Sources: Layton offering Wichita police chief job to Duluth’s Gordon Ramsay

Wichita City Manager Robert Layton is offering the police chief job to Gordon Ramsay, sources said Wednesday. But Layton said that both of the two finalists “are still under consideration.”

Layton and Ramsay, the police chief in Duluth, Minn., are negotiating on a deal, a source said.

Reached around noon, Layton said that both Ramsay and the other finalist, Jeff Spivey, are viable candidates, “and both are still under consideration.” He won’t say whether he made an offer.

“Until I make an announcement, there is no done deal,” Layton said. “These are two well-qualified candidates. This process is fluid. We just finished interviews yesterday. I will have an announcement, but it’s only after the process is completed.”

Ramsay would not talk about a possible job offer Wednesday morning in a brief phone conversation.

Ramsay and Spivey, an assistant police chief in Irving, Texas, are the two finalists for the Wichita job. The two spoke at a public forum in Wichita on Monday night and were in town for interviews.

Ramsay, 43, said at the forum and in media interviews that he has a 10-year track record as Duluth police chief showing that he knows how to work with the community to solve problems.

Officials in Corpus Christi, Texas, announced Tuesday that Spivey is one of six candidates who will be interviewed later this week for the police chief job there. Ramsay has said that he is only a candidate in Wichita.

Layton has said that he will hire a Wichita police chief by the end of the year.

Wichita has been without a permanent chief for more than a year, since Police Chief Norman Williams retired.

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 11:51 AM with the headline "Sources: Layton offering Wichita police chief job to Duluth’s Gordon Ramsay."