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SUNDAY • APRIL 1, 2012
B2 Local reports
B6 Games
B7 Obituaries
B10 Weather
DeMaio: Rising above a troubled upbringing
His mother’s battle against
cancer inspires candidate’s
campaign to become mayor
CRAIG GUSTAFSON • U-T
A
In a family photo, a young Carl DeMaio (right) poses
with, from left, his brother, Chris; mother, Diane;
and sister, Susan, during Christmas 1983.
teenage Carl DeMaio busied himself
with fixing up the house in hopes his
mother would return soon from the hospital. He wanted everything to be perfect.
She had enough things to worry about.
The phone rang. His sister told him
that he and his little brother needed to
join her at the hospital right away. They
hopped on their bicycles and pedalled as
fast as they could.
When they arrived, Carl saw his mother lying in a bed. She was unconscious,
but her eyes remained open. The siblings
TURNING POINTS
held hands by her side. Her breathing
slowed so much that when she occasionally gasped for air, the kids shouted
“Breathe!” in unison.
A week earlier she filed for a restraining
order against her abusive husband, but
before she left the courthouse her spine
collapsed. The aggressive cancer that began in her breast and slowly seeped into
her bones over the past few years led to a
compression fracture that left her unable
to control her bladder or legs.
Rushed to the hospital, the schoolteacher fretted over what would happen
to her children if she died. Her husband
had just abandoned the family. She didn’t
want him to get custody.
“What do I do? What do I do?” she said
repeatedly.
Each of the four major candidates for San Diego mayor
identified a key moment, or
turning point, in their lives.
This series explores those
moments and how they
shaped the candidates’ lives.
Today: City Councilman
Carl DeMaio
April 8: District Attorney
Bonnie Dumanis
April 15: Rep. Bob Filner
April 22: State Assemblyman
Nathan Fletcher
SEE DeMAIO • B4
TOM
BLAIR
Shopping for
sugar daddies
in San Diego
It’s not exactly something you’d write home
to Daddy about, but San
Diego has cracked yet
another Top 10 list. This
time it’s sugar daddies. We
rank 10th on SeekingArrangement.com’s list of
cities with the most sugar
daddies per capita – 1.85
out of 1,000 adult men.
Alas, we’re down at 19th
for most-generous sugar
daddies — which leads us
to another recent study,
this time by CouponCodes4u.com. It shows
57 percent of U.S. women
would marry for money.
Maybe an even higher percentage in San Diego, with
such chintzy sugar daddies
available ... Considerably
more prestigious: The
Scientist magazine ranks
The La Jolla Institute for
Allergy and Immunology
among its “Top 10 Best
Places to Work for Postdocs.” In the global survey
of postgraduate researchers, it’s No. 7.
The grounded ear:
Friday’s glowing New York
Times piece on would-be
San Diego mayor Nathan
Fletcher quitting the GOP
has provided a quick boost
in name ID, a campaign
weakness for Fletcher. Alas,
lots of his new supporters
are from out of town — New
York; Dallas; Boca Raton,
La.; and Puyallup, Wash.,
to name a few cities. They
can’t vote for San Diego
mayor. On the other hand,
Fletcher’s team reports,
the Times piece also has
brought a “huge spike” in
donations, tens of thousands of dollars alone on
the day the Times story appeared. ... A British TV production company is looking
to recruit San Diegans for
a new reality series called
“Twin Towns.” The hook:
Families from the U.S. swap
lives for a week with families
in the U.K. A potential trip
abroad might be worth an
email to twintownsus@
knickerbockerglory.tv ... The
Navy ammunition ship Cesar Chavez will be launched
from the General Dynamics
NAASCO shipyard at 7:30
SEE TOM BLAIR • B7
A march organized by the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council in honor of Cesar Chavez on his birthday Saturday heads
north on Harbor Drive from the Barrio Logan park named after the farm labor leader to downtown San Diego. JOHN GASTALDO • U-T
Labor march pays tribute to Chavez
Downtown rally drawing estimated 1,000 on birthday
of farm union leader among monthlong series of events
JEANETTE STEELE • U-T
To 16-year-old Jose Lopez, walking with his parents in a labor union
march Saturday, the point of Cesar
Chavez Day is to honor people who
worked in the fields.
To marcher Dan King, the holiday celebrates someone who stood
up for all working people.
And to Iggy Ponce De Leon,
holding a sign bearing Chavez’s
face, it is a “grateful day.” He has
worked as a union grocery clerk for
34 years and sees Chavez as the father of the labor movement.
California passed legislation in
2000 to recognize the birthday of
Chavez, the Mexican-American
union leader who in 1962 co-founded what became the United Farm
Workers and brought attention to
the plight of agriculture workers.
Chavez died in 1993 at age 66 and
is buried at the National Chavez
Center in Kern County.
This year, the legal holiday was
Friday, but events will continue
through April. From Monday
through April 30, the University
of California San Diego will host a
K A R L A P E T E R S O N Test Driving San Diego
A running start at Walk to Work Day
Test subject: National Walk to Work
Day.
The big picture: In honor of National Walk to Work Day, which is being
observed on April 6 this year, Kathleen
H. Ferrier of WalkSanDiego asked
if I would be up for walking to work
and reporting back on my journey. I
was certainly willing to walk from my
house in North Park to the U-T San
Diego offices in Mission Valley, but was
I able? And would the streets of San
Diego step up to help me? I swapped
my boots for tennis shoes to see if this
city is made for walking.
Happy trails to you: According to
Google Maps, my trip would be long
(4.6 miles) and time-consuming (about
90 minutes). According to a helpful email from Ferrier, it might also
be scary. The San Diego region was
ranked fifth out of 50 metro areas last
year for having the highest pedestrian
fatality rate. Also, an average of 20
pedestrians have died each year in the
city of San Diego since 1999, and an
additional 600 are injured. Tellingly,
SEE TEST DRIVE • B3
photography exhibit, in addition to
other activities.
At least nine other states celebrate Chavez’s memory with optional or commemorative days on
March 31.
On May 5, a new Navy dry cargo
ship will be christened and named
for Cesar Chavez in a San Diego
ceremony. Built at the General Dynamics-NASSCO shipyard on San
Diego Bay, the ship belongs to a
SEE CHAVEZ • B2
FRAUD UNIT FUNDING
RAISES ETHICAL ISSUE
Private grants pay for special prosecution
of workers’ compensation insurance cheats
GREG MORAN • U-T
Each year the District
Attorney’s Office prosecutes more than 100 cases
of workers’ compensation
fraud, racking up numerous convictions and court
orders for millions of dollars
in restitution.
The cases ensnare a vari-
U-T WAT C H D O G
ety of employers who cheat
or fail to buy the insurance,
from doctors to tree trimmers. The prosecutions all
have one thing in common:
They are underwritten by a
little-known grant program,
SEE WATCHDOG • B5
A LOCAL COMMUNITY RALLIES AGAINST YOUTH VIOLENCE. TONIGHT AT 11
We provide the ultimate in fresh seafood by sourcing
directly from fishing boats and respected aqua farms.
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