San Francisco Planning Commissioner Kathrin Moore has been hit with a $12,000 ethics fine after watchdogs concluded she voted on massive development projects linked to her former employer while still cashing retirement checks from the firm. The Ethics Commission said her actions chipped away at public trust in how the city signs off on big-ticket construction and noted the ruling comes as Moore continues to sit on the powerful commission through mid-2026.
The San Francisco Ethics Commission found Moore committed four violations of the city’s conflict-of-interest rules for votes she cast between 2021 and 2025, and tied the $12,000 penalty to those counts, according to The San Francisco Standard. Investigators said they did not find evidence she deliberately tried to profit, but still labeled her failure to step aside as “severe violations” of city law. The case grew out of reporting last year that drew attention to her financial link to the firm, and Tuesday’s vote effectively turns that early scrutiny into a formal enforcement action.
Moore retired from architecture giant Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in 1999 and has for years disclosed that she receives retirement payments from the company, a setup that sparked concern after local coverage and triggered a 2012 City Attorney memo warning those payments could create conflicts of interest, the San Francisco Chronicle previously reported. City rules bar officials from taking part in decisions involving any entity that has paid them more than $500 in the preceding year. After fresh reporting last summer, Moore publicly said she would stop voting on SOM-related proposals, a pledge that, along with the earlier memo, helped set the stage for the Ethics Commission’s review…