You might remember when The Gazette announced it was cutting staff through attrition — offering buyouts to seasoned full-time editorial staff to reduce it by about 20 people. The good news is that the generous offer worked, and enough people took advantage of it that there won’t be any layoffs.

The bad news is that the paper is losing a lot of seasoned staff, including some well-known columnists.

Jack Todd is the most visible of those names. He writes his goodbye column in the New Year’s Eve edition of his rapid-fire-judgment and grammatically-challenged Monday Morning Quarterback column. He’ll be leaving on Jan. 11 to “concentrate on writing fiction.” Though he won’t be a full-time staffer anymore, he’s expected to stick around doing freelance, and will start a “very different and more serious Monday sports column.”

Other columnists departing the paper within the next few weeks include:

• Julian Armstrong, food editor
• Lisa Fitterman, lifestyles columnist (a coincidental departure — she’s been freelance since taking an earlier buyout years ago) also put out a goodbye column this week
• Mary Lamey, business writer and Homefront columnist
• Donna Nebenzahl, lifestyles writer and Working columnist
• Matt Radz, theatre critic

The paper is also losing copy editors, writers, support staff and section managers. It’s unclear how many of them will continue writing freelance and how many will cut ties completely. But at least they all left of their own accord.