Pulaski County’s amended petition to be moved from the Central Time Zone into the Eastern Time Zone is on the USDOT’s time zone docket. The document is dated June 27, 2006 but didn’t get filed with the US Dept. of Transportation until August 18. It is 238 pages long.
In February, Pulaski County had submitted a petition that met with a frosty response from the Department of Transportation. In the following excerpt to the USDOT’s response, “new petition” refers to the February petition. The initial petition was a petition to move from eastern to central.
The new petition follows the Department’s final rule by only a few weeks arid before the County had any experience with the new time zone changes that it solicited. Furthermore, the new petition conflicts with the County’s original petition and other information submitted to the docket in a rulemaking proceeding on time zone boundary changes in Indiana. The County Commissioners now have represented that they did not provide accurate information in their original petition. The new petition does not provide detailed information in support of its position or the sources for the information submitted.
So, I guess the June/August petition is the new, new petition (pdf – long). I don’t think I’ll have time to read the petition today. Hopefully our devoted commenters can provide some insight.
Deborah L Miller has done some impressive work advocating for leaving Dubois county in the Central time zone starting with her first post to the docket that shows commuting pattern of the county.
I agree with Phillip, Ms. Miller has several posts but here is a link to an excellent five page letter:
http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=411062&docketid=22114
The powers that be in Pulaski County never really wanted to be in the Central time zone; however, every county bordering it did petition to be in it. It buckled under the “peer pressure” and applied for Central. Because many of those counties weren’t approved for Central time, Pulaski County wants to get back to “normal,” or Eastern time. Stores, schools, movie theaters, etc. have posted signs and changed hours to basically live by Eastern time. Of course government offices are required to abide by Central. It’s an inconvenient mess.
Liz,I completely agree with you in the Pulaski county case.They petitioned for Central because many of the counties surrounding them did and were eventually denied by the DOT leaving Pulaski county bordering some counties it has close ties to.However in the case of my county Martin,in southwest Indiana the counties that petitined for Central were all granted except Sullivan and Lawrence and none of the commissioners arguing for Central in southwest Indiana referenced those two counties in their arguments to the DOT.They instead argued regional unity with each other,the 5 counties that were currently on Central time and unity with the largest city in the area Evansville.So these are two completly different cases.I hope you get the change to Eastern that you want and hope southwest Indiana where I live stays Central.
In looking at the petitions, the Pulaski County one seems a little more honest than the other. However they did conveniently forget Midway as one of the airports. The passengers handled at Midway are about 9 times what is handled at Indianapolis, and at about the same distance from Pulaski County, many will take advantage of the extra flights there. Also in the attachments to the petition, one of the industries supported ET but preffered for the whole state to go on central time. This may be what Pulaski really preffered, rather than to be segregated from the other CT petitioners last fall who were denied.
The Southwestern 5 petition is riddled with twisted and ignored facts. First, when distances are given, where are they from? Vincennes? Logotee? Jasper? These are far apart, and giving one distance don’t work. In some of the cases each county is analyzed and there the distances are acceptable.
An exhibit following the petition stated, Fact: there is more daylight on Eastern Daylight Time. Who is stupid enough to believe that? If your length of day is 13:18 you get 13:18 regardless of the time zone or DST. You just shift the time, and when you get up to almost 2 hours off the meridian like in western Indiana, this shift can create useless time on the PM end. (i.e. ldaylight after bed time)
Airports, when discussing Knox, St. Louis is definitely an alternative. Passenger handling in St. Louis since 2000, is 2-4 times Indianapolis and 5-10 times Louisville per year. St. Louis approximately doubles the 39 non-stop destinations that Indianapolis offers. Travel time tomSt. Louis is not that much longer. This would not apply to Martin county, which is much farther. I also noticed St. Louis had a commercial flight to Owensboro. Why wasn’t this airport added as an alternative. (Could it be because it is on Central Time) Why was Vincennes- Lawrenceville ignored regarding general aviation airports (located in Illinois, CT zone)
Media market: Terre Haute? In Knox county , the northern end is about equidistant from Terre Haute and Evansville. The Southern end is 39 miles from Kentucky and about 33 miles from Diamond Avenue which is in the middle of Evansville, and usually can’t get the Terre Haute signal. Vincennes is much closer to Evansville (47 miles) than Terre Haute. Also Terre Haute is a much smaller metropolitan area. I could not see any county that would fall in Terre Haute’s media market. Certainly not Pike or Dubois. Martin would probably fall in Bloomington.
More media: Notice how FM, which is now a far larger media that AM nationwide, is ignored. FM stations would not cover places that they were using like Indianapolis, but would include CT places like Princeton, IN and Owensboro, KY. Finally, I noticed they made their lists showing the situation if Eastern Time were granted, but none showing if it was not. That is because it would neutralize their arguement.
Oh, I also liked how they used Wal-Mart like it was the only place people shopped. Many Wal-Marts are open 24 hours otherwise very late (like Midnight) in this situation time zone is meaningless, they are open anyway. In the case of a place like Eastland Mall, being on Central is better because you would get an extra hour. Closing at 9 is 10 for EDT, in EDT, closing at 9 is 8 CDT.
Phillip: I read Deborah’s and your presentations. You did a pretty good one as well on 8/18. One thing you may want to point out. Deborah had data from an 11 county Economic district in a some of her exhibits. I remember that in the South Bend arguement, they wanted to keep the Economic/Planning district on one time zone. I would think for “convenience of commerce” the same should hold true in SW Indiana.
Liz and Phillip, living in a border county is not a good thing. That is the reason why I believe it would be best to move the boundary back to the Ohio/ Indiana state line so no Hoosier would be separated from his fellow citizens by a virtual fence imposed by a federal bureaucracy.
What has changed since last year? This may be difficult for some to grasp but nothing has really changed in Martin or Pulaski. The big change occurred in the eastern counties when they advanced their clocks last April. This will become very evident shortly when these eastern counties start to experience very dark mornings in October. It is difficult for someone commuting from central to eastern because if their company’s starting time is for example 7am when the company changed to Eastern Daylight last spring it would be 6am in the Central Daylight County. This is the part that is difficult to understand. It is the company that has actually changed its starting time. If the central county was transferred to eastern it would not improve anything for the commuter because his starting time would still be the same with respect to the sunrise.
Phillip you should bring up sports when you are discussing this issue. Monday Night Football will start at 8pm in Martin County and at 9pm in Greene County. I have a friend who was complaining the Nascar races were starting a hour later at 2:30 than last year’s 1:30 starts. I had to remind him that what is different this year is we changed our clocks in April
Gary-
Solidly put. I suggest posting it to the DOT docket. The only things I would change would be to drop any “characterization” of the other side’s evidence. Judy Koleta cautioned speakers on this point at the South Bend hearing, even interrupting the Elkhart County Commissioners’ presentation to remind them to just give her the facts. I agree totally with your impression of SW counties’ petition. It will be very interesting to see what the DOT does with it.
The point about AM versus FM radio is very well taken. If you look at market share figures (where available) you find FM totally dominates AM. Since FM stations’ range is line of sight (I would suppose station range will be somewhere around 45-60 miles, depending upon tower height), Indy FM stations should be out of range for Knox, Dubois and Pike Counties.
Gary,great post the circular logic in the joint petition of southwest Indiana is unreal.Under recreation for example they totaly ignore Holiday World the biggest amusement park in this part of the state and supporter of Central time.Anyone can see what they have done which is to say if the petition is granted this this and this will be in Eastern time.I mean couldn`t one also state that everything they speak of is currently unified on Central time right now?I exchange a few emails with the Pulaski County Express reporter Karen Clem Frentz and she stated that most in Pulaski county did not like Eastern time and wanted the whole state on Central but because a lot of the counties in the area that petitioned for Central and they had close ties to were denied they felt it best to try to get back to Eastern which is understatndable.I think my county Martin is listed in the Terre Haute media market.Most everyone I know watches two Terre Haute and two Eville stations for news around here and almost all always watch Wayne Hart on channel 5 Eville for severe weather.Also check out page 8 of the new petition it states the Eville Courier is not delivered to Martin county.This is a outright lie!I may be making too big a deal about this but never the less it is a lie there is no question about it.This paper has been delivered here Loogootee as long as I can remember.Jim B. I have to admit thats one of the reasons I like Central time earlier starts to Monday Night Football and basketball games because I watch a lot of sports but thought it too selfish a reason to mention.I exchanged a email with Tim Joyce who is still working hard on a counter proposal to the joint petition.I also thought to myself if not for 193 votes almost two years ago (the election of Troy Woodruff) we would not have this mess.Is it to simple or am I being silly here or wouldn`t it have been easier for the Governor to stick to his word saying he preferred Central to ask the DOT to consider moving the whole state to the Central time zone except the 3 counties in Eastern Indiana that prefer to be in line with Cincinatti and Louisville???I mean with the enclave of counties that were already on Central around Eville and Chicago would this have not made more sense?It would have unified almost the whole state.Businesses would not have liked it but I guarantee the majority of the people would have.Maybe I`m wrong but I think that would have been a good soloution since the Governor stated DST was the most important thing not time zone!
Usually when I post it’s not to rant but to inform. Today is a rant. Every issue relating to time rests squarely on the lap of the governor. The running theme on every twist and turn goes something like this: Something new occurs, (the “renewed” petitions) we all comment on it, then we finally get to the heart of the issue, Daniels complete lack of leadership and his direct link with the Chamber. I have always tried to be fair in my approach to political issues. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m more democratic in my views but I have been known to vote for a republican or two. Indiana has had some excellent leaders from both political parties: Dr. Otis Bowen, Robert Orr, Roger Branigan, and Evan Bayh to name a few. It was Evan’s father, Birch Bayh and then Governor Branigan who worked out the time issue in the 1960’s
What I find most troubling is the complete disregard the current administration has for opposing views. Occasionally I have tweaked Daniels by labeling DST as “Daniels Standard Time”. Clearly the goal is to have as much of Indiana on Eastern as possible, reshape government to make future change nearly impossible, and the hell with the general public. When governemnt believes it knows what is best for you, watch out.
I have to give Daniels credit. While the public may understand “Major Moves” as only related to Hoosier highways, Daniels clearly feels the term relates to everything in state government. His ability to put the opposition on the defensive is impressive. The only real idea I can express to the Southern Indiana Pro-Central crowd is to make a strong case to the DOT without directly attacking the Daniels led group. Reinforce why the original ruling was correct and ask the DOT to strongly validate that ruling. In my opinion one problem that has to be overcome is the support of local government. The DOT will look to the county commissioners as the highest form of county government. If the local government cannot or will not support a time zone, it leads to the type of mess you have in Pulaski County. While reviewing the petitions, it appears that only the president of the county commissioners in each county signed the petition. Where do the other commissioners stand? Pressure, lots of pressure on the commissioners would help. I again remind everyone, it’s an election year. Great time to put the heat on.
Sorry for all the ranting, I’ll calm down after the coffee settles in my system.
I grew up in Pulaski County and still have family and friends there. I live in Indy but visit. The school systems are up in arms because many of the schools played in sports are Eastern while they are on Central time. Originally I wanted the whole state to go Eastern. This year’s experience has changed my mind and I wish the whole state would go Central time.
As we have discussed at work many times: Indiana is not a large state. We are a small, vertical state and everyone should be on the same time. If you work in another state, adjust your time. We are not a horizontal state like Tennessee or a large state like Texas. This “gerrymandering” effect on time zones is as ridiculous as the political gerrymandering, which I also think should come to an end. Make the districts go by county lines, quit playing games, get to work and do your job for ALL the people of Indiana!
I can relate to Jim’s comments. My father, Goldwater Republican to the core, always spoke highly of and had great respect for Roger Branigan. Many Democrats I know have a touch of affection for Otis. The current governor is different, but it doesn’t seem to be just disdain for the official opposition, he embodies disdain for any opposition, particularly opposition from the “provinces”. We have a governor for Indianapolis and its suburban ring, not Indiana.
I don’t have time for a lengthy comment but clearly the only way we have a possibility of changing this situation is by vote in the upcoming November election and in ’08. I too remember Judy Kuleta cautioning people at the South Bend time zone hearing that she just wanted the facts. Well she took those “facts” supporting central time back to Washington and threw them in the garbage. The “fact” is Bait and Switch Mitch has been consistent on this issue, like he stated at the December scripted “town hall meeting”. He has been consistently deceptive, duplicitous, deceitful, dishonest… Let’s face it this guy is just an arrogant,ruthless little SOB who rigged the system so the majority of people of Indiana will be stuck in a time zone that not only is incorrect but one that they did not want. In the end all that mattered was Mitch’s and a few other prominent republican’s (Fred Upton) insider relationship with the DOT. If the DOT grants these counties request they will not only strongly contradict themselves it will further reveal this Daniels-DOT relationship sham for what it is. I for one wish the leadership in St. Joe county had the kahunas to sue for home rule siting the Governor and DOT’s collusion. By the way does anybody know if the law firm(s) that Daniels hired to draft these new petitions were paid for by taxpayers? I think that would add even more political fuel to the fire. Clearly Bait and Switch and his Republican lapdogs have got to go and I’m going to do everything in my power to see that this happens and I hope others will do the same.
PS Is anybody documenting his various contradicting and misleading statements on this DST fiasco. I’ve got some newspaper clippings,stuff from the internet,video. I have been thinking that if a group of people could put together a small media package on his DST scam and mail it to the powers at be in Washington we could at least keep the pressure on.
Jim,Martin county commissioner and president Mike Dant voted no to new time meetings then abstained in the vote for to re-petition.John Collins was the swing vote for Eastern time.Martin county is a democcratic leaning county.Commissioner Collins(D) promised many of us he was sticking to Central last Spring.Commissioner Collins was voted out in the May primary by many like myself who he lied to on the time issue.The other commissioner republican Kevin Boyd who voted for Eastern time is not running this year.County commissioner and president John Burger of Dubois and one time BIG Central time advocate flipflopped his vote and changed to Eastern.He changed his vote after pressure and coersion from business leaders and other influential people in Jasper at least that is what many from Dubois county say and my state Senator Lindel Hume told me off the record so take that for what it`s worth.Daviess and Knox county commissioners all voted yes to Central and then all yes to Eastern this is the pack mentality or I never had a original idea of my own thought process.Don`t get me wrong I have respect for the commissioners like Boyd(Eastern) Dant(Central) in Martin county and Fleck(Central) and Volmer(Eastern) in Dubois because they made decisions and stood by them it`s these other flip flopers I can`t stand! So it was basically Martin county 2-1 Dubois county 2-1 Knox and Daviess 3-0 Eastern time.
The DOT should give us time to vote these jokers out of office!
Fred Mathews from Jasper has a good post about the time zone situation.I had to laugh reading Messmer Mechanical from Jaspers post about how if they were on Eastern time their costruction crews could start earlier in the hot weather so they could quit earlier suggesting a earlier sunrise on Eastern time.Funny I always thought the sun rose a hour earlier in the Central time zone.Another post by someone with no knowledge of the subject just marching to the orders of the Chamber of Commerce!
I can relate to that comment by Messmer Mechanic.. I remember living in Wisconsin with perpetual CST in the 50s ,and by 8 AM it could already be very hot with the sun high in the sky! Sunrise was about 4 am I believe.With CDT or ET the sun would have been lower at 8 am and you could have gotten more work done before the sun got so hot,and could maybe have quit working .Maybe that’s what they meant.
Lou,could be. Maybe I`m missing something but we have the same sunrise time now as we have always had around here in the summer which correct me if I`m wrong is one hour earlier than it would be on EDT therefore being light earlier you can start work earlier on Central time.Which is contrary to their statement. Not trying to be a smartelic but isn`t that correct maybe I`m missing something.
I have a friend that is a foreman on an asphalt crew. They start at sunrise and go to about 5, regardless of sunrise time. (Pay O.T. for going over 8 hrs) On Eastern Time with 1 hr later sunrise, this would mean one hour less productivity.
Getting back to the petition and Daniels, did you notice in the attachments/exhibits for the “southern 5” there was a bunch of propaganda on Interstate 69. There was so much you began to wonder whether they were more concerned about the time zone, or pushing that route that has met with significant opposition? Regardless of the route I-69 takes, once it gets to southwest Indiana, it enters the Cenral Time Zone for the duration, through part of Indiana and all of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Texas has more mileage than all the Eastern Zone on that “NAFTA Freeway II”. In most cases goods are heading to and coming from the central time zone.
Phillip: I remember watching Evansville News and seeing scores for Loogootee H.S. Basketball given in the sports segment. There was never any doubt in my mind, or the Evansville Stations, that it was part of the Evansville media area.
Gary,I wondered about the very thing in which you speak.It would seem to me that it makes more since to keep the southwest Indiana counties on Central to go along with EVILLE and the other 5 counties currently on Central as fa as I-69 is concerned.After all the counties are all located in the EVILLE commerce region and according to the DOT ruling in January have closer ties to the counties on Central to the south.I have never understood why the dividing line between Eastern and Central comes up from the south but veers so far west when it gets to Indiana.
I have never understood why the dividing line between Eastern and Central comes up from the south but veers so far west when it gets to Indiana.
Politics,Phillip,Pure politics. And of course special interest group money. Has anybody documented the money trail? I seem to recall Doug making a link between some EASTERN time zone companies and campaign contributions to Troy Woodruff-also somebody mentioned a cushy 40K+ job for his wife. I think if the public were more informed of the behind the scenes shenanigans they would be more inclined to get rid of these bums.
At the risk of appearing morbid, there are a few things that need to be said about the tragic airplane crash that took 49 lives Sunday. It is evident that the pilot took the wrong runway. A background article in Monday’s Star pointed out this has happened hundreds of times since 1980 mostly at night or during periods of poor visibility. The accident occurred at 6:07 EDT and Lexington’s sunrise was 7:03 that day. As with most accidents, there were other factors that may have contributed to the tragedy. The cockpit voice recorder showed the crew mentioned but didn’t report that the runway lights were out. Investigators are now looking into whether the runway lights being out or changes made to a taxiway during a repaving project last week confused the pilot and caused him to turn onto the wrong runway. It should also be pointed out that Lexington observes double daylight time and Tom Heller syndrome may have played a role. The pilot’s body may have been out of sync with the clock. It is doubtful that the accident would have happen if the takeoff had been at 6:00 CDT because the visibility would have been much better.
I have not heard any discussion about how eastern daylight will affect Indiana’s airports. Around 6 am is one of the busiest periods at the Indianapolis airport and the earliest sunrise during the year is about 6:15 am. This shouldn’t be a problem at the well lighted large airports but airports the size of Lexington and smaller may have difficulties. There may be more delays even at Indianapolis due to morning fogs lifting an hour later.
Dubois County Flight Services made one of the more persuasive eastern submissions (OST-2005-22114-5414) to the Docket. It said early sunsets creates problems because most of the landings are after 5 pm and the poor visibility due to the early darkness combined with ice and animals on the runway make the landings more dangerous. But the submission typically fails to discuss the problems created by late sunrises. I don’t know which is the most dangerous dark takeoffs or dark landings.
Landings are generally more dangerous operations than takeoffs, in part due to vulnerability of (turbine)aircraft to weather when operating at low power. The Lexington accident though sounds like a ground navigation problem than shouldn’t have been an issue for a landing aircraft. I don’t agree with the Dubois County Flight Service statement. I would guess they just want to do more daylight flight training.
I would agree that DST is something of an issue regarding aviation operations. Pushing everyone to start their days in the dark will contribute to a sense of fatigue because we are not following a more comfortable day/night pattern. Working night shifts in any field of employment is generally somewhat more taxing on the health than working dayshifts. But this isn’t something Indiana can do anything about. Airline schedules here will be driven by other parts of the country. If we don’t observe DST our morning departures to Eastern (daylight) time zone hubs will shift to an hour earlier during periods when DST is in effect. Early morning airline operations will still peak too early and many will occur in the dark.
http://naco.faa.gov/d-tpp/0608/00697AD.PDF This is a link to a diagram of the Blue Grass Airport. Runways are designated by their compass headings. The crew was not as alert as it should have been. Their on board compass should have told them they were on the wrong runway and the lights not being on should have been reported.
Maybe the crew didn’t get a good nights sleep. They had to have an early wake-up call to file the flight plan and pre-flight the aircraft.