Public hearings at tonight's Whitefish City Council meeting deal with typically controversial topics in the resort town: streets, signs and zoning.

Up first on the hearing agenda is a look at design elements and cost issues of the Second Street TIGER grant project. The council earlier this month agreed to fund half of the cost to bring in the consultants who completed the downtown master plan for their input on the street reconstruction design.

The second hearing involves a request from Great Northern Brewing Co. for a sign variance that would allow the downtown brewery to retain the Black Star sign on the north side of the building and allow two other signs, plus blinking neon lights, one of which blinks to simulate a bucking bronco.

The Black Star sign was taken down when the brewery stopping brewing Black Star beer in 2002, but it was reinstalled a year ago because the company is once again brewing Black Star. The city notified Brewery Manager Marcus Duffey in February 2010 that the signs were illegal because the business had not applied for or obtained a sign permit.

The city's sign laws also don't allow blinking or flashing signs.

Duffey has requested a variance for the number of signs, total sign area and the neon blinking signs.

The third public hearing takes up the long-running issue of zoning on the U.S. 93 strip south of Whitefish. On the table are two competing proposed text amendments to the secondary business district zone that address existing illegal commercial uses.

The council has been at an impasse on the zoning proposal since last year when it backed away from a controversial proposal to expand retail uses on the U.S. 93 strip after two years of study, three public hearings and testimony from scores of Whitefish residents.

Figuring out a way to bring several nonconforming businesses on the U.S. 93 strip into compliance has been a conundrum for the city. The original text amendment would have allowed additional permitted uses along the highway corridor in an effort to close up a loophole in the permitting system.

To find a compromise, the council appointed mediator Brian Muldoon to work with business owners in both the downtown and highway strip districts. According to City Manager Chuck Stearns, the majority of the recommended changes to the highway zone were quickly agreed to, but personal services, sporting goods and shopping malls took longer to sort out.

Eventually the stakeholders agreed that hair salons, medical clinics and associated therapeutic health services should be included in the amendment rather than an all-encompassing "personal services" label in order to address uses already active in that zone. They also agreed shopping malls should be removed from the list of permitted uses, though Mountain Mall would be grandfathered as a legal, nonconforming use.

IN OTHER business, the council will hear a presentation by the Whitefish Convention and Visitor Bureau regarding its fiscal 2012 marketing plan and budget.

Bob Denning will review the city's fiscal 2010 financial audit.

There may be council discussion regarding opposition to a cigarette and tobacco shop planned at a location across the street from the Whitefish Middle School.

Whitefish area resident Joan Vetter Ehrenberg has asked to city to consider an urgency ordinance to establish a temporary moratorium of smoke shops and tattoo parlors, and a group of middle-school students turned in petitions with dozens of student signatures opposed to the proposed cigarette store.

The council begins the evening at 5:30 p.m. with a closed executive session to talk about litigation updates and strategies. At 6 p.m. the council conducts its annual work session to determine goals and set priorities.

The regular meeting begins at 7:10 p.m.; all meetings are at Whitefish City Hall.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.