease production after 14 years, but would allow it to drill in the meantime.

When the issue came before the State Lands Commission, however, it rejected it on a 2-1 vote. Councilman Das Williiams, who supported putting the letter on the council’s agenda, said he favored sending it and “reiterating our past opposition.”

“I think it’s very clear that the majority of our constituents are opposed to new leasing,” he said.

Councilwoman Helene Schneider said she supported sending the letter as a clarification to the Board of Supervisors’ vote earlier in the year.

“It created a lot of confusion,” she said, when national media outlets picked up on the story in January.

Eight members of the public spoke during public comment Tuesday, with five speakers supporting the letter and three opposing.

When one of the speakers said the city had been opposed to the Tranquillon Ridge project and that the city was in financial crisis and should drill, Mayor Marty Blum corrected the speaker after he finished his comments.

“We don’t get any money,” she said, adding that the city, as an entity, didn’t take a stance on the project.

The discussion turned tense when Nathan Alley, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Center, began his comments.

He said the City Charter’s stance on drilling declares it unlawful “to explore for, prospect for or drill for, or to permit or to commence the exploration, prospecting or drilling for oil, gas or other hydrocarbon substances within the corporate limits of the city.”

Francisco asked whether the letter dealt with drilling in federal or state waters, and Alley clarified that the letter dealt with offshore leasing in federal waters, not in state waters, where the drilling would occur for the Tranquillon Ridge project.

Alley said he hopes the deal will go through at some point, and that the EDC had brokered an end to operations at the facility, instead of the platform working into perpetuity.

“Why are we talking about federal waters instead of state?” Francisco asked.

Alley responded that because the issue was time sensitive, with a deadline for public comment looming, the issue needed to be addressed sooner rather than later, and that the EDC’s deal dealt only with state waters as far as Tranquillon Ridge was concerned.

“You’d be pumping more oil in the short term, but you’d be pumping it for much less time,” he said.

Francisco asked whether oil would be pumped for 14 years, and Alley replied that it could be pumped for a shorter amount of time. Francisco persisted, asking “Is that correct?” several times.

“Excuse me,” Mayor Blum called out, taking issue with Francisco’s tone. “That’s not being civil or kind.”

Francisco shot back: “We don’t usually respond to public comment either, and you’ve felt free to do that. I have some questions to ask. May I continue to ask them?”

“Yeah, but if you could do it in a nice, civil way, we would appreciate it,” Blum said.

Francisco also asked Williams about the timing of the letter. “If this was so critically important to bring before council, and we had seven months to comment on a 149-page report, why did you wait until a week before the end of the comment period to bring it to us?” he asked.

Francisco also took issue with council time being used for the topic, and that the letter stated that the city had reviewed the whole document.

“I’m not aware of any review by the city,” he said.

Williams said the timing of the issue was partly because the county had sent a similar letter and asked the city to do the same. The staff has been reviewing the issue for months internally, Williams said, but that the council hasn’t had a regular meeting for the past two weeks, further delaying the item.

“It’s an important matter for us to clarify to the world, which was obviously very confused last year as a result of the reversal by the Board of Supervisors,” Williams said.

He said halting existing operations would be “the ideal situation.”

Blum said she had reviewed the material and was comfortable signing the letter, but Francisco was not.

“The idea that we have somehow reviewed a 149-page document is absurd,” he said, adding that by signing a letter saying the council had read the document was “a misuse of the role of actually considering things before we act.”

“I will not be voting for this misrepresentation of our work,” he said.

— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com.