Let there be later light, Idaho

With all due respect to Steve Vick ...

Why on Earth should we be waiting on the state of Washington to decide anything at all?

We do not live in Washington.

In case you missed it, the Republican state senator from Dalton Gardens has authored a bill that sailed through Idaho’s upper chamber, and I don’t get it.

The gist of this thing is that if Washington were to abandon daylight saving time — effectively putting that state on Mountain Standard Time during the summer months — the 10 counties in North Idaho should follow suit.

Sort of ...

In other words, pretty much entirely to stay in sync with Spokane (ditto Moscow to Pullman), we would switch to Mountain Standard Time like the rest of Idaho, but not observe daylight saving time.

The result, obviously, would be to put us in the same time zone as Boise for just part of the year, while keeping clocks matched up with Washington all year round.

This assumes that Washington, the obvious big brother in Vick’s scenario, decides it would like to change, while we would simply tag along.

There are a couple of problems with Vick’s bill, one of which was already mentioned.

The idea of what time we get up in the morning and go to bed at night being decided by lawmakers in Olympia makes my teeth itch.

If I wanted those folks to make law for me, I’d move across the state line.

But there is another problem with all this time travel: We’re already on the eastern edge of a time zone (Pacific), so as a matter of daily life we are going to get way more sunlight in the morning — and roughly an hour less at night.

I love the idea of moving to the Mountain Time Zone for just that reason. If you’re on the very western border of a time zone, you get that extra light in the evening.

Frankly, Boise has the best of both worlds.

Idaho’s capital gets its share of daylight late in the day, and then when the state — or most of it — changes to Mountain Daylight Time, there is almost endless sunlight for warm-weather activities.

Why wouldn’t we want to go that route?

Never mind Spokane.

IT’S NOT that difficult to figure out a time change once you cross the border.

I mean, it’s a different state.

Marijuana is legal, in case you have any doubt.

Meanwhile, if North Idaho simply pitched in with the rest of the state, it would almost certainly be a boon to the tourism industry on which we depend for a hefty chunk of our economy.

So yeah, I’m all for Vick’s shout that we should join our Idaho brethren in the Mountain Time Zone — but just like everyone else in the state, we should enjoy the benefits of daylight saving time.

Simply agreeing to an hour of evening darkness, just to keep our watches in tune with Washington, is just plain silly.

Vick has it half-right...

Change North Idaho to the Mountain Time Zone, but also observe daylight saving time.

That’s another few holes of golf, a longer neighborhood barbecue and more time on the lake.

Who cares when they turn on the lights in Walla Walla?

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Steve Cameron is a columnist for The Press.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com.

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Twitter: @BrandNewDayCDA