SF ethics staff reduce fine for gay human rights commissioner

A gay member of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission is now facing a substantially reduced fine from the city’s ethical watchdog agency after its staff determined upon further review that his voting on grants that had come under scrutiny led to “minimal public harm.” The Ethics Commission is scheduled to take up the matter at its meeting Friday.

Commissioner Mark Kelleher had agreed to pay a $2,500 fine to settle the matter, even though he felt such a penalty was rather high for a volunteer to have to pay for what were essentially clerical errors. Members of the Ethics Commission had disagreed, and in the spring, rejected the settlement agreement and instructed the agency’s staff to determine if Kelleher’s fine should be higher.

Yet, as detailed in a memo dated November 7 to the oversight body, the Enforcement Division for the Ethics Commission now contends Kelleher should pay a lesser amount. It is proposing a $1,500 fine, which Kelleher has agreed to pay in order to finally settle the matter.

“Upon further review, the Enforcement Division has now clarified that the high dollar value grants which Respondent ‘voted to approve’ were already in fact fully approved by the Department and did not require Commission approval to be executed. The matters appeared before the Human Rights Commission’s consent calendar for informational purposes only, and Commissioner Kelleher’s participation in the vote resulted in minimal public harm,” determined the ethics staff, according to a summary of their new findings.

In a texted reply to the Bay Area Reporter, Kelleher noted the fine was reduced due to the clarification that he hadn’t voted to approve any grants “(i.e., no fiduciary responsibility) but to concur with approvals already decided by HRC staff.” He added that he “earnestly look(s) forward to settling this unfortunate oversight” and continuing to serve as a commissioner.

“As you now know, I took the votes with good intention not knowing I was technically disqualified by missing the deadline on several training webinars – and was not informed by commission staff about the disqualification,” Kelleher told the B.A.R. “As a volunteer commissioner I’m proud to serve our community, and regret having missed several training webinar notices while pre-occupied with building up a consulting business focused on nonprofit management during these last several years.”

According to a report released earlier this year by the compliance staff for the city agency, Kelleher voted 27 times on HRC matters that he should not have, including approving on consent eight grants totaling $1.68 million for the city’s Dream Keeper Initiative, the scandal-plagued program that factored into the resignation of former HRC director Sheryl Davis. Last week, the ethics agency slapped Davis with 31 ethics charges of her own.

None of Kelleher’s votes were on matters that involved a financial conflict of interest, the ethics staff had noted in its initial report.

 
Yet, in April, the ethics commissioners ended up tabling his settlement, as they felt his fine should be higher for his infractions, as the B.A.R. previously reported. They were particularly concerned about the fact that Kelleher, who has served on his panel since December 2010, didn’t file his required annual ethics training certificates and sunshine ordinance declarations for 2022, 2023, and 2024.

He failed to do so even after the Ethics Commission said it had sent him notifications each year that he was out of compliance with the filing requirements. As of October 2024, Kelleher had completed the required trainings and came into compliance by filing his required certificates after being contacted by Ethics Commission investigators as part of their investigation, according to the staff report.

Kelleher, the husband of gay San Francisco Treasurer-Tax Collector José Cisneros, had told the B.A.R. in April that he hadn’t been informed by HRC staff he shouldn’t vote on commission agenda items due to missing a training webinar. In its new report, the Ethics Commission confirmed that he had not been instructed to recuse himself.

“Investigators reviewed the minutes of these meetings and found no indication that the commission secretary or staffer announced at any of the meetings that Respondent was disqualified from participation,” noted the staff report.

While Kelleher remedied his missed training violations within 30 days of being notified of them by the investigators, the ethics staff concluded he should still be fined. It is proposing a $500 penalty for his missing paperwork and a $1,000 fine for his failure to recuse himself from the votes he took. 

As the staff report notes, “the responsibility to file and to recuse from participation when he had not fulfilled his outstanding filing requirement rested with Respondent and such failure does not absolve Respondent of such responsibility.”

The Ethics Commission meeting begins at 10 a.m. Friday, November 14, in Room 400 at San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place. The proceeding will be streamed live at sfgovtv.org/ethicsLIVE .