Spokane Valley City Council Emergency Management Training and Tabletop Exercise

Spokane Valley City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, beginning at 8:30 a.m. at City Hall for a day-long emergency management training workshop. All council members were present. The agenda listed Mayor Padden as presiding; the transcript repeatedly refers to 'Mayor Patton.' No formal public comments or testimony were accepted. Department of Emergency Management personnel Chandra Fox and Mark Conrad, joined by Police Chief Dave Ellis, led the training, which covered the Incident Command System (ICS) and National Incident Management System (NIMS) in the morning and two tabletop exercises in the afternoon. The session was intended to inform the city's forthcoming Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.

Public Comments & Testimony

• None were accepted; the meeting agenda stated that no formal public comments or testimony would be taken.

Discussion Items

• Opening and purpose: City Manager Hohman (addressed as Eric in the transcript) introduced the training, noting the city has adopted a continuity of operations plan and a hazard mitigation plan and is beginning work on the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.
• Morning ICS/NIMS training: Chandra Fox explained that ICS is a standardized framework for managing unplanned incidents and that NIMS grew out of Homeland Security Presidential Directives 5 and 8. She described incident command roles, command vs. coordination, unified command, incident management teams, joint information centers, and after-action reviews. She emphasized that life safety is always the top priority, that individuals and households are responsible for personal preparedness, and that jurisdictions have about 72 hours to demonstrate to the public that they can manage an incident.
• Training statistics and examples cited: Speakers cited the COVID-19 pandemic, the Freeman School shooting, the 2023 Gray and Oregon Road fires, the 2026 Upriver fire (14 homes lost), and the Spokane Complex fires. Chandra Fox noted the county's Emergency Operations Center had 41 partner organizations during the fires, more than 70 agencies contributed communicators to the pandemic joint information center, and roughly 95% of the improvement-plan items from the 2023 fires had been completed.
• Tabletop exercise 1 (terrorist threat and rail-yard chlorine release): The first exercise scenario involved a credible terrorist threat and a train derailment/explosion at the Union Pacific rail yard releasing toxic inhalation hazards. Council members and staff discussed threat information flow, RIG-9 and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, unified command, evacuation authority, EOC activation, Alert Spokane/reverse 911, the joint information center, and public messaging. Participants also noted potential impacts on Valley Fest, adjacent businesses, hospitals, the fairgrounds, and the regional rail network. Councilmember Yeager said communication is the city's number one role in such an incident, and Councilmember Merkel suggested the city should serve as a credible local messenger supporting the incident commander rather than managing tactical operations. Follow-up priorities included formalizing threat-information handling, improving internal staff alerting, ensuring the mayor is included in public messaging, and determining the city's desired role in EOC/JIC coordination.
• Tabletop exercise 2 (cyber/ransomware attack): The second exercise scenario involved phishing, ransomware, failed payroll and bill pay systems, and a vendor cloud-platform outage. IT manager Chad described end-user risk, monthly phishing tests, geolocation filtering, and cyber insurance. Discussion addressed whether to pay the $250,000 Bitcoin ransom, sensitive-data retention, notification laws, vendor management, paper-based backup processes, media response, and incident closure. Participants generally indicated the city should not pay the ransom and should rely on backups and third-party validation. Suggested follow-ups included expanding cybersecurity training to board and commission members, developing backup payroll procedures, reviewing sensitive-information policies related to the new HUD grant, studying other municipalities' ransomware cases, and formalizing cyber incident reporting for end users.
• Closing remarks: The Mayor and City Manager Hohman thanked the trainers, said the city was fortunate to have time during the fall and winter to prepare, and stated they would coordinate with fire districts and incorporate the day's findings into the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.

Key Outcomes

• The council unanimously approved the agenda by voice vote; no other formal council votes or policy decisions were taken.
• The training and tabletop exercises produced a working list of priorities and potential improvements to inform the city's Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.
• Identified next steps included formalizing law-enforcement and cyber threat-information sharing, developing a citywide staff alerting system, expanding cyber training beyond staff, developing backup payroll and paper-based processes, reviewing sensitive-information and data-retention policies, and continuing coordination with fire districts and the county before the 2027 fire season.