The San Francisco Chronicle reported the fine first, just one day before the election on Nov. 5. A former mayoral candidate of San Francisco, who held the post, was fined over $100,000 for an ethics violation.
An investigation by the City and County of San Francisco Ethics Commission revealed that venture capitalist and former San Francisco mayor Mark Farrell funded his campaign illegally with a committee created for a different purpose.
Farrell, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has previously denied allegations that his office used money from the Proposition D Campaign to pay for his mayoral election expenses. This was after three former mayors demanded an investigation through a letter to the State Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Farrell is in favor of Proposition D, which would reduce the number of city commissions by half.
We agreed to a settlement for an accounting error that we corrected and publicly disclosed months ago, and over a disagreement about staff time allocation during the campaign, which led us to terminate our prior legal counsel for this matter.
As the person responsible for both…
— Mark Farrell 🥥🌴 (@MarkFarrellSF) November 4, 2024
The letter accuses Farrell of circumventing the $500 per person donation limit for mayoral races and using hundreds of thousands of dollars of the ballot measure to fund his political campaign.
Farrell claimed that he was “completely transparent” about his campaign expenditures during a CBS News Bay Area press conference recorded earlier this year.
Farrell said earlier that the letter was a political stunt to bring him down. It has no basis and is not true at all.
We reached out to Farrell who posted on Monday on social media that he had accepted a settlement over “an accounting mistake his campaign corrected months ago and made public” and a disagreement regarding staff time allocation during the campaign.
Farrell wrote on X: “As the person in charge of both campaigns, it is my responsibility to take full ownership. I model this kind of accountability for my children.” “At the moment, there are no local rules that clearly define how campaign committees can share expenses. “I am calling on the Ethics Commission for clear guidance to be established in this area because candidates and the public deserve certainty and transparency.”
Mark Farrell was fined $108,179.99.
Farrell informed reporters that each mayor who signed the letter – including Willie Brown – supported one of his political rivals. Brown has expressed his support for the incumbent London Breed.
According to an online document, Farrell was fined $108,179.99 by the Ethics Commission.
The San Francisco Ethics Commission Executive Director Patrick Ford signed a document that read: “The harm in the case is directly tied to the contribution amount.”
Farrell is running against Breed, the 45th mayor of the City and County of San Francisco.
After Mayor Ed Lee’s death in December 2017, he served as the 44th mayor of San Francisco between January 23 and July 11, 2018.
He served as a member of the Board of Supervisors, representing District 2, for almost two terms before his appointment to mayor.
Who is running for Mayor in San Francisco?
Breed, the city’s first Black female mayor, took over the position in a special election held after Lee died.
All four of the leading candidates for San Francisco Mayor on the November 5 ballot are Democrats.
- London Breed (incumbent)
- Mark Farrell (former mayor)
- Aaron Peskin (president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors)
- Daniel Lurie (Levi Strauss heir)
