Exchange with Senator Garton on time zone bill

Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 22:36:10 -0500
From: "Bill Starr"
To: "Senator Robert Garton"
CC: "Senator Vic Heinold", "Representative Luke Messer"
Subject: Re: hearing for SB 79

Thank you for your reply, Senator Garton.

I appreciate your soliciting my perspective on the outcome of the county petitions on time zone preference.

One of my premises on this issue is that it is generally desirable to unify any state into a single time zone whenever possible. I believe this makes commerce, and many other aspects of daily life, easier within the state boundaries. Likewise, it is also a competitive advantage when dealing with businesses across state lines, who can confidently use the same time when dealing with any business within our borders.

Without also uniting the state into a single zone once again, the switch to daylight saving time strikes me as a rather incomplete and hollow accomplishment compared to what could have been achieved.

Although I much prefer 45 extra minutes of summer evening daylight with central time, versus 105 extra on eastern, I would rather see the entire state on eastern time than continuing split between two zones.

A couple of examples reinforce my presupposition. First, unlike Indiana, which lies entirely within the natural boundaries of a single time zone, Ohio is split down the middle by the natural border between the eastern and central zones (82½ degrees longitude). Ohio residents long ago saw the benefit of having the time zone boundary moved across half the state to their western border so they could be unified into a single zone.

Likewise, Alaska is about three time zones wide. For many years it stretched across portions of four time zones. But in 1983 the number of time zones for Alaska was reduced to two. If Ohio (about 1½ times wider than Indiana) can all fit into a single zone, and Alaska (about 15 times wider than Indiana) can get along on two zones, I don't see any insurmountable obstacle to Indiana's being completely in a single zone again. In fact, in glancing at the U.S. time zone map, I don't see any other state as narrow as Indiana that is split across more than one time zone as we presently are.

As far as the state's support of counties seeking to change their time zone, in the end it rang a little hollow to me.

If I understand correctly, any county was, and still is, free to petition the DOT for a change in its time zone at any time. The only thing that SEA 127 appeared to offer, beyond the status quo, is the offer of additional "support."

From what I could see, the level of "support" the state offered to the 17 or so petitioning counties was pretty lukewarm at best, except for the governor's endorsing central time for Daviess, Dubois, and Martin counties.

Concerning the governor's intervention on St. Joseph's petition, if that was support, I would hate to see opposition!

If the legislature had deliberately set out to create a system to maximimize the likelihood of keeping Indiana on two time zones, I can hardly think of a more effective approach than to throw the decision back into the laps of the 92 individual decentralized county governments.

Based on my observation of the process in Bartholomew County, even if a majority of counties preferred that the state be all on the same time zone, the county-by-county decision process is almost guaranteed to fall short of that goal. Quite reasonably, no county wants to be an island of central time surrounded by eastern, nor vice versa. So, even the counties that might have preferred to see all of Indiana on central were not likely to vote to petition for central unless they saw a significant probability of at least the adjoining counties to their west doing likewise.

In practice, this is how it turned out. Except for the far western counties of Vermillion and Fountain, 8 of the other petitioning counties directly adjoined a county currently on central time and the remainder were no more than a single county away. I think it's telling that of all the counties near the present boundary, we saw 17 petition to join their neighbors on central, but none of the counties on central petitioned to go to eastern.

Even if a majority of the counties in the state prefer central time, and assuming no county wants to petition until it is within a county or two of the boundary, and even if they all managed to independently convince the DOT to permit them to change on a county-by-county basis without strong backing from the legislature and governor, it would likely take several iterations, probably over at least a couple of years, to get the entire state to a single zone.

With legislative support, I still believe that a wholesale change could likely be accomplished in in one fell swoop, just as has been done in the past.

Many of those who sent comments to the DOT docket, as well as many who spoke at the hearings, expressed their support for unifying the entire state in a single time zone, whether that means putting us entirely in eastern or entirely in central. I see no compelling reason for Indiana to continue being split by the time zone line.

Even though we likely still disagree, I hope this helps you understand my perspective a little better.

Best regards,
Bill Starr
http://tinyurl.com/88nnw
Fri, 13 Jan 2006, 10:36pm EST


*****
Subject: Response from Senator Garton
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 14:23:01 -0500
To: Bill Starr

The Legislature addressed the time issue last year, providing the opportunities for counties throughout the state to petition the U.S. Department of Transportation and request a change in time zones. Except for Lawrence County, I don’t believe any counties within a 50 mile radius did so.

I discussed the committee assignment of SB 79 with Senator Heinold. I want to wait for the decision by the U.S. Department of Transportation on any changes of time zones in the state. As I have said publicly, unless the Department makes a decision that is obviously totally unacceptable to citizens in the State, I don’t intend to hold a hearing for SB 79.

Last year, the Legislature offered local option to counties throughout the State. Perhaps I’m wrong, but how else do you interpret the decisions made by local representatives regarding a time zone preference.


*****
Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2006 20:21:11 -0500
From: Bill Starr
To: Senator Robert Garton
CC: Senator Vic Heinold, Representative Luke Messer
Subject: Please give SB 79 a hearing

Dear Senator Garton.

I see that Senator Vic Heinold has filed SB 79, which would require Governor Daniels to petition the U.S. DOT to locate all of Indiana in the central time zone. The digest for this bill (tinyurl.com/792hw) says that it is referred to the Committee on Rules and Legislative Procedure.

Since you are the chair of that committee, I expect that you have the final say as to whether this bill will receive a hearing.

Since the legislature did not explicitly address the time zone issue on a statewide basis when they passed the DST bill, I urge you to support a committee hearing for SB 79 (or others like it) in the forthcoming ten-week 2006 session, while Indiana's time zone boundary is still relatively malleable.

I am still convinced that the legislature would wield considerable influence with the DOT should you choose to pass a bill such as this, which would make the time zone situation even simpler for everyone in Indiana, as well as for those with whom we do business outside of the state.

Thank you for your consideration of my request.

Sincerely,
Bill Starr