Thanks for the advice. I bought the Park CCP-44 crank puller which worked really well, although I think my LBS over torqued everything, I had to just about stand on it to get it to budge. It’s possible that they didn’t put any grease on the splines prior to assembly. I then had to get the BBT-22 (bottom bracket tool) to remove the chainring from the crank arm.
After all that – SUCCESS!! I now have a new, smaller chainring. Now I just need to remove a couple chain links. I’m sure there’s a tool for that (I already have master link pliers and a chain breaker).
(Apologies if this came across like a Park Tool commercial.)