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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

October 15, 2003

Marcus O'Connell -- passionate activist in Contra Costa

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A retired business analyst, Mr. O'Connell raised the art of community watchdog to a meticulous peak not often seen outside of the most politically active neighborhoods of San Francisco or Berkeley. He ran once for city council, unsuccessfully, but was best known as a fixture at hearings related to a range of environmental and growth-related issues in Contra Costa County.

What set him apart as an activist, friends say, is the thoroughness with which he tackled the causes he cared about.

"Lots of people are concerned about traffic or new buildings in their neighborhood, but he would read the entire environmental impact report," said Evelyn Stivers, a staff member at the Greenbelt Alliance, where Mr. O'Connell served on the Board of Directors. "He would read and save more planning documents than me - and that's the job I'm paid to do."

Mr. O'Connell grew up in Montana and moved to San Francisco in the 1960s, later earning finance and accounting degrees from San Francisco State University. In 1994, he moved to Concord's Holbrook Heights neighborhood, where he was soon embroiled in an ultimately successful campaign to stop a new warehouse at the Concord Naval Weapons Station.

By no means were all his crusades triumphant - especially in Concord, where he placed a distant third in a field of four candidates for City Council in 2000.

"He was an iconoclast who liked stirring things up - in a Don Quixote way sometimes," said Contra Costa Registrar of Voters Steve Weir, a veteran observer of Concord politics. "That's a helpful process, even when there's little chance of winning."

Beyond Concord, Mr. O'Connell was an early surveyor of the Internet and its potential for spreading information to the public. For one year in the late 1990s, he sorted through articles on growth management and sent links each morning to free subscribers. An even more ambitious effort, tracking campaign contributions in local races, brought him a James Madison freedom of information award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Friends say he was focused in all his interests. He had a voluminous library, and in the last few years of his life set about methodically trying to read all the great books, beginning with ancient Greece.

"He was very passionate about Thoreau," recalled Laurie Schuyler, a Concord resident who works at Save the Bay. "He had this wonderful annotated volume, and for a year, it was his favorite book."

Mr. O'Connell kept the news of his cancer concealed until the past few weeks, attending hearings on Contra Costa's Shaping Our Future growth plan "as long as he could raise his head," Stivers said. His papers were donated to the Concord Historical Society and his books to the Friends of the Concord Library.

He is survived by a brother, Daniel, of Bozeman, Mont., and a sister, Shelley Smith of Granada Hills (Los Angeles County). There will be a gathering in his honor at 2 p.m. on Nov. 1 at Todos Santos Plaza in downtown Concord.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

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