This letter to the editor was submitted by Cristin Hofhine of Moab.
I was not removed for failing. I was removed for excelling in the wrong room.
For months, I kept the wheels of the planning department from rusting into stillness. I shouldered two collapsing departments, absorbed crisis after crisis, and still delivered with clarity, consistency, and care. Staff reports were written. Public hearings prepared. Applicants guided. The public’s trust protected.
I did what leaders are supposed to do. I held the line. And for that, I was punished.
This county remembers women who perform too well. We are summoned when the house is burning, handed the bucket, and discarded once the flames are out. We are expected to fix the failures and carry the load, then vanish so fragile leadership can resume its rituals of self-preservation.
My removal is not the story. It is the symptom.
The story is a leadership culture that confuses authority with expertise and optics with service. Leadership that cannot bear women who refuse to shrink for comfort’s sake. Leadership that mistakes political theater for governance and insecurity for strength.
High-performing women here do not stumble on their own. We are tripped deliberately by those who would rather erase us than stand beside us. We are not dismissed because we lack value. We are dismissed because our value exposes the incompetence of those in charge.
This is not just my loss. It is a loss to the public.
When dedication is punished, it sends a message to every public servant: loyalty will not protect you, and excellence will not save you. The cost is not only personal, it is systemic. It hollows out institutions until only fear and mediocrity remain.
I do not measure myself by the whims of those who pushed me aside, but by the trust of this community and by the work that endures. That trust is my compass. That work is my record. Political maneuvering cannot erase either.
The question is not whether I will continue to serve. I will, in whatever ways remain open. The question is how long Grand County will tolerate leaders who treat competence as a threat and women as disposable.
Because leadership is not meant to protect the powerful from embarrassment. It is meant to protect the people from failure. And when those in power cannot rise to that task, they should step aside for those who can.
Cristin Hofhine
Moab
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