Sedgwick County backpedals on changing to permanent daylight saving time

Sedgwick County is backpedaling on its effort to stay on Daylight Saving Time year-round.

County commissioners captured the public imagination and caused a buzz at the Statehouse when they proposed getting rid of springing forward and falling back as part of their annual legislative agenda.

But now, commissioners say it’s become a waste of time, swamping issues that are a lot more important to the county.

“We’ve already had more discussion on this one item than it warrants,” said Commission Chairman David Dennis. “And the press has put more ink into this one item than it warrants.”

It was Dennis who brought it up in the first place.

When the legislative platform was adopted in December, he added time switching because constituents had complained about it at a one of his district community meetings.

But he said he doesn’t want it to eclipse more important county issues, including behavioral health reform, workforce development, transportation, voting rights, juvenile justice and public nuisance abatement.

A bill to dump Daylight Time has already been introduced by a state lawmaker from neighboring Butler County, Rep. Kristey Williams, R-Augusta.

That bill would keep Kansas on Central Standard Time, year-round.

States can opt out of Daylight Time if they want.

To stay on Daylight Time year-round — the county’s preferred alternative — could require an act of Congress.

Some Sedgwick commissioners said they oppose the Williams bill.

Instead, they’re now supporting a nonbinding resolution asking the federal government to deal with it.

Williams said such a resolution would likely be a ineffective approach.

And she said the campaign to change time is gaining momentum in Kansas and other states.

The House speaker in neighboring Missouri has expressed support. That would be critical to the Kansas effort, which will probably go nowhere if the Kansas City Metro area is split between time zones, she said.

She said she also heard positive feedback from lawmakers in Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington state, so she’s not giving up any time soon.

As for the bill’s chance of passing she said: “Stay tuned. We’ll see.”

Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell, a former state senator, said time tinkering has become too much of a distraction and not worth the time it’s taking up.

“It might be worth just considering taking it off our platform totally,” he said “I would go on record saying, let’s just stop that and focus on our important issues. “

Pete Meitzner, a new member of the commission who was sworn in earlier this month, agreed with O’Donnell.

“Respectful for the previous commission and the platform that was adopted, (but) the media kind of jumped on the time zone thing when there’s much more important business going on,” Meitzner said.

He said he had personal experience with this when he worked for three years in Arizona, the only continental state that doesn’t switch to Daylight Time.

“It was always confusing when half the year Arizona was on Denver time and the other half of the year we were on California time,” he said.

He said it caused headaches for suppliers and customers in other states because they “didn’t know when an eight o’clock in the morning conference call was.”

This story was originally published January 30, 2019 at 4:39 PM.