I visit patch pretty often and actually had no idea they were owned by AOL. While it often misses activity going on in my area (Brooklyn, NY) it's still one of the easier ways of finding out what's going on nearby. I check Police & Fire a couple times a week since it's a high crime area and the local editor does a decent job of summarizing the things I'd miss otherwise.

Edit: I don't actually navigate the site much, instead I just visit area.patch.com/ and the rest is easy to find.