The city of Cypress, which borders Los Angeles County to the west and is home to about 50,000 residents, confronted many of the same challenges faced by other municipalities when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in 2020. But by avoiding some familiar pitfalls in innovation, Cypress technologists were able not only to identify, implement and deploy a solution to digitize permitting — ultimately partnering with Redwood City-based OpenGov — but to continue building on their initial work, thus compounding the return on investment. Among the takeaways:
- The city’s need to digitize aspects of how it connected with residents predated the pandemic, Kirsten Graham, senior management analyst in the public works department, told Industry Insider — California. “Even prior to the pandemic, we wanted to move towards a digital system with online payments.” The city wanted to move permits off paper and even off email to digital and “a more streamlined process,” Graham said, adding: “We were also looking at being able to customize the permits.” Officials, however, wanted to do more than just replicate existing PDF permits in a new system; they wanted the ability to make improvements to workflows.
- Following a procurement, the city selected OpenGov’s Citizen Services licensing and permitting software, Graham said. The project went to the Cypress City Council in June 2020 and afterward, staffers developed permits for three to four months and trained. Cypress deployed its first two permits in the fall of 2020 and kept adding more. Currently, Graham said, a majority of the city’s permits are online — including those from Public Works, the Building Division and Transportation — and anything new is immediately included. Recent additions include solid waste and recycling permits for new state organic requirements, and more specialized documents around subdivision maps in public works. Officials liked OpenGov’s online permitting routing, so that everyone could make sure documents were in order — and they liked that the routing was simultaneous to other departments and divisions, which further smoothed the review. The software helped reduce office traffic by as much as 80 percent and cut permit application processing times to as few as 30 minutes.
- Takeaways: Weigh replicating existing processes versus forging new ones. Deploying OpenGov’s solution, Graham said, made city IT staff consider how they wanted to build out the new applications and improve them initially, “so there was kind of a revamp from the get-go.” But Citizen Services also offered the city a way to customize apps and improve them as it went. “I think you need to keep up with the needs of your customers,” Graham said, indicating city staff continue to meet monthly to make modifications and improvements.
- Understand what you want. In a conversation with Industry Insider, Angela Langston, senior vice president of professional services and support at OpenGov, praised Cypress’s willingness to engage and its vision for what it wanted to achieve. Staff and leaders were prepared; they brought the resources and technical expertise needed to deploy and knew how they wanted to use the solution.
“I think it’s all about understanding the desired outcomes. What are the outcomes you want to achieve and do you have the resources and a commitment to driving those outcomes?” Langston said. “Staying true to what you say you want to do and aligning that with a product that can deliver is what it’s all about.” - Work within. Graham praised city Public Works Director Douglas Dancs’ advocacy for thorough training, which she said assisted in the rollout. As development took place, staffers would meet weekly via Zoom to review permits — making sure to attend each other’s meetings “so we could get a better idea and share ideas, brainstorm.” Doing so, she said, helped improve the permits being built.
