Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward to give state of the city address Wednesday

Mayor Nadine Woodward will deliver her second State of the City address on Wednesday, but her first since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Woodward is expected to reflect on her first year in office and myriad challenges it produced in Spokane, while also laying out a template for its recovery.

The virtual event will be livestreamed at noon for free on the city’s Facebook page, facebook.com/spokanecity.

The themes of the speech will include “partnership and collaboration,” according to city spokesman Brian Coddington.

Woodward gave her 2020 State of the City to a crowded ballroom at the Spokane Convention Center, where she laid out a policy platform built on four pillars – housing, homelessness, economic development and public safety.

“Creating lasting change won’t be easy, and it’s not going to happen overnight,” Woodward cautioned.

But, almost overnight, bringing her policy agenda to fruition was severely complicated by a pandemic that arrived in Washington just weeks later.

Those four topics will continue to be a focus, Coddington said, but through the lens of a world changed by COVID-19.

“People will be surprised that there actually was a fair amount of movement in most of those areas despite the pandemic,” Coddington said.

The mayor is expected to highlight the partnerships the city has built not just with other governments, but elsewhere within the community.

“That’s been one of the great things to come out of the last year,” Coddington said.

Given its virtual format, the speech will include multimedia components.