Reading this WNDU time zone story, I came across what seems to be Governor Daniels’ latest:
Governor Mitch Daniels says the split between St. Joseph and Elkhart counties is simply “un-workable”.
“There’ll be changes as the DOT made clear. I’ve singled out a couple of them,” said Daniels. “Clearly, the evidence will show you don’t run a line between St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties. But in general, now we have a map for Indiana that’s much simpler than before, two time zones, not three, (which will hopefully be) an end to confusion.”
First, with respect to Daniels’ opining that an Elkhart/St. Joseph split is “unworkable”. He may be right, but what happened to his assertion that for the state to intervene in County time zone considerations would be “presumptuous”? Clearly, this Governor has never shown an aversion to presumption in the past. A skeptic might conclude that it was done out of convenience once he realized how badly he’d screwed up by opening the Pandora’s Box of Indiana Time.
Second, the “two time zones, not three” is nonsense. If his mission had really been to simplify Indiana time and he considered two time zones a success, he would have cracked down on the Cincinnati area counties who were observing Eastern Daylight Time illegally. That would have left us with Central Daylight Time and Eastern Standard Time. All of Indiana would have been on the same time for 7.5 months out of the year. So, hammering DST through the legislature followed by a county-by-county free-for-all over time zones is sure a Rube Goldberg approach to getting two time zones.
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