Ethics commission approves $22,200 stipulation for former appeals board member over omitted Form 700 entries amid public calls for higher fines

The San Francisco Ethics Commission on a 3–2 vote approved a proposed stipulation resolving reporting violations by former Board of Appeals member Darryl Honda for failing to disclose 37 commission-income sources across multiple years.

Director of Enforcement Pat Ford told commissioners the respondent cooperated, amended his Form 700s and that staff did not find evidence of willful deception or that Honda took actions that created a material financial benefit for those sources. "We did a very close review to try and understand if Commissioner Honda did take any actions that would have had a material financial impact on those sources of income, and we did not find that," Ford said. Based on the enforcement framework, staff calculated a penalty pegged at roughly $600 per omitted interest for a $22,200 total.

Public commenters, including in-person speaker Jerry Brown and remote callers, urged a substantially larger penalty and alleged additional omissions. Brown told the Commission Honda "failed to report 37 sources of commission income between 2018 and 2021" and urged a fine in the hundreds of thousands. Dennis Richards and others alleged a pattern of obfuscation dating back further than the period at issue.

Commissioners debated the severity and the appropriate remedy. Commissioner Finliff said the penalty felt "lenient in a vacuum" but noted the 37 omitted entries appeared to be subsets of income that Honda had disclosed at the brokerage level; Ford confirmed the omissions were failures to identify individual clients rather than nondisclosure of the total income disclosed from the brokerage. Commissioner Romano, after staff answers that no willfulness or conflicts were found, said he considered the penalty "harsh," while others dissented that it was too light.

The Commission recorded the motion carried with Chair Lee and Commissioner Romano in dissent. Ford emphasized that approving the stipulation was limited to the reporting violations set out in the document and that the enforcement division could examine other potential violations within the statute of limitations if additional evidence were presented.

Next steps: The stipulation is the formal resolution for the reporting violations described in the record; the enforcement division said it remains available to review additional allegations and the Commission's action does not foreclose separate investigations.