After the Southwestern Counties petitioned to move from Central to Eastern time, the USDOT said they were imposing a moratorium on Indiana time zone petitions from November 2007 to November 2008. The folks in St. Joseph County wanted some flexibility to submit a petition to go from Eastern to Central. (Readers may recall that St. Joseph County had been preliminarily slated to go to Central, neighboring Elkhart County raised a fuss, Gov. Daniels violated the DST statute by going on record as opposing the St. Joseph County petition, and the USDOT kept St. Joe in eastern.)
The USDOT decided it doesn’t want to hear from St. Joseph County until November 2008 — so at least Gov. Daniels doesn’t have that to worry about during his upcoming campaign. The South Bend Tribune article is here.
There is a point here that the media has wrong. There was no deadline to file a petition. That can still be done. The DOT simply will not look at a petition until next November.
Good point.
Interesting that the one year date ends on November 4, 2008. Seems something is happening on that Tuesday in November. Oh…..right….. election day. Just one of those things that make you go….Hummm???
On a more important note with today being a day of thanks, here’s one for Doug. Thank you for the work you do on this blog to inform, educate, and allow so many to communicate. Health and happiness to all this holiday season.
Definitely a thing that makes you go hmmm. The date is more than a coincidence.
It was wrong for the DOT to decline this request as it was two years ago. If they had accepted the request back then, I think there would be less debate than there is now. The best thing do for St. Joseph County would be for it NOT to observe DST come March.