The Elkhart Truth is as starved for time zone news as I am, apparently. They offer up this bit of non-news to fill some space. The paper reports what we already knew: The USDOT said they’d make their decision in January. Governor Daniels wants them to hurry, hurry, and make their decision by the first of the year.
I guess the reaction of a couple of Elkhart County commissioners is of some interest:
“It was a waste of time,” said Elkhart County Commissioner Terry Rodino when asked what he learned from the time zone experience. It could have been handled better by the state legislators, he said.
“We handled it the best we could,” he said, “and we stand by our decision.”
Elkhart County Commissioner Mike Yoder found it hard to communicate that public opinion was not the king in the decision.
I definitely agree with Commissioner Rodino that decisions about an appropriate time line should have been made by the General Assembly. It should have been part of the Daylight Saving Time bill since, contrary to the assertions of Representative Torr, the two issues are inextricable. I think public opinion counts for more than Commissioner Yoder seems to think. Certainly it doesn’t appear as any sort of criteria in the USDOT guidelines or the time zone statutes passed by Congress. But, reading prior USDOT time zone decisions, public opinion definitely seems to be a consideration. Which, makes sense in that “convenience of commerce” boils down to “what works best for the public generally.”
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