It was news last year when Mayor Hahn's top communications adviser and campaign manager Matt Middlebrook left the City Hall staff for a VP position at Fleishman-Hillard in San Francisco. He was a close confidante of Doug Dowie, who ran the Fleishman office in Los Angeles, and Middlebrook assured associates that he would be involved in L.A. affairs, including Fleishman's controversial $3 million-a-year contract with the city DWP. Now, reports Patrick McGreevy in today's Times, Middlebrook is leaving Fleishman to be government relations manager with Caruso Affiliated Holdings, the company headed by Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso. With Dowie's future status at the firm unclear, it's perhaps a logical time for Middlebrook to leave. He told the Times, however, that his decision to leave is unrelated to turmoil at Fleishman.

Also: Rick Orlov's Monday column in the Daily News says that a site called Mayor Sam's Sister City is the best so far of the anonymous City Hall blogs that popped up to fill the shoes of the Fourth Floor.