Fiancée in Hand, Hotline’s Smith Decamps

Hotline toots its own staffer’s horn today, announcing doubly happy news for its senior writer David Smith: a new job and an engagement. Smith, who serves as associate editor of Last Call!, has accepted a job with Knight Ridder’s Palo Alto Daily News to cover politics.

He’ll be moving out to San Francisco, where his fiancée Nell Friar will take a job as a nurse at UCSF Medical Center. Sans apartment, Smith will depart this weekend for sunny Cal-a-for-ni-a. His departure is a big blow to the publication’s dreams of softball glory.

Smith and Friar will be married in October in Carmel, CA, near where Smith’s father was president of California State University-Monterey Bay. As Hotline notes, “This is the 1st marriage for both, as far as they can remember.”

4 P.M. UPDATE: Smith’s final note to his dedicated fans in the Last Call!:

“It’s not you; it’s me. It’s something I’m going through. I’m just at a point in my life that I need some space so that I can figure some things out. I hope we can still be friends — we’ll talk everyday, kind of. I miss you already.” — Dave.

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