I don’t know if I ever posted the results of local time zone activity in Pulaski County. As readers may recall, Pulaski County was in the eastern time zone and petitioned to be placed in the central time zone. It was preliminarily denied along with a number of neighboring counties. Pulaski County took no further action. While the neighboring counties that were preliminarily denied were left in the eastern time zone, the USDOT (somewhat inexplicably) reversed course and put Pulaski County in the central time zone.
According to the February 8, 2006 edition of the Pulaski County Journal and Independent, a joint meeting of the Pulaski County Commissioners and Council decided to submit a new petition to be moved back into eastern and to exercise “home rule” and simply observe eastern time until the USDOT acts on their new petition and presumably do so even if the USDOT rules against them.
The following quote appeared at the end of the story. It’s unattributed, so I presume it’s from Scott Allen, the author of the story:
Now that Pulaski County knows for certain what time its clocks will read this summer, we can only hope that the U.S. Department of Transportation changes its mind in support of what the citizens have overwhelmingly spoken in favor. If not, the county will have its home rule, and will remain on Eastern Time, for the benefit of our people.
The story mentions not a word about whether the county has the authority to make such a decision by virtue of “home rule” or otherwise. Indiana’s home rule statute certainly provides no such authority. Time zones are pretty clearly within the sound discretion of the Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation.
That’s the background. Marty Lucas of bigeastern was kind enough to point me to a March 22, 2006 blurb on the WKVI website. It says:
Because of the confusing time situation in Pulaski County, this spring’s primary election may be conducted on “central” time.
County Clerk Janet Kennedy told WKVI Thursday she has been informed that if Pulaski County has not been “officially” moved to the Eastern Time Zone be primary election….it must be held on Central Time.
So, if the county adheres to Home Rule Eastern Time, polls will be open there from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
Is that Eastern Standard Time, Eastern Daylight Time, or Central Daylight Time?
Not that voters are likely to forget, but the state legislators who created this mess can’t welcome a reminder that has a direct impact on the process of voting. Mary Kay Budak had her votes in the right place, consistently voting “no” to Daylight saving Time, but Eric Gutwein voted against it once before casting 4 votes in favor of DST. (On the other hand, checking the Secretary of State’s primary list, Rep. Gutwein doesn’t appear to have either a primary or general election challenger. So much for accountability at the polls.)
Hmmm…
So, when have the polls been open for the past few years in the illegal counties to the SE?
Could someone mount a legal challange that since the polls were not open at the proper time the results are invalid?
That might just swing Baron Hill’s results if the results from the south were not counted, since his support was further north…food for thought.
Duh.
Nevermind previous post. They observed DST illegally, and voting is in November, outside DST.
PRIMARYS, though…
Unless private citizens are engaged bein a common carrier, they can agree to observe almost any time they want among themselves. But post offices, being a federal operation, are obligated to conform to the time zone in force. Will the post offices in Pulaski Count observe Central Daylight/Eastern Standard Time?
Yes, the way I understand it the USPS offices in Pulaski Co. will observe official time.
The whole time zone problem is based on the fact that nobody wants to live near the line. I’ve lived near the line (on both sides of it, in fact) in Starke Co. for many years; it’s a little annoying.
I have a ‘modest suggestion for the ultimate solution’. Since nobody wants to live near a time zone line the only cure is to abolish time zones — everybody goes on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). All public meetings, broadcast schedules, common carrier deliveries etc. MUST be posted in GMT [military format, of course] As for your personal clock or watch, you can set it at whatever time is convenient for you, though a two function watch with GMT would be useful.
Home rule would undermine the rationale for which it is being chosen. If homerule is to unify the entire area in one time, changing partially back to ET would in effect make chaos within the county.Obviously any Federal agency will follow the official UDOT law.
One big issue seems to be a school district divided between time zones. The best they can do is decide on an one official school time and adjust to it.
Everyone will know in a year or 2 just how upset they are and just what they want, although that’s not saying there will a consensus.I can’t image UDOT dealing with any Indiana time zone issue just now!
Isnt it always easy to find logical non-emotional solutions if you dont live there?
I’m on board with Marty’s GMT solution. We’ve pretty much given up the pretense of tying time to the position of the sun in the sky. The only reason time zones were created, it seems to me, is to strike a balance between time reflecting the position of the sun in the sky (every locality on its own time) versus coordinating time (everybody in the country or world on the same time). With 12:00 being at least 2 hours off of “true noon,” Eastern Daylight Time in Indiana doesn’t really have its clocks reflecting the position of the sun in the sky, so we might as well go all the way to universal GMT.
Out of curiosity, during the 30 years 5 Indiana counties declared homerule was there a problem with federal time vs homerule time? Did the federal agencies maintain EST?
I am SO in favor of using UTC (or GMT or Zulu time or Z). Let the schools and offices decide if they want to move their hours twice a year or not.
Server admins have been living in UTC for years. If you have servers in several times zones and need to look through the logs to find a break-in, you don’t want to keep adding and subtracting hours to figure out what order things occured. So, you set them all to UTC and make life easier.
The more we start working globally, the more UTC will have REAL business value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC
Lou, as to both out points, I think the issue was with violating STATE law. The DOT didn’t exclude Indiana, Indiana did. So the USPS and other offices would just go along with it. However, legally, any state offices like the BMV, DWD or FSSA should not have changed with DST.
I don’t think that’s right. The federal law provides that a state can either exempt all or none of a time zone within its borders from DST. So, once Indiana exempted all of the eastern time zone within its borders, those observing DST were in violation of federal law.
That being said, I’m sure the federal preference is in favor of observing DST, so there probably wasn’t much incentive to go after those southeastern counties when they were kind of doing what the feds wanted them to do anyway.
The 2 counties that first made it known they were unhappy with being granted their petition to CT are Martin and Pulaski counties. Both have two sides bordering ET. No county wants to be in that position.It’s like being on the time zone border TWICE.
I would guess that nothing will happen with Martin. Were Martin moved on its own back to ET the time line would be between it and Daviess/Dubois, and many Martin County residents work and do business in those counties. Before Martin County moves they will want at least Daviess County to go.
There have also been sounds about switching back from Daviess, but almost all of what I have read from Daviess County about back tracking on the time line involves getting at least five of the six counties that were switched to switch again (all but Perry). I have even seen some comment from both Daviess and Martin suggesting that Evansville be made to switch to ET. They all keep pointing west, hoping to get someone else to take the time line off their hands.
I have seen absolutely no interest in that coming out of Knox or Dubois on such a move. These counties were the big fish in the SW that moved from ET to CT. Granted that both Knox and Dubois are now time line boundary counties, but in the case of Knox the time line is between it and Sullivan County, which is far less important to it than being in sync with Evansville and Lawrenceburg, IL. Dubois County has relatively little commerce with counties to its east as compared to those to its west and south (particulalry Spencer). And as to getting Vanderburgh County to switch for the sake of Martin County, the Commissioners in Martin and Daviess Counties have to know that that is totally out of the question. I have some feeling that the commissioners of these counties are putting on a show for some of their constituents, but in the end will do nothing.
Interesting points!
Yes, if a county has to be the ‘keystone’ county,with 2 sides on a time zone line, it’s best to have as low as popualtion as possible. both Martin County( 10,000 pop) and Pulaski( 13,000)are good keystone counties,if we look at it purely statistically.Dubois County (40,000)’on the corner’ would doubtless cause lots of commuting problems,as would Knox county. The whole SW area is now very much stablized on CT. In the NW area Starke and Pulaski counties will greatly stablize La Porte County(110,000 pop),which used to have 2 sides on ET.That must have been very disruptive for such a relatively large populated county.
Indiana has another fascinating set of time circumstances.It has 5 commuting areas all potentially straddling a time zone. 2 are traditonally all CT and will never be changed and the other 3 now are all ET and probably won’t be changed ( unless there are also changes in Ky and Mi).From the commuting point of view Indiana IS now unified 12 months of the year,with all 5 commuting areas in ONE time zone.
The big unsolved or unsolvable problem stems from the fact the Michiana commuting area is very close to the Chicago commuting are and La PORTE County is kind of the buffer zone.
Solutions are easy for me, because I have no preference for time zone and thats not how Hoosiers feel, I understand.I could live in either time zone.
Ive really had a great time on this blog getting insights into Indiana time,and learning Indiana politics, and have thoroughly enjoyed checking in every day.
Rather than keystone counties, how about state lines? The laws change, the speed limit changes, gas and cigarette prices change, why not the time? You’ll have commuters everywhere. If they commute, it isn’t like they’re going to be home at 5:00 to make it to the store. Local businesses will adjust their hours to suit their customers, same as always.
I know one couple that lives is Terre Haute. One goes to work in IL, one in Indy. Someone is going to live in one zone and work in another. No checkerboard county setup will ever fix that. So, please, put the TZ lines on the state and be done with it. Our state lines run along longititudal (sp?) for most of the distance anyhow, so there should be no excuse.
Jason,
Don’t you think co-ordinating a time line automatically with a state line would make problems with no advantage? ? Many people cross a state line daily without changing time.The time is the issue, not the state line.
Time isn’t the issue so much as where to draw the time line. Any line you draw will have plenty of people crossing it. But, I think we’re accustomed to having the potential for big differences from one state to another. You don’t necessarily expect those differences from one county to another. So, I think the state line makes a lot of sense regardless of whether it’s the Indiana/Ohio line or the Indiana/Illinois line.
You’ll note that nobody proposes drawing the line so as to split a county. I think the arguments in favor of putting the line on a county boundary instead of in the middle are probably even more compelling in favor of putting the line on the state boundary.
Not exactly. My point is that there will be upset people no matter where the line is drawn. There is already some degree of understanding that crossing the state line can be uncomfortable. Long distance calls when you’re only a few miles away? The advantange would be lowering the dissent and confusion by lumping this problem in the same bucket as other problems that also show up on the state line.
I can’t think of any advantage by putting the line in with the counties. The only point I have heard is to find the lowest populated area and put the line there. However, I don’t think that really solves anything. That doesn’t take into account how many people pass through that area.
One way to look at what time is,is to start from the premise that time should unite the most people possible in their daily routines.The Michiana area for example is already well-defined which includes contiguous areas of Michigan along with St Joesph and Elkhart counties in Indiana. Leave it together.
People commute to Chicago from Indiana about as far East as Chesterton. Dont divide it. People commute from Floyd and Harrison counties in large numbers across the bridge to Louisville.Dont divide it. People go from SE Indiana into Cincinnati area.Dont divide it.People commute to Evansville from Illinois and Indiana . We sure dont put Evansville on ET.This is all just commonsense thinking,isnt it?
Then we get into more difficult questions..like where does La Porte County go,ET or CT? .Does Terre Haute go with Illinois time or with Indianapolis time? and Bloomington ,with Evansville or with Indianapolis? How do we deal with Tippecanoe County and surrounding areas? And how does that affect communication with Indy?
I think just putting all of Indiana on CT would and draw the time on the border would be kind of like how Gov Daniels handled DT. Everyone is happy now, so just shut up!
Splitting counties might be a good idea.It had been common, but thats when time was optional and homerule was the rule. La Porte County might be a prime candidate.Benton County and White County are other examples in the past debate. It could also be used in Michigan to put all of Michiana on CT.
I agree with Jason (Jason falls off chair). DST or not, Central or Eastern time zone, it would make sense for time zone lines to be on state borders. We lived that way for years over here on the Indiana/Ohio line and functioned just fine. People here cross over into Ohio to commute to jobs, to shop, do business, etc., but most of us never felt compelled to be on the same time as Ohio year round. Having time zone borders at clusters of counties or along county lines would be pretty confusing, although people might learn to live with it.
I agree with Doug about the southeastern counties. They were likely in violation of *federal* law by going on DST when the portion of Indiana they are in was exempt from doing so under the provisions of federal law. I doubt that those counties faced any penalties, however. :)
Guys take it from a LaPorte County resident, splitting LaPorte County will not work. I live on the eastern edge of the county and work in St. Joe County yet several of my neighbors work in Chicago. I live i mile from Michigan, I see no possible way to split LaPorte County. The county that could be split in all this would be to split western St. Joe County. Olive township shares a school system with LaPorte County. cross the street in New Carlile and you change time zones. That is you are going from the school to the library. Plus I get a real kick out of the people who say that the Michiana area is now united in one time zone. The ONLY town to have “MICHIANA” in ita name, MICHIANA SHORES is located in the central time zone.
Actually I live in Pulaski county we are split and its horrible. Schools are EDS. Most businesses are on EDS and some are not. Most of those who aren’t such as the court house have switched their hours so they are technically on eastern but the clocks say central. My house clocks are set on eastern and I want them to stay that way starting school at 7 would not be a good thing for me. I don’t know what time it is right now but hopefully I’ll know soon.
I live in Martin county the commissioners voted 2-1 to re-petition but only if the other counties do so.They had a time meeting in Dubois county last week around 800 there with a reported 70% favoring EDT as for me I have supported CDT for a year and went to the meetings that were supposed to matter!The Martin county time meeting Feb 22 had around 300 people at it many from out of county, Crane workers from eastern time counties when you consider the pop.of the county is 10,000 thats nothing the new Daviess county meeting had around 300 the poulation of Washington alone is around 11,000 and the pop.of Jasper in Dubois county is around 12,000.what you have is alot of the same group of people going around county to county getting commissioners to have a new time meeting and turning out eastern time supporters from all over southwest Indiana but this can hardly represent a majority opinion in a county.The same line is repeated at all the meetings business will be hurt on central,we`ll save energy,we need to be on the same time as the east coast and from the Crane workers this is my favorite Crane needs to be on the same time as Washington D.C. to support the war fighter give me a break these are the most baseless arguments around.To start with Crane as well as most businesses in Indiana have been 1 hour behind the east coast almost 7 months out of the year for over thirty years!!All the other arguments can easily be countered as well.The ones who really look foolish are the commissioners of southwest Indiana for having these new meetings and flip flopping around I mean area commissioners from the counties of southwest Indiana went to the DOT meeting in Jasper gave the DOT woman Judy Kaleta all this grief saying they wanted to move to central time and stick together and be on the same time as Evansville now they are acting like 2 year old kids who got what they wanted and now want something else making themselves and southwest Indiana look like idiots because a few hundered people dont like the new time zone which they will get just as many unhappy the other way if they switch back.If you want to know how all this really got started it was the cry babies from eastern time counties who work at Crane which by the way a representative from Crane was invited to both Martin county time meetings last year none came now they are unhappy.The Crane base commander has already stated the base will be fine on central time.My main reason for not wanting EDT is in the middle of June sunset would not be until around 9:30pm counting twilight it would not be dark until around 10:00pm that is not natural in my opinion.Commissioner John Collins of Martin county likes to say businesses will be hurt on central time well folks I live in Martin county and there are no businesses of any consequence here in the first place last year I had to drive to Jasper just to get a certain off brown color of spray paint!!He`s also fond of saying people will need a map to figure out what time it is well if he`s that dumb thats his problem I know what time it is where oh well he has a primary opponent may 3rd maybe he`ll get beat I know I wont be voting for him.I`m sure this debate will continue.
A bit of a recap on SW Indiana.
The Evansville Courier-Press reported on the SW Indiana controversy on 26 March. There it says:
“In Dubois County, the commissioners scheduled a public hearing on the issue for April 3. Commissioner John Burger said the county will move to Central time April 2 but they want to get feedback from the community.”
“”I don’t really think people are necessarily having a change of heart as much as this is a push from the chamber,” Burger said.”
By “chamber” he presumebly means either the Indiana or their local Chamber of Commerce trying to sow seeds of confusion in areas that move to Central Time.
The Washington Times-Herald seems lately to beating the drum for ET. On 1 April it stated in a story bylined by Laura Thigpen:
“The counties in question include not only Daviess and Martin counties, but Pike, Dubois and Knox as well, because those five counties are now slated — for the first time ever — to officially observe Central Daylight Time, rather than Eastern Standard Time, when the country changes its clocks. Before the General Assembly vote in 2005, officially establishing DST in Indiana, those same counties always saw themselves on Eastern time. What they didn’t do was observe daylight-saving time.
Now several of the counties, most notably Martin and Daviess, want to re-petition the DOT to change the counties back, but only if all five counties switch.”
The “five” counties seems to refer to Martin, Daviess, Pike, Dubois and Knox. I’m not sure why Perry County wasn’t listed. Possibly an oversight or perhaps the County happiest with the new arrangement. I’ve seen no reports regarding what happened at the Dubois County meeting Monday. I still no get no feel that Pike, Dubois, Knox or Perry have much sympathy for a move back to Eastern.
Your right Paul I read the Evansville courier article I have it and about every other article on the time situation as I stated in a earlier post around 800 were at the Dubois county meeting in Jasper last Monday at least that was what was reported with commissioner Burger saying they would take the information from that meeting and put it with information from the last meeting and decide I still dont see how Dubois county would want EDT being so close to Evansville but in my opinion this is the county that will decide what the other counties do.You are exactly right about the Washington Times Hearld.Last year when this was all getting started a opinion piece was written in the Times Hearld by Laura Thigpen basically supporting the governor in a half handed way not totally and stating that she was the only one at the paper who supported EDT and the rest wanted CDT but that may be because Knox county had already decided on CDT and they wanted Daviess county to be on the same time what was always curious to me was why Thigpen still wanted EDT since she is from Knox county I think and if Daviess county were on a different time this would not be good for her.Most of us from Martin county who support CDT recognize her EDT bias when she does a piece on the time Nate Smith does a much more balanced job one guy even called her at the paper to argue with her about it.I also remember two editorials the Hearld had supporting CDT the first was about how bad it would be if Daviess and Knox counties were on different times this was after the first DOT proposal that granted CDT for Knox but not Daviess the other was a piece telling people they needed to go to the DOT meeting in Jasper to speak up for CDT I think it said something like A REGION THAT STICKS TOGETHER WILL NOT FALL OR BE DIVIDED SOMETHING LIKE THAT but since then they seem to have no opinion except Thigpen and I already knew hers.I remember her article that you mentioned about how we would be going to CDT for the first time and how we had always been on eastern standard time but as we all know but many do not there is a big difference between EST and EDT with EST were on the same time as Evansville or central time more than we are in line with the east coast really almos 7 months out of the year with really only around 5 months of the year on the same time as the east coast(last Sunday in October until first Sunday in April) I know you know this but you`d be suprised how many do not.Oh well the argument goes on.You were also right about the commissioners putting on a show for some people right after the Martin county commissioners meeting a few weeks back when they voted 2-1 to re-petiton it was never mentioned at that meeting or the next day in the Washington Times Hearld,The LoogooteeTribune or Shoals News that they would not be re-petitioning without the other counties and at the meeting the commissioners stated they were tired of all the phone calls from people for and against the new time zone and wanted them to end I mean I live in Martin county and went to that meeting and didnt know this until I read it in a Evansville Courier article a few weeks later I doubt any of the complaining people knew either.Oh well the arguments go on I hope Dubois county commissioners do what they stated they would do before the last time meeting and try CDT for a year and see how things go if they do I think this will end the fight for a while because as I stated before I do not believe the other counties will move without them for one Pike county would then be between two central time counties Dubois and Gibson which has always been central and Perry on the southern border of Dubois will never re-petition without them and since Knox and Dubois share a college connection In Vincennes University and VU Jasper center I believe that will keep them from moving and that would be the end of it but who knows.
Here is an interesting point. We are thinking of building a new house, so we went to the local homeshow at ND. Several companies were there that are located in Elkhart County. I took the chance to quiz each one I talked to about whether they would be able to handle a job in LaPorte County since we are in the Central Time Zone. Most were very upset by this question,saying they had no voice in the matter,of time zone choice, as Elkhart County never held a public hearing. Yet Elkhart was the driving force for Eastern time for St. Joe County. This will be a very interesting election this year.