The Perry County News has an entry on the continuing time zone saga down there. As readers may recall, the Perry County Commissioners adopted a resolution indicating a desire to be put on Eastern Time if the other southwestern counties are granted their petition to be moved to eastern time. I believe Perry County would be required to file a petition with the USDOT to initiate time zone proceedings for their county.
Also, with respect to the ongoing time zone hearings in the Southwestern counties, the USDOT asked Ice Miller — the firm representing the counties — to again provide additional information. A reader has informed me that the Ice Miller response has been submitted but that the submission has not yet been posted to the USDOT time zone docket. Obviously this makes it more difficult for Central Time proponents to double check the accuracy of the responses.
What a mess. Although I prefer Eastern, I certainly know where the anger on the part of Central supporters is coming from. Our commissioners in Perry County usually look before they leap, and support whoever talked to them last or loudest. See previous CON entries. For our county, the question is: Tie ourselves to Indy, which is more closely aligned with the East, or tie ourselves to Evansville, which is more closely aligned with St. Louis?
I did read that article in the County Perry News Perry .Somewhere in that article it was stated that DOT has promised not to take any action til Perry County submits their re-petition, because DOT wants to deal with all 6 counties at one time.
My question is why aren’t more people submitting comments to the docket? Numerically there are lots of posts but all by a couple CT supporters and an occasional anonymous posting for ET. For such an emotional issue,there are very few widespread individual postings,which surprises me.It’s going to be very difficult for DOT I think.Then if I read the article correctly 4 people complained at one commissioner’s meeting and a couple more complained the next time,and thats what the article was based on. Also certain commissioners complained about the editorial which questioned the commissioners lack of seeking wider opinion samplings before voting to stay with other 5 counties. My view from reading the article is there is very little communication in any direction.
Lou,
My problem is that this latest request by the DOT for more information from Ice Miller LLP is not being made public as the November 14th correspondence to Ice Miller LLP was which was posted on this blog among other places asking them to correct,clarify and answer questions which by the way Ice Miller side stepped in their December 6 response.Many of the questions and clarifications were based on rebuttal petitions written by Central time supporters.
I am sure you do not think it is correct for these proceedings and documents to not be made available to the public since we are the ones who must live in the chosen time zone.The Ice Miller response may yet be posted as it was supposed to be in Washington D.C. sometime this week.Since the November 14th correspondence from the DOT and Senior Counsel Kaleta was posted shouldn’t this latest document be available to the public?This makes
some of us believe we are being shut out of the process so we can’t rebutt Ice Millers statements which many times are incorrect.
I agree with you in that I do not understand why more people do not take a few moments to submit their time zone preference to the DOT.I have no problem with repeat entries especially from Mr.Byrd who spends a lot of personal time researching and submitting verifiable convenience of commerce evidence.Their are many people who work in the original Central time counties that will be inconvenienced if the line is moved again.So where are they?probaly the same place the people who are inconvenienced by the line now were which is not paying attention until they wake up one day and fin themselves inconvenienced would be my guess.I kept count along time ago since last Summer and most entries had favored Central time (non-repeat) but I quit counting so I do not know the tally now.
T,
It is my understanding that the commuter numbers for Perry county favor the county remaining in the Central time zone but I will not swear to it.Also I’ve heard many Perry county residents speak of ties to the part of KY in the Central time zone.
Phillip– yes, I’ve seen the numbers do support Central. I don’t think the commissioners have a credible argument to counter that. They just have a random sampling of complainers. I’m less than thrilled that they’re now on my side (Eastern), because as usual they don’t have a lot of thought or evidence behind what they’re saying.
Again, my support for Eastern is personal. It just works much better for my life. As said previously, I think the whole state should be on Cental Daylight year-round. If the other counties petition successfully to go Eastern, I would be disappointed to be in a little salient of Central hoosierland jutting eastward into the otherwise-Eastern rest of the state. But the commisioners sure aren’t arguing very effectively. Nor did they with the initial switch. Then, it was that they were going to Central because Dubois County was. Now it’s that they’re switching back because Dubois is.
You guys should save some money and just have the Dubois County Commissioners be the county executive for Perry County as well.
Well said Doug!However we in Martin county have no room to talk. Our commissioners who have no clue either voted to repetition but were not going to make the move without Dubois county since this is where most Martin county people commute to work more than any other place.Dubois county is the key county in the region.Although Crane Base is located in Martin county we have very few people less than a thousand I believe that works there.
I think most people could live with either time zone if there was no boundary and everyone was on the same time.
It seems these commissioners in every county respond to complaints by a few people then shift positions.I know in Martin county most of the complaints came from Eastern time county residents who work at Crane.At least that was the majority of people which showed up at a Martin county time meeting Febuary 2006.
T’
I could certainly understand your frustration if the other five counties are switched back and Perry wasn’t.These 6 counties and their commissioners argued for unity with each other and the other SW counties on Central time and they got what they wanted then cried foul.What a joke.I mean did they think no one would complain about being inconvenienced!The Governor said the region is a “natural region that should remain in the same time zone”.The DOT agreed and stated these counties have more in common with each other and the original Central time counties than the Eastern time counties some of them border.Nothings changed as far as I can tell.So I do not see how this decison of just over a year can be reversed since the economies and convenience of commerce issues are just fine in the region and evidence has been submitted to the DOT which shows this to be true.
It makes me very thankful that, despite an online poll taken in 2005 by the commissioners in my county (Tippecanoe) that showed strong support for Central, they chose wisely to keep their powder dry and wait until the dust settled. Otherwise, we’d potentially be dealing with this nonsense up here, as well.
Since for the SW counties, the choice of Eastern or Central seems to make little difference to their “convenience of commerce”–or if anything–that convenience is better served by Central–it seems like they are stuck with it. The people in these 5 or 6 counties should be more than a bit upset with the lack of circumspection on the part of their commissioners to submit the bids for Central in the first place. What was the emergency? A year or two on Eastern time would have provided some evidence of people’s reaction and the convenience of commerce consequences. Pulaski County escaped by the skin of their teeth, but SW Indiana may not be so lucky (if you prefer Eastern).
Steve,
The only commissioner to run for re-election so far in my county Martin was John Collins(D) who switched his vote to Eastern at the urging of a few Martin county residents and A LOT of Eastern time zone Crane employees from out of county.He was defeated in the primary.This is a overwhelmingly Democratic county.He told many of us on the phone he would not change his vote then did just that so we tried hard to vote him out and were succsessful.This is a man I worked with years ago and was a person I liked.He came to our house after the election to apologize for being untruthful but this soured me on the man.his opponents sign was still in our yard when he stopped by.I do not care for people of any political party who tell lies!!