Heather Swaim atop the publication's leadership tells LBReport.com today shortly before 11 a.m.:

This is a very sad time for me and it looks like we're closing the paper but I am open to anything can happen.

And I love this paper and I have always loved what it meant to the community. I love alternative journalism and the paper has been important to me in what it represents. Long Beach is a tight community and it feels like the paper truly represents that. It was a community service.

All I have left to say for today, because there's so much for me to do...is that I love the people that I work. It is [voice catches, long pause] it's just a really talented group of people who I've loved working with, and if the paper closes I will miss them dearly...

[Further update] Editor Ellen Griley emails:

No final issue. Today's is our last one. Jerry Westlund to an angelic lawn bowler.

TheDistrictWeekly.com launched almost three years ago with an impressive, colorful, brash and bold print edition and a companion website. It featured Senior Senior Editors Dave Wielenga and Theo Douglas (both former Press-Telegram and OC Weekly alumni) among several talented writers working under publisher/founder Will Swaim (of OCWeekly fame).

The publication brought Long Beach laser sharp writing and no-sacred-cow coverage that produced kudos from news consumers...and unease [an understatement] in some establishment circles.

From the start, TheDistrictWeekly.com covered Long Beach as a big city and treated readers as grown-ups, delivering straight-up coverage of news, arts, entertainment, music and food without boosterism.

For this, it received reader plaudits and at least one costly advertiser boycott.

As one indication of our respect for TheDistrictWeekly, LBReport.com has for years prominently cross-linked to its stories (and they cross-linked to ours).

Further as it develops on LBReport.com.