Rumor has it that Perry County has hit a procedural snag in its quest to remain on the same time as its neighbors in the Southwestern part of the state. The snag being that the US Department of Transportation does not seem to think it has received a request from Perry County to change time zones.
The saga goes something like this. Gov. Daniels campaigns on one statewide time zone that observes Daylight Saving Time, he stated that his inclination was for the Central Time Zone. Realizing that they can’t get DST passed if they are up front about the time zone issue, DST proponents just ignore it and leave the mess to be settled on a patchwork, county-by-county basis. A lot of counties go through the process, requesting Central Time:
Only a select few have their request granted, leaving a map that looks like this:
However, a number of those granted their request to be moved to Central Time, reconsider:
(Counties petitioning to change back to Eastern Time in yellow.) Pulaski County (in the northwest) has since had its request granted and is back on Eastern Time, effective March 11, 2007.
The Southwestern Counties (Knox, Daviess, Martin, Pike, and Dubois Counties) are now the subject of a proposed rule to return them to Eastern Time. Public comment is open at USDOT docket OST-2007-28746 until August 15, 2007.
Back to Perry County. The Perry County Commissioners did not sign on to the Southwestern County petition. Instead, they dithered for awhile and then recently adopted a resolution to the effect that, if the Southwestern Counties went back to Eastern Time, they wanted to do so as well. Rumor has it that the Perry County News is reporting (in its paper version and not yet on its online version) that the USDOT does not have any documentation in front of them that it considers to be a petition on behalf of Perry County. Rather, they received some paperwork from Perry County that they considered to be evidence in support of change by the Southwestern Counties. Apparently the Perry County attorney never touched base with the folks at the USDOT to tell them what Perry County’s intent was.
The saga continues.
Hypothetical: If an Indiana county files a petition to change their time zone designation, but nobody at the DOT was aware of it, do they still have to change their clocks?
Comments on the docket are presently running about 50/50 on the proposal not that it matters since the comments mostly considered will be cold hard facts on commerce at least that is what Senior Counsel Kaleta ststed to Central time supporters by phone this week.
This brought to my mind the St.Joseph county case on their NPRM to move to Central time which was ultimately denied by the DOT when it stated public opinion seemed to be split so they were not going to grant Central time as the NPRM stated somehow I think the DOT will sing a different tune this time.The money,powere and politics are behind the Eastern time movement in the end that will trump anything else in this crooked in my opinion process!!!!!!!!!!
Marc R –
The answer: No.
But, on the up side, their alarm clocks WILL make a sound.
One nation, under one time zone! Since it obviously doesn’t correlate with the sun’s movement, let’s all move to Eastern time (purely for business reasons of course).
Example of Ice Millers work.
First submitted Joint Petition states most area residents shop at Wal Marts and the stores will have trouble with their distribution centers being on Eastern time. Central time will cause trouble for residents working in different time zones.
Our response two Wal Marts of the three in the petitioning counties are supplied by the Central time distribution center in Olney Illinois.Stores are open 24hrs a day 7 days a week so time zone is not a factor.
Ice Miller follow up
The Jasper store is not open 24hrs a day.
Our response store phone number and contact person to prove otherwise.
Ice Miller latest follow up:
The Jasper stores pharmacy and automotive centers are not open 24hrs a day so the stores need to be on Eastern time.
My response:
Words fail me to describe the complete absurdity of that statement and if the DOT counts that as a reason to be placed in the Eastern time zone the process is rigged as many are commenting in reference to the docket submissions.
With the exception of Perry County, I really doubt if there are going to be any more changes. Possibly Starke going to EDT but that’s probably it. What’s happened – – several counties flip flopping does not really surprise me. I suspected that the reality of very early sunsets in December along with the majority of the state on EDT would drive these counties back to EDT – – which to me is fine. The more counties we have on one time zone – – the better. Anything is better than the convuluted joke (3 time zones, EDT, EST, CDT) we had before a majority of the state on DST.
To be fair, the EDT counties were observing Daylight Saving Time illegally. So, legally, we were pretty much in the same time zone situation we are now. In my opinion, the USDOT treated Pulaski County when it threatened enforcement action against them for not observing Central Time prior to their switch back. After all, the USDOT had looked the other way for all those years when the southeastern counties around Cincinnati broke the law.