August 15 – Hagerstown Mayor and Council will hold a work session this afternoon at 4 p.m. in Council Chambers at 1 E. Franklin Street.
One item up for discussion is the cultural trail design with the Maryland Stadium Authority.
Wes Decker, Communications Officer for the City of Hagerstown, explained, “Everyone has had an eye on that multi use sports and entertainment facility or better known as the downtown stadium project, but the cultural trail itself certainly has been interrupted. It’s required some reconfiguring, things of that nature. There is a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Maryland Stadium Authority. The stadium authority has run into a few issues with doing what they thought they were going to be able to do with the trail initially, in sort of sneaking it around the stadium, around the center field area, specifically, because of loading docks that are needed for getting items in and out of the stadium itself.”
This afternoon, mayor and council will hear some of the ideas the stadium authority has come up with.
Decker said, “I guess one of the real sticking issues is that that trail was built with bonds. So in order to satisfy those bonds, the trail has to be exactly as long as it was before. So they can’t take a single inch away from it. They have to find a way to put it back. Don’t expect any real issues but just an opportunity to kind of give us a lay of the land, figuratively and literally.”
Also on the agenda, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts will talk about an expansion project that will cost $18 million.
Decker said, “That would be their investment in City Park. Currently they have about 23,000 square feet but this expansion would entail over 17,000 additional square feet, 6,200 at the current building, and then 11,000 plus more at an adjacent building, with construction expected to start late next year.”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM noted, “That’s a massive project with a big price tag.”
Decker said, “Yes, it is and I’m excited about it. Because if you’ve been over to City Park you see some sections over there behind the park that just simply aren’t used. Well, it looks like some of those are going to come into play now. I know there have been some environmental issues over there. They’ve been remediated. They are continuing to be addressed. So I believe that’s where some of this expansion is going to go. But that’ll be huge for City Park. One of the crown jewels of the city, and to have the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts expand to that degree is big time news.”
Mayor and Council will also revisit the advanced metering infrastructure deployment plan from the light department.
Decker said, “Which is really all about upgrading the meters that they use. We have talked about this before. There was some concern from some council members, especially about how the city infrastructure then would tie into the infrastructure of homeowners and property owners. So light department staff was asked to go back and come up with a new plan that maybe explains this a little bit better, not only to mayor and council, but also to customers. So they’re coming back with that plan. They intend to develop, publish and distribute a notice to customers or property owners that would describe the nature of this project and go into more details and kind of lay out what the responsibilities are for each party, meaning the city, then those individuals, so some of that will be addressed and we’ll get into a little bit more of why this is necessary. This is a $4.2 million plus project.”
For this afternoon’s agenda, click here: https://hagerstown.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/MeetingView.aspx?MeetingID=1208&MinutesMeetingID=-1&doctype=Agenda
