The Chilkat Valley News and KHNS hosted a live candidate form on Friday, Sept. 26 in the Chilkat Center.

Moderators Will Steinfeld and Melinda Munson questioned five candidates for two open planning commission seats for about an hour.

The Chilkat Valley News has profiled each of the candidates and they’ve also answered questions readers submitted.

Editor’s note: The following transcript of the planning commission forum has been edited to include just the questions and candidate answers.

We’re going to give you 30 seconds to introduce yourselves. 

Dan Schultz: I am Dan Schultz, and I’ve been an Alaska resident for 23 years. I’ve been here in Haines for 17. I think, like most people up here, I truly care about this place greatly. I came here because of the place and the love of the outdoors in the community, and I hope to continue to be even a bigger part of our government moving forward.

Joe Parnell: Joe Parnell, age 63 no criminal record. I’ve had a variety of jobs. Been in Haines about 25 years. I’ve studied the issues for a long time and I’m just grateful to live in Haines, and sad to see the buildings become ruined. And my candidacy is kind of like the Hail Mary pass, you know, which is real fun and exciting if it gets if you actually catch it and your team wins.

Rachel Saitzyk: I’m Rachel Saitzyk. I’m 39 years old. I’ve been living in Haines full time for seven years. I’ve been in love with Haines for 12 years and trying to make it work. I’m a small business owner. I moved here and started a practice that I thought I was really going to struggle to get going, and it took a while, but with the support of the community, I’ve been successful, and that’s been amazing. My peers are young families in often housing chaos, and I have a huge community of all ages and belief systems. And that’s it. 

Kimberly Rosado: My name is Kimberly Rosado. I’ve lived here, this time, 10 years. I live on family property that was homesteaded, but means a lot to me. I’m building a cabin, living in it. I work for Mountain Market. I volunteer at the Klehini Valley Fire Department, so I’m pretty busy. 

Nathanael Reams:  Good evening, everybody. My name is Nathaniel Reams. I’m a new father and just moved to Haines a couple years ago. I’m running for the planning commission as an opportunity to learn from and help the community that I love and am grown to love even more. I’m currently an engineer working for a heavy civil contractor, and if elected, I hope to bring an objective stance with my role on the planning commission.

The planning commission is expected to apply land use code fairly, but also hear input from the public. Can you give us an example of one time your opinion was changed after hearing input from the public?

Kimberly Rosado:  There was one time, and I can’t remember, I’ve been going to the Assembly meetings for three years, two-and-a-half years, and I did hear something at one point, and I can’t remember what it was. But it can happen. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, talking to each other and giving each other their beliefs and their side of the story, so you can weigh each side and see and change each other’s minds. And, if everybody comes together and does that, then you can get things accomplished. We did that with the taxes in 23 built it, worked on it in ‘24 we changed state law and code here in Haines from a very diverse group of people. So I know if you come together and talk on specific issues, then you can make changes. 

Dan Schultz: Okay, that’s kind of a difficult question to answer without a moment to think about it, but I can maybe think more in the line when we’re working on the comp plan two years ago, and just getting lots of input from the from the public, and understanding, you know, where other people live, like up the road, the total their complete concern about being able to keep their sawmills, and they were worried that that might get changed. And quickly we were like ‘no, that’s not going to happen.’ So listening to everybody is kind of our role and what we do. And I, you know, that’s kind of one of the reasons I got involved to run politically, was that I felt like maybe I was not being listened to when I would go to assembly meetings and whatnot and speak up, and so I’m hoping to bring that forward on the planning commission if I can be elected again. 

Joe Parnell: Well, a lot of the issues are 50/50, so saying, you know, if the public is going to influence your opinion, it’s hard to – which side do you go on? I don’t know. It’s kind of drawing a blank on that question. Sorry.

Rachel Saitzyk: Yeah, I would say that it happens all the time at the planning commission. I would say I spend a lot of time researching what my opinion is going to be and the background when I go into planning commission meetings and and, yeah, I would say listening to public testimony and listening to commissioner commentary really informs the decisions that I makes, that I make, and the conditions that I, that I recommend. An example of talking to a member of the public recently, you know, I think that I was feeling kind of insensitive to housing density issues. And I was talking to someone who’s been here for 35 years, who said, your generation likes to recreate in nature, and my generation likes to live in nature. And it just gave me this whole different perspective to work with and and a different type of compassion to work with when we’re planning, you know how to increase housing density or find other opportunities to create new housing?

Nathanael Reams: Yeah, thank you for the question. I have the great opportunity to work with some amazing professionals in my field of work, and so I’m constantly receiving input from people who are much more qualified than myself in various topics. So I come at things with an open mind regularly, and try my best to come into it without any preconceived notions and hear all that they have to say and apply it directly as it’s immediately applicable to whatever the topic might be.

There are plans to rewrite Title 18, the borough’s land use and zoning code. How would you change our current zoning, and what would you hope to achieve with those changes?

Dan Schultz: I guess trying to think of something specific for changing. I think maybe talking about the general use zoning areas, it. And my opinion about zoning changes is we need a community approach. The people who live in those zones are the ones affected by them, and they should be the ones making the decisions. So starting the conversation with the people who live in the zones, whether they want to stay, [with] the rules and regulations that they have or they see the need for change and let the decision start there.

Joe Parnell: No, just thinking that some of the zones are set up for industrial, industrial uses only. And I guess that sounded good when they were doing the zoning plans. But if no industry comes after 20 or 30 years and it’s not being utilized. Maybe it’s time to look at them for being residential, because we have this housing shortage, and that might maybe it’s time to look at some of the industrial districts and change that.

Rachel Saitzyk: Yeah, I would say that working with the comprehensive plan, looking at Title 18 in the review subcommittee these last two years, I want to look at the zoning allowances. I would say, as far as figuring out that – trying to implement changes to allow more housing – I want to explore expanding allowances in the single residential zone, for example, thinking about talking to the community about, say, a minimum lot size, and on a minimum lot size, are we willing to have duplexes and allow slightly denser housing, depending on what’s going to be best for the greatest number of people. I want to talk to folks out the road in the rural residential zone. I think most of us, a lot of us, live in Alaska, because we like these broad allowances and we like being relatively left alone. So I want to keep the liberties we have as much as possible, but I also want to protect residential interests while looking for opportunities to expand commercially and help people profit.

Nathanael Reams: Yes, thank you for the question. I think that it’s vitally important to our community, to have the availability for affordable housing and having any tools that are available to us through whatever the new iteration of Title 18 might be, to be able to allow for additional development, for more affordable housing and for – like my other fellow candidates heres – mentioned the ability to still maintain the privacy that we’ve grown to love here in Haines, in our own private areas, as well as somehow striking a balance to not impede on progress.

Kimberly Rosado: I think we need to really look at the zoning here, because we I think we need to bring in industrial if we don’t have any somehow, and welcome it, because we need some economy in this town. This town is shrinking. I think there’s houses that can be fixed for affordable housing, but the zoning needs to be looked at seriously. There’s because there’s not industry growing, there’s houses creeping in on the industry that we already currently have, and it’s not a good combination. So definitely need to go into zoning and maybe make zoning for industry somewhere where it doesn’t affect the residents.

One of the responsibilities of the planning commission is you’re going to hear conditional use permits and land use permit appeals. Do you think that there need to be any changes to the current conditional use criteria or general approval criteria? 

Joe Parnell: Well, eight conditions for a conditional use permit, or I do think are pretty specific and maybe a little restrictive and hard to fulfill, makes it hard if something doesn’t exactly fit that bill, then it’s really hard to get maybe something that people didn’t think of into reality and so but, but changing criteria and all that, it’s so hard. I mean, just you need a genius to figure out what the new criteria is And who’s that going to be, you know, and it just all sounds a little dreamy, but yeah, I’m not against it.

Rachel Saitzyk: I would like to see, I think that there are times certainly that it needs to be much more specific. Sometimes the general and specific approval criteria are plenty. But I also think that I don’t think that it works for us to use a one-size-fits all approach. I think that we could take zoning into account, definitely distance to the next property. I think that when it comes to zoning changes, when we’ve dealt with zoning changes and subdivisions, we’ve had to also consider the general approval criteria, and I think that that doesn’t apply. I think that there are lots of situations that I’d like to see much more specific approval criteria, and that makes the job clearer, and it makes it much more fair.

Nathanael Reams: Thanks for the question. I am not experienced enough to be able to speak directly to what those kinds of changes might be, but I’m looking forward to being able to learn from my fellow committee members should I be elected and try to work towards something that is a little less general? I appreciate the ability to make things more available by not making things so specific and restrictive, but there are points where that starts to hinder the efficacy and efficiency of that kind of system.

Kimberly Rosado: I as well, would need to learn more on the planning commission and go into code and go by code. I mean, that’s really the core. If we just go by code and go by the zone that currently is already there, then, then that’s the way it needs to be if something needs to be changed, and you change it, but you don’t just do things because, ‘oh, this is my friend.’ So we’re going to go ahead and approve this and overlook that it wasn’t correct. We really need to stay in code and by the zones.

Dan Schultz: Yeah, I think that’s, well, it’s one of the things that we’re, we have been looking at and talking about, is rewriting Title 18, which actually probably is a little too big of a first step. And I think maybe one of the first steps is to look at the [conditional use permit] criteria and have somebody come in and help us make something that I think would have less subjectivity to it, that it’s more direct, and so people who are applying for a CUP have a better understanding about what is asked to them. So I think I don’t have really specific ideas currently, but the conversation really needs to get going, and we can maybe clean up our CUP process to make it easier for people applying.

Is there any other candidate you’d like to ask a question of? 

Kimberly Rosado: No. 

Dan Schultz: I really don’t have any specific question for anybody up here. 

Joe Parnell: Sure, Dan, what’s the biggest issue in Haines. 

Dan Schultz: The Lutak Dock Joe. 

Rachel Saitzyk: I do also have a question for Dan. You don’t need to go into specifics, but I’m wondering if there have been votes that you have made at the planning commission level that you wish afterward, like with more thought lying in bed at night that you had made differently.

Dan: Maybe I could ask my question of her first. That’s a good question Rachel.  I guess, probably my, mainly, I don’t believe I’ve voted in a way way I would not want to have to ended up voting, but I think maybe saying more about what I’m thinking and understanding about a subject, and just being more open and direct to the public of why I voted a certain way. So that’s kind of, I believe, the next step for myself.

Nathaniel, is there a candidate you’d like to ask a question to?

No, ma’am. I just appreciate being able to run with all these other candidates.

The Letnikof dock rebuild is projected to cost eight to $9 million and a state grant could help fund the project, but that requires, you know, about four to $5 million in matching funds. One proposal that just came in is to partner with American cruise lines, which would provide the majority of the match and establish a long term funding source through moorage fees and passenger head tax revenues to cover future maintenance. Do you support exploring this partnership, and if not, what other solutions would you propose? 

Dan Schultz: Currently, I guess my first initial thought is that I’m not too interested in creating another cruise ship dock in our community. We do have a great location for it right now, and I don’t think we need to be moving it to Letnikof. And then I can think of issues that I mean, how is that cruise ship supposed to go through the fishing fleet when they’re out there? It just doesn’t seem like a compatible use. And so as far as an alternative funding source for it? I mean, we’ve found funding sources for many things, and I think that’s more of a question for the borough to come up with. I’m not sure exactly where we would look for the funding, but we’d have to find some other place. I would think,

Kimberly Rosado: I would look in to see what I don’t want to impede on our fishing at all. And if a cruise ship dock out there would hurt our fishing fleet, I would like to hear from them because or crabbing or shrimping, or any of that, because we don’t want to take away from what a few people here make some money at, for sure, and and maybe look at other sources of … grants that don’t have to be matching.

Rachel Saitzyk: Yeah, I think that as a planning commission, it’s our responsibility to explore that as an option. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be the best option. I would say that my personal bias is that I think that public infrastructure is for the public, and I think that we need to keep it available, or else provide a viable alternative for public users. I think that we need to find ways to bring money in, both for that project and in general, for the public. So I think that if there was potentially an option for a commercial dock and a subsistence dock, or, you know, or and a commercial fisherman dock as well as the cruise ship dock. It could be an option. Yes, I would say that I’m inclined to protect the public on this one. But I also think that we have to seek out funding sources, and we have to consider all of our options. And I also think that $2 million isn’t nothing. But it’s not the majority of that funding. We need to figure that out.

Joe Parnell: I don’t see what it would hurt to explore the option and hear what they have to say. You can always say no down the road. There were two numbers you threw out 8 million and 45 million?

The current dock rebuild is projected to cost somewhere around eight to 9 million. And then there’s a state grant that could be pursued that could help fund the project, but requires a couple million in matching funds.

Joe Parnell: Well then we should get to pursuing the grant. 

Okay? Thank you. 

Nathanael Reams: As far as the cruise ships coming in on that side, I’m not a huge fan of an additional you know route for cruise ships, especially so far out of the way as far as safety concerns as well as the impact it would have on our local infrastructure. But as someone who would hold a role on the planning commission, I don’t think that I can allow my personal biases to get in the way of what would facilitate any advancement or repairs to the dock. I think the best route would be to pursue other additional grants that were more beneficial for us, or ones that could be coupled with the current one that you mentioned. 

What is your opinion of the state’s reconsideration of a transportation route to be built up the west side of the Lynn Canal? 

Nathanael Reams: I think any amount of additional access for the people of Haines can be a good thing. I’m just looking forward to seeing how it actually pans out, and if it is something that’s, you know, more of an annoyance, or if it works better than our other alternatives.

Joe Parnell: I’m just kind of stupefied that maybe a person on the planning commission in Haines could decide whether or not there’s a West Side road.

The question is: what’s your opinion of the state’s reconsideration of it? 

Joe Parnell: Just where’s the bridge going to be, or how they going to get back into letting the cough coat or wherever connect back on this side? You know, there’s a lot of questions and a lot of engineering that needs to be done, and a lot of stuff. You know, there’s not a plan. It’s just also kind of fanciful, that it’s hard to have an opinion, really, I think. 

Dan Schultz: The state’s looked at this for decades, and we’ve – even admitted in their own environmental assessment that it’s actually much more cost effective to have a fully functioning ferry system. This is just another kind of silly idea, just just to create the payoff for people who do studies, basically. And I mean, if you think about a road along the canal, it’s not going to be open in the winter, it’s going to be closed for half the winter because of avalanches. And it’s just, it’s a pursuit that’s been shown to not be an effective idea. And we’re just throwing, waste money once again at looking at it over and over, let’s fund the ferries. Let’s keep that going, that’s the character of Southeast Alaska.

Kimberly Rosado: That’s a good question, but I would like to see more of a plan as well before making a decision. Because without a good plan, just saying building a road well that doesn’t answer questions like the bridge, more ferry service there, there has to be at least another ferry service or a bridge. Or I would just need more information to answer that. And I think about during the dead mill of winter, when we have a really bad storm, and somebody needs medical help right now, and the only way maybe to get them out of here would be a road. So I think there’s benefits to get to a hospital. There’s times where you can’t even get, you know, medevaced out. And so it’s times like that that I think, I think other options to get out of Haines to hospital would be good.

Rachel Saitzyk: I’ve read and listened to research about this project. I’ve seen the documentary of somebody traversing that terrain. To me, from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t look feasible. As much as I love the idea of a road and being able to make that drive, I don’t believe that we have the geography personally. I’m always going to be open to new information. And so if I’m presented with information that convinces me otherwise, let’s go for it, but, but, as Dan mentioned, I think the road will be closed for the winter. It’s very steep terrain. I think we need to fund the, yeah, I think we need to fund the ferries. And I also think we need the resources that can sustain us here as much as possible. But we live in a remote community, and yeah, we need to, we need to back ourselves up as much as possible.

Hundreds of buildings in Haines have significant structural issues due to rot. How would you balance DIY and homestead culture while keeping professional contractors and carpenters accountable for their work protecting homeowners? 

Rachel Saitzyk: As far as keeping professional contractors accountable, I mean, I think that that’s what their licensure rests on, and I think that that’s why they have insurance. So to me, that is how we hold them accountable. I want to encourage the public to be working with reputable, licensed, insured contractors, but otherwise, yeah, I think that there are higher systems in place for that.

Kimberly Rosado: I’m, like I said earlier, I’m building my own cabin, and I’ve had people helping me, but I have, I’ve asked licensed professionals to come help, and I can’t afford it. Bottom line, I can’t. There’s no way I could build my 24 by 24 cabin with professional help. So I’d like to see maybe some restrictions on but also keep it open for those of us that are trying to build a house of our own without having too many restrictions.

Nathanael Reams: Yeah, as far as keeping professional contractors accountable, it really does rest on, you know, their professional accreditation and being able to investigate what they’re able to build, as far as the DIY culture, I think there’s opportunities to make education available. Being able to give people the tools that they need, as far as the knowledge of how to properly build things safely, is a valuable asset, as well as maybe this kind of rest outside of the realm of the planning commission, but provide funding for things like inspections, professional inspections, for DIY procedures.

Dan Schultz:  This question, it’s more maybe about building codes than anything, because it’s, I mean, my personal thing, yeah, it’s their insurance that should cover it, but that’s neither here now for the planning commission. So it’s more of an idea is, should we start, you know, thinking about creating building codes and you know, I haven’t really thought about that, and that might be more of an assembly issue than a planning commission issue, but it’s something that we can start thinking about to make sure, because I know when I was looking for a house, I passed on a lot of things before I finally was able to find what I found, just Because of I think Keynes lacks building codes, but then everybody wants to build their own place. So it’s a big discussion that we could easily have here.

Joe Parnell: Yeah, I think the marketplace polices the problems with people’s houses a bit. If you have some defects in your house, then you get them fixed so they’re worth more or and as a homeowner or person that wants to buy a home, you have a responsibility to check out what you’re doing and be aware of who you’re hiring and maybe get recommendations and do due diligence and all that stuff. So. The planning commission, they can only go by code, and if your building is in a state of disrepair or and or deterioration, that’s a nuisance building, and then the planning commission can get involved. But if you just have some repairs that need to be done, that’s up to the homeowner to figure out. And I personally moved to Haines because I liked not having a bunch of code enforcement out there checking everything like they do in Juneau. And yeah, it’s a little bit wild west. It’s free form, but it’s actually kind of fun to do your own thing too, and I’m for that.

Do you have any suggestions to improve assembly planning and planning commission collaboration?

Kimberly Rosado: I don’t know if there needs to be more into the planning commission part, listening to more of their meetings to get a better answer for that. I have seen a few, and I think if the assembly is asking the planning commission to do something, they should just, just need to do it and and figure out a good answer and bring it back to the assembly for them to decide whether that was the answer they were looking for, or they need to go somewhere else with the public. I think the public is very important. The planning commission and the assembly both need to listen to what the public has to say before making a decision, and we need to go by code, end of story. We need to go by code and zoning before we make decisions.

Dan Schultz: Well, as far as on the planning commission, we have a liaison, assembly liaison, that we get an update every meeting. And for me, it’s been a fairly good, informative session for us, but we don’t have anything going the other way. It’s up to, I could think, the individual assembly members up to the liaison that is for the planning commission to, you know, relate to the assembly, what went on in the planning commission. And it’s also, it’s up to the individual. It’s up to each assembly member to pay attention to what the planning commission is researching, and we were looking at a lot of things, a lot more in depth than the assembly has time to. We should be a good resource for them. So I’m just hopeful that they will, they’ll take a look at us a little bit stronger sometimes, and hear what we have to say.

Joe Parnell: Every planning commission meeting is a collaboration. That’s what they do. That’s what it is. I think that people could maybe improve that process a little bit by just showing up prepared and knowing what’s going to be on the agenda. And the important thing is the motions that are made and the amendments that get put on to them, and the policies that come out of the meetings. And I think that actually planning committees have collaborated pretty well. They do their duties, and if they just show up prepared and understand that the important thing is the motions and the vote, then the collaboration will be fine. 

Rachel Saitzyk: I think that it would be really great if we had more joint sessions between the Planning Commission and the assembly. I think it would be also great if planning commissioners and assembly members made a habit of attending each other’s meetings, or else listening to them. I attend virtually, usually, but sometimes in person, and usually listen to assembly meetings, often after the fact, you can listen to them at one and a half speed, but, and there are also meeting minutes, we can, we can get really detailed information about what each body is doing. I think it would be great to hear each other’s referrals earnestly, which I think for the most part, happens historically. I mean, in a greater context. I think that we could bring in a PC liaison for context, on recommendations as necessary. I think that our assembly liaison is doing a fabulous job. When I hear her at our meetings and at Assembly meetings, I think she does. A wonderful job of relaying context and sentiment, and I think that I’ll finish in one second. I think that I’d love to have even more detailed context.

Nathanael Reams: I appreciate the level of cooperation that the planning commission and the assembly have with one another, and the amount that they do intermix with each other. I think I really like being a part of meetings, but I understand that as far as the assembly is concerned, they’re pretty full up as far as their time and availability. Would be really cool to be able to meet them on occasion in planning commission meetings, should I be elected as a commissioner? And I look forward to learning more during assembly meetings as well.