The Lafayette Journal & Courier has several articles on Indiana’s time zone debate:

Central or Eastern Time? Consensus as clear as dusk: Drive-ins like Central, Golfers like Eastern.

Some prefer Central for Kids sake: Central will provide more light in the morning and less at night. That would make it safer for kids to wait for school buses and easier to get kids to bed at a reasonable hour.

Golfers, swimmers favor more daylight: Eastern Daylight Time would shift daylight to the evening hours which is beneficial to outdoor recreation types.

Switch will affect student busing, evening activities: Again, Central Time is safer for kids being bused to school. But, Eastern Time would make more daylight available after school.

Businesses mixed on zones: Manufacturers seem to prefer eastern, agricultural businesses seem to prefer central.

Debate springs forward, falls back: A history of the DST debate. Indiana is in Central Time through the 1960s but DST isn’t mandatory. In 1972, “a federal plan is approved whereby Indiana’s 92 counties are split into three time schemes: Eastern year-round; Eastern daylight-saving and Central daylight-saving. Tippecanoe falls into the Eastern time year-round area.” 2006 – Indiana will begin observing DST on April 2, 2006. (That could make things interesting for a month if the feds go ahead with a plan to start DST in March.)

What the commissioners say: Tippecanoe – taking informal poll to see if there is interest in Central time; concerned about fact that Tippecanoe doesn’t border Central Time county at the moment. Benton – plan to have a discussion about time zone at July 25 meeting. Carroll – mainly concerned about what Tippecanoe and Howard counties do, if they stay eastern, so would Carroll. Clinton – no real discussion. Fountain – doesn’t like DST, but if it has to happen, it’s next to Illinois and would prefer to be Central. Jasper – would like to get all of Jasper county on the same time, presumably central time as most of the county is currently on. Montgomery – no real opinions yet. Warren – no firm opinions, but seems to lean Central. White – most people seem to prefer Central.

Eastern vs. Central? As long as it’s Indy time: The editorial board of the Journal and Courier seem to want the citizens of Marion County to make the time zone decision for the citizens of Tippecanoe County.

The Journal & Courier has a pretty compelling opinion in today’s paper. In it they write,

Think what you will about Indiana’s leap into the world according to daylight-saving time — we thought it was a good idea and, frankly, about time.

But Gov. Mitch Daniels and our state lawmakers, who’ve had decades to gauge every angle and nuance of this contentious fight, blew it big time when they divorced time zone questions from an ultimate decision about whether to have clocks spring forward and fall back twice a year.

. . .

But this can’t be what the governor had in mind for a measure that was sold on a promise of time zone hearings as soon as possible. It can’t be what county commissioners close to the time line — including those in Tippecanoe County — wanted thrown into their laps, either.

Our argument for years has been that changing the clocks, while a maddening prospect for some Hoosiers, has never been the real bone of contention. That distinction belongs to the fundamental question about whether the majority of the state belongs with New York or with Chicago.

It’s all well and good for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette to be complacent about being in the eastern time zone. They just shrug their shoulders and say that the legislation required a specific request and note that a specific request was not provided. The real issue here, in my opinion is that Governor Daniels did not make sure his request was in the proper order. For example, there was nothing stopping him from getting off the fence and asking that the USDOT put the time zone line whereever the Governor felt it was appropriate and then backing up his request. Hearings could have been held at that point and the line adjusted from the Governor’s baseline as appropriate. Instead he shrugged off his duty to do the hard work and make the hard decisions.

The Journal Gazette’s complacency is understandable because eastern time presumably works best for Fort Wayne. But for the state government to adopt the Journal Gazette’s attitude would be to ignore the western half of the state. A news article in the Journal & Courier highlights some of the difficulties in the current time zone situation for the Lafayette area. Newton and Jasper counties are in the Central Time Zone. Tippecanoe, Benton and White counties are in the eastern time zone. White county, for one, does a great deal of its business with Illinois and points west.

It’s easy for Fort Wayne and Indianapolis to forget we’re over here, but there might be a reminder come election time if the interests of the western counties are ignored. I would think, in particular, this puts Rep. Woodruff in a tough position. Woodruff, as you may recall, cast the deciding vote on DST despite his promises to his constituents in the western part of the state that he would never vote for DST. I imagine moving his Vincennes constituents to central time would have done a fair amount to blunt their wrath.