Rep. Crooks has introduced HB 1050 which requires a public question to be put on the 2008 general election ballot which asks:
If all of Indiana could be placed in one (1) time zone, which time zone would you prefer:
The Central Time Zone.
The Eastern Time Zone.
This seems like a reasonable approach. It recognizes that the decision isn’t directly in the hands of the state. However, it’s the only real way to obtain hard data about the time zone preference of Hoosiers. Most Hoosiers seem to feel like, if we must be on Daylight Saving Time, the entire state should at least be on one time zone, otherwise we should have left the system in place that we had for the past 30 years.
Politically, it would probably hurt Governor Daniels. Right on the 2008 ballot would be a reminder to voters that Governor Daniels screwed with our clocks.
[tags]HB1050-2007, DST[/tags]
Lou,
As for people who suffer from SAD already being in favor of CT, I am not so sure. People may not recognize why they feel depressed in the winter. And the merchent members of the Chamber of Commerce can literally profit from this depression. It is a well known phenomena that people who are depressed shop more. See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/ask_the_doctor/depressionshopping.shtml
Phillip,
I don’t understand what you mean when you say people in Dubois county want ET for personal reasons rather than for commerce reasons.And how is that different from those people who want CT? Aren’t their reasons personal also? People have a personal preference first and then they go out and gather data to support what they want.Rep Crooks wants to present to the whole state a ballot on ‘personal preference’ of time zone. Naturally the data submitted for the original petitioning for CT will conflict with the info being submitted to reverse the petition.. Everyone will have to deal with it.It’s not going to be an easy job for DOT to sort out this conflicting info. But hopefully the question DOT asks is: ‘what do people want NOW and which set of data seems most supportive and what is bogus?’ They also will have to determine if they were misled originally or if they are being misled now.
Why do you think only Dubois County business is posting for ET? I could guess because it’s one of the more populated counties involved and that they are closer to areas in ET where they see conflicts…maybe they have a strong county business organization that encourages posting.
Lou,
Only Dubois county businesses are posting for Eastern time because they have been organized by the local chamber of commerce which is fine.Knox county businesses and the local chamber of commerce I believe have decided to not support the petition but rather stay out of the matter.So which businesses are right Lou??As for Dubois county businesses being closer to counties in the Eastern time zone they do business with which counties would those be Martin,Daviess,Pike,SpencerWarrick,or Perry counties?Dubois county borders all of these counties which are currently in the Central time zone while bordering only two in the Eastern time zone!They are in the same commerce region as Evansville and the other Central time counties to the South.Most large companies in Dubois county are companies like Jasper Engine Exchange,Kimball International and large furniture makers who do business all over the U.S. and in fact as stated by the DOT export two-thirds of their products to other than the Eastern time zone.
As for personal preferences if what you say is true that each side mainly wants a time zone for personal preferences why should Eastern be granted instead of Central?The personal reasons for many in Dubois county is that they have a lot of IU alumni that travel to games there and many would like the extra evening light for Golf and other activities.These are mostly the upper income folk’s and that own businesses and control Dubois county politics.The same crowd that “hammered” their words Dubois county commissioner and huge Central time supporter John Burger until he changed his vote to Eastern time.
The Eastern time crowd have gathered very few verifiable facts or evidence.All they say is it gets dark too early or Central time is bad for business.Central time supporters have clearly proven all their statements wrong except one which is that it is inconvenient to be a hour behin the majority of the state.