March Sadness: Couple fights for basketball hoop - story w/pics

[Kadie]

March Sadness: Couple fights for basketball hoop
RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press
Updated 01:50 p.m., Friday, March 25, 2011


DOVER, Del. (AP) — A Delaware mom climbed atop her family's basketball hoop Friday in a short-lived bid to keep authorities from ripping it out and confiscating it.

Transportation workers and state police came to her neighborhood in Wilmington Friday morning to remove several basketball goals that officials said were too close to the roadway.

Several residents were sent letters last year warning them that the state's "Clear Zone" law prohibits trees and other objects from being within seven feet of the pavement's edge in a residential subdivision.

John and Melissa McCafferty said they'd gotten more than one warning letter, but that police cars and heavy machinery showed up without warning Friday morning to remove the hoops.


Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/March-Sadness-Couple-fights-for-basketball-hoop-1305971.php#ixzz1HfRdNcSm


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Melissa McCafferty sits on a basketball hoop in protest on after Delaware Department of Transportation crews escorted by state police cruisers tore down basketball hoops, Friday, March 25, 2011, in Claymont, Del. Last fall, DelDOT sent letters to at least eight residents in the Radnor Green and Ashbourne Hills subdivisions saying their street-side basketball hoops violated the state’s Clear Zone law, which prohibits hoops, trees, shrubs and other objects from being within seven feet of the pavement's edge in subdivisions. DelDOT told residents that if they didn’t take down the hoops that the agency would and residents would be charged for the removal and disposal costs, said Radnor Green resident John McCafferty. (AP Photo/The Wilmington News-Journal, Robert Craig)




pics from news.yahoo.com

[Drale]

1. First off

"law prohibits trees and other objects from being within seven feet of the pavement's edge in a residential subdivision." That is a really stupid law. Second, she doesn't strike me as a hardcore basketball player who would be devastated if she lost her court.

[Kadie]

5. She did it for her kids.

The article says that the hoops has been there for many, many years, and they were trying to get a court order to keep the city from taking it away.

[TheMadMonk]

7. Really? The whole point of such clearances is to give drivers exiting...

...driveways a clear view of traffic. I wish more municipalities had them and enforced them. In my local "upper crust" neighbourhood, the property owners in some streets (including the single longest thoroughfare) have literally occupied the land in front of their properties all the way to the kerb. Mainly with rock, cactus and other prickly type arangements to discourage the riffraff from perambulating by.

From the looks of this woman's installation, she has errected her hoop right at the kerb in order to use the hard surface of the road for the "court". Message lady. ROADS ARE NOT PLAYGROUNDS. This enough should have been grounds for removal without notice.

[MyrnaLoy]

2. I hope everyone

realizes that if the hoop was that close to the street then THE STREET WAS THE COURT. Now the question becomes, is the street for cars or kids to play in? Don't come running to me when johnny gets smacked chasing a wayward dunk.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Can we send her pizza?

Free Melissa!

[Kadie]

6. LOL!

:rofl:

:)

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. lol

[provis99]

4. Stay strong, Sister! Fight the Power!