Maybe if I were to dig a little bit, I could find the backstory here. But, the AP is reporting that Indiana’s Education Roundtable is to resume meeting in September.

Twenty-eight people have been named to the group, including 24 joint appointments by Daniels and Reed and four others by legislative leaders. Their next meeting will be Sept. 28.

At the beginning of July, there was a report questioning why the roundtable had not met since January.

The AP article didn’t have names of who was new to the group and who was being pushed out.

According to a DNR press release, the department will receive a $2.5 million grant to update floodplain mapping for 14 counties. The counties are Adams, Clark, Dearborn, Delaware, Elkhart, Floyd, Hamilton, Lawrence, Madison, Monroe, Porter, St. Joseph, Vigo, and Warrick.

Among other things, the floodplain maps play into the National Flood Insurance Program which giveth on the one hand by making it possible to obtain flood insurance at reasonable rates in areas where that would otherwise not be possible. But it taketh away on the other hand by restricting where new construction can take place and, more irritating to homeowners, where repairs are allowed to take place. If you sustain enough damage to your home, you won’t be allowed to get a building permit or certificate of occupancy to repair and reside in your home. I seem to recall that the damage threshold is 50% of the value of the house, and it’s cumulative. So, if you sustain 20% damage during one flood, 20% during a second, and 15% during the third, you won’t be allowed to make the repairs.

This is a rational part of a policy of trying to get structures out of the floodplain so we don’t have to pay to rebuild them every 5 years or whatever. But, it’s a tough pill to swallow for the individual homeowners who think their homes only need some new carpet and drywall but, to their eyes, the mean old county building inspector is throwing the baby out with the bathwater and kicking them out of their home.

(Incidentally, I like the state’s statewide press release page which, apparently, shows any press release for any state agency in one convenient location. The URL I’ve linked to above is kind of squirrely, so I don’t know if that’s a static link or something dynamic generated for my search today.)

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.

I really can’t agree with this editorial in the Richmond Palladium-Item. Governor Daniels apparently made a campaign promise that he wouldn’t cut state employee jobs in favor of private contractors. Now, Governor Daniels said that he promised too much and that he will cut state employee jobs in favor of private contractors. The state employee union, AFSCME criticizes Gov. Daniels for renegging on his promise. So, who gets the Pal-Item’s praise and who gets its criticism?

Why, clearly the union is the bad guy here:

Rather than attack Daniels’ credibility and competence, as a representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has bitterly done, it might be more instructive to review another of this governor’s far more important campaign pledges — balancing the budget, as required by Indiana’s constitution.

. . .

In fact, it is part of Daniels’ welcome candor that he now admits his promise was overly broad.

Let me be clear, I think balanced budgets are important. In fact, it’s probably my #1 priority when I’m evaluating a politician. It’s why I started voting for Democratic Presidential candidates — Bill Clinton balanced the budget, something no Republican has done in over 3 decades. It’s a perfectly valid policy argument to say that a balanced budget is more important than state employee jobs. But, Daniels should have made that argument if that’s what he thought, and let the voters decide. It’s horribly bad form to say one thing, then do a 180 degree turn once you’re elected. So, I’m mildly disappointed in Gov. Daniels for that.

But, even worse, it makes eye-popping reading for the Palladium-Item to refer to Daniels broken campaign promise as “welcome candor” in addition to chastizing the union for criticizing the Governor for his broken campaign promise.

Finally, not really the point of this entry, but it bears mentioning that the Palladium-Item’s implicit assumption that privatizing state employee functions will save tax dollars is flawed. For example, the General Assembly cut its printing appropriations by 2/3 when it stopped using an outside vendor and let state employees do the job.

According to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Allen County has delayed a decision on whether to pay its $7.5 million debt to the state involving fees owed to the state for juvenile detention fees incurred for housing Allen County juveniles.

As more fully discussed in an earlier entry, Marion County has sued the state, arguing that the fees are unconstitutional. The suit is in respoonse to a provision passed by the state legislature withholding property tax subsidies designed to offset the costs of property tax restructuring if counties did not pay their juvenile detention debt.

Allen County councilman Paul Moss (R-at large) doesn’t think the juvenile detention fees constitute a legitimate debt. State Senator Tom Wyss told one of the councilmen that if Allen County stopped payment, the state would withhold part of the county’s property tax replacement credits which would result in a property tax increase.

Matthew Tully captures Governor Daniels DST problems in his article entitled Even now, Daniels is in the dark on time zones.

Watching the latest time controversy unfold this week, I dug out my notes from last year’s campaign. I hit the jackpot with a speech Daniels gave in Lake County. In it, he talked about bringing our sometimes-splintered state together.

“We can start with small things,” he said. “For Pete’s sake, let’s get all of our state on the same time.”

Daylight-saving time is a “small thing?” Hmm. And I guess Hurricane Dennis was a “little storm.”

. . .

Daniels created this monster. He clearly understands the need to modernize and simplify Indiana’s time system. But he has shrugged off the human side of the storm like a CEO making a bottom-line decision, arguing it must become easier for Indiana firms to deal with clients in places like New York or Europe.

That argument makes great sense. But most people have more basic concerns, like: “What time will the sun go down on July Fourth?” Or “Will I be driving to work in the dark in April?”

. . .

This issue has already cost him dearly. And the most bitter division is actually not over daylight-saving time, but over the next question: Central or Eastern time.

Daniels has backed away from his stance that most of Indiana should be on Central time. By not taking a stand now, he can peg the final outcome — which will probably be Eastern Daylight Time in most of the state — on the federal government.

—————–

Gov. Daniels is also in the news for Complaints about ethical violations involving use of “RV-1” — the RV donated to the state — at a political fundraising event. The Democrats have requested an ethics probe. I can’t manage to work up any faux outrage this morning (oddly giving me a brief vision of a drill instructor shouting, “boy! if you can’t work up faux outrage you got no business being a blogger!”) But, I most certainly digress.

Looks like the link above is to today’s story. A prior story written by Mary Beth Schneider is entitled Ethics Complaint Aimed at Governor’s RV has a quote from Deputy Inspector General Jeff Gill

Deputy Inspector General Jeff Gill — speaking before the Democratic Party asked for the investigation — was asked in general whether a state office or vehicle could be used for political fundraising. While stressing he was not giving an official opinion, Gill said no.

“Unless it’s permitted by a general written agency policy, it looks to me like it would be prohibited,” Gill said.

Taking Down Words has some advice to the Governor involving ethics, stones, and glass houses. A commenter there is disappointed that Deputy Inspector Gill’s statement does not appear in this morning’s version of the story.

Adding to the Daylight Saving Time fun, Congress is adding 2 months to DST. According to this article, DST will begin on the first Sunday in March and end the last Sunday in November. Currently it begins the first Sunday in April and ends the last Sunday in October.

One quote in the article suggests that U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) thinks being in Congress GIVES HIM POWER OVER THE SUN! Quoth the Markey: “The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use.”

Anyway, this will presumably rile up those who were not in favor of Daylight Saving Time. Poor Representative Woodruff can’t catch a break. (Did I mention that he cast the deciding vote in favor of DST after having promised his constituents that he would *never* vote for DST?) First he reneges on a promise which brings DST to the state. Then Gov. Daniels does a half-assed job submitting the petition for time zone consideration required by SEA 127, and now we’re going to be on Daylight Saving Time during Thanksgiving. The sun won’t rise until just shy of 9:00 a.m. in Rep. Woodruff’s hometown of Vincennes at the end of November. (That means if you go out to wait for the school bus at 7 a.m., you’ll have just over 2 hours until the sun comes up.) On the flip side of the coin, I put my toddler down to bed at 7:30 p.m. This time next year, it won’t be dark for another 2.5 hours after that.

Update 2:00 p.m.: While I might be the only blogger obsessing on the DST issue, I’m not the only one talking about it. Some others:

Leo Morris of the Fort Wayne News Sentinel is tired of the whole thing. And now the feds added a new wrinkle by extending DST by two months.

Doghouse Riley figures supporters of DST with the anticipation that Gov. Daniels would spearhead the shift to Central Time are now royally pissed off.

Global Standard Time argues that the main reason for a switch to DST was to make sure Indiana was all on one time. (S)he argues that this rationale is shot now that the feds won’t coordinate things.

Simply Indiana also figures its a waste to shift to DST if the state won’t be entirely on the same time.

Road Trip Diaries mentions it in an aside but says, ” If you’re reading, Indiana, say NO to daylight savings. It’s rubbish. Lead the way and don’t do it.”

stAllio! (thanks to him for the link, btw) says any hope has been destroyed that the DST switch would make Indiana time any more logical.

and

Lawgeekgurl (also thanks for the link) foresees the cows, even having lost the battle on DST, winning the war by maintaining time confusion in Indiana. Wily cows.

I don’t know if it is new or just previously invisible to me, but here is a page for the Governor’s executive orders.

Exciting stuff, for the most part. Most recently, there was a July 13, 2005 order continuing the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and an April 22, 2005 order on “Greening the Government.” (Agencies are ordered to appoint a “green” coordinator, try to cut down on paper, reuse “gently used” office supplies,etc.

Actually, if that page is up to date and comprehensive, there have apparently been only 3 executive orders issued since January. In January, Gov. Daniels came into office with a flurry of 19 orders.

The Evansville Courier Press has an editorial on time zones. Their take is that it is now incumbent upon Governor Daniels to lead the process on timezones. They point out that Daylight Saving Time would not have passed without the promise of action on time zones.

It strikes us that Daniels has a responsibility now to step up and conduct state hearings on the issue. For certain, he complied with the letter of the law, requesting hearings, but now he should comply with the spirit of the legislation and give Hoosiers an opportunity to state whether they want change.

. . .

But until such hearings are held, Hoosiers are likely to continually remind the governor and state legislators that the promise for hearings was broken.

With the approval of statewide daylight-saving time, Daniels got what he wanted from the Legislature. He felt it would reduce confusion about Indiana time, and we agreed. And as a candidate last year, he said he felt Indiana more logically belongs in the Central time zone, and we agreed. We still do, and we will be sorely disappointed if he does not now use the clout of state government to determine whether Hoosiers want to change.

I disagree that it is certain that Daniels complied with the letter of the law. But the Courier Press has a good idea. The Governor could hold hearings, try to determine where the most support is for placing the time zone line, and petition the USDOT accordingly — this time with the supporting information he was required to provide in the first place.

In any event, I am happy this Courier Press editorial is not as dismissive of the Central Time Zone as the papers in the eastern part of the state have been.

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.