A Fond Farewell and a New Face at Darien Patch

Hi All—

It's with a mixture of excitement and regret that I announce a changing of the guard at Darien Patch.

Starting on Wednesday, David Gurliacci — a Darien resident and founding editor of Norwalk Patch — will be shifting one town west to oversee his hometown site. David is an experienced journalist, and I'm confident that Darien Patch will thrive on his watch. Feel free to drop him an email at david.gurliacci@patch.com as he settles in.

For my part, I'll be making the jump down to Maryland to run our sister site in Riverdale Park-University Park. As you may know from my editor's bio, I'm a Baltimore native, and Patch's network has given me the chance to move a bit closer to my lovely girlfriend, family, and friends in the region.

While I'm looking forward to being a stone's throw from home, I'm going to miss covering Darien. This is a place full of smart, friendly, fascinating people with a strong tradition of civic engagement and public-spiritedness. Those things make the job of a reporter easier, but more than that, they make it uniquely enjoyable.

From the good ( and a ) to the bad ( and ) to the hotly debated (the facilities shuffle and ) and everything between, it's been a privilege to bring you the news and to get to know many of you in the process. As another Baltimorean once said, it is really the life of kings.

I especially want to thank everyone who's contributed to the site over the past 18 months with tips, submissions, comments, and answers to the countless questions that come up in this line of work — the site could not succeed without your help.

If you have any questions for me — or if you'd just like to say hello — I'll still be reachable during and after the move at johnd@patch.com. I hope to see many of you again before heading south later this week!

Cheers,

John