Kevin Koelling, writing for the Perry County News, has an article entitled “Commissioners adopt wait-and-see stance on time zone.” Basically, County Attorney Chris Goffinet put it on the agenda to facilitate the Commissioners’ consideration after various sources, including letters from DC Broadcasting of Jasper, Indiana; and an an attorney representing the Daviess County commissioners.
Attorney Jim Tyler was in the audience Monday and said the counties that successfully petitioned the federal government for a move to Central time based on those criteria will find it “extremely difficult†to use them to support a change back to Eastern time.
Also in the audience was Lock’s wife, Pam.
“Is the DOT going to change their guidelines?†she asked. If not, someone will lie in a new time-zone-change request or they lied in their last one, she said. “Is DOT going to throw out their guidelines and go with the whims of the people?â€
The “are you lying now or were you lying then” line appears to refer to the dressing down Perry Pulaski County commissioners received from the USDOT when the Perry Pulaski County Commissioners apparently “represented that they did not provide accurate information in their original petition and misled the Department in order to strengthen their case for Central Time.”
In Perry County, there was a motion to petition to a return to Eastern Time that died for lack of a second.
Obviously “are you lying now or were you lying then†line appears to refer to the dressing down Perry County commissioners received from the USDOT . . .” should refer to the Pulaski County Commissioners, not Perry.
Thanks, updated.
It’s really crazy that county commissioners get to determine what time it is in the county from here to eternity. Especially THESE commissioners.
The Perry County Commissioners strike me as far more grounded in reality than do the Knox and especially the Daviess County commissioners. Daviess County was the first county in the SW part of the state to petition to change time zones.
Well, except when you consider that the reason we (Perry) went central was because Dubois did. But somehow the converse is not necessarily true. If Dubois goes back to eastern, Perry being on the same time as Dubois may somehow become less important.
The situation has changed, Perry and Spencer Counties can now play a variation on Elkhart County’s tune to Dubois County’s petition. Part of that tune is that Spencer and Perry supply about 7.2% of Dubois County’s workforce and, in the other direction, Spencer County is the number 1 destination for Dubois County residents who leave the County for work. It is no wonder that (now) seemingly pro-Eastern commissioners in Daviess, Knox and Dubois have sounded off about getting the six non-petitioning CTZ counties in SW Indiana to petition for Eastern. Without them this effort may be dead in the water.
A strong pro-ET recommendation by the Govenor would be necessary for the re-petitioning counties to be returned to ET. It will be interesting to see how Daniels handles this. He will want to come out on the winning side,whatever he says.
A strong pro-ET recommendation from someone as unpopular as the Indiana governor would probably be the best way to kill the counties’ desire to repitition.
As I recall, the Daniels letter to the USDOT recommending that St. Joseph County’s petition be denied also included language recommending Central Time for the counties that will be repetitioning from Central to Eastern.