A few days later, Cowley County Administrator Leroy Alsup got a call from the college saying "no thanks, they weren't interested," Wilson said.

"There's no mystery about it," Wilson said. "I don't know what went on. They just decided they wanted no part of it. They didn't give any reason."

Cowley College President Patrick McAtee could not be reached for comment Friday.

Wilson would not comment directly on whether politics were behind the sudden turn of events. But he said as far as the county commission is concerned, it doesn't care who wants to head the economic development organization.

"If it's going to be done, we just want to do it right," he said.

The college would be a good choice as far as he's concerned, Wilson added. The college already has a Mechatronics program to train workers in skilled manufacturing jobs. It started a Business, Industry and Entrepreneurship program but eliminated the position last semester.

Alsup also had little to say about Cowley College's decision to withdraw its proposal.

He said the college and Cowley First held preliminary discussions aimed at getting the college involved "in the academic economic development area."

"They prepared a proposal from the big picture perspective," Alsup said. "This was presented at a meeting, and there you get into questions on implementing it."

After that single meeting, the college decided to withdraw the proposal, he said. "We still think they're going to be involved in economic development in another way."

The college's written proposal is a 10-page document showing an organization headed by the Cowley First partners. They apparently would include the funding partners of Cowley First -- the City of Winfield, the City of Arkansas City, the Cowley County Commission and private funding partners including a collection of businesses, predominantly banks.

An organizational chart shown in the college's proposal shows "Cowley Partners" at the top of the pyramid, joined there with an "E-community Board." The next level below the "partners" shows the "Chambers of Commerce" linked on that same level with the "Executive Director of Business and Industry and Economic Development" and a "Business and Industry Roundtable."

A "Director of Career & Workforce Development" would report to the executive director, according to the chart.

The executive director would be responsible for fiscal planning, leadership, program development and operational aspects of the business and industry area, with emphasis on workforce development, according to a job description in the proposal. The executive director would report to McAtee.

Cowley College Trustee Mark Paton commented on the college's decision to withdraw its proposal.

"After Debra Teufel left and took a job in Wichita, the Cowley First group approached Dr. McAtee about running Cowley First," Paton said. "We looked at it and put a plan together."

Paton said the college decided to back out of its proposal after some Cowley First members expressed concerns about how the college's plan would work.

"They are talking about hiring a replacement for Teufel and getting us involved, and we thought there was some merit in getting involved," he said. "There were political issues there, and we thought we're better off backing off."

Cowley College will continue to be involved in job training, Paton added.

"We will be involved with different businesses with employee training to help them fill their job skill needs," he said.

Alsup said the public meeting July 9 would likely focus on the future structure of Cowley's economic development group, not on finding a new director for the group.

"The next logical question: Is Cowley First going to continue and if so, then we look at the possibility of getting a new director," Alsup said.

"Anytime in a program like this with multiple funding partners, when a director leaves, it does present an opportunity to reevaluate," he said. "If fine tuning needs to be done, we can look at ways it should be done."