(Rashah McChesney/Chilkat Valley News) Rachel Saitzyk is running for Haines Borough planning commission, shown here on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025, near her home in Haines, Alaska.

When Rachel Saitzyk ran her first successful campaign for planning commission in 2023, she wanted to learn more about the inner workings of the Haines borough. 

She joined the planning commission with a cohort of newly elected members who did not have much experience with the ins and outs…

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...