On Fri, 28 Aug 2026 at 19:39, Tim Parenti <[email protected]> wrote:
> Time observance in Golden is indeed on the agenda for Golden Town > Council's next meeting, scheduled to start next Tuesday, 1 September, at > 19:00 UTC−6. > Following nearly 45 minutes of discussion, the Town of Golden has voted 4–2 to adopt year-round Mountain Standard Time (UTC−7), realigning with the rest of BC's "Pacific Time" come November and breaking from RDEK's decision last month to align with Alberta on UTC−6. In presenting the Staff Report ahead of discussion, Chief Administrative Officer Jeremy Denegar reported that there had been a "hiccup" in the initial data analysis of Golden and CSRD's survey responses that came in too late to be included in the agenda, and gave updated figures for both Golden and CSRD Area A as 55% for year-round MDT/UTC−6 and 45% for year-round MST/UTC−7, while some councillors pointed out that the survey having been conducted online, there is a larger confidence interval and possible self-selection bias. Said Denegar during discussion, "Sometimes there's…natural cohesion between communities that it makes sense to make the decision together and then follow it with the paperwork afterwards. … I would hope that this Council here and the Area A director make a decision together, because I think it'd be very awkward if residents from just down the road had to change their clock when they wanted to come shopping here." While noting that the main options are all described as "permanent", he pointed out that "there's nothing permanent in law" and "it's the decision until the next decision is made", as BC may reconsider its timekeeping at a provincial level in the future. Of note, CSRD Area A Director Karen Cathcart, representing Rural Golden, was in attendance and spoke on her discussions with residents, emphasizing that while "Area A has different needs than the municipality" and she personally supports MST/UTC−7, "I'm not here to say that Area A is going to go a different way than the Town of Golden… I will align Area A with the decision of [Golden] Council". Golden Mayor Ron Oszust, in strongly supporting MST/UTC−7 on safety grounds, offered a premonition for the future: "This is going to come back and haunt us again somewhere down the road because, in my mind, the rest of the province of BC is going to look at [their] Pacific Daylight Time and there's going to be so much pushback that they're going to actually possibly be changing down the road, so…call me wrong in 2 or 3 years, but I'm very much in favor of sticking with Mountain Standard Time." Councillors discussed morning safety; local connections for school hockey, baseball, and gymnastic teams; residents who travel to neighboring regions for medical appointments; as well as tourists coming from both east and west. It was further discussed how school districts and medical systems that could straddle a potential timezone boundary with RDEK might handle technical and operational challenges, with Denegar saying that while "[t]here may be implications on…labor agreements", "just because the clock says one thing doesn't mean we have to work to the clock. We work to what makes sense. So if in labor discussions…we make some sort of a change that makes things challenging, we would simply adjust our collective agreements and adjust…business hours…operationally." Following tonight's vote, Denegar will now begin the process of notifying local and regional stakeholders, neighboring jurisdictions, and the provincial government of the decision. Recordings of the Town Council meetings are generally posted to the town YouTube page a day or so after. The meeting is still ongoing at time of writing; I will send a link to the relevant discussion once I see it posted. * * * While this decision indicates that we would need a new zone for Golden (and presumably CSRD A/Rural Golden with it), it comes fairly late from a TZDB perspective, creating a divergence ~2 months out which is not likely to propagate to endusers in time. In the meantime, those in the affected area who need UTC−7 year-round can configure their devices for America/Vancouver if they've received release 2026b (2026-04-22) or later, America/Whitehorse with release 2020a or later, or America/Phoenix. -- Tim Parenti
