Nashville Police Sgt. Scott Bowling has been promoted to interim police chief in the wake of former chief Heather Burris’ demotion by Nashville town council.

“I have nothing against Heather, I want her to stay,” said Bowling. “She did a wonderful job here doing community policing. She was great at it and that’s how she got so popular. She was a very good community police officer and had a hard time with the other side of being a chief, but I talked with her yesterday, we hugged it out and I asked her if she wanted to stay. She wants to stay and be a member of this police department. I was glad she said that, and I asked if she would continue to help me with the community stuff because I’m not good at it. A good leader surrounds himself with people who can do things better than he can. That’s where I’m at with her. I hope she does stick around.”

Bowling said that he will be the interim chief until the town council either finds a replacement or promotes him to that position permanently.

“With me being the only one available, they asked me to take over,” said Bowling. “I said I would take over as long as I can, or as long as they need me to try to get this under control. I told them I will take it if they try to hire outside the department. I want it to be an internal promotion. If you hire outside, put my name in the hat, too. I guess we will see what happens.”

He said that he was not aware of a formal investigation into Burris, but said the decision was justified.

“I don’t know if she’s been warned or talked to by them as this was going on and if she ignored it. I don’t know what has gone on between the two. Some of the facts (in the letter) are all pretty much true. Is that enough to demote someone? That’s their decision, not mine.”

Bowling told the Democrat that while some of the issues raised make sense, others are news to him.

“I don’t know where they got the lack of foot patrol,” said Bowling. “I know personally, there were several officers that did walk around. They may have not been seen. I know one worked nights and walked around, but he is now with the sheriff’s department. I personally did not walk around much. There may not have been enough of them. We had a bike patrol last summer, Mike Horn rode a bike around, I don’t know if they call that foot patrol or not.”

He said that the department is working on obtaining an electric bike to aid in the foot patrol, but they only have one officer currently qualified. Bowling also wants to change the ordinance that requires officers to live within 20-miles of town.

“By state law an officer working for a certain department has to live within a county radius, she (Burris) lives in New Palestine, over an hour drive and a couple of counties away,” said Bowling. “I know they had asked her about it or wanted her to move and her reason was that she had a son in high school. She said she would move when he graduated, he just graduated in June, which is not a lot of time to all of the sudden pick up. That’s only two months. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. That’s what the state law says and it says that the town can adopt an ordinance saying within 20-miles of that town, which is what ours says. I found that out the other day and I’m going to get that changed, that’s a problem with hiring people. That limits the people I can hire within 20-miles of Nashville. I have a meeting (Wednesday) with the council to discuss that.”

Bowling currently has four full-time police officers, but told the Democrat that the department is supposed to have five. They also have one part-time officer who lives in Avon and three reserve officers who live in Martinsville, Columbus and Gnaw Bone.

“We don’t get paid much, part of the perks of being a police officer is the take home car,” said Bowling. “That makes up for a lot of money in your salary that you don’t see and that car is a big thing. The county council estimated that the car was worth $7,000 a year as far as maintenance, gas, insurance, all that stuff. It’s like a $7,000 bonus added onto your salary.”