caption death_date death_place predecessor birth_place successor religion party office birth_date term_start residence spouse image article_title term_end name restingplace
official city photo 11 april 2009 la jolla , california don higginson detroit , michigan don higginson roman catholic republican 3rd mayor of poway 26 july 1943 november 3 , 1998 poway , california sharon green cafagna -lrb- m. 1965 -rrb- mickey cafagna.jpg mickey cafagna
 april 11 , 2009 michael `` mickey '' cafagna dearborn memorial park poway , california
mickey cafagna

michael `` mickey '' cafagna -lrb- july 26 , 1943 - april 11 , 2009 -rrb- was the third elected mayor of the city of poway , california , serving from 1998 until his death in 2009 .
cafagna was born in detroit , michigan , the third son of italian immigrants .
he moved to poway -lrb- then an unincorporated part of san diego county -rrb- circa 1975 ; following a successful career as a real estate developer , he was appointed to the poway city council in 1992 , eventually winning the mayoral election in november 1998 .
as mayor , cafagna represented poway in the san diego association of governments -lrb- sandag -rrb- , serving for a time as its chairman .
his other contributions include the construction of poway 's city hall and of the south poway business park on scripps poway parkway , his efforts to fund much-needed improvements to freeways and transit systems , and his leadership during the cedar and witch creek fires of 2003 and 2007 , respectively .
he was most known for his outgoing personality and his ability to make deals for the benefit of the city .
his genial manner also aided him in public situations ; deputy mayor don higginson recounted an incident at the 1998 world series between the new york yankees and the san diego padres where cafagna - just before his election as mayor - invited higginson and about a hundred others to travel to new york for the first two games .
during game 1 , the poway contingent sat among the yankee fans , who booed them and threw beer on them .
while others got up and left , cafagna remained and offered to buy the yankee fans a beer .
by the end of the game , they were applauding him ; when the party returned for game 2 , the yankee fans cheered him .
even his political opponents , such as poway 's first mayor bob emery , acknowledged that while they had been opposed to his philosophies at first -lrb- cafagna was a real estate developer , while emery advocated slow-growth policy -rrb- , they began to see things from his point of view , just as he saw things from theirs , and they grew to respect his character and his genial attitude .
cafagna had in fact avoided doing his development business in poway to avoid conflicts of interest , and as mayor opposed helter-skelter sprawl throughout the region -lrb- often with the `` how much do we have to grow before we destroy the reasons we live here '' speech , as emery termed it -rrb- .
in 2005 , cafagna was diagnosed with kidney cancer and underwent an operation to remove it .
however , it returned nearly four years later , having spread to his lungs .
his illness prevented him from conducting day-to-day city government , and as a result deputy mayor higginson became acting mayor .
cafagna was admitted to scripps memorial hospital in la jolla on march 5 from what was previously thought to be pneumonia , but later determined to be septic shock ; he died there on april 11 , at the age of 65 .
after services at st. michael 's catholic church , he was buried a week later at dearborn memorial park in poway .
cafagna was survived by his wife of 43 years , sharon green cafagna , as well as their two children , kevin and stacy , and five grandchildren .
