By KEVIN KOELLING, Perry County News Managing Editor
TELL CITY - Whether to ask the federal Department of Transportation to change Perry County to Central time "is a difficult decision" the state legislature has forced counties and towns to make, Greg Wathen told the county commissioners in their regular meeting Monday.
They opted to request a change to Central time, but are still soliciting opinions.
The legislature voted this year to put Indiana on daylight-saving time, but deferred to local governments decisions about what time zone they want to be in. Those now on Central time won't change, according to the federal Department of Transportation, which approves time-zone-change requests, but those in Eastern-time areas bordering Central counties could ask, by Sept. 16, for hearings if they want to make cases for switching.
Wathen, the executive director for the Perry County Development Corp., attended the commissioners' meeting to provide information on the degree to which Perry County interacts with surrounding counties, one of the criteria the federal agency examines when it considers a county's request.
The commissioners adopted a resolution favoring a change to Central time. The Perry County Port Authority adopted a similar resolution last week, which it forwarded to the commissioners.
Asked last week whether the county commissioners planned to request such a change, Commissioner Terry Lock said he had received some requests in favor of Central time and wanted to seek other county residents' feelings.
A number of people have said they don't want to go to daylight-saving time, but Lock stressed, "We don't have a choice." The state legislature enacted a law shifting all of Indiana to DST starting next April. Further, federal legislation extends the amount of time DST is observed each year starting in 2007.
The figures Wathen related were from 2003, he said, because data from 2004 won't be available until January. The majority of Perry County's work force goes to or comes from five adjacent areas, he told the commissioners. "The numbers are changing - more and more people are commuting into Perry County."
The data Wathen provided showed 12,239 people in the Perry County work force in 2003. Of those, 9,062 lived and worked in the county. The top five adjacent areas employing Perry County people and the numbers employed were: Dubois County, 981; Kentucky, 895; Spencer County, 661; Vanderburgh County, 152 and Warrick County, 104. The top five areas sending workers into Perry County were Spencer County, 537; Kentucky, 369, Crawford County, 90, Dubois County, 55 and Warrick County, 52.
The commuting patterns, compiled by the Indiana Department of Revenue, show 10.7 percent of Perry County's work force coming from other areas, and 22.7 percent of its labor force going to other areas.
Of those areas, Spencer, Vanderburgh and Warrick counties, as well as Breckinridge and Hancock counties - the two Kentucky counties to which Wathen referred, are on Central time.
"I dare say we should be on Central time," Wathen said, "but that would put us in conflict with Indianapolis."
"I don't really care about Indianapolis," Commissioner Jody Fortwendel answered. "I want to know what Dubois County will do."
"When this first came out, Dubois County championed Central time," Lock said, "but now they're backing off."
"They're leaning toward doing nothing," Wathen said, explaining residents there are about evenly split. An Aug. 11 Evansville Courier-Press story said the president of that county's commissioners initially favored a change to Central time to align with Evansville, but the split is moving him to avoid applying for that change. The Dubois County commissioners will discuss the issue at an Aug. 22 meeting.
Wathen said informal polling has shown most counties intend to remain neutral.
Copyright © 2005 2003 Perry County News