On Wednesday,  in The Brew, Towson Times political reporter Bryan Sears expressed a nuanced view of the AOL-funded hyper-local “Patch” websites coming to the Baltimore suburbs. ”

Sears questioned whether AOL had “the magic ju ju” to survive where other big-bucks hyperlocal experiments had bombed,  hailed the influx of more reporters as a civic good and predicted he would soon be “beating them as often as I can.”

Apparently, he’s decided to join them instead.

Sears announced last night on his Facebook page that it was his last day at the Baltimore Sun-owned Times, after nine years, and that he was joining  . . . Patch.com “to continue covering county government and politics.”