The Palo Alto Daily News today laid off five newsroom employees and one graphics department worker. The free daily will also eliminate its Monday edition in Palo Alto and its Tuesday edition in San Mateo County. (The Daily News cut its Monday edition in San Mateo County two years ago. The Palo Alto paper has printed seven days a week since 2003.)

The Daily News had a newsroom of about 20 before today’s cuts, so the layoffs will eliminate a quarter of its staff.

Earlier this month the Daily News won 17 Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards from the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club.

Employees were told about the cuts today in a 4:30 p.m. meeting at the paper’s offices in Menlo Park. In May, the paper moved from Palo Alto to Menlo Park.

The Monday edition of the Palo Alto Daily News had shrunk to 28 pages in the past few weeks. In May 2005, Monday editions ranged from 52 to 64 pages.

The Daily News is owned by the MediaNews Group’s California Newspapers Partnership, which also owns the Mercury News. The Merc cut at least 17 people this week (see item below).

Full disclosure: Dave Price, the Press Club’s Web master, co-founded the Daily News in 1995 and sold it to Knight Ridder in 2005. He now edits and owns the Daily Post, which competes with the Daily News.