This is not so much an obituary as a personal memoir. You probably don’t know the name of Rich DiLeo. But if you’re a friend of the Coalition for a Better Oakland, you should. Rich was co-founder of the group, along with Jack Saunders. Together, last winter, they invited me in, and I got to know Rich well.
Rich’s life ended on Christmas day, after a brief illness. He fought the disease with the force with which he lived his life. But, in the end, he surrendered with dignity and grace.
Rich was an intrepid warrior, a fighter in the true sense of the word: he was good with his fists and never shied away from a scrap. A big man, he was as passionate a person as I’ve ever known when it came to his political and cultural beliefs. He loved to express himself and was a great raconteur.
A lifelong Democrat, Rich believed in personal accountability, ethical behavior, respect for others, and responsible governing. He was emphatically not “woke.” In fact, his antipathy toward woke politicians, particularly those on the City Council, was fierce. He couldn’t figure them out and didn’t like them. He saw the damage they were causing with their demands to defund the police, and it frustrated and angered him.
To my surprise, Rich and Jack made me president of the Coalition at a meeting last Spring. Rich always said that Jack and I were “the writers,” the ones who could communicate through the written word, which he recognized as an important part of grassroots organizing. For his part, Rich insisted, he wanted to remain in the background. He did not want to be a public face of the Coalition—not its spokesperson, not the one the media interviewed. Rich just wanted to cheer us on, and he did, repeatedly. I often told Rich that, whenever the going got tough (which it frequently did), his belief in me was what inspired me to keep on keeping on. I know Jack felt the same way. We both loved him.
In many ways, despite his public reticence, Rich was the driving spirit of the Coalition for a Better Oakland. Because of the pandemic, it was difficult for Rich, Jack and me to meet in person, so social media, and to some extent Zoom, became our medium of communication. Rich had a million ideas a day, which he shared via texts, and I always enjoyed reading them. As his illness grew more debilitating throughout the Fall, the texts came less frequently, but they remained fecund in ideas. Rich was also a very funny man. He could be indignant, but that was tempered by his colorful personality. He understood that the Coalition was the only game in town, but he realized we could not be successful unless we grew in numbers. He expected us to have thousands of members by late summer. I don’t know that I shared his optimism, but I admired it, and came to depend on it.
I’m sorry most of you never got to know Rich. You would have liked him. My deepest sympathy goes to his wife, Stephanie. Rich’s legacy will live on in the Coalition; for our part, we’ll continue to do what he told me the last time we spoke: Keep on fighting. We will, Rich, we will.
Steve Heimoff