Good Government Awards: How Dana Ketcham Modernized SF's Park Permits

SPUR’s 31st annual Good Government Awards, held earlier this year, honored five City of San Francisco employees and teams who have performed exceptionally, becoming models for other agencies and cities around the country.

Dana Ketcham became involved in the Recreation and Park Department as a full-time volunteer when she spent two years redesigning the 103 athletic fields' reservation and permit system. She surveyed all field users and helped with public meetings to develop a season-by-season plan and online reservation and permit system. This new process added 35,000 hours of field playtime, more than doubling total field availability and capacity. Field users have enthusiastically received the outcome. She was then hired as the Reservation and Permits Manager and has completely automated all permits and reservation customer service functions by incorporating them into the recreation management database system – SFRecOnline. She led a staff reorganization to optimize customer service delivery, which has resulted in a 12% increase in permit fees – an increase of $600,000 from $3.5 million to now $4.5 million.

Watch our video on Dana Ketcham's work: