Soon after Mayor Daniel Lurie took office in January 2025, he set out to solve a problem that affects nearly every San Francisco resident and business: the nightmare of getting a permit.

Lurie’s effort to overhaul the system, a tangled mess of antiquated software and arcane procedures that has long been the bane of the city’s homeowners, contractors, business owners, and tradespeople, culminated last summer with the announcement of a $5.9 million contract for a San Francisco-based tech company called OpenGov. The promise: a hassle-free, one-stop, online shop that Lurie branded “PermitSF (opens in new tab).” 

OpenGov’s contract with the city, signed in October, did not come without controversy. The Standard reported that a majority of city staffers preferred a different software, claiming OpenGov lacked necessary features. Additionally, the company was found to have eyebrow-raising links to Lurie and some of his circle. The mayor’s office denied any favoritism, insisting that OpenGov was the only company capable of meeting the city’s aggressive timeline for launching PermitSF. Lurie had given the city until February 2026 to get some form of new system working.

The delays in implementing the new permitting system should come as no surprise, the former OpenGov employees say: From the beginning of the city’s expedited, no-bid contracting process, the company harbored doubts about the city’s timeline. The former staffers said delays were almost a certainty, as OpenGov had never undertaken such a large or complex project.

According to the contract signed by the city (opens in new tab), 15 types of permits — for projects ranging from kitchen and bath remodels to fire alarm and sprinklers — were to be transferred from San Francisco’s old system to the PermitSF platform by March. The new, OpenGov-powered platform would allow residents to file for those permits online, rather than having to visit the Permit Center. As of Tuesday, about two months after the deadline, only seven of the permits are available on PermitSF (opens in new tab). The rest are scheduled to go live by June, according to the company. But a city official overseeing the project told The Standard not to expect all of those permits to be available on the platform before the end of summer. 

The halting progress, alongside issues with the software’s capabilities raised by city employees, renews a critical question: Was OpenGov the right company for one of the most technically complicated projects the city has undertaken in recent years?

For some former OpenGov employees, the answer is an unequivocal no. 

“Our system was not prepared for it,” said one ex-staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals. “When they go for these deals, they just promise, promise, promise. … There was knowledge that this was a much bigger lift than what was going to be possible.”

Another added: “We didn’t have any of the stuff that we promised [the city]. … The money was very important to [the company]. I think it was more the prestige for doing it for a big city like San Francisco.” 

Some city employees concur that OpenGov’s permitting software lacks important features, leading to missed deadlines and a rush by the mayor’s office to celebrate progress on PermitSF even as the system remains limited. 

“It’s been amateur hour, to be honest. I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said one city worker. “The ability to spin absolute failures as success is absolutely wild to me.”

Lurie said in a statement, “It’s clear our new portal is working.”

He added, “We’re seeing strong adoption, faster processing, and more flexibility for applicants, exactly what San Francisco needs to move projects forward. By modernizing how permits are submitted and reviewed, we’re making life easier for San Franciscans and helping accelerate the housing and investment our city needs.”

In a statement, a company spokesperson said, “OpenGov remains committed to supporting San Francisco’s permitting transformation and working alongside its teams to deliver the project.” The company deferred questions about the project’s timelines and contract to the city.

Questions about the software’s efficacy come at a crucial moment for both the company and the Lurie administration. OpenGov’s contract is up for renewal, with members of the Civil Service Commission set to vote Monday on a new $6.5 million, six-year contract that is subject to the approval of the Board of Supervisors. The proposal is already facing objections from IFPTE Local 21, a union that represents more than 13,000 city employees and has been critical of Lurie’s leadership at times, including his decision to lay off 127 city workers to help close a $643 million budget deficit.

Lurie has staked much on the project's success. In February, his office trumpeted the system’s launch (opens in new tab), signaling to voters that he was delivering on one of the pillars of his 2024 mayoral campaign of making government more efficient. However, as with the campaign promise to create 1,500 shelter beds in six months, City Hall has quietly walked back some of Lurie’s ambitious targets.

Elizabeth Watty, director of current planning and one of the managers of PermitSF, admitted that there have been hiccups in the project’s rollout. 

“If we were to do it over again, we probably would have selected different things to work on for this first year,” she said, referring to the types of permits the city prioritized for launch. “Once you start digging in, you’re like, oh, it’d be great if we could actually launch this instead. But this was enumerated in the contract.”

But Watty defended the city’s adoption of the OpenGov-built platform, describing the “first phase” as “foundational” to the city’s overhaul of an antiquated system. “I think we’re really excited to be able to kick off phase two with all those lessons learned under our belt, too, and have this opportunity to structure the contract in a way that gives us more of that nimbleness to do it the right way for permitting to be successful,” she said.

Michelle Reynolds, a spokesperson for the Office of Small Business, one of the departments involved in PermitSF’s execution, said the city’s permitting is “notoriously complex,” and the initial February launch was undertaken in four months, something the city “has been trying to do for over 15 years.”

“OpenGov’s approach is to use their pre-built tool as a foundation, off of which they develop additional features that San Francisco needs,” she said. “That is not a limitation, it’s a deliberate risk-management strategy, and it’s already working.”

Reynolds said the new contract will require OpenGov to train city staff to maintain the software indefinitely. The city projects it will be “cost neutral” by the fourth year of the contract, she said, because of savings through letting go of old permitting systems.

Software procurement doesn’t usually court controversy. But that wasn’t the case with OpenGov, which was founded in 2012 by former CEO Zac Bookman and conservative entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale. The company, which was acquired by cable conglomerate Cox Enterprises in a $1.8 billion deal in 2024, touts 2,000 government clients, for whom it modernizes the old, creaky software that many cities and states depend on. In addition to streamlining permitting, the company builds out systems to manage licensing, budgets, procurement, and tax and revenue collection. 

When Lurie launched his permit reform initiative at the beginning of 2025, the search for a software provider began. Watty; Ned Segal, the mayor’s chief of housing and economic development; and Florence Simon, the office’s former innovation director (who was fired in March) sought a company that could take on the complex endeavor of overhauling a system that, in Mission Local columnist Joe Eskenazi’s words (opens in new tab), was so old, “it wouldn’t even get carded.” 

San Francisco has hundreds of permit types, and a whopping 20 software programs have been used to coordinate their approval across multiple departments — a migraine-inducing exercise that Lurie and others have argued inhibits business and lowers confidence in local government.

A winner in the PermitSF sweepstakes was announced in the summer. “We’re just trying to make life easier, more efficient, more effective, and deliver faster for the people of San Francisco,” Lurie said (opens in new tab) in an Instagram post Aug. 26 about the selection of OpenGov.

However, questions quickly surfaced about the company’s selection.

The mayor’s office never issued a competitive bid, arguing that doing so would have delayed the self-imposed February deadline. Instead, it asked dozens of software companies to showcase their products to the city, an informal process known as a “request for information,” rather than the traditional bidding procedure known as a “request for proposal.” 

In April 2025, a month before the city notified companies that it was looking for a permitting solution, Segal, the former COO of Twitter, introduced OpenGov’s then-CEO to another city official. “Zac can help us think through permitting technology,” Segal said in an email, adding a smiley face. “Zac has been patiently waiting for the right partner.” 

By July, Segal and his team had narrowed the competition to two companies: OpenGov and Vancouver-based Clariti. Documents obtained by The Standard show that city staffers across departments flagged OpenGov as having “gaps so significant” in its features that it “shouldn’t be considered” and expressed concerns about the product’s cost. A majority of staff preferred Clariti, though there were worries about one department’s past experiences with the Canadian company. 

The Standard reported on the links between OpenGov and Lurie in October. 

Katherine August-deWilde, who leads the Partnership for San Francisco, a business group that provides policy advice to the mayor, was an adviser to OpenGov at the time of the deal. (August-deWilde no longer remains an “active” adviser to the company, a spokesperson said.)

Lonsdale and Bookman, who stepped down as CEO in April and now serves as chairman emeritus, have collectively given tens of thousands of dollars over the past decade to Tipping Point Community, the nonprofit Lurie founded. Financial records show that Lurie and his family held investments in OpenGov through a fund overseen by another Tipping Point donor.

In response to these revelations, Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who has sparred with Lurie during his mayoral tenure and remains wary of tech’s power in the city, launched an inquiry in November into how the OpenGov contract was procured. (Fielder went on leave in April, citing mental health issues, and is expected to return in June.)

The Standard obtained a draft version of the Board of Supervisors’ budget and legislative analyst report, which has not been released publicly, finding that the OpenGov contract was eight times larger than the average new software contract procured through the same no-bid process. 

While investigators found the selection process did not violate city requirements, the report states it did not abide by best practices and that the procurement of OpenGov was “less transparent.” The report’s authors urged the board to adopt a policy prohibiting the procurement methods used by the mayor’s office.  

The budget and legislative analyst’s report pointed out another aspect of the deal: The mayor’s office’s “key justification” for the no-bid contract was that OpenGov was the only company that could meet its deadlines. 

But records released on a weekly basis by the company (opens in new tab) show that those deadlines haven’t been met. The OpenGov contract was supposed to deliver the 15 permit types on a new system by March 16. On that date (opens in new tab), the company released an update spelling out that there would be an eight- to 14-week  “extension for remaining workflows.” 

Today, the public can obtain permits through PermitSF for window, door, and siding replacements; fire alarms; sprinklers and water flow; special events; and contractor authorization. According to the city, between February and April, 772 permits were processed through the new platform — 10.2% of all permits issued during that period.

Though its reach is limited, some front-line city staffers who are working with PermitSF said the platform has made their jobs easier. 

“We do the same type of review, we do the same type of back and forth with applicants,” said Dakota Spycher, a staff member of the planning department. “It’s just all in one system. We don’t have to write on [a] physical form. We don’t have to enter information into a system that was created in the ’90s, and we don’t have to create a new record ourselves. So it’s really streamlined.”

Spycher pointed out that he can access the platform remotely, allowing him to tackle an influx of permit applications even if he isn’t at the Permit Center, an option that wasn’t available before. Another SF Planning employee said she can spend more time with customers answering questions. 

The mayor’s office pointed to data that it says shows success: Fewer people are going to the Permit Center, and wait times to get a permit from the San Francisco Fire Department have decreased from an average of 30 minutes to 14 minutes. 

But there are many types of permits not yet on OpenGov’s platform: reroofing, solar, electrical, kitchen and bath remodel, and a handful of others that require more technical work than those that went online in February. Beyond that, there are many more complicated permit types to transfer to the new system in the coming years. Reynolds from the Office of Small Business said sign and reroofing will be completed in June, “with additional permit types rolling out shortly after.”

The delays, said city employees, can be attributed in part to the software’s limited or lackluster features related to customization, data access, and reporting and analytics. City staff have put together a list of more than 50 enhancements they say the software needs, according to a copy of the internal document obtained by The Standard. The issues include problems with basic labeling, gaps in the permissions controls governing who can edit data in the system, and a lack of integration with the city’s existing systems. 

One former OpenGov employee agreed with the city staffers’ sentiments, saying the company is “not even close” to its competitors in terms of feature parity. The person estimated that OpenGov software can handle approximately 25% of what other govtech firms, like Clariti and Tyler Technologies, can do. 

Said one current city employee: “I think San Francisco is funding the research and development work of OpenGov.”