Police Chief on hot seat with new boss

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - On his first day on the job , one of the new city manager's first orders of business was to meet privately with Police Chief Bruce Marquis, who has been on the hot seat for several weeks. There have been public calls for the chief to be fired and at least one councilmember said he has lost confidence in the chief after his handling of the death of a police recruit.

"I have a lot of questions about the chief," said Marcus Jones, who began his job as Norfolk City Manager on Tuesday.

WAVY.com learned that Chief Marquis has been one of the biggest spenders with a city credit card. We obtained the last three years of the chief's expenses through the Freedom of Information Act and discovered Marquis for years has been charging taxpayers for the XM Satellite Radio in his SUV for $27 a month. He was also putting his OnStar subscription on his city credit card for $300 a year.

The chief also treated himself and other city employees to expensive meals in Norfolk during their normal work day. WAVY.com also found numerous trips to law enforcement conferences around the country with pricey stays at the Ritz and lavish resorts like The Homestead.

Councilman Tommy Smigiel saw our report and was so upset he fired off an e-mail to the new city manager, the mayor and other councilmembers. He wrote, "This is absolutely unacceptable. It is hard to justify any of [the chief's] spending to the public. We have people complaining that their HRUBS bills have doubled, yet we can pay for satellite radio, lavish trips to conferences and dinners for regional chiefs. This has got to stop. I am livid. What a slap in the face of our employees who haven't had raises in years. "

Jones told City Council Tuesday, "There's a lot of attention going on with the police department. Right after the council meeting the chief and I are going to sit down and start having a conversation about where we're going with this police department."

After his meeting with the city manager, the chief told WAVY.com, "The meeting went fine, had a good conversation. The meeting went fine and we will meet again at some point and discuss other things."

When asked about what concerns the city manager brought up the chief responded, "You'll have to take that up with him."

Jones told members of City Council on Tuesday that he didn't want them to expect a decision in the next 48 hours on whether to fire the chief or not and that he didn't want to put a time limit on it. Then he said, "But, I will tell you, I will do my due diligence."

The city auditor in Norfolk is still working on a full audit of the 400 credit cards issued to employees. The credit cards were all suspended last Spring.

WAVY.com is also looking into city credit card expenses for police chiefs in the other six cities of Hampton Roads.