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.
This interview transcript has been edited for clarity and grammar.
Rashah McChesney: Kim Rosado, thank you so much for joining me in the studios at KHNS.
Kimberly Rosado: Thank you for having me.
On this wonderful Labor Day that we’re having. You said you spent all day working?
Yeah. Not really a holiday.
We labored today.
Right.
I’m curious. You know, this is the second time that I’ve profiled you. You know, covering a race or or running for office. What made you decide to run again this year?
Insanity, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t. I don’t like this part of running. I don’t like the interview. The interview. I feel uncomfortable. I don’t mind having a conversation with people, but this kind of atmosphere is nervous. It makes me nervous. I don’t know why.
Are you campaigning sort of individually with people, or how are you getting your message out there?
I’m just talking to people because I’m not on Facebook, so I have a couple signs and I’m just talking to people that if they say something about me running, I tell them yeah, and this is why. And I see a lot of things going on that I don’t like, and that’s usually what propels people into running for office or of any sort. So, here I am.
How many times have you run for office in Haines so far?
This is twice.
Okay, both times for the planning commission, right? Yes.
Did you learn anything last year when you were running that you are trying to apply this year?
No, not really. Other than that, I just feel the planning commission shouldn’t be political. That’s my strong belief.
What do you mean by that? What does it mean?
When it’s being voted on. It’s political. If you’re if you have a lot of experience in the planning field with construction or otherwise engineering, any of that, then that is your core. That’s the people that should be planning our community. That’s how I feel.
Okay, so and you have a petition to that effect on the ballot this fall that you want to return the planning commission from being an elected position to being an appointed position.
Exactly. And I’m still running because I know it’s a lot of work for the planners. I know there’s a lot of code to read. I’ve read a little bit through [Title] 18, and it’s frightening. There is a lot of code, and there’s a lot of – it will take a lot of time. I consider it a job and am not prepared, but I’ve talked to so many people that I thought would be great as planners, and nobody wants to run for office. They don’t want to be political.
Why do you think that is?
Because they wouldn’t mind volunteering their time in a position. We have so many other groups that are all appointed, and I think it’s great. Like the Ports and Harbors [advisory committee]. They take a little section of everybody to be in this group and – I believe I haven’t heard the history. I wanted to ask somebody about the history of the planning commission – because there’s seven seats, and that’s kind of like Ports and Harbors. So I’m guessing it originally was the same way, either from different areas of the community and different expertises, because they’re the only ones that have seven. And so I’m really curious about that. I think that would be a great way to have the planning commission. That way, it’s a little bit of everybody in different areas. You know, one person in each area, and then people with expertise in planning.
Okay, and absent that, you know, what is it that you think has happened at the planning commission level since it’s been elected?
I know it’s a lot of work, and I get that, but I see a lot of favoritism, and maybe they were saying the same thing before, and so I don’t know what the exact answer is, but I’m seeing the favoritism right now, strongly, and I don’t think that’s fair. I think it has turned very political, and it’s not right. Our planning of our community should not be political; it should be structured and it should be with expertise, not political. “My friends want to do this, so I’m going to let them do that. But these guys, I don’t want to do this” and “no.” I don’t want them to do that. You know, and that’s what I’m seeing, and maybe I’m only seeing certain things and not all of it, and not everything is a big picture. But that’s just how I feel.
And I might be the same way. That’s maybe why I don’t really want to be there because I don’t, I don’t want to be political. I don’t want it to be a political thing.
You know, I heard a lot of people, when I first moved to Haines in 2024, that you know say that it was exciting to see a planning commission be elected because we were the sort of first community, definitely in Southeast Alaska, to do that, and maybe one of the first in the state. I was pretty interested in seeing how it worked too, because I’ve worked in other communities where sometimes the planning commission can be, you know, all from people from one specific sector, and people feel like.
That’s not fair either.
But I felt like I heard a lot of candidates say things like, “I’m gonna follow the code. It should be fair. It should be applied apolitically.
Absolutely.
But we also know that the code can be inconsistent. There are sections of it that are competing with each other.
Then fix it.
There are things that require interpretation. I think it’s a little bit more complicated than just following the code, and I’m curious if you feel like that’s the part of the process that’s being politicized, or where you think that politicization is coming from.
I’m just seeing it on what’s getting voted on, what’s not, as a whole. Back to interpretation. I think you know, just like our constitution, it’s “what did our what did the guys in the beginning, what was their intent?” And that’s the same with our code. What’s the intention, not the interpretation? What’s the intention? Why did they do this? Why is the code written this way? That’s where you have to really get in, and sometimes you can interpret it differently and wrongly, but I think it needs to be fair.
How would you do that if you were elected?
I wouldn’t go in with a set mind. I would read the code, read what’s going on, do my research, take that week and do it every night. And I don’t have, I don’t have that time. But I will make that time. That’s a lot of work, and I understand that. I have so much going on right now… We’re all crazy busy right now, and so I understand not being fully prepared. But I understand this is a position, especially elected, it needs to be – even if it’s appointed – you have some grasp because you’re not coming in there with eyes closed. You’re not coming in to not knowing anything, like looking at a plan of a piece of property. I don’t, I don’t know what that means, you know. That’s a lot of work for you to learn all that, you need that expertise. That’s why the planning commission, the seven seat planning commission, tells me that they had it set up, possibly just like the ports and harbors: people from different sectors, people with different expertise. That’s the way I think it should be.
So I’m curious. You, when you and I first met, it was because I had just gotten here and started covering the assembly, and you’re at every meeting. And then you had started attending planning commission meetings too. And I remember last year we were talking about the sort of time commitment required to do that. I’m curious if you feel like you have sort of a good grasp now of how to deep dive into the code on certain things.
I just I’ve just started reading it, and it’s and you would you would yeah it’s frightening, and and I and what I’ve come to the conclusion of is you would have to wait till something comes up, read it [and say] okay this pertains to this code and go read the code and know what that is, know what they’re asking, And know what the intention of the code means. Not try to interpret it so much, but try to figure out the intention. There’s got to be an intention of everything.
You were telling me that That you’ve just been sort of picking up the code and reading through it, and you’ve realized that it’s actually sort of case by case that you need to just refer back to it.
Yeah, there’s no way you can read the code. It would be trying to memorize the Bible, is what I felt like. I was like, oh no, this is something that needs to be case by case – by whatever you’re looking at. Even if you have to go through the different codes and different, you know, if there’s several different codes you have to look at, that’s the way you need to look at it. You can’t try to memorize Title 18. It’s massive.
Now that you’ve seen how the assembly is sort of doing its business, and then you’ve seen how an elected planning is doing its business, I’ve seen a couple of cases in the last few years where those two bodies have disagreed with each other, maybe on permits or how a permit is decided, or you know, if there’s a settlement, deciding a permit again, like it seems like they’re not always in agreement with each other. And I’m curious if you were elected, what would you do to sort of deepen the collaboration between the two bodies and communication between them?
Well, again, I think the assembly is going to really dig into the code, and go by the code. And if they felt the code wasn’t being followed, they’re going to disagree. That’s how I feel. If it’s not being followed, or if they didn’t follow direct instruction from lawyers, whatever, that’s why they’re going to have disagreements. I feel if you do your diligence and they still don’t disagree and they still disagree, then that’s the problem with two elected bodies that you can’t, whatever the planning commission does, the assembly is going to look at anyway. And so if you were just appointed, it might not hurt so bad if the assembly didn’t agree with you. Does that make sense?
I’m curious if your if the voters decide that your ballot initiative should go through, and they decide that the planning commission should be appointed instead of elected again. And you spend all of this time campaigning, and you get elected, and then maybe it gets reversed. I’m sort of curious if you’ve had a thought experiment in there about what might happen.
What my thought was is,if elected, I would do my term for however long. I guess it would go for a year. I’m not sure. I thought it would happen immediately. I didn’t talk to the borough about that specifically, but at the same time, there were a lot of hurt feelings of the prior planning commission when they were. Dropped, and that’s why none of them ran. They were very upset, and why a lot of them won’t run for office. They don’t mind volunteering all that time as appointed, but they don’t want to run for office, and so I don’t know how it’s going to… It takes a lot of time, especially seven people, to get appointed onto a board, and I would be right there to help support that and make sure that the seven people were seated. And if that meant me taking a seat there as appointed, I would.
And what expertise do you bring to the planning commission?
I can build stuff. I’ve been working on my cabin for eight years, and I can tear stuff apart, and I can figure stuff out and build stuff. But that’s all I have. That’s why it’s pretty frightening for me when I look at code and what I’ve seen that they have to decide on, it’s intense. There needs to be some experience in that room. There needs to be some experience on that team. You know,
Do you feel like there isn’t currently?
I don’t know experience as – far as people with planning experience, engineers, people that work on roads that can read those plans, those property plans. People that can read house plans. People, that kind of experience. I don’t know if there is that there. Maybe one person. That’s what I think. That’s what I feel is missing right now.
What role do you think that the planning commission plays in helping the borough grow?
So, this is what I see in Haines, in the city of Haines, is the industrial parts of Haines that there is, which is not very much, is being encroached on by homes, and people buy in general use areas or industrial areas close to industrial areas, because the property’s cheaper. I get that. I understand, but then now you have houses next to industrial, and then there’s complaints of noise. That’s part of the problem, and I don’t…and it’s almost gone so far you can’t fix that, and I think it’s really, really important for anything else to be developed. With some, we have to have industrial use areas to survive. We can’t survive without it as a community. You have to have it. You have to have stuff that makes noise, and it needs to be planned accordingly, and it needs to stick that way. It can’t. You can’t let houses be built next to industrial.
So you think some changes to the general use zoning so that industrial and residential property types are kept farther apart from each other?
Or leave the general use alone, so they can be industrial. And if you’re in a community with houses all around you, make a residential.I don’t want to tell my neighbors they can’t do something, but at the same token, I don’t. I understand people moving in and then saying, “Oh no, you can’t do that. You’ve been here for a long time, but you can’t do that any more.” You know that’s not fair, either. So it needs to be it does need to be looked at because it’s going to turn out to be what it’s going on in Haines, which is not right for the industrial people that are trying to make it work here.
A big thing, sort of, in front of the planning commission, and they sent that survey out. Actually, two batches of that survey out to kind of talk about the general use zoning. And I’m curious, you live in the area that’s you know the first place they were looking at in the upper valley. Did you respond to that survey, and what were your kind of thoughts about?
Leave it alone. But I understand. What I wanted to say is “leave my area alone.” I’m good with general use. I’m on a homestead property that’s been homesteaded back in the 1800s. It was 360 acres. I want to be able to do what I want to do on my property, and I don’t feel my neighbor can tell me otherwise – that just moved there 20 years ago even. Does that make sense?
So, are you saying? I just want to make sure I understand. Are you saying there shouldn’t be zoning changes so that some areas that have a lot of homes are rural residential and some areas, just say general use, or it sounded to me like you were saying there should be.
It should be separate. It should be, but if you’re already in a rural, if you’re already in an industrial-type area, leave it that way. Don’t bring houses in there. If you have a little neighborhood over here and you want to make it real residential. Go ahead, but leave the industrial areas alone. Either make it industrial. It’s hard now already because you can’t really make it industrial when there’s already houses there. So leave it general use. That’s what I’m trying to say. If you’re in a neighborhood and everybody agrees, let’s make it rural residential. Then, but by all means, do that. But leave the general use areas that are truly general use areas where there is a big mixture. Leave it be. We were told by the group that came through that we had to change. That we could not stay general use. So we tried to come up with a plan, and it’s not even being looked at. Every time it’s brought up it’s “oh yeah, we have it,” but they’re not applying it, and that’s that’s part of why I ran too.
Like a plan for what to do if general use zoning isn’t. That’s part of the reason that you ran?
Right.
Okay. It sounds a little bit, if I understand you correctly, like you’re sort of saying because we have less industrial use land in the valley than you would like that you’d like to see it be prioritized when it comes to zoning changes, so that we don’t lose more of that land. How do you think that that could impact the expansion of the Chilkat Valley if more people were to move here, or more people are trying to build homes? Like, how do you balance the needs of industrial users against the needs of residential uses or recreational uses?
It needs to be clear to people that are buying property that you’re buying in a general use area. This is what could happen. If they don’t understand, they need to know that. If they want a nice quiet neighborhood, they need to buy in a residential area that’s meant for residential. People buy in the general use areas because it’s cheaper property. I get it. I understand. Mine was given to me, so I get that. But you have to, you have, you have to know what’s going to happen. What could happen next door, if you’re in a general use area, and we need to have that capability as a community to grow. We’re losing people. We’re not growing. We’re expected to lose a lot of people out of the state of Alaska because there’s no businesses here anymore. They’re leaving. It’s kind of frightening. And as long as we just keep throwing houses in the middle of – that’s why we can’t change it now to industrial because there already are houses out there, in the middle of industrial, so it needs to stay in general use. I’ve already looked at it. You cannot have houses in industrial areas, but if it’s general use, you can.
What does responsible development of the Chilkat Valley look like to you?
Well, just what we’re talking about is planning as much as you can, or working around, like I said, it’s a neighborhood, and you want to be rural residential. Do that, but know that if you’re next to general use areas, it could be a little loud sometimes. If you’re buying in a general use areas, there is going to be construction in there because that’s all we have left. We don’t even have just the few pieces of property that are industrial or light industrial.
I don’t think we even have heavy industrial besides maybe four mile. You know, I don’t know. I’m not sure that even is anymore. And you have to have some. You’ve got to have people that are running equipment, plowing our roads, building our roads, fixing our roads, those machines are noisy. They’re loud. They haul gravel. They tear up roads. We need that. We need to. We need to be able to fix our roads.
You know one one other sort of thing that came up I thought at a kind of contentious in a kind of contentious way at the planning commission level in the last year was the you know development and expansion of a 5G network locally and I’m curious when you’re thinking about you know kind of that tension between neighbors, like what goes up on your neighbor’s property and how it impacts you, and what they should be able to develop, like how do you think about? And actually, you know, as I’m asking that question, I remember that I read a public notice at one point because wasn’t your property being considered for a 5G tower?
We actually have a permit.
You did get all the way through the permit. So is there a new tower?
I don’t know the status because it’s actually in my son’s and my nephew’s name, and I haven’t heard anything yet.
How do you think about? You know, it seemed like maybe did you have any neighbors that were sort of upset?
One person called me. Yeah, at work.
They called you at work. It’s very Haines. So, so how do you sort of, yeah, how do you think about that? When it comes to some people in town having really strong feelings about you know the potential health impacts, and it seemed like it was sort of, it sort of crossed political lines too.
It did very much. So, I lived in Tucson for 15 years. Cell towers right next door. I don’t know. I don’t know if there were any side effects. I think my whole side effect of being in downtown areas was the side effect. I don’t know if there was anything coming from that tower, but I see it. Everybody has a phone. Everybody has a cell phone. I think I know one person that doesn’t. One person in all of Haines that I know of. Maybe two, two people have no cell phone. That’s a lot of people, and I see a lot of people complaining. No service, no service. I’m one. I complain sometimes because I can’t get my phone to work. I use a lot for work, so taking pictures and sending pictures and that type of thing. It’s really hard to do when there’s a cruise ship in town, you know when there’s so much going on. So, I get that side.
I also understand the feeling of people being that [they] have side effects from cell towers. I’m not saying they don’t. I’m not saying that I didn’t. I’m just saying I don’t, I don’t know. And I’m not worried. I guess I feel it’s safe to be able to get a hold of somebody when you’re in the middle of nowhere, because you have service, if you need help, there’s a lot of people that come play up by my house, way up into the mountains, hunt. There’s a lot of things that can happen. Even myself out getting firewood for some reason I don’t have much service from Klukwan at my house, but not very far from my house where I’m getting firewood, I have great service. So it’s that’s what I’m trying to say is like that’s when I have my phone on me, and if something happened, I would be able to text for help at least to get help.
So I I feel it as a safety issue. It’s hard to call when you don’t have a service. If you’re stuck in a snowstorm between here and 40 Mile, and you can’t get there, can’t call for help. That’s kind of scary, but if there’s a tower and you can call for help, somebody’s going to come help you. So I I’m more siding with the safety part of the cell service.
If you were elected and an issue like that came up where you felt like this kind of development seems fine, but maybe you heard from a lot of constituents that they weren’t okay with it. Like, how do you think you have to balance? How would you balance constituent feedback with your own personal feelings about the matter?
You would have to listen to everybody, and I’m not. I’m not promoting cell towers all over town. Trust me, I think they’re ugly. That’s not what I’m promoting. I’m promoting one tower on my property that would cover a huge part of the highway very well. You know, and upper up past my property, even down towards Mosquito Lake, it’s a perfect location actually for a big large area. I don’t think I want to see cell towers everywhere. I’m not. That’s not what I would ever promote, even for safety, but strategically planned areas where they can reach a large amount of people. Then I think it’s a good safety issue.
I wish Tony would have had a cell phone on her. It would have been probably a lot easier for her to call for help where she was at. The resident who was attacked by her recently, then having to walk all the way home.
I think I was more asking one thing that I’m pretty struck by as a journalist is how often when we have like, you know, community members volunteering or getting elected onto boards, you run into these issues where maybe you don’t think a thing is a big deal, but a bunch of people do, or maybe you do think it’s something’s a big deal, and no one else seems to care about it. And it seems like we have these conflicts sometimes where you kind of have to separate yourself from your own personal feelings on something in order to serve the community. And I’m curious how you feel like you would navigate that.
I’m going to tell you the first time GCI is meeting, the very first one that came to town. They said there’s fuel. There were crickets. There was nobody saying anything, and I know how people feel. I know how people, some people feel very, very strongly, and so I spoke up about it on their behalf because I know how they feel about it, you know. Like, why can’t you guys share towers, or why do we have to have so many towers from so many different people from so many different companies? Why can’t you guys share a couple towers here and there?
I was trying to like what I’ve just been saying: a couple towers to make it worthwhile for everybody’s benefit, but not to have so many towers that it’s scary and harmful to everybody.
If it is, you know, which I believe there’s people that swear that it’s bothered them, and I believe that to be true to them.
So I don’t want to see Hanes with cell towers on every block. You know that’s not what I want to see, and I feel there’s more of a majority of the Haines people that feel a couple is okay as long as you’re not killing people with all these rays going everywhere, you know, just a few for safety. You have to find a middle ground. You can’t just listen to one group and not the other. You got to listen to both and come to a middle ground, or we’ll never get anything done in Haines to be honest.
Because everybody has their own opinion and everybody has their own feelings, and you have to take it all in, in all in. And I feel the middle ground is a couple towers strategically, you know, placed than having none, where you don’t have any service, or thousands or hundreds all over the place. You know, there’s. We are so extreme. This town is. Everybody wants to have it all their one way, but if you can’t, you have to compromise some. Everybody does. That’s that’s life.
I’ve heard from candidates from pretty much every seat in town that sometimes that extremism in Haines is really wearing on them. That you know, I was just hearing this weekend from some folks who were saying like. It’s hard to grow up in a place and then serve in public office, and then suddenly some people that you’ve known your whole life don’t talk to you anymore, or you know people are coming after you in the grocery store when you’re trying to eat at a restaurant, you know. And I’m curious now that the planning commission is an elected body, so people maybe feel a little bit more entitled to share their opinion about that seat they voted for. I’m curious how you navigate conflict and how you think you’ll navigate that side of Haines that has real big feelings about a lot of the stuff that you’re going to be dealing with.
I’ve already seen it, just from my speaking my opinion at the assembly meetings, I’ve already felt it. I’ve already been approached, not even on planning. And you just basically have to say, “I can’t talk here. You know, I’m at my work. I’d love to talk to you somewhere else.
People come to you at the grocery store and try to talk to you about while you’re working?
Yes, and so I already know, I’m already aware. And I do most of my shopping at Mountain Markets, so I don’t run into people very much. I haven’t had that problem, but I have seen people that used to be friendly with me just because of my feelings on the Lutak Dock, it’s like “okay.” Or my feelings on nonprofits. I’m not a big nonprofit person. I feel if the cities, if the community is going to support it, then they should be there. If the community doesn’t support them, then why should we be using taxpayer money? And that hurt a lot of people’s feelings too. But that’s my personal belief. It’s not, not anything other than that. You know, I mean, and that hurt a lot of people’s feelings. And I’m sorry they feel that way, and I get when you’re on a public [forum], you have to listen to everybody and and take that all in. But that’s why I said you have to find a middle ground. You have to somewhere, somehow, some way for it to work. You can’t be one-sided.
And I think you know one of my last questions is like, can you tell me about how you approach that conflict with a coworker or a friend? Like, how do you resolve those things?
It has to be in the right setting, and if it needs to be without tensions being high, it needs to be even if it’s the next day, and then a one-on-one talking, and just talk, talk it out. If it’s a really extreme situation, then you need to, just it needs to be … you need to wait, calm down, then speak and talk it out. If you don’t talk, it’s not going to ever go away. It’s always going to be there.
I’ve heard from some other folks. In fact, it’s like former planners, people who are currently on it, on the commission, and that you know maybe when they got elected, they had some bigger ideas about shaping the future of Haines, and then when they got on the commission, they realized that so much of it is like permit, permit, permit… I’m curious, which of those types of work you’re interested in doing, and if you do have a bigger vision for the future of the community that you’d like to share?
I think making the general use area all rural residential is going to bring more of that kind of work to the planning commission,
More permits?
Yeah, because you gotta have a permit for everything, you know. And I think planning it out, like I said, if there’s already industry there, leave it. And if you have to leave it rural or general use because there’s houses nearby, then leave it general use. Let’s not complicate it and make it harder for people to do their business. The worst thing that we can do is to cripple the people that already have businesses here, and you’ll never get more if you cripple those areas, if you tie their hands, if you make it where we have to spend more more money on more people at the borough office to do all these permits, more time for the planning commission to just go through permits instead of trying to plan out those areas. You know, if you do too much government, it’s going to cost everybody more money and more time.
Is that sort of the big issue for you this election? Is this potential of rezoning?
Yes, it’s huge for me. I don’t want to feel tied to anything right now because I live on homestead property, it’s family property. I’m not going to be there forever. I don’t want to tell my kids, “Oh, you can only build houses here. I don’t want to tell my kids, “You can’t build any houses here.” You know what I mean? I want to. I want them to be able to do what they want because it’s it’s family-owned property, and they should be able to inherit what and do with what they want. I don’t want to tie their hands. I don’t want them to. I don’t want to tie their hands.
Okay. Any other big issues that are on your mind when it comes to the planning commission and what you would like to do if you’re elected?
Just follow the code. I just want to follow the code and get into the code. And if the code’s wrong, if it’s too messed up, then we take it to the code review. Don’t make decisions if you can’t. If there’s conflicting codes, take it to the code review first. Even if it takes longer than trying to make a decision on what could be wrong. That’s what I would like to see with the planning commission. I know the code is messed up. I’ve heard it over and over and over again from a lot of people, and so don’t keep making decisions on the wrong codes. Fix the codes. We have we have a code committee. That’s what they’re supposed to
Rashah Mcchesney 41:52
do. Do you feel like you have a pretty good relationship with staff at the borough, or being able to work with staff? I think so.
Kimberly Rosado 41:57
I think so. I’ve gotten there pretty upset, but they, you know, they take it they take it well. They’re they’re strong strong people, but they know me by name. I know them by name, and I enjoy almost it. I mean everybody in there, I really do. Chen, they’re all very friendly, and and I have to go in and apologize sometimes. I’m really sorry. I was so upset because I can go in there heated. I I’m a very emotional person, and I can get I because I care about this community. I strongly care about this community. I don’t want to see families leave. My family’s left. They’re not going to come back any time in the near future. I’ll be. I’ll hopefully my grandkids will come and take the property, and that’s why I don’t want to tie their hands, and I don’t want. I don’t want to see other families leave. It breaks my heart when I see 20 kids leaving the school, moving out of town. That’s not helping our community. I want to. I want to make changes where it brings people back, and people stay. I think it’s very important. You can’t grow a community that’s Dying.
Okay, Kim. Anything else you think is important for people to know about you?
I think I love Haines. I I think it’s a beautiful place, but it’s heartbreaking when when you’re when you can’t when you can’t when you see people leave as often as I’ve seen in the last 10 years that I’ve been here lately, my whole family’s gone, and we had at 13 families living on my piece of property in three different structures, and it’s now it’s just me, and we just need to change. We need to communicate. We need to talk. People that are willing to come together, make plans together on both sides, or or it’s not going to work.
Okay
We all have strong feelings, but we need to come together.
Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.