A city commission on Thursday cleared a key hurdle for Mayor Daniel Lurie‘s beleaguered permitting overhaul, voting 4-1 to allow San Francisco to continue its lucrative — and controversial — contract with software firm OpenGov.
The Civil Service Commission’s vote authorizes the city to contract out IT work to OpenGov, the SF-based tech firm that Lurie’s office hired last summer to modernize the city’s outdated permitting system, bypassing a competitive bid process and sparking allegations of favoritism.
The approval came after a grueling two-hour meeting, during which the Planning Department leadership defended its admittedly rough implementation of the new permitting software. Meanwhile, city IT employees, represented by the union IFPTE Local 21, attacked the software as riddled with security holes and called it a “black box” the city could neither improve nor modify.
The Civil Service Commission cleared the path for OpenGov, but with strings attached: City leaders agreed to include a labor intermediary in the program to ensure worker protection and remain in talks with IFPTE Local 21 to smooth the software’s implementation. The Planning Department must report back to the commission every six months.
The commissioners’ decision knocks down a key roadblock in the way of Lurie’s $6.5 million contract for professional services with OpenGov. The city is planning to spend an additional $22 million in OpenGov licensing fees over the next five years, with the option of a one-year extension. The OpenGov contract is still subject to a vote by the Board of Supervisors.
Commissioner Adam Wood cast the lone dissenting vote. He said the implementation of OpenGov was obviously “half-baked” and “rushed.”
The commission’s vote comes on the heels of an investigation by The Standard, published last month, into the contract. Multiple former OpenGov employees and current city workers said the company knew it would not meet benchmarks laid out by the mayor’s office and that the software is missing key features.
Lurie is betting heavily on OpenGov’s implementation — it’s the centerpiece of his PermitSF plan to revitalize San Francisco’s archaic way of processing the public’s paperwork.
In the meeting, Sarah Dennis Phillips, the executive director of the Planning Department, told the Civil Service Commission that the transition to OpenGov isn’t just crucial to meeting the city’s goals of accelerating housing permit approvals; it’s also part of building the city’s tax base.
“We’re midstream in our economic recovery,” Phillips said. “We don’t want permits to hold up our jobs or small businesses.”
Roughly a dozen union members showed up to the meeting with signs that read, “Protect public services. No contracting out.”
Lurie’s office referred The Standard to Office of Small Business spokesperson Michelle Reynolds for comment.
“We are looking forward to continuing the vital work to modernize San Francisco’s permitting, in close partnership with city staff whose hard work every day makes it possible,” Reynolds said. We’ve made strong progress and the Civil Service Commission’s approval is an important step towards even more.”
That staff was less than happy with OpenGov’s software. IFPTE staff representative Emily Wallace alleged in the meeting that San Franciscans’ data may be left vulnerable. In the meeting, she said the software’s framework reached “end of life” in 2022, raising security issues.
Wallace alleged that city workers who spoke out against PermitSF in meetings — where feedback was solicited — were pulled off the work in retaliation, causing a “chilling effect” on staff.
“They were told ‘you have too much information, and it threatens to undermine what we are trying to do,’” Wallace claimed. “They were moved.”
Planning Department leadership defended their personnel assignments, saying the task of assigning them was complex and ongoing.
Last month, ex-SF Planning employee Michael Christensen alleged intimidation by project leaders’ objections to OpenGov’s implementation and said that Liz Watty, one of the managers of PermitSF, asked him to report colleagues who spoke critically of the project. The city denied Christensen’s claims.
Lurie began PermitSF in February 2025 and chose OpenGov as the software to lead that effort later that summer. The mayor’s office did not seek a competing bid for the technology, and city staff had preferred another company over OpenGov, raising issues with its apparent lack of features and high cost. A $5.9 million deal was signed with OpenGov in October.
Lurie also has connections to OpenGov: The company’s founders donated tens of thousands of dollars to his former nonprofit, Tipping Point Community. Katherine August-deWilde, a major donor to Tipping Point who leads one of the mayor’s business groups, Partnership for San Francisco, was an adviser to OpenGov when the city signed the deal with the company. Lurie and his family also held investments in OpenGov through a firm headed by another Tipping Point donor.
In response to the revelations, Supervisor Jackie Fielder called for an investigation into how OpenGov was chosen. The report (opens in new tab) found the OpenGov selection process “did not violate city requirements,” although it could not be assured that an unfair advantage was not given to bidders for the permit reform contract, because a lack of transparency made it hard to tell.
The mayor’s office has denied any favoritism in the deal and claimed that OpenGov was the only software company capable of meeting its aggressive implementation deadlines. Lurie had given the city until February 2026 to create a new, OpenGov-powered software.
But the city has not met its deadlines. The city’s contract with OpenGov promised 15 permit types by March. By last month, less than half were available on the new PermitSF platform.
In the meeting, Civil Service Commissioner Vitus Leung pressed the Planning Department on OpenGov’s myriad delays. Watty denied OpenGov had any culpability.
“The delays are not due to the vendor,” she said. “The delays are due to the city.”
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