By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — School may be out, but the Marshall County Commissioners were gaining plenty of knowledge with a day of quarterly reports from various department heads around the county.
Progress continues on a pair of infrastructure projects with Pine Road and the 13th Street Bridge continuing with acquisition of right of way.

Laurie Johnson, of DLZ, who is handling both projects, and County Attorney Jim Clevenger reported that offers made for the property required to put in the new Pine Road continue to be accepted. Four parcels of land remain to be purchased for Pine Road and those purchases are a priority item if the project is to go to the bidding process scheduled to being in October.
Johnson reported that permits for the project had been applied for and that the plans for relocation of the railroad crossing had been approved. Several REMC power lines will also have to be relocated for the project.
In another project, stage two plans have been submitted for the 13th Street bridge refurbishing, and it is expected that wetlands mitigation issues for the project will be minimal.
In other business:
•A contract for the 2011 reassessment of the county was awarded to Ad Valorem Solutions of Kokomo.
While two bids came in below the bid by Ad Valorem, Assessor Deb Dunning told the Commis-sioners that the bid by Indiana Assessment Service was not accepted to keep the county from any conflict of interest. The company currently acts as a consultant for the county and represents Marshall County in the appeals process.
A bid by Tyler Tech-nologies also was lower but the distance of the company from Marshall County — a base in Dayton, Ohio — along with the fact that the company was already representing 19 other counties led to the choice of Ad Valorem.
The contract agreed to will also allow Marshall County to renegotiate or nullify the contract if the State Legislature changes the date and/or the scope of reassessment in the special session upcoming.
• CASA of Marshall County has continued to grow in volunteers with 10 more recently sworn in by Judge Curt Palmer.
Melody Kruger, director of the program, told the Commissioners that she already has 10 more volunteers who’ve expressed interest in becoming part of the program during the upcoming fall training sessions.
CASA is a program of court appointed advocates for children deemed to be in need of services due to abuse or neglect.
This spring Kruger said that 130 cases were in pro-gress around Marshall County.