A story posted on the Daily News website quotes longtime City Hall reporter Rick Orlov and attorney David Fleming, who joined with the Daily News to help bankroll the Valley secession drive and who was the subject of flattering coverage in the paper.

Longtime Los Angeles Daily News Editor Ron Kaye resigned his position at the paper this afternoon, the newspaper's publisher announced.

Kaye joined the Daily News in 1985 as an assistant city editor. He became managing editor at the newspaper in 1993 and was named editor in 2005....

Over the years, Kaye became the public face of the Daily News, and his bombastic personality and scathing criticism of Los Angeles City Hall shaped the editorial pages of the paper.

"A lot of political figures thought Ron was being unfair or hard on them," said Rick Orlov, longtime Daily News political columnist.

"What he was trying to do was make them look at what they're doing and how it was affecting the middle-class and working-class families of the San Fernando Valley."

David Fleming, an attorney and longtime San Fernando Valley activist, said Kaye will be hard to replace.

"If the Valley ever had a credible cheerleader it was Ron Kaye," said Fleming, who led the effort for the Valley to secede from the city of Los Angeles.

"He had so much to do, politically, with the success of the Valley. So often he took on government, called a spade a spade ... because of that he caused a lot of change in City Hall and the Board of Supervisors."

Earlier today: Ron Kaye's farewell email