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Hayden town staff used a public letter this month to plead with elected officials to more forcefully defend them from what they describe as escalating harassment, social media attacks and a “hostile environment” tied to contentious development decisions.
At the Hayden Town Council’s March 5 meeting, Council member Trevor Gann read aloud a letter drafted by a longtime staff member and signed off on by nine total staffers across departments and seniority levels.
The Hayden letter and the responses from regional managers sketch a picture of small-town governments wrestling with growth, long-standing development decisions and the sharper edge of modern civic debate — and of staff asking their elected officials, and their neighbors, for a clearer show of support.
The author of the letter, who Gann referred to as a Hayden High School graduate who has worked for the town for years, wrote as both a staffer and a resident.
“As staff, we are directed to follow codes that have been adopted by our town council,” stated the letter. “In recent years, annexations, land use codes and ordinances in the past have become quite unpopular with a seemingly small but aggressive group of community members.”
The staff member wrote that this backlash has created “an uncomfortable sense of alienation” for some employees and their families, making it hard to come to work and even to show up at community events.
Staff are carrying out the direction set by council, the author added, while absorbing “extreme criticism” from residents, including seeing their work “scrutinized and bashed on social media.”
“I fear we will lose dedicated staff over the silence of the elected officials on this matter,” wrote the staffer. “Some staff members as well as volunteer board members feel not only uncomfortable but scared for themselves, their families and their reputations.”
“The town of Hayden staff are asked to do a lot, which has been accepted because we are all working towards a common goal of supporting a place we love,” the letter continued. “Staff are not only spending their working hours but also their own personal time for the work they do, and it’s becoming too much.”
“The community I grew up in is not the community I live in now, and that is okay,” stated the letter, which credits “vision, change and growth” with bringing new services for youth and adults that were not available in their childhood.
Those services, the letter argued, are “only available due to vision, change and growth,” and rest on long-running council decisions about annexations and development.
The letter ends with a direct ask: that town staff “be defended openly and publicly.”
The writer argued that community members “should not be allowed to continue to openly criticize staff in public settings where staff is not allowed to defend themselves, not only in person but also social media.”
Livestreamed meetings, they contended, “do not protect staff members” but instead “create a hostile environment and target staff unfairly.”
Attached to the letter were a list of annexations and land-use code adoptions implemented in Hayden over the past century-plus.
Gann then walked through several of the development decisions on the list, noting the oldest was approved in 1908 for what is now the West Hayden town site, 3rd Street Park and Hayden Valley Schools.
He pointed to a 1966 annexation for Yampa Valley Regional Airport and noted the only annexation the current council has taken part in was the 2022 Northwest Colorado Business Park.
In closing, Gann said that council “stands in solidarity with staff.”
Council members, mayor react
Council member Camilla Haight called it “disappointing to know that we have members of the community that aren’t acting in the spirit of what Hayden is,” to the point that volunteers have stepped down from commissions rather than endure harassment.
Haight said she worries about the “constant calling, constant questioning” staff may be facing out of public view, and argued that council and employees need permission to set firmer boundaries when the same questions and grievances are repeatedly raised.
“The reason these things are rearing their ugly heads are because people are personally impacted and now they’re pissed about it,” she continued. “That doesn’t mean that the town of Hayden and the staff of Hayden deserve to be harassed over it.”
Mayor Ryan Banks said the staff letter echoed a theme he has heard repeatedly: that Hayden has changed.
“A three-story building or a high-density residential complex or whatever — that doesn’t in my opinion change Hayden,” Banks said. “I think what’s changed, though, is we have changed as people.”
Banks said that residents share responsibility for re-creating and fostering a “sense of community.” He challenged residents to “harness that and take a personal responsibility to make Hayden the community you want it to be.”
“I also challenge everybody in our community: run for office. Be engaged. Be on a commission,” said Banks. “Do something to be engaged in this town for change, rather than just voicing your opinion and complaining.”
Banks noted that most council members and many commissioners juggle public service with full-time jobs and young families, and said low interest in running for office has left him and others unopposed.
“That’s a problem,” he said, adding that it remains difficult to recruit for the planning commission, development commission and other boards.
Banks also used the moment to highlight what he sees as concrete benefits town staff have helped bring to Hayden through grant funding, from the Hayden Center to sidewalks, parks, the Poplar Street Bridge project, the Northwest Colorado Business Park and new affordable housing.
He said those projects would not exist without staff and town leaders pursuing federal and state grants and then managing the work. Basic services like safe drinking water and functioning sewer systems, he added, also depend on “really good people that make living here possible.”
In a statement to the newspaper, Hayden Town Manager Mathew Mendisco, who did not comment on the letter during council’s discussion, said he would have signed the letter himself had he seen it prior to the meeting.
“While this kind of speech is allowable and considered protected, it does not make it easy to read or even sometimes live in the place that you work so hard to improve on a daily basis,” he said. “Most people talk about how to make the place they live better, our Town staff show up and do it daily.”
Mendisco clarified that not all staff members had the opportunity to read or sign the letter and that it does not necessarily represent the perspective of staff as a whole.
“We the Town staff are thankful and proud of those Council members that stood up for our Town staff and myself,” said Mendisco. “I am personally blessed to work with such amazing individuals at the Town and consider myself lucky to work with such amazing and hard-working individuals. I learn more from them daily than I could possibly imagine.”
Town managers see broader pattern
Both Steamboat Springs City Manager Tom Leeson and Oak Creek Town Administrator Louis Fineberg said that although what Hayden staff describe is not unique, it is nonetheless unacceptable.
In a statement, Leeson said city employees in Steamboat have also been criticized for implementing policies established by elected officials.
That kind of criticism, he said, “is unfair, unproductive, and often hurtful.”
“When conversation shifts from the issues to the individuals implementing policy decisions, it has a negative impact on staff morale and erodes community trust,” said Leeson.
In his view, “comments should focus on the issues, not the people,” and “anything short of civil dialogue should not be tolerated.”
Fineberg said he hasn’t seen the same intensity in Oak Creek that was described in Hayden but that he recognizes the dynamic from past experience.
He called it “a phenomenon where people associate policy with staff actions,” even though in most situations, it’s the elected officials — past and present — who shape local rules.
“You are enforcing the town’s laws, and then you are targeted personally,” he said, adding that he has come to almost accept it as part of the job.
So far, he said, “it’s been pretty smooth sailing in Oak Creek,” but he expects some degree of pushback as the town ramps up code enforcement efforts in the coming months.
