Clint Reilly, the San Francisco developer and former political consultant who sued to stop Hearst and MediaNews from joining forces in the Bay Area, is now praising MediaNews for adding community members to its editorial boards.

Reilly offered the praise this morning in his ad that runs every week in the MediaNews papers. The free ad was one of the concessions Reilly got when he settled his antitrust lawsuit against the newspaper companies.

Originally the April 2007 settlement called for Reilly to get a seat on the editorial boards of the MediaNews dailies, which hasn’t happened. The settlement also said he could recommend one member for the editorial boards of each of the chain’s other Bay Area papers.

Reilly’s ad didn’t say whether the citizens who were appointed to the editorial boards were people he recommended. But the ad said that the “experiment” of adding community members to these boards is being directed by Frank Holland, “a UC Berkeley-educated policy specialist and editor experienced in both traditional and new media. Holland liaises between these capable citizens and the editorial staffs of each newspaper and provides support through research, community outreach and advanced communications.”

The text of his ad appears on Frank Russo’s California Progress Report blog.