Empire Community Library Now Open

A dedication ceremony was held on June 8th to celebrate the completion of the new Empire Library.

The Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors announced the successful completion of the new Empire Library on Tuesday, June 8, at an inspiring dedication ceremony and celebration of a new, modern, safe library for the community of Empire. Special recognition was given to Bob Dittman, retired Empire school administrator, and his wife Jane, for whom the children’s area of the library is named. The Empire Community Hall Association also was thanked for making the project possible with a generous donation of property. A recording of the event is available at www.stanislauslibrary.org.

Doors opened Wednesday, June 9, with some eagerly waiting young customers among the first to explore the new space. At 4,270 square feet, the new facility is twice the size of the former location on South Abbie, allowing for 50% more Spanish/bilingual children’s books, and an increase of 20-25% in other print collections.

Located at 98 I Street, the new library is adjacent to the Empire Regional Water Safety Training Center/Pool. It features warm and inviting spaces for children, teens and adults, and incorporates a community room that opens to a covered outdoor patio for library programs and community events. A sheriff’s substation will be located in the building as well.

The new facility was designed and constructed by LDA Architects, and Roebbelen Contractors, Dewberry Architects. The project was completed on time and under budget!

The Empire Library is open 12 to 6 p.m, Tuesday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

For more information, visit www.stanislauslibrary.org or call 209-524-5505.

County Celebrates New Bridge

The new bridge enhances pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular safety and provides a safer crossing over the river.

On Thursday, June 5, 2021, the County held an event to commemorate the successful completion of the Santa Fe Avenue Bridge Project. Stanislaus County staff, along with dignitaries and valued partners, recognized the accomplishment with an official ribbon cutting ceremony.

Construction of the replacement bridge began in 2017, and cost $20 million to complete ($2 million for design & right-of-way and $18 million for construction). Federal funding paid 88% of the total project cost with 12% covered by local funds.

The new bridge enhances pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular safety and provides a safer crossing over the river and includes the following improvements:

Two 12-foot-wide through traffic lanes in each direction
A 12-foot-wide center median lane to accommodate safe turning movements to/from existing driveways at both ends of the bridge
Eight-foot-wide shoulders

Originally built in 1947, the bridge is major north/south arterial road approximately one mile south of State Route 132 serving roughly 10,000 vehicles per day. The old bridge in this location was determined to be seismically deficient. In service of the public, Stanislaus County assesses the infrastructure needs of the community on a continuous basis and strives to support the Board of Supervisorsâ€™ priority around Efficient Public Services and Community Infrastructure.

County Reflects on Pandemic Response

First detected in the U.S. in January 2020, COVID-19 quickly spread across the nation. In early March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a national emergency and Stanislaus County began to feel the impacts of the virus on our community. Here is an overview of our local response.

The early months of 2020 included rapidly changing information from both federal and state government agencies. Stanislaus County Leadership worked diligently to understand this virus, broadly believed to pose a grave threat to human lives around the world. However, not much else was known other than its origin and the potential devastation it could cause. By early March, the Stanislaus County Office of Emergency Services had activated the Emergency Operations Center and established an Incident Command structure. Shortly thereafter, Stanislaus County saw its first two COVID-19 cases on March 11, 2020 and the County Public Health Officer declared a local health emergency on the same day in order to protect our residents.

As cases continued to mount, the Governor of California proclaimed a State of Emergency on March 19, 2020 and issued a statewide Stay at Home Order. This action supported the County of Stanislaus and other jurisdictions to take extreme mitigation measures toward preventing the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Many businesses closed or modified their operations to maintain the safety of the public and employees. Students were sent home to continue their education via distance learning. Across the community and the nation, people struggled to prepare for what was to come and guard against the negative impacts of COVID-19.

Despite Stanislaus County's initial measures to prepare for and prevent the spread of the virus, COVID-19 cases continued to increase across the state and locally throughout the duration of the incident period. While the pandemic response efforts are ongoing, the County's strategy and the lessons learned offer an opportunity to enhance future preparedness efforts which will serve as a local standard, and act as a best-practice response model going forward.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Stanislaus County has been exceptional in its scale, and the County's response has been all consuming. The unprecedented nature of the pandemic meant the County was challenged to design and implement new approaches to thwart the spread of the disease and protect our community without the benefit of prior experience or use of traditional pandemic response plans. The County's response focused our best resources and our most concentrated efforts on protecting residents through a multifaceted approach which included a reliance on local partnerships, active engagement with the community through public information channels and innovative mitigation strategies tested for the first time.

Stanislaus County recorded its first death on April 10, 2020. Since that day over 1,000 Stanislaus County residents have perished as a result of COVID-19 and over 53,000 residents have tested positive.

Stanislaus County's emergency operations team has worked diligently to balance the health and safety of the community with the need for people to work and for local businesses to remain viable. Throughout the past year, the County has worked tirelessly adapting to changes in incident priorities, state public health restrictions, local response needs and mitigation strategies to detect and control the spread of the virus in the community.

This report details the most significant impacts of COVID-19 and the County's response to the public health pandemic in Year One. Click here for report.

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Empire Community Library Now Open

County Celebrates New Bridge

County Reflects on Pandemic Response