What happened to my ELMHURST Patch?

Dear Patch Decision-Makers/Higher-Ups:

What happened to my Elmhurst Patch?  I realize that the Elmhurst Patch website is still up and running, and that stories continue to be pushed out to the Elmhurst Patch Facebook page, but there's been some noticeable changes in content over the last month or so.  How come I don't see Elmhurst Patch editor Karen Chadra's name attached to stories anymore?  Why has news from surrounding communities seemingly replaced Elmhurst news in the ELMHURST Patch?  Where are the obituaries and weekly Police & Fire reports?  Has no one in Elmhurst died over the last five or six weeks?  Has retail theft at Kohl's and Kmart come to a complete standstill?

I actually know the answers to most of my questions, as my Facebook friend and information source (let's just call her "K.C.") has informed me that you've been sold, and that budget cuts have forced you to lay off numerous town editors (including our Elmhurst editor) and consolidate the news from nearby towns.  But I'd love to get an explanation from you, directly.  Three emails to three different Patch addresses have resulted in zero answers.

Karen's tenacity and genuine interest in the city of Elmhurst are sorely missed by readers.  I know it's not just me, because I read the comments in Patch stories.  Personally, I loved how she ran the Patch's Facebook page:  Local headlines mixed in with posts on traffic accidents around town, power-loss issues, etc.  There was a personality attached to everything she did.  In addition to her professional coverage of news, she would post things like "Send us your snow photos!" and "Trick-or-treat hours are 3:30-7:30 p.m.  Rain schmain!"  She was the online ambassador to Elmhurst.

But now the webpage and Facebook page are filled with stories from Glen Ellyn, Downers Grove, and other towns.  There are still Elmhurst stories mixed in, but, to be honest, I don't care if Mariano's is hosting a job fair in Western Springs, or if the Wheaton police have arrested a Lisle man on porn charges.  I want Elmhurst news.  That's why I'm reading the Elmhurst Patch. 

My frustration with your new style of aggregating news from surrounding towns reached its apex with this February 26th headline:  "Couple Had Sex in Cab, Charged Wild Ride to Mom's Credit Card".  I thought I had just stumbled upon the Holy Grail of Elmhurst Police Reports!  My excitement to read the tantalizing details in the story was surpassed only by the hope that I actually might know one of the, ummm...."offenders" (?).  But what a big letdown.  This was a Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Patch story, copied into the Elmhurst Patch.  Crap! 

And then the very same day, you offered this "local" dandy:  "Fat Tuesday is next week:  Where is your favorite place to get a paczki?"  I thought:  Ah, paczkis!  I wonder how many choices I have to get them in Elmhurst?  But alas, the article only listed places in Plainfield, Downers Grove, Naperville, Bolingbrook, Joliet, Orland Park and Chicago.  It took a reader to comment that Courageous Bakery right here in town was selling the Polish treat (and that Kuppies in Villa Park was doing the same).  I mean, I enjoy a paczki just as much as the next guy, but I'm not driving out to frickin' Naperville to get one.  Does the person or persons now running the Elmhurst Patch know anything about what's going on in Elmhurst?

Even when your current editors are doing a story about something in town, the results have often been incomplete and rather awkward.  This whole business with the mystery "silver graffiti word" being written on things around town is something I'd expect to read in the Churchville Charger Junior High School Newsletter.  And please, lose those juvenile phrases like "Silver Scribbler" and "Marker Mayhem".   

Yeah, I know that if Karen were editor, the scribblings would still be a mystery, and that the police would continue being secretive about what's being written.  But the presentation would be a lot different, and Karen would at least acknowledge that the information being given by police is jacked-up.  And there's no way this headline and accompanying "story" would appear in the Elmhurst Patch if she were still on the job:  "Elmhurst Police Report Missing Endangered Woman....And Release No Information to Help Find Her".

Ridiculous.  

My complaint to you, Patch Decision-Makers and Higher-Ups, is less about the quality of work being done by the current editors, and more about the lack Elmhurst news.  I can only assume that the workload of editors left over from your company's purging and/or downsizing has doubled or tripled, as they now have to cover their own town's Patch AND help fill the pages of other Patch towns.  But you are losing readers quickly, I assure you.  So I hope you have a plan that's better than what is currently being offered.

Sincerely,

Dave Noble
Elmhurst Resident
Occasional Patch Blogger
President of the "We Miss Karen Chadra" fan club