When the Taylor family hired me as the next editor of The Times-Independent back in the summer of 2018, I thought I would work a few days a week and spend most of my time hiking some of the world’s most dramatic and beautiful landscapes.
That’s the real reason I took the job.
I envisioned working about 35 hours a week, reasoning that would be all it would take to put a newspaper to bed once a week. That would leave me about 77 hours each week to explore after subtracting work and sleep time — as if I have ever averaged anything close to 8 hours of sleep at any point in my life.
What I soon learned is that Moab’s natural beauty isn’t its only unique characteristic. The community of Moab and Greater Grand County is also like no place on Earth. People here are more engaged politically and socially. We’re also smarter, more noble and better looking than people anywhere else on the planet, but that’s a different topic.
Moab is what we in the reporter profession call a “newsy town.” We have two local governments, a school district, myriad special service districts and advisory boards that keep reporters hopping.
We have annual events and one-time gatherings. We show up for protests. We bicker amongst ourselves from time to time and sometimes we fight outright, mostly with words.
All of this leads me to the point of this opinion piece and that is the value of our annual Year in Review. This look back is an asset for a couple of reasons. For all of Moab’s newsiness, the last two weeks of the year shut down tighter than my belt after Thanksgiving dinner. We need to write a year in review just to fill pages with something worth reading.
And, it is worth reading for you and for us.
Because I’m the boss man, I gave myself the easiest assignment. Andrew and Lizzie wrote four months of the year in review and I grabbed the last three. We don’t bother looking back on December.
In editing this year’s look in the rearview mirror, I was, as I always am, struck by just how much work goes into each and every edition. Governments have always been challenged with seemingly intractable problems, mostly the kind that involve a lack of money. The nonpartisan Moab City Council has been able to avoid dirty politics and focus on issues that matter to city residents. We’ve reported the progress made and the setbacks faced.
Grand County, ever since the Utah Legislature forced it to change its form of government from a nonpartisan council to a partisan commission a few years ago, has become mired in the muck and the darker side of politics, the crude and ugly kind, haunts the commission and county employees. While good things are being done on behalf of residents and the employees seem to be mostly competent and caring, too much of our time has been spent on sorting through the county’s dirty laundry.
Voters deserve better from the county and our reporting has made plain why this is so.
The Grand County School Board proved it is anything but transparent when it forced former Superintendent Mike McFalls to take a hike — and not the fun kind — just days after the school year started.
But we can’t focus all of our energy writing about our governments. That’s a recipe for a future diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder for the entire community. And so we seek out stories about real people. The helpers. The doers. The people who show up time after time. And man, Moab has a bunch of folks like that.
We seek out stories about Easter Jeep Safari, the Red Devil mountain biking team, the marathoners and base jumpers and those crazy people who dance on highlines.
We look for new businesses with owners full of hope and dreams. We look for kids who shine in the classroom or in athletics or any other extracurricular activity. We look for residents at Canyonlands Care Center who continue to share their art, their histories, their wisdom.
While looking back can be educational if not nostalgic, it’s more important to look forward.
2026 will be an election year for Grand County. The respective terms of Chair Bill Winfield and Commissioners Mary McGann and Mike McCurdy are up at the end of the year. Sheriff Jamison Wiggins and County Attorney Steven Stocks also conclude their first terms.
I have no idea what the plans of any of them are. Politics is like a slow-moving wood chipper. It tends to rip people to bits over time.
I have questions.
Will tourism bounce back? Will the city get desperately needed funding for flood mitigation projects? Will the county fix its toxic work environment? Will law enforcement finally crack down on red light runners and Main Street jaywalkers without mercy?
Only the future knows.
Happy New Year, Moab.
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