After this week's issue went to bed earlier today, the staff of CityBeat was told that founding editor Steve Appleford is being replaced by Steve Lowery, who starts Monday. This follows not long after LA Weekly founder Jay Levin began consulting for owner Southland Publishing on CityBeat. [His gig ended a month or so ago, but Michael Sigman, a former Weekly publisher who has consulted for the District Weekly in Long Beach, is still around.] Appleford, a former news editor of the old L.A. Reader who also writes about music for the L.A. Times and Rolling Stone, helped launch CityBeat (and ValleyBeat) in mid-2003. He's the rare local editor-in-chief who gets out of the office a lot and even takes photos for the paper, including the cover on his final issue. His other writing credits include GQ, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide and LA Weekly — he began as an editorial assistant at the Daily News. Lowery left as interim editor of the OC Weekly last spring to follow many of his former colleagues to the District Weekly, where he holds the title of senior editor. Lowery also has been a sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times and The National Sports Daily, and has written for the Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram and New Times Los Angeles.

Edited with more info