SEQUIM — Police Chief Ken Burge on Tuesday tentatively accepted a position as the head of the Alcoa, Tenn., Police Department after just 22 months leading Sequim’s force.
Burge told City Manager Bill Elliott, other city officials and Peninsula Daily News in July that he was a finalist for the top spot in the southeastern Tennessee city named after the acronym for Aluminum Company of America.
Burge topped three others, who were whittled down from an applicant field of more than 70.
Alcoa City Manager Mark Johnson informed city officials Tuesday that he had extended an offer to Burge.
Johnson said Burge was chosen based on an assessment center (a testing process used in law enforcement), “feedback from others who met Ken, and my own intuition.”
“It just felt right when he walked into my office,” Johnson said.
Insisting that he was fully satisfied with his current position, Burge said he and his wife, Betty Ann, missed their children more than they thought they would after arriving in Sequim.
Two of the Burges’ children live in the Southeast.
“It was a mixed decision (to leave Sequim),” he told Peninsula Daily News Tuesday afternoon.
“But I know my daughter is excited. And most of my relatives have been calling on a daily basis for updates.”
