The USDOT issued its final rule (pdf) on time zones.
DOT is relocating the time zone boundary in Indiana to move Starke, Pulaski, Knox, Daviess, Martin, Pike, Dubois, and Perry Counties from the Eastern Time Zone to the Central Time Zone. DOT is not changing the time zone boundary to move St. Joseph, Marshall, Fulton, Benton, White, Carroll, Cass, Vermillion, Sullivan, and Lawrence Counties from the Eastern Time Zone to
the Central Time Zone.
The new map looks like this:
St. Joseph was preliminarily approved but is now disapproved. Pulaski, Daviess, Duboiss, and Martin were preliminarily disapproved but is now approved. Aside from Pulaski, these shifts from the preliminary rule were the ones suggested by Governor Daniels (pdf) in his letter to the USDOT. (This was the letter that violated, in the case of St. Joseph County, IC 1-1-8.1-3 which required the State to support county commissioners in their petitions to move to a new time zone.)
I’ll update this as I read the decision.
Update The USDOT noted a statistic about comments to the docket — 33% Central, 50% Eastern, and 17% undecided. It says that it didn’t rely on this sort of numerical information, but I’m disturbed to see it even mentioned. There were no safeguards on the docket to protect against multiple posts, forged identities, or anything else. In addition, the pro-Eastern position was padded by the Chamber of Commerce astroturf campaign.
The USDOT essentially rejected the geographic argument out of hand (p. 20). First it says that Congress has directed that, in addition to longitudinal lines, the USDOT is to address the convenience of commerce. However, the USDOT suggests that, because it didn’t have a statewide approach before it and because the Indiana legislature did not endorse a statewide approach, it can’t consider the longitudinal argument in making its decisions. This is horribly misguided. This is not a binary question — either set the time zone firmly on the proper longitudinal division or ignore it completely. Rather, the further away one gets from the natural time zone line, the more compelling the other factors should be. Instead, the USDOT seemed to indicate an approach, if applied generally, would give Alaska the same “convenience of commerce” standard for a request to be moved to Central Time as a Central Time request from South Bend. Hoosiers for Central Time and Jeff Sagarin get a mention in this section.
Discussion of children’s safety starts at page 25. Mark Catanzarite and John Gaski are mentioned in this section for noting that there are more fatalities to children from accidents in morning darkness than evening darkness. Tom Heller also got a nice mention as he debunked a study cited by the Indiana Chamber which, Mr. Heller pointed out, “only addressed loading and unloading accidents and that there were no studies presented on moving school bus accidents or the performance of schoolchildren and academic achievement based on “unnaturally-early school hours.†Ultimately, the USDOT disregarded the safety of the children by taking the Bush Global Warming Approach — finely splitting hairs to disregard information provided, then complaining that there wasn’t enough information upon which to base any action.
The St. Joseph County section gives honorable mention to Paul O’Malley and John Gaski as well as discussing comments by Commissioners Bodle, Ross, and Dobson. The entire section is awash with “he said/she said” point-counterpoint on whether St. Joe should stay or go.
There did not seem to be any real opposition to Central Time for Starke and Marshall counties. However, despite the preference of Marshall County citizens for Central Time, much of the decision seemed to hinge on Marshall County’s interrelationship with St. Joseph County.
Paul O’Malley gets another mention with respect to Pulaski’s request to move. The Commissioners have a quote that captures my personal sentiments (and I suspect those of a great number of 2006 Indiana voters) pretty accurately: There were no citizens who were in favor of Eastern. All were in favor of leaving the time 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. (p. 36). Fulton and White County’s petitions receive perfunctory mention. One thing I noticed with respect to White County’s petition is that Indiana Beach’s desire to be aligned with Chicago was not mentioned. Obviously, the amusement park’s preferences are not a huge deal in the scheme of things, but locally, Indiana Beach carries a lot of water. Given that White County’s write up is all of 12 lines long, you think they could have added a couple of lines to discuss the economic situation in the county.
The southwestern counties all pretty much read the same to me, mainly discussing the Evansville sphere of influence. Paul O’Malley gets yet another mention at page 47 with respect to Dubois County. Perry County’s switch to the Central Time Zone appears to have been on the strength of the Commissioners’ petition and the testimony of county attorney Chris Goffinet who said it was very important for Perry County to be on the same time as Dubois County. Out of the comments submitted to the docket from Perry County, 15 favored Central while 25 favored Eastern.
To me, the biggest surprise was Pulaski. It was not preliminarily approved, and the Commissioners did not submit additional data. However, the USDOT decided that Pulaski was closely tied to Starke County which was moved to Central.
The biggest disappointment was St. Joseph County. The USDOT seemed to take the best interests of Elkhart County to heart more than the best interests of St. Joseph County. Judging from the scare quotes put around “forcing,” the USDOT seemed to take umbrage at the notion that St. Joseph might be able to force Elkhart County into adopting Central Time. For some reason, the Department was not similarly offended by the notion that Elkhart might force St. Joseph County to remain on Eastern Time. In explaining its decision, the USDOT discusses St. Joseph County’s relation to Elkhart, Kosciusko, and Marshall counties but completely ignores its relation to LaPorte, Porter, and Lake counties.
When explaining its decision on St. Joseph County, the Department stated
We give substantial consideration to the views of local elected officials because the foundation of our time zone boundary proceedings rest upon their requests. We note that although the President of St. Joseph County signed the county petition, spoke in favor of it at the South Bend hearing, and subsequently submitted an additional letter of support to the docket, as a member of the Michiana Council of Governments (MACOG), she also made a motion to “support the sending of a letter by the policy board to ask that the four county region all remain in the same time zone.â€
In addition, a second St. Joseph County Commissioner submitted comments to the docket opposing a move to the Central Time Zone. Based on the conflicting views of the county commissioners in St. Joseph County and 2 local mayors and the information submitted showing St. Joseph’s ties to the Michiana area including Elkhart and Kosciusko Counties that did not petition for a change, we believe that a time zone change, at this time, would not be for the convenience of commerce. DOT, therefore, is not changing the time zone boundary for St. Joseph County. St. Joseph County will remain in the Eastern Time Zone.
It is disingenuous of the Department to view Commissioner Bodle’s MACOG motion that the counties remain together and her vote for Central Time for St. Joseph County as somehow contradictory. It’s pretty clear that she viewed the best outcome as Central Time for the four county area. The USDOT artificially limited the scope of its authority to petitioning counties when no such limitation is required by law. That is not Commissioner Bodle’s fault and her statements should not be viewed as contradictory simply because her policy recommendations did not account for the artificial limitation.
All in all, a disappointing but not surprising decision. Secretary Mineta essentially did what Governor Daniels asked him to do in his late November letter. If the Governor had suggested this configuration to the legislature in March during the consideration of the Daylight Saving Time bill rather than to Secretary Mineta in November, I wouldn’t be complaining so much. Then again, had he been up front about handling the time zone issue, the Daylight Saving Time bill wouldn’t have passed. As it is, I think there will be political hell to pay. It certainly does not help the legislators that disgruntled constituents will have to change their clocks on Sunday April 2, 2006 — 31 days before the primary, and again on Sunday October 29, 2006 — 9 days before the general election. After 2007, the Daylight Saving Time switch dates get even closer to election day.
Just making sure the comments are in working order — also, the software requires a person’s first submission to be approved before it shows up; which I figured I’d mention so you know you don’t need to keep reposting.
I think the GOP is counting on mass exodus of incumbent D’s from the House as a result of the Speaker’s unilateral move to curtail the health benefit. (By the way, Indiana Law Blog has an interesting take on this in that she questions if Bosma actually can unilaterally eliminate the benefit without legislative action and approval – and if he does eliminate it without said approval, he can reinstate it pretty much whenever he feels like it.). This also begs the question of whether or not legislators “locked in” benefits in such a way that they can preserve them if they sit out an election and then run again. I was going to do a whole post about how yes, this was a slush fundy type uberbenefit package passed at the behest of certain key lawmakers (yeah, the ex-spouses provision was *entirely* coinicidental, I’m sure), but legislators and their staff work long hours for lousy wages and if they aren’t independently wealthy often have trouble making ends meet. It’s not every job that lets you take three or four months off every year to live in Indianapolis and serve your term, not to mention the trips to the capitol every couple weeks in the off-time and over the summer. If the state truly prides itself in having a “citizen legislature” it should try to keep serving a viable prospect for those of modest means by providing decent salaries, adequate per diems, generous benefits, or some combination thereof. (Although yes, not *that* generous.)
USDOT drew a great esthethically pleasing map compared to the earlier jaggedlooking maps as counties first started petitioning for CT. This is important.Indiana will show well in the new Rand McNally road atlas.NW counties reflect Chicago/CT influence and as USDOT stated in their explanations, the SW counties have more in common with each other than they do with the state as a whole ( paraphrased).Now Indiana is surrounded by ET on 3 sides with Indianapolis the self-appointed guardian of ET.That looks hard to dislodge.It’s been a very interesting process, and I will leave the politics to those who understand it better than I.But thanks to this blog for the continuing great coverage,and updated maps.
Central Time supporters should remember where we started from (no organization, a brand new playing field of county by county efforts) and the time the DOT gave us to figure out a course of action and prepare petitions and gather evidence (a few weeks at best, they gave themselves more time to set up the process than they gave us to do the work). In the end eight counties are moving to CT, including six in the SW. Notwithstanding Torr’s and Daniels’ continuing efforts to rewrite history, this is not the result they envisioned. Torr repeatedly told anyone who would listen (when he was selling his DST patent medicice) that he did not want to see any counties shift and did not forsee more than one or two even trying.
Now, the southwest corner of the state, with 11 CT counties and a population of over 450,000 is a second safe CT enclave to go along with the NW. The placement of Pulaski County in CT will stabilize Jasper County as a CT county, and Starke together with Pulaski will reinforce the case for St. Joseph should they try again.
Before turning to St. Joseph County I would like to return briefly to the language in SEA 127 which obligated the state to support the efforts of county executives in seeking a change of time zones for their counties. I personally cited this language to the DOT in an early comment (somewhere around OST-2005-22114-380 or 383-4). The DOT cited the language of SEA 127 both in the NPRM and in the final ruling. They repeatedly emphasized that they were giving great deference to local officials in this matter. In my view they see the legislation as an explicit abandonment by the State of statewide time unity as a goal. They turned instead to emphasizing regional unity.
I read the final ruling as in effect holding that St. Joseph County made a sufficient case to change zones, but that there was insufficient local political unity, particularly on a regional basis, to clinch a favorable ruling. The DOT comment that they decline “at this time” to move St. Joseph County is all but an open invitation to try again if political unity can be achieved on the issue. This point is important if you recall one of the Elkhart County Commissioners’ publically expressed reasons for not joining St. Joseph County in petitioning to move. They said, in effect, that they didn’t think St. Joseph County could make a case. St. Joseph was handicapped in defining its region as St. Joseph, Marshall and counties to the west by the early attempt to unify MACOG behind one time zone without picking a time zone. The DOT took South Bend’s region to be what it itself had (in effect) admitted before things got sticky (in legal terms, it became an admission against interest). Plymouth’s mayor was proven right in the end on this point, the MACOG statement was useless without specifying a preferred zone.
Can such political unity be achieved? I think so but it will take an election to bring about. The best vehicle in my opinion is a Concurrent Resolution (in 2007) by the legislature asking the DOT to move St. Joseph, Marshall, Elkhart, Fulton and Kosciusko counties to Central Time.
I’m not the biggest fan of the governor, and part of what I don’t like about him is his “my way or the highway(or should I say toll road)” personality. But for goodness sake, let’s get with the 21st century! Or if that’s too much, then let’s catch up with the late 20th century at least. Sure, DST isn’t the magic pill for Indiana’s economic problems but doing something that makes you look, for lack of more delicate terms, stupid and backwards, is just counterproductive. Sure, DST isn’t perfect. Neither is the U.S. dollar – but is anyone thinking it’s a good idea for Indiana to print our own currency? (One Hoosier = 1.7 USD….hey, that could wipe out our lower-than-national-average income problem in one fell swoop…..)
Perhaps someone will argue that I’m a bad example, but I grew up in a state with DST and like to think that it did me no permanent damage.
Can we all move forward now? Probably not, but I thought I’d ask.
I see a clear line being added in the next few years when Vigo changes. It would include Tippecanoe and surrounding counties, but not any of the “doughnut” counties around Marion. Then it would continue south aloung county lines between places like Hendricks/Putnam until it reached the counties in the south. This would also take some of the edges out of the line that would extend from the edge of Michigan to the already existing DOT line in Kentucky. From there, it goes diagonal until it reaches near the “true” line in Georgia.
I still wish the DOT would force KY, and MI fully into Central, but I don’t see it.
Jason,
Do you think Vigo or Tippecanoe counties will petition for CT before Marion county does?( which they will never do).One thing that has been consistant since the time line was first moved from the OH/IN border in 1960 is that Marion county has been on ET.
A few interesting things here. First, I have noticed that Crane is now in the Central Time Zone. As it is by far the areas biggest employer, does this give Lawrence new evidence for a second shot? Will Greene want into Central now? Second, all of Indiana will never go on Eastern time. Ever driven down State Line Road (which in many areas is a back street) in Hammond/Calumet City, Munster/Lansing, Dyer/Lynwood, etc. It makes my friend’s cynical idea to put the time zone line down Meridian Street (Indianapolis)look good. Couple that with the couple hundred thousand plus commuts crossing that boundary each way to work in each others states (the Borman doesn’t back up from tourists each day), and you have the ultimate in inconvenience. Ohio even in the Cincinnati area is sparse. This made a good time line in 1960 as it would today. And finally is this a new game, make La Porte County a stepchild? The WNDU blogs and comments seem to think that Niles/South Bend is the only area of interaction. What about Michigan City/New Buffalo and the Lake Michigan towns up there which seem to be crawling with Chicagoans running up to cottages and year round vacation homes? Chicago has begun pushing to the east again and Porter County is growing fast as a net result. This will soon pour into La Porte County. St. Joseph will have to be like Janus, looking forward into the huge Chicago/Milwaukee metroplex, or backward into Elkhart County.
As far as future time legislation is concerned,CT advocats will have TWO problems with UDOT. First UDSOT(almost)) threw out the favorite pro-CT argument that Indiana belongs in CT because of its ‘natural setting’with such and such longitude and measuring from the 75 or 90 meridians.USDOT said that is a general rule of thumb but that many other issues are more important ( my interpretation but it might do well for others to read their ruling)
AS far as school kids waiting in dark for school bussses in morning, they said something like USDOT had nothing to do with what time school started in morning.( again my interpretation) But I think reasons for Indiana CT in future probably should include something more compeling for USDOT than meridians and waiting for school buses.
Also I think USDOT likes a very neat- looking map. USDOT probably wouldnt add Lawrence county to CT ( suggested above) unless they also moved Orange and Crawford counties (just South) to make the map look symetrical. Why else was Pulaski county added? We have TWO ‘CT squares’ now in NW and SW Indiana..not by coincidence.
I think Central Time advocates’ best bet is for enough of a backlash in 2006 to set up a legislative choice between repealing DST or a statewide petition for one time zone. I think the USDOT would be *thrilled* to put Indiana on a single time zone, whichever one the General Assembly requests.
What ever happened to KISS? Keep It Simple Stupid. The governer thinks this will make it easier for out of state commerce?????? Am I missing something? I think a First grader could have came up with a better solution!!! I think we all need to support Rep Dave Crooks Proposed HOUSE BILL 1014!!! He proposes to put all of Indiana on central time Except for Clark,Dearborn,Floyd,Harrison, and Ohio Counties. If you are in favor Call Mitch at 317-232-4567 and tell him you support HB 1014!!!! Also Call Brian Bosma at 317-232-9604 and tell him you want to vote this fall you support HB 1014!!!!!
Just wanted to say whatever happen to leave good enough alone. This time thing has been like this for all my life, nothing has went wrong yet. Why confuse everyone in this state?
If Daniels wanted to change the time for the whole state (I would understand) but, for one county next to another to have different time zones is not very smart. I didn’t vote for Daniels cause I knew he would just mess stuff up. Daniels there are so many other important things that need to be taken care of in this State. Lets try fixing them…..
This whole time change thing is a mess. My kids think it is bazaar to go to bed, when it was still daylight out this summer. Now I am confused, about what time it will be on October 30, 2006 here in Terre Haute, verses Knox County. I thought I would do a little research online about it, today, but I am confused, now, more than ever. Why couldn’t they just leave things alone?
The State of Indiana physically lies within the CENTRAL TIME ZONE, therefore the ENTIRE State of Indiana belongs on CENTRAL TIME!!!!!! PLEASE read the map again. The other states in our country are on the proper time for the time zone in which their state lies. WHY can’t Indiana get with the rest of the world and “follow the CORRECT program”?
Thank you.
Sue Anderson
MikeA1@netnitco.net
I have lived in several states in my life. I was born in the central time portion of Florida, lived in the eastern central and pacific time zones, but I have never seen a state so caught up in such a trivial matter as what time we should be observing. In the interest of “natural time,” the boundary for at least 85% of the distance between the two time in the western hemisphere is around the 85oW Meridian and no more east than the 84o 30′
(in Tennessee), and no more west than 85o 30′(in Alabama). UNTIL you get to Kentucky, which to be honest, I live way to close to, living in Gibson County. In kentucky the TZ boundary make about a 90o turn and goes to the 86o 30′ Meridian. Indiana it goes even further off the scale, going to 87o Meridian. in Michigan and Canada it ends up on the 90o Meridian. What it seems to indiate to me is that the southern half of the continent seems to have the basics of natural time covered, while the northern half just doesn’t seem to have or want to have a clue. oh by the way as far as the Eastern time portion of Indiana is concerned, has anybody heard of the sunsets to sunrises analogy often discussed in psychology. If true Indianapolis is hopeless and will always be a controlled city with no backbone to tell whoever keeps insisting that they should continue on eastern time to stop interfering with hoosier affairs!
I agree with dan SUPPORT WHATEVER IT TAKES TO PUT THIS ENTIRE STATE ON –ONE– NOT TWO TIME ZONES!!!
There 13 states including Indiana State that have two timezones. They do not seem to have a problem. With that said, I fully support Indiana being in the Central timezone. Indianapolis can have a timezone of its own.
That’s just messed up. I thought Jerrymandering was looked down upon by politicians. But after this post, I guess I was wrong.