Signs at top of C. Falls agenda

The Daily Inter Lake

Columbia Falls City Council will hold a public hearing tonight on a proposed zoning code amendment that would make a change in signs that are allowed in all districts across the city.

The hearing tops a light agenda for the meeting which starts at 7 p.m. in City Hall.

The proposed zoning text amendment would allow bulletin boards at churches and schools, or for other public, religious and educational uses anywhere in the city. Free-standing signs could not be bigger than 40 square feet, and internally lit signs could not be bigger than 20 square feet.

Existing signs would be grandfathered in under the proposal.

The council also will be asked to appoint a replacement for outgoing chairman Sarah Dakin on the Columbia Falls City-County Planning Board; clarify the money awards that go along with employee recognition for working five, 10, 15 and successive yearly increments; designate a recipient for a donation that HDR Engineering wants to make to a charitable organization in the city's name; and decide on whether to cancel the Jan. 5, 2009, meeting and schedule the next one for Tuesday, Jan. 20, a day after the Martin Luther King holiday.