Elkhart Truth
The Elkhart County commissioners are returning a small dose of sanity to an otherwise grotesque public policy debate on daylight-saving time and which time zone this area will observe in the future.
About two weeks after suggesting that they might testify against St. Joseph County's petition to move from the Eastern to the Central time zone, the commissioners now say they will watch and wait. If the federal government does indeed OK the switch, then the Elkhart County commissioners say -- for now anyway -- they will seek to join our neighbors to the west.
The petition faces an uncertain future because counties seeking a switch aren't guaranteed a hearing with the federal Department of Transportation, the agency that governs time zones, or a successful result from the petition.
Nevertheless, it's good that our county commissioners are choosing a less divisive tack to the time-zone issue. After initially pledging to work with St. Joseph, Kosciusko and Marshall counties to remain collectively in the same time zone, our county commissioners appeared ready to toss that aside.
The Elkhart and St. Joseph county areas are too closely tied together to even imagine for a moment that the two could be in different time zone.
If it were up to us, the county commissioners would demonstrate even more leadership by taking an active role in seeking a switch to Central time. The current stance, while more reasonable, is more a case of following rather than leading. Elkhart County's position might be stronger today if officials had been working all along to put together the data and arguments for Central time.
Business groups' arguments -- primarily from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce -- for Eastern time are not persuasive. Among many factors, commuting, commerce and media consumption patterns all point strongly for Central time. Public sentiment -- even though technically it is not a consideration in federal rules -- also leans toward Central time.
Local television station WNDU noticed one twist -- a curious one because the moves were not coordinated in any way -- all but two of the counties in U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola's district not already on Central time are asking for the switch: Carroll, Cass, Fulton, Marshall, Pulaski, St. Joseph and Starke counties. The congressman's district includes LaPorte County and a portion of Porter County, both already in Central. Chocola also represents portions of Elkhart and Howard counties, which are in Eastern and haven't officially sought a switch.
One of the many things missing, at least from Indiana officials that made daylight-saving time possible, is leadership. After twisting arms to push through the DST bill, Gov. Mitch Daniels and state legislative leaders have essentially abandoned the counties to fight it out amongst themselves. If the time-zone issue didn't mean something to so many people, it would be comical.
While we have backed a switch to Central time, the most important thing is that Elkhart and St. Joseph counties not be divided by a time-zone boundary. That situation would have a more detrimental effect on economic development in this region than which time zone we observe.
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