Assembly narrows rehearing of Campbell heliport permit to video‑related evidence after split votes

The Haines Borough Assembly voted March 10 to rehear portions of the planning commission’s conditional‑use permit decision for a proposed Campbell heliport, but limited the review to evidentiary criteria tied to a video that some planning commissioners cited.

Borough Manager Fullerton told the assembly she filed an appeal after finding “procedural anomalies which resulted in a lack of due process to the appellant,” saying the planning commission had considered material that was not available to the appellant or the public. “There were planning commissioners … that counted on information that was before them but was not provided to the appellant,” Fullerton said during the meeting.

The dais first considered a motion to rehear the entire planning commission decision; that motion was recorded at the meeting as passing on an initial roll call, 3‑2. Members then debated and adopted an amendment to limit the rehearing to criteria affected by the video and other evidentiary matters; the narrowed motion passed unanimously, 5‑0. The clerk said the rehearing of the video‑related criteria will be placed on the assembly’s next meeting agenda under the borough’s code.

Campbell, the property owner and appellant, urged the assembly to rehear the entire matter, alleging bias among commissioners and missing records in the planning packet. “We as the public deserve to have a non bias,” he told the assembly, and he asserted that several of the planning criteria implicate federal aviation law and therefore are not reviewable by the borough.

The borough’s attorney, Charles, cautioned the assembly on process. He said the body must first determine whether the evidentiary issue actually occurred and whether the appellant met the burden of proof. “Your first step is to determine whether the appellant has met their burden of proof,” Charles said, and warned that if the assembly declined to hear a valid evidentiary claim the Campbells might appeal to the superior court.

Later in the meeting, after hearing Mr. Campbell’s remarks, the assembly took a separate motion to rehear the Campbell appeal in full; that motion failed on a roll call vote (recorded as 3‑2 against rehearing the appeal in its entirety).

What happens next: the assembly will place the rehearing of the narrow evidentiary issues on its next agenda and will revisit the planning record and the contested video evidence. The attorney’s remarks indicate a factual finding about whether the referenced video was part of the record will be central to the rehearing. No settlement or final alteration of the permit was made at the March 10 meeting.

— Reporting from the March 10, 2026 Haines Borough Assembly meeting.