Grant will help preserve records

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Scott County news

BENTON -- The circuit court's office in Scott County was awarded a $20,000 grant by the Office of State Courts Administrator.

"It's a records preservation grant," Pam Glastetter, circuit court clerk, said Tuesday. "It is to preserve probate records prior to 1970."

Glastetter said she applied for $31,000 to preserve both civil and probate records as her office does not have a climate-controlled facility. While the records are still legible, "they were starting to deteriorate," she said. "It has always been a major concern."

The grant award includes: $5,900 for a microfilm/microfiche reader/printer; $1,000 for a microfilm storage cabinet; $9,079.62 for microfilming case files; $3,720.38 to pay the costs of temporary assistance; and $300 for a microfilm workstation. Microfilm are reels of microformed material while microfiche are flat sheets.

Glastetter said her office will start getting the files ready this week. The project is expected take until October to complete.

The reader/printer will be placed in the probate office for the best public access, according to Glastetter. She said genealogists and historians often check probate records during their research.

A copy of the microformed records will also be kept at the state archive in an environmentally-controlled room, Glastetter said.

In other Scott County news:

* County commissioners are ready to do another bridge replacement project using funding from the Off-Systems Bridge Replacement Program.

"We haven't done one of those in quite a few years," said Presiding Commissioner Jamie Burger. "We have some money built up."

Burger noted this funding is earmarked for bridge replacements and can not be used in any other way.

The bridge commissioners are looking at replacing is located on County Road 420 near its intersection with County Road 417 southwest of Oran and west of Morley.

"It has the second lowest sufficiency rating of all our bridges in the county and it is a fairly long span," Burger said. "It was built in 1962 and has a 44 percent sufficiency rating."

Burger said he hopes to see the county satisfy the required 20 percent local match on the bridge replacement with in-kind contributions as much as possible.

The only Scott County bridge with a lower sufficiency level -- 33 percent -- is wooden structure built in 1964 on County Road 261 northwest of Oran, according to Burger.

"We are going to replace it with a culvert," he said. "The ditch it crosses doesn't carry much water."

* The Scott County Search and Rescue K-9 Unit has been invited by the National Center for Missing Persons to assist in a search for a missing person in Clarksville, Ark., according to Marshia Morton, the unit's captain.

The unit leaves today for the search.

"Hopefully we'll come home Saturday," Morton said.

The search will use a total of six dogs and handlers with three other dog teams from Eureka and two from Stewart County in Tennessee, according to Morton.

All expenses will be paid by the National Center for Missing Persons, she said.

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