Good morning; on the Beacon today, the Whitefish City Council voted 3-2 on Dec. 6 to grant a sign variance for Mrs. Spoonover’s ice cream parlor on Second Street kitty corner to Whitefish Middle School. A development company and construction company that authorities say are responsible for dumping 400 cubic feet of dredged and fill material into Flathead Lake have been fined $15,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency. A valley scooped between Woodland Avenue and Dry Bridge Pond creates rides of unassuming slopes facing each other. The Kalispell City Council is delaying a decision on initial approval of expansion plans for Kalispell Regional Medical Center in order to assess whether a plan for broader transportation improvements is necessary for the neighborhood surrounding the hospital. A study on the channel migration zone, sponsored by the Flathead Lakers, Montana Department of Environmental Quality and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, looked at 24 miles of the Flathead River and attempted to map how it might behave over time.
Montana’s former tourism director who was fired last summer has filed a lawsuit in federal court contending her civil rights were violated. The number of livestock killed by coyotes, grizzly bears, black bears and mountain lions in Montana has increased dramatically in recent years, according to a report by the state bureau of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services. The Internal Revenue Service on Friday filed a $15.4 million claim against Yellowstone Club co-founder Edra Blixseth for unpaid income taxes during the two years leading to the exclusive Montana resort’s bankruptcy. Swiss Philanthropist Hansjorg Wyss’ most ambitious project to date has come to fruition as conservation groups this month closed a deal to purchase vast tracts of Plum Creek Timber Co. land in western Montana. The Missoulian outlines the salary negotiations of the Polson city manager. As Republicans take the reins of the 2011 Legislature next month, high on their agenda is revising Montana’s energy and environmental laws to boost natural-resource development and jobs.