by Geoff Fox
A weather station that will collect data for public use is going to be installed in the area near the back of Kirkwood Park, just above the lower playing field.
Town Manager Mike Faith told town officials he had received paperwork from Maryland Mesonet, a University of Maryland and Maryland Department of Emergency Management Partnership, to locate the weather station in Hancock.
The station will collect weather data locally and all information will be available free to the public.
Faith said Hancock Little League had no issue with the location, as it would be out of the fields.
The space is marked right now with four, orange stakes, and is a 30’ by 30’ area.
photo by Geoff Fox
Concrete will be poured for a 3’ by 3’ pad to house the mast, which is about 30 feet high, for the station.
While it collects the weather data, it will collect soil moisture data as well.
A plus to having the station at Kirkwood Park is Hancock Little League can open the website and see the soil moisture to decide if they are able to play games that day.
The station will be built at no cost to the town and Mesonet will maintain the site and equipment as well.
The town and organization will sign a memorandum of understanding for land use, allowing them to use and access the site.
Under the agreement, Faith said the town would allow the organization to have their equipment on the town’s land and should the town decide not to have the equipment at the site, they can have Mesonet remove it. 
“I think it would be nice to have because we would have local weather and not coming out of Hagerstown,” Faith said.
There are no wires needed for the equipment and the site is run on solar power.
The station will keep track of the temperature, humidity, wind, rain, moisture, and snowfall. There is no lightning tracker on the station, Faith added.
To have that detection, there would have to be sensors “all over the place,” he said.
Town officials unanimously agreed to the weather station. No construction date has been determined.
RFP for generators
Town officials looked over the request for proposal packets for the possible purchase of generators for Town Hall and Community Center.
Councilman David Kerns immediately jumped in asking about the bids.
Kerns said if the town is entering into a contract to pay for a “massive piece of equipment,” the town wouldn’t get a tax break if the winning proposal company buys the generator.
If the town were to buy the generator directly, the town would pay $6,000 on a $100,000 generator.
Kerns said he didn’t see why the town couldn’t take advantage of what the town is and get tax-exempt and include that in the RFP.
Town Attorney Ed Kuczynski told Kerns the company is required to pay sales tax if they are buying the equipment, but the town buys it directly, the town could bypass the sales tax.
However, Kuczynski said it would also assume the vendor won’t require payment of the sales tax.
Councilman Josh McCusker asked if the town could put the installation of a certain model of generator into the RFP by having the generator delivered to Town Hall, which Kuczynski said would then also have to be put out to bid as well as the installation.
Whether it saves the town money or not, Kuczynski said he didn’t know, but if someone is selling both the generator and labor and they’re getting the labor, there’s a chance some money could disappear.
Mayor Roland Lanehart, Jr. said the town was just trying to get an idea on price and then go back to the county to see how much they’d help the town pay for the equipment.
Faith said he had taken a quote from couple years ago and presented to an electric company with what the town wanted.
What that company sent back was a single page with no itemization and just numbers on it.
It wasn’t apples to apples, Faith said about the comparison.
“There’s just a big discrepancy in the prices here,” Faith said.
Elsworth, the company Faith contacted, gave a $201,500 estimate for a natural gas generator and $126,9000 for a diesel generator.
There was another quote from Kelly where the natural gas generator was $129,500 and $85,600 for the diesel.
The Elsworth quotes included installation, but Kelly’s did not.
Lanehart said for the well house, the town would want natural gas because if they built out there, they’d need it out there as well.
