The announcement of Leavenworth as the location for the 2010 and 2011 Kansas Sampler Festival is now on hold because of recent personnel changes within the Leavenworth County government.

Keyta Kelly, county counselor-at-large, confirmed that she received a letter of termination from the county commission on Tuesday. The county counselor-at-large office also will be eliminated, effective Jan. 2, 2009, Kelly said.

Kelly is one of 18 county employees whose positions were either eliminated or reassigned because of the county’s 2009 preliminary budget. She also had been appointed to serve as the Kansas Sampler Festival’s director in 2010 and 2011, of which Leavenworth is a hopeful and the only finalist.

The Kansas Sampler Foundation “tentatively withdrew” its approval of Leavenworth’s festival bid, Kelly said.

Marci Penner, Kansas Sampler Foundation executive director, along with other foundation and Kansas Explorers Club representatives, visited Leavenworth on Monday for the final site interview and proposed site tour.

Kelly, who has worked for the county’s government for 15 years, said she had no knowledge about the termination during Monday’s interview and site tour at Ray Miller Park.

Penner said she was shocked to learn about the personnel change through her e-mail correspondence with Kelly on Tuesday.

“It wasn’t something we expected the day after our interview and site visit,” Penner said. “It’s very important to us who the director is. With Keyta’s position as festival director in jeopardy, it would be negligent on our part to award the festival without knowing who would be directing it.

“Due to the new developments, we just need to step back and see how everything settles,” Penner said. “I think the dust does need to settle.” 

On Wednesday, Kelly said she would like to remain as the festival’s director, if possible.

“I don’t know. I would like to,” she said. “I don’t know if I can do that without an income.”

Leavenworth County and the cities of Basehor, Leavenworth, Lansing and Tonganoxie all signed an agreement that outlines the festival’s lead agency and monetary contributions.

According to the agreement, in the event Kelly becomes unemployed by Leavenworth County or otherwise unable to serve as director, the county commission will appoint another employee as director.

The agreement states that Leavenworth County will be reimbursed for the services of the director from the festival’s steering committee funds. The festival’s director will receive $17,500 each year, for a total of $35,000.

In total, the county and cities’ governments have committed $239,944 for the festival in 2010 and 2011.

The Kansas Sampler Foundation, based in Inman, Kan., is a nonprofit organization with the mission to preserve, sustain and grow rural culture through educating Kansans about Kansas.

The foundation has the annual Kansas Sampler Festival, which provides communities with the opportunity to give the public a sample of what there is to experience in Kansas.

Though the foundation had received two other cities’ applications for the 2010 and 2011 festivals, Leavenworth was the only city that advanced to the final selection process, Penner said.

“I’ve been telling Leavenworth County all along that just because they were the final applicant that they weren’t the shoo in,” Penner said. “They had been doing excellent work over the last several years to understand who we are, and we felt comfortable with Keyta in that position.”

In an e-mail, Penner wrote that Kelly has attended two separate Kansas Sampler festivals and attended a We Kan! conference. Kelly also is a We Kan! member and a member of the Kansas Explorers Club. 

The Kansas Sampler Foundation emphasizes that its festival directors have an understanding of the foundation and its philosophy, Penner said. She said the foundation usually has its festival location determined by the end of September about a year-and-a-half before it will take place.

“That doesn’t mean we’d wait until the end of September,” Penner said. “Hopefully, this will still work out. If not, we have to find another option by the end of September.”

County Commissioner J.C. Tellefson attended Monday’s interview and site visit and he said he knew about the termination letter while participating in the interview and site visit.

Tellefson said the commission’s actions on Monday regarding personnel have “no impact on the Sampler activities.”

“We have committed a budget for the Sampler,” Tellefson said. “We remain committed to the Sampler, and part of that budget was budgeted an amount of money for a Sampler Festival director. If the Sampler committee wants Ms. Kelly to be the Sampler director and she’s willing to do it for that amount of money — nothing has changed since we approved that portion of the budget. That’s her choice — not ours.”

Since the announcement, Tellefson said he has exchanged three or four e-mails with Kansas Sampler Foundation officials that expressed “a strong desire to make them comfortable with what’s going on.”

“I understand their concerns,” Tellefson said, “but as with every one of them, I have ended with ‘I fully assume to be attending the Kansas Sampler in Ray Miller Park in 2010 and 2011 after the Sampler Festival committee gets comfortable with everything that the entire county organization is doing.’”