The Indy Star is reporting that the Martin County Council hasendorsed a plan to try to get all of southwestern Indiana to request a shift to Eastern Time.
The Martin County Council asked its attorney this week to draft a resolution calling for a united move by all southwestern Indiana counties for Eastern time.
Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, a story that follows up on a prior entry, Pulaski County has decided to go renegade if it doesn’t get what it wants from the Feds. It wants to have the USDOT reverse its decision to grant Pulaski County’s request to shift to Central Time. I guess this is a “be careful what you wish for, you might get it” situation.
The County Commissioners and County Council both voted unanimously Monday to declare “home rule” and stay on Eastern time if a federal agency does not grant an appeal to change the time-zone ruling made last month.
The meeting on the time-zone issue drew a crowd of local residents that filled a courthouse meeting room and spilled out into the hallway and down the stairs. Many people spoke against the U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision to shift the county to Central time beginning April 2, when daylight-saving time begins.
“I can count on this hand, the ones who want Central, and of those, three of them don’t even know why,” Pulaski County Commissioner Terry Young said.
Commissioner Young’s statement is at odds with Pulaski County’s petition to the USDOT. The petition said:
The question of which zone we should be in was talked about [at the public meeting]. Should we be in Eastern or Central Time Zone? Everyone present had the opportunity to give their thoughts, and they did. There were no citizens who were in favor of Eastern. All were in favor of leaving the tjme alone, by not having to change time during the year. But, if we have to choose one of the two, the choice would be Central Time. Some citizens called or talked personally to a Commissioner or the County Auditor to give their opinion. Their opinion was the same as those who were in attendance of the public meeting. The public meeting came forward with the following considerations for making the choice of Central Time.
The most important consideration is the time of sunrise. A late sunrise will expose school children and morning commuters to undue hazards because of the extended darkness, the winter weather, poor road conditions, low visibility, drivers not being fully
awake. These are very dangerous combinations. Comments were made that it is better for school children to get onto buses in daylight and off the buses after dark. They wait in the dark for a bus, but go directly to the house after being let off the bus.Local business and industiy will benefit more by Central Time. Pulaski County is still a farming community, with some light and medium industiy. The farmer can still get to town in daylight after farming for a full day. Industry receives and ships more goods and services to and from the Chicago business hubs than to any of the Eastern hubs.
It sounds like there were more than a handful of Central Time supporters, and they had sound reasons for their opinions. With the denial of the petitions for central time of nearby counties, I understand Pulaski County’s unhappiness with being moved to Central Time when their neighbors were not. This whole process was screwed up from the start, and they ought to be resentful of the position they were put in by the Governor’s half-baked time zone scheme. But I do not understand Commissioner Young’s minimization of the sentiment for Central Time.
Martin County’s “problem” continues to be with non-residents. Note they are looking to their southwest (Central Time territory), not to their northeast for solidarity. Evansville will not be interested in the problems of Lawrence and Green counties.
Pulaski County: Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!
(further congrats to Mitch Daniels for so royally screwing up the handling of this issue.)
The more I have thought about these time screw-ups, the more I’ve began to wonder what the US DoT time zone really affects. Naturally, the offical time is set to a certian distance from GMT.
However, how does that affect everyone? I assume the time you need to go to work is where it hits everyone, but what sets that? My next guess is that the time for school might influence the time for work. Or, maybe the time that the largest employer starts shifts.
For example, in Columbus Cummins is the big employer. If their office shift started at 9:00am and ended at 6:00pm, wouldn’t everyone else follow that? If Columbus could just convince the leadership of Cummins and the school board to “open” one hour later each day, wouldn’t everyone (except the Post Office) follow?
It seems that every county might be able to operate on their own schedule, LEGALLY, without any regard to what time zone they are on a map. What am I missing? Is is just that people can’t get past work starting at 9:00?
Jason, really your question applies equally well to the question of observing Daylight Saving Time. One of the reasons I’ve always thought the implementation of DST to be a bit silly is that, if you want to get up an hour earlier, do it. Don’t worry about whether the number on the clock reads “6:00” or not.
There is a tension between, on the one hand, organizing one’s life around the position of the sun and the daylight available in the day and, on the other hand, coordinating one’s life with others. In the days when communications and travel were limited, this was easy. Everybody you dealt with would be within a couple of miles of each other and would tend to keep the same sorts of schedules. As our capabilities of travel and, more importantly, communications have grown, our relationship to the sun is out of synch with others with whom we need to coordinate.
This is speculative, but I think it then becomes a matter of relative power. Those with more power will keep their schedules more in synch with the daylight where they live. Those with less power will coordinate their schedules to be in synch with the more powerful, sacrificing their own synchronization with daylight.
So what is Martin County’s plan B if all of SW Indiana doesnt change back to ET? This sounds like posturing or stupidity.
Doug, once again you have hit upon my argument. DST is an archaic concept that should have been mothballed years ago. It, like the concept of toll roads, is wrong and against nature and should be roundly ignored. Harrumph!
I wonder if there is anyone unhappy because their county didn’t get transferred to the Central zone because the media never reports it if there is. Martin County wants Southwestern Indiana to all be in the same zone. The problem with that is where does Southwestern Indiana begin and where does it end. Once you start chopping up a state anywhere you place a boundary will create problems. It is a shame that a county is separated from it’s neighbors by an unwarranted boundary imposed by a federal bureaucracy. Pulaski officials mention Eastern Standard but fail to mention Eastern Daylight. Maybe they don’t understand you can’t get one without the other. Does anyone know of an elected official that campaigned for Eastern Daylight?
I can remember when homerule was the norm rather than the exception. Thats why we had the uniform time act of 1966.As confusing as things seem now, it was worse then,and people travel longer distances and faster now.I remember specifically for example that Cincinnati and Chicago were always on same time in summer (although in different time zones) but Cleveland was different and many places in Illinois were an hour behind Chicago,except St Louis was the same. You never knew what time it was going to be in a town til you got there.Wisconsin was an hour behind,except the same time in winter
I wonder if homerule by county will be tolerated now. Once it starts and spreads it will cause lots of confusion.
Thats why it’s misleading to say we should go back when all of Indiana was on CT.There was no unity then either.
The biggest argument is NAVSEA Crane covers Daviess/Martin and Greene Counties. The base has decided to go to Central time based on the decision made by Martin County. Daviess decided to go on Central based on Martin County’s decision and its supposed alliance wit Knox. Greene was the smartest of the bunch and picked Eastern. If you’ll look at a map, it makes no sense for Daviess or Martin to be on Central. My concern is now my step-kids, doctors, shopping, etc are now located in a different time zone. Doesn’t sound like much but when you have to take an extra hour leave, just to get there on time, it will soon make a difference. I’ve noticed that most people that won’t have to make any changes due to where they live consider this a minor problem, but for those of us that will have to make changes, it’s going to be a hassle.
Looking at a map, I don’t see how it makes sense for any part of Indiana to be on Eastern time.
I dont mean to start an argument, but how can anyone look at a map and say Indiana should be in CT? Simply connect the time zone line in Michigan to the continuation in Kentucky with the most direct line possible and almost all of Indiana goes to ET, much as it is now. Sure, if we move the bulk of Michigan to CT and then move the bulk of Kentucky to CT FIRST, then connect the lines, Indiana is in CT. But dont we have to deal with WHAT IS?
The time zone lines don’t necessarily correlate with the apparent movement of the sun across the sky. The eastern/central time zone boundary should actually be in Ohio. (Frankly, I’d rather let Ohio deal with the time zone mess, since the current Indiana legislature and governor don’t know how to.)
Also, claiming that the time zone boundaries make sense for business purposes is a stretch. In this day and age, with computers and the internet, how hard is it to figure out what time it is in another part of the country or the world? And frankly, even without the internet, it is not hard to figure out what time it is in another location.
I live in a county that borders Ohio–but not one of those formerly rogue SE Indiana counties. Not to claim to speak for everyone in this area, but most of us loved it when Ohio went on DST every April and Indiana didn’t. People here are used to adding and subtracting one when coming and going across the state line. If we can do simple math, why can’t our budgetary whiz kid governor do it?
Science has indeed taken a backseat with this ongoing controversy. The sun will be overhead at 180 degrees azimuth at almost 2pm in late
June, early July in central Indiana. Nothing like “Eastern Distorted Time.”
And then, in October, when sunrise is approaching 8am, and 8.15am by
early November, you’ll enjoy morning darkness. It never ceases to amaze me that whether one lives in Boston MA or Indianapolis, the time zone is identical. But the differences in daylight are profound. Boston’s rush hour in the morning is conducted in daylight. Indiana’s will be conducted in darkness or deep twilight. And some think this is all about an economic argument? Yeah, you will have daylight for your evening rush hour. Which is safer? Better? The state should observe and be on 90th Meridian Time, known as CST or Chicago Time. Mitch Daniels got what he wanted….statewide DST. The siting of the time zone boundary is a Federal issue, and he couldn’t care less. He got what he wanted. But the arguing and finger pointing will continue to infinity.