Early on during Monday night’s city council meeting, Marshalltown Mayor Joel Greer read a letter from Marshall County Public Health Director Sydney Grewell recommending that this weekend’s Oktemberfest be moved out of the downtown area due to the ongoing Legionnaires’ disease outbreak and the belief that it originated from a cooling tower somewhere in “north central Marshalltown.”

After nearly 40 minutes of discussion on potential alternative locations later in the meeting, the council voted 4-3 to disregard the recommendation and keep the festival downtown. City Administrator Carol Webb kicked off the conversation and suggested either the Central Iowa Fairgrounds or the 6th Street Softball Complex as other options.

“Our intent is to try to keep these festivities going. It’s something that the community looks forward to every year, and I think it’s a highlight event in the community,” Webb said.

She added that if the council chose to move forward with a new plan, a meeting would be held with the Oktemberfest committee after the council meeting, and the message would be communicated with the public as quickly as possible. Councilor Gary Thompson asked for clarification as the number of Legionnaires’ cases has plateaued recently, and the owners of each of the 12 cooling towers believed to be potential sources of the legionella bacteria have undergone remediation processes already.

Webb said the city is receiving the same information as the public, and Councilor and Mayor Pro-Tem Mike Ladehoff recounted a recent meeting between himself, Mayor Joel Greer, City Clerk Alicia Hunter, Marshall County Public Health Director Sydney Grewell and Marshall County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Carol Hibbs about the cleaning and “shocking” of the cooling towers along with bringing in a third party to clean them again.

“They have high confidence that it’s dead, but nothing in life is ever zero. We all know that, and no matter what I say up here, people aren’t going to believe it. And conspiracies run rampant, but the cause of which tower (was responsible) may never be found because basically, they nuked them all,” Ladehoff said. “You may never get which tower it was, but I think you can be pretty confident that it’s dead.”

He added that both he and Greer asked about specific locations, but the information was not provided to them, citing the fact that HHS does not legally have to disclose the source under Iowa’s business personhood law.

“As a city body, this really sucks. We can’t communicate anything because we don’t know anything,” Ladehoff said, noting that he’d been called a liar.

There may still be more cases in the days to come, but Ladehoff expressed confidence that the numbers would soon drop to zero. He urged the community to “chill” and pray that the number of new cases continues to remain low, as it barely ticked up from 70 to 71 despite a report of a second death from the disease on Sept. 18.

Greer spoke next and told the sizable audience that there was nothing anyone could do to prevent themselves from getting it other than staying inside, as the disease is contracted through inhaling contaminated water droplets and is not spread person-to-person. He was informed of the second death in real time during the meeting before opening up the floor to council comments.

In response to a question from Councilor Melisa Fonseca, Webb commended the owners of the Shops at Marshalltown (former Marshalltown Mall) for offering the use of their parking lot, and Hunter said that the Fair Board had offered to donate the use of the fairgrounds. Fonseca said that if the concern was the disease, the entire event should be canceled, and she wondered why the risk was higher in the downtown area.

“That’s the area that the HHS delineated for us. We didn’t determine that, so if we move it south of the (railroad) tracks, I think that limits at least the perceived exposure,” Webb said. “What the health department communicated to us is that HHS is mostly concerned with new exposures, which would be visitors coming into town who have not been people working in this area or visiting the northern part of the community and probably, if they’re gonna get sick, they probably have already gotten sick. That’s the rationale the department used.”

Webb also noted the extensive preparations and expenditures vendors have already undergone ahead of the festival and felt that canceling it outright would be “very detrimental to the community.” So far, only the Elks Lodge has chosen to withdraw its float from the parade set for Saturday morning.

After an initial motion from Councilor Jeff Schneider to move the liquor licenses to the fairgrounds, the floor was opened up to public comments. Jim Shaw recalled a Legionnaires’ outbreak at Fisher Controls decades ago and wondered about where the car show would be held at the fairgrounds.

Doris Kinnick noted that the people most at risk when it comes to Legionnaires’ disease often have other underlying conditions and felt online commenters had been jumping to conclusions, urging cooler heads and calm to prevail.

“We’re gonna get through this. It’s gonna be OK, and I’m looking forward to Oktemberfest this year,” she said.

City Council candidate Scott McLain expressed confusion about why moving the festival was even being considered if remediation of all of the potential sources was already completed, and he felt that events being moved away from downtown had already hurt those businesses enough as it is. Duane Dixon of the Oktemberfest committee said he had found out about the recommendation at about 4 p.m. Monday, and he also shared his preference to leave the festival the way it was planned and go against the state’s recommendation — but adding that he would work to adjust on the fly if necessary.

“I guess the shortest answer is we’re not canceling. There’s too many vendors that bought food, too many vendors that have things planned for sales,” he said. “There’s insurance that’s been spent. There’s expenses. There’s been equipment rented, just all the planning as far as getting things set up. I’ve probably got a couple hundred hours of work in just by myself, so I’m not the only one.”

The initial motion to move the license to a new site passed by a 6-1 vote with only Fonseca opposed, but as Greer asked for a subsequent motion to choose the aforementioned new site, Thompson then made a motion to leave it downtown, commenting that he was confused on the rationale for the sudden recommendation from county and state public health officials.

“Nothing seems to have changed today more than two weeks ago or a week ago, and then we’re hearing from Councilor Ladehoff that everything’s been shocked and everything’s fine, but yet we’re getting mixed signals because HHS thinks we should move it,” he said.

Thompson asked if the council had the authority to override the city administrator and city clerk’s issuance of a public use permit. Webb told him the council had approved the use of the public streets downtown for the event, so if the decision was to move, they would have to revoke the permit.

Ladehoff asked Greer to reread the letter he had received, which “recommended’ that Oktemberfest be moved out of northern Marshalltown “out of an abundance of caution.” Councilor Greg Nichols then asked Dixon about how relocation may affect attendance.

“For the most part, I think if you were already planning on going, you’re already going. You’ve already made up your mind. It’s no different than COVID a few years ago. If you were gonna go out, you were gonna go out. If you wanna wear a mask, wear a mask. I don’t care,” Dixon said. “I’m not gonna recommend it either way, but I”m not gonna judge you for it.”

Councilor Barry Kell wondered about any future liability if the city went against the recommendation and another death occurred, which prompted Greer to divulge that a reporter from a TV station had called him about a Legionnaires’ related lawsuit already.

“I personally, as a lawyer and as the mayor, am not too worried about liability,” he said.

Dixon also commented that all of the advertising for Oktemberfest had billed it as a downtown event. As it finally came time to vote on the matter, Nichols, Thompson, Mark Mitchell and Fonseca supported the motion to keep Oktemberfest downtown, while Kell, Ladehoff and Schneider opposed it.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.