Thanks to Paul for flagging this article by Bill Medley in the Evansville Courier Press on Gov. Daniels remarks at an Evansville Chamber of Commerce function. Most interesting to me were Daniels’ comments about the time zone issue.
The governor addressed the issue of the time zone in response to a question from the audience. Daniels said he anticipated many counties in Indiana would choose to be in the Central time zone.
He said confusion over what time it was in Indiana was costing businesses. He relayed the experience of an Indianapolis businessman who expected to lose about $30,000 because a partner in Los Angeles missed a conference call because of time zone confusion.
While he expects the Central time zone will be the most popular option for counties, there will still be some areas of the state that will choose differently.
“Everybody on one time zone is probably not attainable, given our position on the globe.”
It strikes me as odd if Gov. Daniels said that he expects most counties to want to be in the Central time zone. My personal sense is that the opposite will be true. I think Indianapolis will choose Eastern Time. I think everything east of Indianapolis will choose eastern time. And, I think some counties west of Indy will want central time, but due to Indianapolis’s economic sphere of influence, will choose eastern time anyway.
Counties already in the Central time zone are: Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Jasper, Newton, Gibson, Posey, Vanderburg, Spencer, and Warrick. I’m probably going to miss horribly here, particularly with respect to the southern part of the state, but looking at this map I’d guess counties prone to switch from eastern to central are: Perry, Dubois, Martin, Davies, Pike, Knox, Daviess, Sullivan, Vigo, Clay, Parke, Vermillion, Fountain, Warren, Benton, White, Pulaski, Starke, Marshall, St. Joseph, St. Joseph, Elkhart, and Kosciusko. I doubt all of those would actually vote to switch, but if they do, that would mean about 33 counties. That would mean 59 counties still on eastern.
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