I am a resident of Merrimack, i love using the swap area and i enjoy people leaving and taking items. With times being tough, I really see an issue of the town charging for residents to put unwanted home goods in the swap area. With his charge, I believe there will be more trash than swapping going on !!!

I agree with John! I'd love to know 'who' is already interested in using this site...would surely like that piece disclosed. It's fun to drive up and find what other think of as 'trash' and I think of as a 'treasure'! Candia has a FREE safe swap shop facility. We should look at their design. We are not Bedford and surely not Nashua since neither of the towns have toll booths!!!

Once again, Merrimack residents are getting screwed over! One of the few things left that are free and they are taking that away from us!!

It's not about charging people to put stuff into the shop, more so to TAKE items from the shop. I clarified that sentence in my story. For example, in Bedford, Micali said, the shop owner charges a dollar for a book or 50 cents for a CD. You wouldn't have to pay to drop off those items.

We understood your comments. Taking the FREE part of it regardless of incoming/outgoing is unacceptable. Just another TOLL in our town is all it is!!!!!!

This smacks of someone that is working an inside angle, as prior comments indicate. If the town council already has ''someone'' in mind to run this operation at a profit, then I view this situation as the Town Council acting as lobbyists to get this 'Swap Shop' (misnomer, since it is not a swap, but a profit generating business) and its owner/operator all set up on Town funds. The Town is not benefitting financially from this endeavor- the Town has an initial outlay to get this building set up and running. Why on earth would the Town invest in someone's initial start up costs, and place this business on Town property? This should be put before the public on a vote. It stinks of backroom politics and changes the nature of what was already happening- for free. If this 'interested party' wants a consignment business, then direct the party to any one of our vacant store fronts in town.

One thing - I think just having an attendant present for a couple of weeks to make browsers park on the side of the building or pull thru and park out in front would help end the bottleneck. Also, having the swap shop in a separate location as Hillsborough has would also help. As far as paying for items, that will end it. I drop off and pick up but if I have to pay for an item, I probably won't bother.

Milford had a "still good shed" where you could drop off things that were still of use for someone, it was all free and a great way to help people less fortunate. I think they had to stop since it became a place for people to drop obsolete electronics and furniture that people didn't want to pay a fee to get rid of, we have the "free section" in the recycling section, why not try to organize that a little better and maybe have some sort of order to it rather than allow someone to set up shop on town land and make a profit while costing a taxpayer just a little more.

The town is going to let a private individual run a Goodwill shop on town property, and let him keep the profits? No way! There are plenty of charities' stores, collection bins run by charities that take this stuff now. The reason I drop stuff off is to let somebody else use it for nothing, not sell it to them. The town subsidizing a private business to compete with the Salvation Army has to be illegal. If traffic is the problem, move the existing swap shop to the other building and run it as it is now - let people take the stuff for nothing, don't let a guy sell it for a profit when he gets it for nothing. And I can guarantee that when the guy won't accept something he thinks he can't make enough money on, that thing will go right in the transfer station. So where's your recycling now? Somebody should have thought this through a little. From what I see, townspeople overwhelmingly like the free swap idea - this is like the PAYT idea where the Council attacked the transfer station in favor of PAYT only to have the people overwhelmingly reject it. Where is the data to support that 2 1/2 year payback? There were studies done to support PAYT, but when looked into, they were done by people who stood to benefit from PAYT, no unbiased data was available.

Wow...sounds like the Town Council has a lot of support on this one...NOT!!! Who do we need to speak to about this insane idea?? I'm thinking I'll start with a letter to the Town Manager.

I've been using this area of the dump for a long time, both to leave items and to take home a few fun little treasures because its free. Most of this stuff isn't worth much, or is leftover from someone's yard sale. I can't think of a single thing I would have paid money for. If the money were going to a Merrimack charity,such as the three local food pantries, I might reconsider, but I'm not donating it for some private individual to make a profit. This idea stinks!

I totally agree with all prior comments!! This is sooo wrong on sooo many levels! My items will not be going to that individual so they can make a profit!! At the very least a portion of the money should go back to the town or a local charity!

What about the same people you see there on Saturday afternoon picking up items. In the summer and fall I drive by there many times on a Saturday and the same cars are parked on the side of building gettting fuller. What do you think they are doing with the "free" items good intentioned people leaving for the those who can't afford that used game for their kids....they are taking them to the flea market on Sunday and selling them. Stop the abuse of the area. Stop the slow down. The story says the leasee. That indicates money coming back to the town. My taxes are too high. Time for some money coming back to the town especially for trash.

If I'm not mistaken, the leasee does NOT pay the town ANYTHING! They only have to pay the electric bill. The leasee will probably not even have to pay for snowplowing!
I've picked up some great items for my grandchild. I'm sure you are correct that some do profit at yard sales or flee markets with there finds. I also agree that the town should profit financially with this endevor. This proposal needs some tweaking at the very least!

Ms Ski, you are mistaken. The person is leasing the building from the town. That means the person pays the town rent, if you will, to have the space. The town is not subsidizing the person to be there, they are simply paying to place the building there so they have control over what is put in that space. I apologize if people did not understand that in the sentence in the story that says: "They would run electricity to the building and lease it to someone with consignment shop/second hand shop experience, who would run the shop." I didn't realize until I read your comment and Pat's from this morning, a few up, that people may not understand that fully.

I agree John. Full disclosure is requested as to the 'who'. Sure hope it's not the woman that ran a consignment shop in town that has been arrested a few times...

I can't believe the town is trying to shut down one of the last free benifits to
tax payers.

I am a transfer station regular and I think this idea has merit. I am not sure whether it will take off or not but I am willing to give the Town Council the benefit of the doubt here as it seems they are proceeding cautiously with mechanisms to back out of the deal if it doesn't work.

For me personally, I like the idea of moving the "Still good" area out of the recycling facility traffic flow. I think the current setup is non-optimal and creates too much of a bottleneck which in turn creates recycling disincentives. I also like to drop off and pick up from the still good area but like others have stated here, I am not convinced I am willing to pay for it.