City Manager T.C. Broadnax this month released a new organizational chart for Dallas City Hall. It now needs to be updated.

Raquel Favela, the city’s chief of economic development and neighborhood services, has resigned. This would not appear to be good news. Favela participated in our urbanism symposium last month. It was disturbing to learn what a mess her department was when she took over. Hearing her talk about what she was doing to fix things, I was glad she was working for the city.

Below is the text of her resignation letter, which is dated August 20. The actual letter runs to three pages and details some of those things she was doing to right the ship of economic development in Dallas. At the end of the letter, by way of explaining why she is quitting, she refers vaguely to having a “chance to do this on a national platform.”

Reached by phone, she declined to be much more specific, only saying that she is evaluating more than one opportunity. “There are opportunities that keep me close to Dallas, and there are those that take me significantly farther away,” she said. “I’m still evaluating. But it’s time.”

Favela said that she told Broadnax when she accepted the job here that she’d have a shelf life. “I always told the city manager that I would come do this for one, maybe two years, that I would help with transition management on issues that he knew that he had. I think most of those things are at a point where someone who stays here permanently needs to own the decisions.” She said she talked to Broadnax this morning. “He had very few words. He didn’t say much. He’s going to meet with my executives sometime today.”

Above all, she said she looks forward to catching her breath. “It was a huge sacrifice for me and my family to come do this,” she said. “So I’m personally vested in seeing what happens in Dallas.”