Editor’s note: This year the Chilkat Valley News partnered with KHNS on its election coverage in addition to hosting two candidate forums. A playlist of these profiles, as they are posted, can be found here.
We hosted a forum with planning commission candidates in Mosquito Lake, which can be found here. And, we’re hosting a forum for assembly candidates on Friday, Sept. 25 at 6:30 p.m. in the Chilkat Center. It will also air live on KHNS, 102.3 locally.
Rashah McChesney: Okay, Nate Reams, thanks for joining me. I really appreciate it, especially on a Bluebird Saturday like we’re having today. Tell me, why did you decide to run for Planning Commission again?
Nathanael Reams: Thanks. I’m glad I made it. I decided to run for Planning Commission because I actually had some positive feedback, and I was inspired by the people I’ve gotten to work with so far, and I genuinely have a passion to want to help this community in the small way that I’m able.
Yeah. So you just came off of a year long term, right? You’re running for a three year seat now.
Yes, ma’am.
And last year, I remember when we spoke, you felt like your background in federal regulatory permitting and sort of keeping projects on track was going to help you serve on the planning commission because you were kind of new to the idea of the planning commission. What did you learn in the last year?
I definitely learned that you know my ambition to remain objective is still possible in that realm, but there are definitely areas, specifically when they bump up against you know lacks of definition within code, that objectivity becomes rather difficult. And so, having to work with the team and appreciate the work that the team does outside of the planning commission, the staff itself there at the borough, making our job a lot easier, and then making it so that way we’re able to remain objective and remove any sort of apparent favoritism from the system.
I’m glad that you brought that up because that was actually one of the biggest questions that I had for you. I remember last year when we talked to you and said, “I’m going to stick with the code. This is what I’m going to do. And I think sometimes that’s not as straightforward as you think it is, because there are sections that require interpretation. Sometimes there are sections missing, or as we learned this year, sometimes permits don’t quite fit, or projects don’t quite fit in the permits that we have available. How did you approach? Was that a challenge that you faced? And if so, how did you approach, you know, decision making when the code wasn’t as explicit as you were hoping it would be.
Yeah, that was when we really leaned heavily on the staff’s experience specifically with code in the past, and it was, or at least that’s how I felt. And it was very helpful to have the staff there to quarry in those meetings, and if we needed to postpone something, be able to. I think the only point of frustration through the season, if I can’t talk about the points of frustration, absolutely, was running into situations where we’re having to. We have a public comment period, and some of it seems more focused on what the public is saying versus what the applicant is saying, and especially when that you know we’re running into rights of personal property, that becomes a very challenging and frustrating scenario where we’re having to navigate both the public interest and then also the rights of the person, right? And I think that’s where objectivity was really kind of fractured, because you know, per code, we really need to focus on the person’s individual rights to their personal property. But yeah, I think maybe people just need to be a little bit more chill, especially when they recognize that hey, like you know that’s not my property. Also,
So do you mean people were concerned about the impact of something like say putting a 5G tower on a private parcel in a neighborhood or something and the rights of the person to accept that on their property, but how it could impact their neighbors, or are you talking about some other broad?
Maybe something a little more innocuous was more frustrating. Like that, I understand people have opinions about certain information that’s out there and concerns for their own personal health. Right. I’m not saying that that’s not an issue, but for people to start, like for instance, if somebody wants to build something on their property, not have somebody pay them to build a tower, but they want to build something personal to their own property, and then to have the neighbors without good reason or good compromise have an issue with those individuals making those structures can be kind of frustrating because you know it’s it’s their property, it’s their right. They’re willing to work with you. Let them work with you. You know, let them be neighborly. Please be neighborly in return. I think that was the hardest thing for me was kind of almost a disenchantment, right? Because I really love Haines, and I really like the people in Haines. And most of the time, people turn up, you know, to help out at any point ever. But then when they get into, you know, a political forum, all of a sudden it’s, you know, all all combat. And sometimes pretty aggressive, so that was a little disappointing and disenchanting. But for the most part, it was cool to experience a lot of what we talked about in the interview last time, where we ran into those lacks of definition and the inability to remain objective, even though you you know you really want to believe that it’s possible with such a rigorous document, but
Objectivity to reach for objectivity is a whole practice. Yeah, no, did you ever arrive there?
I’m here to try.
I do remember the last time we spoke about this, I came in really excited to talk about what an elected planning commission could mean for Haines because we’re the only one in Southeast, and I think we might be one of the only ones in the state. I’m not positive about that, but I think you had also been a recent transplant to Haines, and so you were not real sure, you know, what impact that would have. Since you’ve spent a year on the planning commission, have you come across any sense of how it’s changed decision making wise for commissioners like you that were elected versus those that were appointed in the past?
I don’t think I’m experienced enough to comment on that, right? So I could see it having an impact on people’s decision making, right? Like from being an appointed individual, you’re kind of like, you know, you have the mechanisms that, or you don’t have the mechanisms that are forcing you to make publicly popular decisions, right? But if you’re an elected body, I could see some external pressure, right, having that negative impact on the planning commission’s ability to make decisions in an objective fashion and around code specifically.
You know, it sounded a little bit like you were saying that there were some surprises for you in your first year of being on the planning commission. I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about what things surprised you and what things were, you know, just not things that you had planned for.
Yeah, there was. We already kind of talked about some negative surprises, right? A little bit of disenchantment, but there were a lot of really pleasant things, right? There were really cool times where you got to see a positive passion, like for instance, the sledding hill, the amount of people that really loved the community in such a way that they were like really wanting this to be a part of it, and then took people to, you know, communicate and show up, and really express the way that the community felt as a whole. It was really cool to see people come together in that fashion. It’d be cool to see people come together in that fashion in a more collaborative manner. The planning commission is made up of a bunch of different people with incredibly different views. They’re all separate human beings, and to watch all of them work together so succinctly, right, and be so deliberate in backing up one another to make sure that you know we’re fulfilling our duty in such a way that not only supports the town and supports the process, but also keeps each other, you know, in a safe sense and able to do their job without being without there being any kind of question about their the validity of their decision, so it was really cool to watch both the senior and newer members of the planning commission work together in such a fashion, regardless of their political standing and personal backgrounds. It was a very supportive environment in the planning commission itself, and then also I was really struck by the staff’s efforts and personal talent in the fields that they work in.
Yeah, I’m curious. Some things that have come up in the last year have been situations where the planning commission has maybe maybe made a recommendation or has done something with a permit that once it’s gotten up to the assembly level, the assembly has gone in another direction. And I’m curious how you think about the decision making that the planning commission does in relation to the assembly, and if you’ve. About how you might communicate with individual assembly members differently, or how is that relationship working, and how would you like to see it work?
I really appreciated when we had the liaison coming in more frequently. I know that recently some things have come up, so we haven’t been able to have that. But it definitely makes it feel like there’s a lot more communication coming across between the assembly and the planning commission. I’m personally grateful that there’s that extra step between the recommendation that the planning commission makes and then the assembly going and coming to their decision. Specifically because like I’ll give an example when we were talking and it’s kind of a buzzword topic, so forgive me for bringing it up. But the Lutak dock, right? That it’s a very confrontational subject or contentious subject and…
I think you could say confrontational.
… it was it was difficult to come to a well-informed recommendation, and if I’m honest, when I left that planning commission meeting, I felt very unsettled about the recommendation or my personal steps that I had taken to influence the recommendation that had come about, and it wasn’t until I was going back and listening to things and mulling over the options that I had a you know a sense of calmness about the assembly’s ability to call on the professionals that we have. Right, so we missed out on a grand opportunity. I think I should have noticed that there were people there in the front row that were from our ports and harbors, and directly asked them instead of talking to our contractor. But that just totally went past me, and I think that’s one of the reasons I was so unsettled by it was I had felt like I had made an uninformed decision while I had, you know, the people who would be using it right there, and so I was, I took some confidence in that. Once that went to the assembly, the assembly would have those same people, those same professionals, those same users in the room, and they would be able to not make that same mistake. You know, give them that opportunity to talk about the needs that they have, and then also you know the minimum viable viable product from their perspective, regardless of what the recommendations of the contractor are.
If I remember correctly you’re working in sort of like project management. You’re an engineer, right? Yes, ma’am.
And I wonder if when your decision making, especially at the planning commission level, it kind of requires you to become a mini expert on a lot of things that I imagine are a little bit out of your wheelhouse. How have you approached becoming informed enough to make decisions that you feel good about at night? And are there any that you would do differently now that you’re looking at it in hindsight. You just described one.
Yeah, I think that’s the foremost one. I feel pretty good about the decision that I made, the decisions I’ve made or been part of making with the planning commission there. Other than that one, usually when the packet comes out. I enjoyed reading it multiple times and going through it, which are usually quite exhaustive. And after the first few, I became much more comfortable with the format, specifically with the memos from the staff. And then from there, it’s usually looking at technical documentation from other areas in the state that have done something similar. So, like Chen [Wu] does it really well, where he just calls somebody in the staff. But Chen takes a lot of influence, even though he’s not from Alaska originally, he’s very good at reaching out to local communities and seeing how they did it, how they did it poorly, or how they did it successfully, and so I’ve kind of taken a little bit on that path, where looking around our local community, and then also looking at global technical documentation for things that might be a little more of a concerning topics that people have strong opinions on.
Now that you’ve been doing it for a year, I remembered very specifically when I was thinking about this interview the last time that we talked about what the planning commission does and what role it plays. You were kind of like, I did some reading, but I really got to figure it out. You know, it seemed like you were saying that you were particularly interested in playing a role in shaping the community and helping the community because you live here now and you want to keep your family here and that felt important. But I’m curious now what your sense of what’s the role that the planning commission is playing in moving Haines forward and what would you like to see it do if you’re elected again?
I really like the way it is now, honestly, and that maybe that’s not a popular opinion, but I really do appreciate the process. I think the tools that they have available to them could use a lot of refinement, specifically the lack of definition. It allows the staff, which is in my opinion our greatest tool there, the collective intelligence and efforts of the staff, but outside of that, I don’t really see a need to improve there. I think I still see it as a way to positively influence your community. It adds a sense of legitimacy to the decisions that people are making, and gives them some kind of tool, specifically with their personal property, to be able to say no. You know, this was approved for me. So I did really, I personally really appreciated when it was just, you know, somebody wanting to build a deck or somebody wanting to build a shed or make adjustments to their property lines, like that felt a little more small town homey, and I really liked those exchanges a lot. I liked working with the recycling center and stuff like that. It’s when it’s bigger things that it feels a little more in the realm of what the assembly should handle, especially since we’re only providing a recommendation to begin with. And the reason that I feel that way is because we don’t really have a control over you know things like budget and costs, even in the most recent conversation about the Lutak dock, none of that data was given to us. It was a subjective, you know, chronograph of you know red, green, blue, or orange, you know, and that doesn’t tell you anything about numbers. It’s just so that it’s very clear to me that there’s been a dividing line between things that cost money and things that don’t really cost money, and that is what I feel the divide is between decisions the planning commission makes and decisions the assembly makes.
Yeah, I think I think what I’m trying to sort of get at is I I’d heard from other planning commission members like some of the initial slate of candidates who ran for planning commission when it became elected that and and I think I’ve heard them express publicly that you you you end up kind of getting maybe not bogged down, but there’s a lot of small decisions like outhouses, sheds, permits, property lines, and there’s not as much time to step back and think about land use planning as a whole in the borough, and I think what I’m hearing you say is that you sort of like those small projects that can be resolved property to property. But I’m curious how you think about what role the planning commission can play in shaping the future of the borough in either development or not areas of development, or I know I heard individual planning commission members talk about, you know, lighting regulations. So it could be darker here. Like, projects that maybe are not things that an individual property owner is surfacing to you as something that needs to be done, but rather your vision for you know future land use in the borough is that something you’ve spent some time with, or are interested in doing?
Yeah, I am interested in it because, like I said, I am very passionate about our community, and I you know feel very strongly about this place and the small town community. But that has really only come up with these larger projects, right? So, like issues of viewshed with the tower, or issues of lighting that came up with the question of the hospital, right? But the hospital is not necessarily the only one that would influence lighting. It was just the nucleus of the conversation. So, I think they’re valuable conversations, and I do think that they’re conversations that the planning commission should be a part of, so having enough time to have those conversations in those planning commission meetings definitely feels impossible. Because it’s very business, very quick. If it’s a good meeting, it’ll go you know bing bang boom, but you’re still done at 10 or 11 o’clock, you know. So that’s where a lot of it ends up going into like committees, and those are not as approachable since they’re usually It’s difficult to get them to start or go
So I’m really excited about the effort that Patty [Brown] has put forward specifically about things like landslides, right, and making sure our community is safe, both the elderly community specific. In response to, you know, landslide risks and hazards, and then also making sure that, you know, what happened in the past doesn’t happen again, right? Making sure that we actually have the systems in place to minimize any kind of or mitigate any hazard that might occur here in town, get ahead of the game, so to speak.
Do you feel like the planning commission has done some work in that direction in the last year, or made significant progress there?
Certainly, Patty put forward a landslide hazard. I believe it was a landslide hazard plan or pamphlet that she proposed we accept, and we did vote on it, and I think it’s still in the process of being worked through by the staff. They’d have to correct me. I’ve been gone for a little bit.
And one more question on that. There was some recent, I would say, contentious discussion about the possibility of rezoning parts of the Upper Valley, or having the conversation about rezoning parts of the Upper Chilkat Valley could look like. Where are you guys on that, and where do you sort of fall on figuring out that issue?
So it’s very complex, right? Because the state essentially made it so general use had to disappear at some point. So we’re working to be compliant with the state itself, and that’s going to take a significant amount of effort. And it’s one of those things since it was such an open book, right? This big blank slate that was called general use. A lot of individual opinions and individual property purchases occurred, and so then being able to essentially make rules that accept what’s there already, and then also keep the feeling of what those local communities want in mind is going to be a complex thing, especially when you don’t have internet out at Mosquito Lake. I tried to hop on that general use conversation, man, and that that internet was rough. Like I couldn’t even hear anything.
Well, I was wondering if you found it difficult to balance your work life, which often involves you going out into remote villages and working on projects, and the workload that comes with the planning commission because I remember we talked about that being something you had some anxiety about.
Yeah, it is difficult, and it didn’t get any easier for sure. I’m grateful that the staff and the planning commission have been understanding in the few meetings that I’ve been unable to get to. Right, it’s hard to you know spend 20 plus hours loading a barge and then go to a you know 11 meeting that goes until 11 o’clock. So I’ve been really appreciative of their patience there. But as far as the workload itself, yeah, it’s that some of those packets are huge, and reading through and making sure that you understand all of them is quite a chore, right? And I have complete faith that the members of the planning commission go through the same thing and are just as deliberate and particular with reading through everything in each one of those packets. So it’s dry, but you’re chugging through it, man. Like if you’ve read any kind of plans or specs, it’s the same dry stuff. But at least this one has pictures usually. Yeah.
I think one thing that we haven’t talked about is what kind of feedback you’ve gotten from community members while you’ve been on the planning commission and how you’re incorporating that feedback into your decision making,
Yeah I would love to have more feedback, and it was actually the feedback that I got over the last Dalton City Limits, I think they’re called right music down at the fairgrounds.
Oh, you went down there to get feedback on your job?
Nah, that stuff kind of comes out of the woodwork whenever I guess. So, like, I’d welcome more critical feedback. It would help me out as far as like, you know, obviously I don’t want “Hey, you suck. Do this differently.” I want like you know specifics, but I wasn’t super keen on the idea of running again until I went to that, and then I had quite a few people come up to me, and were really encouraging, and had a lot of very specific positive feedback on what I did in that one year, and so that made the decision very difficult for me. And I had it was probably about three days where I was agonizing afterwards because the time period to apply for the to run was running up, and yeah, I guess it was because of those positive feedbacks that I decided like, all right, so I must be you know not just sitting there taking up a chair. I must be. Doing something that people appreciate, so I’ll give it another go, and hopefully it goes well.
Why were you gonna? Why were you thinking you would choose not to run again?
You know it’s like I said, it’s very disenchanting, and that wasn’t super pleasant. I like to help, and I understand that sometimes you know providing a community that has various, you know, widely varying opinions, is going to come with a lot of critical and intense feelings, but it’s a little hard to come into a town that you view as, you know, very helpful and very kind and well-meaning in a beautiful place, and then to experience such vehement negativity, specifically directed at the planning commission itself, who are just people who, you know, they don’t work here. You know, they’re doing this out of wanting to help the community or the passion of the thing that they chose they want to help and secure, so that was a little disenchanting. Thankfully, it was never focused on me. I feel it directly, but it was hard for me to watch my fellow planning commission members be the recipient of such vitriol.
Yeah, how are you gonna if you’re elected again? How are you gonna approach three more years of that, and what do you want to get?
What I want to get done is just really be there to help the community, right? If you know, not everybody is willing to sit there and read through the bland, boring stuff, and make sure that they have as best of an informed decision ready to go as they can, and I’m happy to be that person. If the community feels that somebody else would better fit that role, you know, cool. I appreciate that decision. But if I’m there, I would really love the opportunity to work with the planning commission members that are there as well as work with the staff again. There, it’s been very pleasant. It’s a very supported environment from them, and they really do try their hardest to provide the planning commission with the tools that they need, and then the planning commission really does work through that stuff with a very serious mind, and with the community’s best interest at heart. And you know, sometimes we go into those things with, or at least speaking for myself, going to those meetings with, you know, a decision in mind, and then once the public comment comes, that can go by the wayside. So we’re definitely there to hear what the community wants and what the public comment has to say. But mostly, I would just ask people, you know, going forward, recognize these are you know they’re people just like you are. They don’t get paid to be here as you know in any significant capacity, they’ve got jobs just like you do. They’ve got family just like you do, and you know they’re just trying to help. So do your best to be kind, respectful, and honorable towards them as they’re showing you the same you know respect, kindness, and honor in return.
Great, Nate. Thanks so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.
Always a pleasure, Rashah.