Santa Clara County emergency-management, public‑health, hospital and law‑enforcement officials told the Finance and Government Operations Committee on Oct. 23, 2025, that multiagency planning is in place for Super Bowl 60 and FIFA events in 2026 and that the county’s emergency operations center (EOC) will be activated for those events.

The update, delivered by county Office of Emergency Management (OEM) staff and leaders from the sheriff’s office, Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), the Public Health Department, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare (SCVH) and the county EMS agency, described layers of planning for security, transit, medical surge, disease monitoring and mutual‑aid coordination. Committee members also voted to receive the report and directed the County Executive to return with a midyear report outlining the fiscal impact of preparations and recommended steps for immigration‑response coordination during event periods; the motion passed.

County OEM lead Dana Reed said the county is “facilitator” for dozens of planning groups and confirmed broad operational coordination: “Our E.O.C. will be activated for Super Bowl [and] will be activated for FIFA,” and OEM will embed staff in other operational EOCs across the county. Reed said planning now includes at least 31 subcommittees and an aviation emergency operations cell added in the last week given the number of nearby airports, including San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.

The sheriff’s office described its role as regional law‑enforcement mutual‑aid coordinator and as the agency that will manage requests for personnel and specialized equipment across the operational area. A sheriff’s office representative said the department participates in more than 10 planning subcommittees, including hazmat, tactical and aviation, and will staff a regional command center to share intelligence during events. Captain Cardoza (transit/security lead for the sheriff’s office) outlined transit security planning and coordination with VTA, BART and Caltrain.

VTA and sheriff speakers said the federal government’s joint task forces are focused on transit and counter‑UAS (drone) threats; the transit subcommittee has been meeting since spring 2024 and has led site visits, risk assessments and coordination with NFL and federal partners. The county emphasized that federal and state resource requests remain pending.

Public Health Deputy Acting Health Officer Dr. Monica Roy told the committee that health planning targets three areas: prevention, monitoring and response. She said prevention includes proactive messaging to clinicians to consider travel history; monitoring uses wastewater detection, syndromic surveillance, reportable‑disease reporting under California’s Title 17 and hospital/ED monitoring; and response planning includes environmental‑health permitting and addressing unpermitted food vendors at events.

Santa Clara Valley Healthcare service‑line director Sheila Tuna described hospital surge preparations across the system’s four hospitals (Valley Medical Center, O’Connor, Regional Medical Center and St. Louise/Regional burn center): standardized mobile trailers with mass‑casualty and decontamination supplies, training for hospital incident command, and a volunteer hospital emergency response team of about 450 staff trained to operate across any hospital. Tuna said the system is rehearsing Level C personal protective equipment and outdoor decontamination setups and has exercised realistic drills.

Michael Cabana, assistant chief and assistant director of the EMS Agency, described the county’s med‑health mutual‑aid structure under the Health and Safety Code (the county’s med‑health mutual‑aid program assigns 17 core functions across public health, EMS, behavioral health and environmental health). He said the county’s mass‑casualty incident plan — revised after the Gilroy and VTA shootings — allows internal transport of up to 88 patients to county hospitals before outside hospital mutual aid is required. Cabana outlined ongoing exercises, ambulance strike‑team planning and radio testing to preserve communications if phones/internet fail.

Committee members repeatedly asked about costs and funding. Sheriff’s staff said requests for new planning funding were denied and that the sheriff’s office is absorbing planning costs within its existing budget; certain game‑day costs (for example, bomb squad/EOD work at the stadium) are subject to a city of Santa Clara MOU that reimburses the county for on‑site services. County OEM and public‑health staff said much of the preparatory work is being paid from existing budgets and prior grants (for example, state homeland‑security grants and assets retained from COVID operations), but several speakers said federal grant support is limited and that the county is aggressively pursuing any available funding.

Supervisors asked the County Executive’s office to track all event‑related costs and to provide a midyear report on fiscal impacts, including potential reimbursements and legislative or intergovernmental advocacy to recover county expenses. The board’s motion also explicitly requested a plan describing how the county would respond to any federal immigration enforcement activity deployed during events and asked the Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) office to coordinate any needed advocacy.

Officials described operational preparations that are already in place: trained staffing contingents in EOCs, stockpiled mobile treatment and decontamination trailers, interoperable radio testing and regional command structures that include embedded partners from cities and state/federal agencies. Reed said OEM is prepared to deploy county assets — lighting, power, enclosed tenting and cots — and estimated more than 60 personnel could staff the county EOC on major event days.

Committee action: committee members voted to receive the report and directed the County Executive’s office to return with a midyear fiscal impact report on the county’s event preparations and to include IGR and the Department of Strategic and San Jose (DSJ) or related immigration‑response planning as part of that work. The motion passed on a recorded vote.

The committee also requested that staff return to the committee and the board with ballpark estimates of county costs (local officials said such estimates would be difficult and that final accounting will take months) and to provide detail on staffing and hospital surge capacities if the county needs to activate surge plans.

The presentations and discussion are part of the county’s continuing operational coordination with the City of Santa Clara and other Bay Area jurisdictions as planning continues through operational‑area meetings and federal/state planning cells. County officials said planning will continue to be exercised, refined and updated as federal and event partners finalize operations.