Fairly small draw at swap-meet gathering A...

Fairly small draw at swap-meet gathering

A public hearing about the future of the swap meet at the Orange

County Fairgrounds drew a crowd of three Thursday.

There was a packed house for a meeting on the same topic last

week, when vendors and community members supported keeping the

long-running weekend swap meet in the hands of the founders.

Thursday’s hearing was for the full fair board to take comments on

a rough draft of a request for bids from those hoping to run the swap

meet. Only three people gave their input. On Aug. 16, a subcommittee

of the fair board garnered public comments from close to 40 people

who spoke on the issue, the vast majority in favor of Tel-Phil

Enterprises, which runs the swap meet under the moniker of the Orange

County Market Place.

The fair board held two public hearings on the rough draft of the

request for bids to make the process as accessible and open as

possible after the last bidding process was terminated because it got

mired in controversy. The board will now be incorporating the

comments it feels are valid into the final version of the request.

The board is anticipating voting on the final version of the

request in September before releasing it on Sept. 24.