Mayor Daniel Lurie’s controversial permitting reform project, PermitSF, faces a new wave of questions after a former City Hall employee came forward Friday with allegations about the contracting and rollout of the system built by the San Francisco firm OpenGov.  

Michael Christensen, a principal planner at SF Planning who also worked at the SF Permit Center, left his job in December over concerns that city officials were intimidating workers to stay silent about the system’s shortcomings and that a former manager had asked OpenGov to build a backdoor that would allow city leaders to bypass staffers’ permitting decisions. 

Christensen worked on the team implementing OpenGov’s software platform, which was selected by the mayor’s office last summer under unusual circumstances to revamp the city’s convoluted permitting system. As detailed in two whistleblower complaints, a letter filed to a city commission, and an exclusive interview with The Standard, Christensen claims that internal dissent about the project was suppressed by leaders of the project, that OpenGov vastly overpromised on its capabilities, and that the new system is not as efficient as the city’s pre-existing infrastructure.  

Christensen said that Liz Watty, director of current planning and one of the managers of the project, told him last year that OpenGov promised it could revamp San Francisco’s entire permitting system in one year. The city ended up focusing on a narrow scope of permits in the first year, but even those deadlines have not been met. Christensen said Watty told him to report colleagues who expressed concerns about OpenGov, but he declined to do so. 

Watty did not respond to a request for comment. Michelle Reynolds, a spokesperson for the Office of Small Business, one of the departments involved in OpenGov’s implementation, denied Christensen’s claims about his conversations with Watty. 

Christensen also said that Florence Simon, the former director of the mayor’s office of innovation, asked prospective software companies during last year’s procurement process whether they could build a system that would allow city leaders to override staffers’ permitting rulings if there was disagreement or any delays. He said OpenGov agreed to build the feature. Other companies under consideration for the project — including Clariti, the software firm that a majority of city staff preferred over OpenGov — said they would do so only within legal requirements. 

“I never wanted to leave. I wanted to retire from the city,” Christensen said. “But the internal politics, the blatant hostility … it made me feel I’m no longer working for the place I was before.”

Simon, who was fired from the city in March, said that her ask of software vendors was simply whether users could get visibility into the permitting platform to help speed up delayed permits, and that the inquiry did not include access for any elected officials. She said that she had never spoken to Christensen about this feature. 

Christensen’s remarks come two days after The Standard published an investigation into the adoption of OpenGov’s system and the trajectory of PermitSF (opens in new tab), the name the mayor has chosen for the modernization effort. Interviews with former OpenGov employees revealed doubts within the govtech firm about meeting the deadlines. Meanwhile, city staffers detailed a lack of features in the software that has impeded their work.

At a budget hearing Wednesday, Supervisor Connie Chan cited The Standard’s investigation and expressed skepticism about PermitSF, asking city officials for more information. 

Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, said in a statement, “For years, our permitting system has been failing San Franciscans — wasting people’s time, frustrating small businesses, and holding back housing and our economic recovery. Fixing it will take time, it won’t always go as planned, and there will always be people who defend a failed status quo that works for special interests, but our job is to deliver for San Franciscans, and that’s what PermitSF is doing.” He said the city is open to input on the project, including anonymous feedback. 

“We have one job: to deliver the fastest, easiest, most transparent permitting system for San Franciscans,” Lutvak said.

A spokesperson for OpenGov deferred comment to the city but said the company offers “an established, commercially available government software platform used by more than 2,000 agencies across the country.”

After procuring the OpenGov software last summer in a no-bid contract valued at $5.9 million, Lurie launched a limited version of a new permit system (opens in new tab) in February. But PermitSF is still months behind schedule, despite the mayor’s office insisting last year that OpenGov was the only company capable of meeting its aggressive deadlines. 

While city officials acknowledged that the project has hit roadblocks, they believe it has laid a foundation that will bring genuine reform to the city’s permitting infrastructure in the years to come. Some city employees told The Standard that the new platform has made their jobs easier, and the mayor’s office has cited statistics showing that OpenGov is speeding up permitting.

But other city employees are speaking out against the project. Christensen’s concerns were outlined in a May 7 letter (opens in new tab) he submitted to the Civil Service Commission, a governing body that will decide Monday whether to proceed with a $6.5 million renewal of the OpenGov contract that also includes $22 million in licensing fees over five years, with the option of a one-year extension. The contract is subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors. 

IFPTE Local 21, the public employee union that represents more than 13,000 city workers, has pushed back against the contract extension. The union has been a major critic of Lurie, most recently over his decision to lay off more than 100 employees to close a $643 million budget deficit. 

Christensen said in his letter that the OpenGov-powered platform, which currently allows the public to obtain permits for windows, siding, and door replacement, along with a handful of others, is less efficient than the city’s preexisting systems. He said residents previously filled out a one-page application that would often be approved the same day. The new system, he said, asks dozens of questions that extend the process to days or weeks. 

The mayor’s office maintains that the new system is more efficient, has cut wait times in half for fire permits, and has reduced trips to the city’s Permit Center by 15%.

Christensen’s exit in December came approximately two months after the city signed its first contract with OpenGov. Last year, as Lurie was launching PermitSF, Christensen was asked to play a lead role in the project’s implementation. 

“My departure from city service was a direct result of my concerns about the project, having been asked by department leadership to report colleagues who might ‘cause problems for the project,’ and having experienced direct retaliation after I filed two formal whistleblower complaints with the SF city controller’s office,” Christensen wrote. 

The letter claims that OpenGov maintains significant control over the software, unlike similar products, thereby making dozens of city staff positions obsolete. This was the subject of Christensen’s first whistleblower complaint, filed Oct. 15, which the controller’s office portal shows is still under investigation. 

His second whistleblower complaint, filed Nov. 17, raised concerns around OpenGov funding a white paper about San Francisco’s permitting process, something Christensen argues was a misuse of the contract. Such research, he contends, should have been conducted by city staff. The controller’s office portal shows that the investigation was referred to the Civil Service Commission. 

 A spokesperson said the controller’s office doesn’t comment on the status of whistleblower complaints.

Christensen declined to say who had retaliated against him for filing the whistleblower complaints. He said he is speaking up now because OpenGov’s contract is up for renewal and is urging the Civil Service Commission to deny it. 

“There was consternation that we had selected a product that staff had really looked into,” he said in an interview. “And that it didn’t do any of the things we needed it to do.”

Other city employees have written in support of the contract. Natalia Fossi, a principal planner; Sylvia Jimenez, an SF Planning team manager; and Darcy Bender, who did not specify a position, wrote letters to the Civil Service Commission urging it to renew OpenGov’s contract.

“We have launched multiple permit types in a matter of months,” wrote Bender. “Anyone who has worked in city technology knows how remarkable that timeline is. The public who apply for these permits and the staff who process them every day are already experiencing a difference. That momentum is real, and it is fragile. Further delays to this contract put it at risk.”