A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Dubois has some hurdles to overcome to get back to Eastern.

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II was looking for something else, and stumbled across Dubois’ county’s supplemental submission to the USDOT seeking admission into the Central Time Zone. I have not read the joint petition to which Dubois County is a party, but they’re going to have a tough time overcoming the allegations they made in the supplementary petition.

Television and radio? TV – Evansville; Radio – either Dubois County or from the Central Time Zone.

Newspapers? Either from within the County or from Evansville.

Airports? Evansville or Louisville.

Percentage of residents working outside of the community? 4% work outside of the community. 850 of them work in Central Time Zone Counties (Spencer, Gibson and Vanderburgh). About 300 work in Pike & Martin Counties (Central but requesting to switch back to Eastern.)

Economy? “The longer days during the summer heat brought on by Eastern Daylight Time could have a significant negative impact on the health of Dubois County’s poultry producers and also the health of the poultry flocks. . . .” “Dubois County’s economy is stable and this could be jeopardized should Dubois County’s petition for Central Time be denied.”

Another note: “A public forum concerning the time zone issue was conducted on September 6, 2005 to gather additional information. Approximately 3,000 residents of Dubois County (representing nearly 7.5% of the county population) expressed their opinions. 74% of the residents favored Central Time versus 26% in favor of Eastern Time.

Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, Pike, and Pulaski petition to change time zones again

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Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, and Pike Counties have filed a petition (pdf) with the United States Department of Transportation to move from the Central Time Zone into the Eastern Time Zone. Pulaski has also apparently filed a petition separately from the southwestern counties.

Governor Daniels has written a letter (pdf) supporting the joint petition. The letter contains a few whoppers worth noting:

For the vast majority of the 76 Indiana counties that joined the world of Daylight Saving Time, the selection of time zone was not difficult.
Well, no it wasn’t. Because nobody bothered to ask them. How many counties even had their commissioners take up the issue? I’ll bet considerably less than half.

The law passed in 2005 that put Indiana on DST also specifically encouraged each individual county to assert its own view on the choice of time zone, and bound the state to support that view.
Yes and no. SEA 127-2005 specifically directed the Governor to provide the USDOT with any documentation necessary to have the USDOT initiate hearings on the proper boundary between the Eastern and Central Time Zones. He did not provide any documentation to the USDOT with respect to the convenience of commerce in the state. He did nothing more than provide the USDOT with a copy of the legislation. Gov. Daniels is, however, correct that the State was bound to support any county that petitioned for a change in time zone. He actively chose to break that law by requesting the Secretary of Transportation to reject the request of the Commissioners of St. Joseph County. At the time, he put forth some disingenuous nonsense about how the legislation required him only to support the process by which the Commissioners reached a determination, not the decision itself. Now that it suits him, he acknowledges that the state is bound to support the choice of the County Commissioners.

As governor, my longstanding position has been that local preference should be respected as much as possible.
Nothing about the Governor’s many, many positions on time zones can be regarded as “long standing.” First Central Time was most desirable. Then, once he was elected, he seemed to have no position on time zones. Then he was in favor of state wide hearings. Then he was in favor of decision making by county commissioners. Then he didn’t favor the St. Joseph County Commissioners decisions. Then he favored the Southwestern region of Indiana around Evansville being on Central Time. Now he favors much of that region being on Eastern Time.

It is important to note that during the initial petition process, the counties in these affected regions were forced to make their petitions not knowing for certain which time zone their neighbor counties would land in.
That wasn’t a problem just for the affected regions. That was a problem everywhere. That is the main reason why a county-by-county solution is a Bad Idea.

Also, as Jim pointed out in the comments, the Governor’s current position is, surprise surprise, at odds with his past position with respect to southwestern Indiana. November 29, 2005 (pdf):

Second, in Southwest Indiana your proposed rule would divide a multi-county region that, through your public hearing process, has expressed a clear argument and desire to be placed together on Central time. The Department proposal correctly added three counties (Perry, Knox, and Pike) to the five existing Central Time Zone counties in Southwest Indiana. However, to fully preserve the unity of this region it is essential that you grant the petitions of the three remaining counties in this corner of the state (Daviess, Dubois, and Martin).

Contrast that with his August 14, 2006 position:

Daviess, Dubious [sic], Knox, Martin, and Pike Counties in Southwest Indiana belong in the Eastern Standard [sic] time zone.

(Governor, we all belong on Eastern Standard Time; which is where we were year round before you and Troy “I’ll never vote for it” Woodruff put us on Eastern Daylight Time.)

Below is a map showing the affected areas. My thanks to my wife, Amy, for touching up the map a bit. This is the 8th map iteration and frankly, the map was getting a little dog-eared with all the changes.

DST & Time Zone open thread

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My “Hot, Hot Heat” post, a one paragraph throw away about the heat and general grumbling about how DST means it stays hot an extra hour later, has generated 77 comments to date. So, obviously there was some desire to discuss Daylight Saving Time and the time zone issues. So, I thought I’d open up another thread so folks don’t have to scroll down 77 comments to get to the latest.

I’ll kick it off with a quote that Jim attributes to the inimitable Tom Heller:

“[T]he sun controls my body, but the clock controls my life.” The daily activities of life are governed by the clock we observe. But if the sun and that clock are out-of-sync, then I gotta believe there are costs incurred. Maybe not visible or obvious, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. I think I may have suggested that excessive eating (carbohydrates in particular) may be related to sleep-deprivation or getting our bodies up and off to work or school before they’ve got a shot of daylight. Certainly, there are studies that link carbohydrate loading to depression. And if Dr. David Avery’s research is solid, there may be a link between Indiana’s unnaturally’advanced’ clock and a tendency to obesity among the state’s residents.

Hot hot heat

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Wow, it’s been hot out there. Like, really hot. But that’s just Indiana for you. I probably can’t blame it on the politicians. But I can point out that Daylight Saving Time arranges the day such that the heat of the day affects us more. That “extra” hour of light also means an extra hour of heat. Since the sun doesn’t go down until later, the heat also doesn’t dissipate until later.

New fireworks law

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The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial asking readers how they think the more liberal fireworks law passed by the General Assembly is working in practice. Advance Indiana has a post mentioning a WTHR report about a 10 year old who lost his eye when he threw a bottle rocket in the air when it shot back and struck him in the eye.

There are certainly strong policy arguments in favor of stricter controls on fireworks. But I’m not sure there is a practical difference between the new law which is very permissive and the old law which was theoretically stricter but unenforced and unenforceable. I know I didn’t have a great deal of trouble obtaining and using bottle rockets as a youth. I recall riding my bike no-handed while lighting and throwing bottle rockets. That can’t be safe.

For me, Daylight Saving Time makes fireworks more of a problem than the new fireworks law, just because people are setting them off later than they used to. 4th of July fireworks going off at all hours don’t bother me — that’s just the nature of the day. It’s the 5th of July fireworks that are really annoying. The kids are in bed, I’m just settling into bed myself. BANG BANG BANG BANG down the street. The dogs start barking. Repeat periodically for the next hour or two. Grrr. But I suppose that’s as much a function of my evolution into a grumpy old man as anything else.

DST: Has problems after all

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WSBT found a problem that seems to be associated with Daylight Saving Time that the Indianapolis Star seemed to miss in its glowing report on the issue.

Police say Daylight Saving Time is making it harder to enforce the city’s curfew, and more kids are getting into mischief. Property crimes, like car break-ins and petty thefts are the kinds of things they’re seeing.

Officers say it may be harder for kids to keep track of the time now that it stays light for so long.

Even though it’s light — the time of day is late — a lot of people have to work the next morning,” said Capt. Phil Trent of the South Bend Police Department. “So a lot of parents are going to sleep and the kids are still up and out, and we’d like make parents aware of the fact that they need to keep their kids inside.”

Daylight Saving Time: Virtually Unmitigated Success!

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So sayeth the Indianapolis Star. The story does, however, note that the later daylight is detrimental to ability to sleep well. But how important could that be?

This probably should have been another “some like it, some don’t” story. Instead, it comes off as most people like it, “pockets of resistance remain.” If there were data to support the former, that would be a fine angle. As it is, there appears to be only anectdotal evidence in the article.

Today is the earliest the sun will rise, with sunrise being at 6:17 a.m. (In Tippecanoe County). It won’t be dark until about 9:55 p.m.

Sunrise

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Paul O’Malley pointed out to me that this week marks the earliest sunrises Indiana will get under Eastern Daylight Time – About 6:17 a.m. in Lafayette. That means I pretty much always wake up in the dark. That’s just not natural.