I forget if I’ve seen this before or not. But, posted to the docket is a letter from the USDOT to the attorneys for the Southwestern Counties petitioning to be moved to the Eastern Time Zone. If I had seen it, I hadn’t read it in great detail. It looks like the USDOT is doing far more homework on this request than on the original round of requests. And, it appears to be fact checking. For example, where the USDOT was provided with apparently erroneous information about a Jasper, IN Wal-Mart hours and they want the Petitioning Counties to verify the hours and give them the name of the person they’re using for a source. Throughout, the USDOT seems very interested in getting names and contact information for the sources of information. There is another passage where the USDOT points out that the data cited for employees commuting to and from the petitioning area do not support the petition’s assertion that these figures support a shift from Central to Eastern.
Here’s the information or statement that stuck out to me from the DOT:
The Joint Petition notes”The majority of workers live and work in their home counties.” “Of those migrating to a petitioning county to work, the majority come from locations within the Eastern time zones.Of those leaving a Petitioning county to work the majority go to locations in the Eastern Time Zone.”
DOT:
Our analysis provided in the Exhibits to the Joint Petition does not support either claim!
Under the current time zone boundaries ,the number of workers migrating to the Petitioning Counties for work from counties currently in the Central time zone is 9,787.The number of workers migrating to the Petitioning counties from the Eastern Time Zone is 4,363.(I believe around 3000 of these work at Crane).Furthermore,under the current time zone boundaries,and again based on pages 14-17 of the Joint Petition,the number of residents leaving the Petitioning counties for work in counties currently located in the Eastern Time Zone is 627.The number of residents commuting for work from the Petition Counties to counties currently in the Central time zone(the original Central Time zone counites) is 3,329.
So as we have stated and over and over and it is now being stated in so many words by the DOT many more residents will be burdened in their work,business and family life if the boundary is moved again.There is no debating this point.13,116 will be burdened if the time zone line is moved wile 4,990 will have their current burden lifted.Doesn’t add up to a time zone change to me!
Since this request was made many people from Pike,Perry,Dubois,and martin counties have submitted scanned pages to the DOT showing a huge amount of advertising in the Evansville Courier and Press by businesses within the counties.As stated the Courier serves over 12,000 readers in the five counties compared to 4000 by the Indy Star.
The Toyota plant question again comes from Cntral time supporters since Toyota operates plants in Texas and out West also.
Reference to the Wal Mart questions came from the docket as well and the submissions are referenced by the DOT.One may be mine I haven’t checked yet.
The whole Wal Mart issue is a non factor now anyway since we submitted information that All three area stores are open 24hrs a day seven days a week and that the distribution center that services two of these stores is located in Olney Illinois Central time while only one store is serviced by the Jackson county Eastern time zone distribution center.Never the less Ice Miller had false information on this and now have been asked to explain this and many other things.
The only thing I was disapointed in was the fact that the DOT did not ask Ice Miller to explain themselves on the Fall sports schedule example of boy’s basketball and which time zone would cause the least inconvenience.
Ice Miller picked five schools out of a whole lot I do not have the actual number in front of me but Mr.byrd broke down EVERY high school in the five counties and it showed the least inconveniece would be if the counties remain in the Central time zone.Of course he provided verifiable evidence in the form of a web address where all information can be verified.
I believe that’s where some of the insistance on the part of the DOT comes from asking Ice Miller to provide names and contacts to back up their statements.Central time supporters more times than not list sources and contacts for the evidence they submit.Ice Miller usually does not mostly because it won’t help their case in my opinion.
A lot of the follow up info the DOT is asking for comes again directly from more rebuttal petitions written by Central time supporters which challenged the Ice Miller December 6 response.I look forward to reading the Ice Miller response to this new request it was supposed to be in D.C. last week.
I’m glad the DOT finally got around to posting this request and is keeping this process in the open but despite a mountain of economic evidence and convenience of commerce evidence which supports the region remaining within the Central time zone I still say the Joint Petition will be granted because I don’t think this whole process has anything to do with convenience of commerce.If this agency has any credibility it will deny the Joint Petition because Ice Miller LLP has not proven their case for Eastern time.
I am quite confident the Ice Miller response will contain more false information.They haven’t disappointed in that regard so far!
This document is a interesting read for anyone interested in this process just like the Novemebr 14th request from DOT was.
Doug,
This was just posted today.this is the second such request from the DOT asking Ice Miller LLP to correct,explain and verify information the first request was a November 14th letter you posted on this blog.