In 2008, during the height of the economic downturn, the position of managing editor at LAT regional newspaper The Daily Pilot was eliminated. Today, in a very hopeful sign, that Times Community News (TCN) slot is being returned to the masthead.

Appointed to the position is 34-year-old Alisha Gomez (pictured). She started out with TCN in 2011 as a contract employee; moved to full-time in July 2012; and now occupies an impressive expanded perch. From this afternoon’s announcement:

Gomez will help oversee the staff of 24 that produces the Daily Pilot, Coastline Pilot and Huntington Beach Independent, which have a combined print circulation of 137,000. She previously served as managing editor of the Huntington Beach Independent and the Coastline Pilot and, on June 3, will add the Daily Pilot to her duties as part of a planned newsroom reorganization.

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Last summer, as part of her occasional “From Canyon To Cove” column updates about her fight with cancer, Coastline Pilot city editor Cindy Frazier relayed an encouraging diagnosis and the “rare sight” of a smile from her oncologist. Sadly, her pancreatic cancer persisted and on Wednesday, at age 60, she passed away after a valiant battle.

Despite her weakening condition, Frazier insisted on making the superhuman effort to take part in a reading at this spring’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Alisha Gomez, who stepped in as interim city editor, will continue in that capacity until a permanent replacement is found:

“Cindy was fiercely loyal to Laguna Beach,” said John Canalis, who supervised Cindy as editor of Times Community News South. “She championed her staff, freelancers and columnists, and took great pride in serving as a community editor. Our entire staff is grieving…”

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A trio of female journalists have received promotions at Times Community News (TCN) South.

Kelly Parker, city editor for the Coastline Pilot, is now the web editor. As such, she will oversee the online operations and social media efforts of not just the Pilot but also those of LA Times subsidiary regional publications the The Daily Pilot, Huntington Beach Independent and OC Now.

At her side as new assistant web editor for TCN South will be Joanna Clay. The UC Irvine grad joined the Coastline Pilot in 2010 as an intern and freelancer, and was hired on full-time a year later. Clay will continue to report for the Laguna Beach-focused publication.

TCN South editor John Canalis also revealed yesterday that freelance copy editor Alisha Gomez will serve as the interim city editor at the Coastline Pilot. She was previously the managing editor of the Orange County Business Journal. Congrats to all.

The Daily Pilot, Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader and the other newspapers in the Times Community News division won’t be affected by the March 5 paywall that was announced last week.

“Readers looking for news about Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Irvine will not notice any changes at DailyPilot.com,” John Canalis, editor of Times Community News, South, said on DailyPilot.com. “They will still be able to access our proprietary content for free on our website as well as on Facebook and Twitter.”

Makes sense for the LAT not to put their community newspapers behind the paywall with the growing number of local web news resources (Patch) on the rise.