All Festus city facilities will be open during their standard business hours starting Monday (March 15), City Administrator Greg Camp said.
“That includes City Hall, the Public Works building, the (Festus Public) Library and the band building (Heuby E. Moore Band Building),” he said.
Camp said with the reopening of the municipal buildings to the public, the city will resume accepting reservations for city facilities, such as the Heuby E. Moore Band Building (which sits behind City Hall), pavilions at all city parks and the stage at the Larry G. Crites Memorial Park (formerly West City Park).
During the Monday (March 8) Festus City Council meeting, Camp asked for and received permission from the council to reopen municipal buildings to public access if the Jefferson County Health Department shifted the county to the yellow level on the agency’s COVID-19 warning system.
The Health Department announced Tuesday afternoon that the county had been moved to the yellow level. Yellow is the second lowest on the four-color system and indicates minimal to moderate transmission of the virus.
New COVID-19 cases have been on the decline since the end of January, when the county was moved to the orange level, which is the second highest level on the system.
Before that, the county had spent 14 consecutive weeks at the red level, which is the highest level on the system.
Camp said Health Department Director Kelley Vollmar told him earlier on Tuesday that the county was being moved to the yellow level, so city officials began making plans to reopen its municipal buildings to the public.
Barb Lowry, the Festus recreation and tourism director, said the shift to the yellow status gives her encouragement to move forward with plans to hold several public activities that already were in the works, the first being a Dirty Dozen Mud Run (an obstacle course) on May 1, and the second, a Swingin’ Under the Stars free concert on May 23. Both will be held at the Larry G. Crites Memorial Park.
“For the Dirty Dozen Mud Run, we’ll have smaller heats,” Lowry said. “The last time, we had 25 run in a group. This year, we’ll have 15.”
She said she has many other public activities in the works.
Lowry said Festus will follow all guidelines the Health Department recommends to continue limiting the spread of COVID-19, like wearing masks at public events and practicing social distancing.
