Members of the DeKalb community have a chance to decide the future of Cornfest at a town meeting next week.

The meeting is set up to be an open forum, so anyone can voice their opinions about the event, said Joe Green, president of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce.

Questions rose about the annual event when local restauranteurs started a petition drive stating that Cornfest hurts their business and needs to be re-examined by its organizers.

“The downtown merchants have different ideas about the time, format and date of the Cornfest event,” Green said.

“We will listen to everyone’s ideas and decide which ones are feasible,” he said.

The celebration began in 1957 as a corn boil sponsored by Del Monte and in 1977 became Cornfest, said Pam Blickem, DeKalb economic development specialist.

The city ran the festival until 1989, when the Greater DeKalb Partnership (now the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce) took the event over, Blickem said.

All Cornfest festivities are thoroughly planned. There is a steering committee that assesses each Cornfest and decides which things worked and which did not, she said.

“We have a critique meeting right after each year’s Cornfest while it is fresh in our minds to decide how the event went,” Blickem said.

The steering committee decides what improvements are needed and what fees to charge while working within certain budget restraints to produce a crowd-pleasing event, Blickem said.

The petition surprised the steering committee, but the committee does not look at it as a negative, Blickem said. “We are anxious to hear people’s concerns about Cornfest.”

Mary and Gavin Wilson, co-owners of the Hillside restaurant, 121 N. Second Street, originators of the petition, said, they “feel very positive about the meeting.”

“We do support Cornfest, but the event does need to be re-evaluated,” Wilson said.

The meeting will be at the DeKalb County Farm Bureau, 315 N. Sixth St., Thursday, Aug. 19 at 7 p.m. .