A service they earn every day
This Saturday, May 13, the familiar term “free will” will have a special meaning for Columbus and Phenix City first responders and their families.
As reported by staff writer Ben Wright, the State Bar of Georgia and the Alabama State Bar will be providing free legal services for 140 first responders in the bi-cities who registered last week.
It’s part of the “Wills for Heroes” program, which was actually started by an attorney in Columbia, S.C., not long after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. When members of his firm began talking to police and firefighters in the area, the estate and other legal planning needs of first responders became clear. The Young Lawyers Division of the American Bar Association chose Wills for Heroes as a national public service program in 2008, and it has spread nationwide since.
From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at 1510 Whitewater Ave. in Phenix City, first responders and their families who registered for the event will meet with lawyers who will explain and write up wills, power of attorney documents, health care directives and the like.
These are especially important documents for people who put their lives on the line for the rest of us in especially high-risk situations. They deal with the reality not only of imminent life-and-death situations, but also long-term health consequences of the risks they take on our behalf.
It’s a worthy service by the attorneys, and the first responders and their families are more than worthy recipients of it.
Quite a feat
It’s not a common occurrence to give kudos to government agencies — especially those with big budgets that use our money in ways that often cause us inconvenience and stress.
The above would certainly describe the Georgia Department of Transportation (or, for that matter, any department of transportation). Every motorist has been stuck in seemingly interminable traffic jams due to road construction and improvement that never seems to get finished.
Which brings us specifically to the familiar, and notorious, Interstate 85 — and, in this case, reason to give the much-maligned DOT a tip of the hat.
As reported by staff writer Larry Gierer, the busy I-85 bridge in Atlanta that collapsed March 30 due to a fire underneath — with, miraculously, no human catastrophe — is now expected to be rebuilt and open for traffic by Memorial Day weekend. That means if the DOT and its contractor, C.W. Matthews, bring this off, the time between collapse and reopening will have been less than two months.
There’s a substantial incentive in the contract: $1.5 million if it’s done by May 25, $2 million by May 21, and an additional $200,000 a day for each day sooner than that.
That’s free-enterprise capitalism at its most effective. And if the DOT and its private partner can bring it off, it’s doubtful many of the already harried souls who have to drive in and around Atlanta every day will resent one penny of it.
This story was originally published May 8, 2017 at 5:31 PM with the headline "A service they earn every day."