Pleasant Ridge Considering 
Removing Basketball Hoop, Meeting Monday
(Crystal A. Proxmire, June 3, 2017)
Pleasant Ridge, MI – Officials in Pleasant Ridge are considering the fate of the basketball court at Gainsboro Park at a special meeting Monday evening. The hoopla is over whether the basket should be removed or allowed to remain but with rules more clearly enforced.
According to City Manager James Breuckman, there had been “some incidents and complaints about the basketball court,” causing the city to give the court “a timeout.”
“We had complaints from a local teenager who had been roughed up, complaints from park users about being harassed while they were walking by the courts, many incidents of 
basketball players blowing through the stop signs at the end of Amherst, public urination, and drug citations at the court,” Breuckman said. “Given that this was an escalating pattern and all of these incidents occurred within about a month in April, we decided to give the court a timeout. There is also the past gun incident at Roosevelt that led to the removal of the basketball court there. That is still at the front of many residents’ memories, and we don’t want to end up with something similar happening at Gainsboro.”
On April 26 the Recreation Commission decided that a temporary closure of the court was appropriate. They will meet Monday to vote on a more long term solution to the problems. Options include re-opening and monitoring the court or looking at alternate uses for it. The meeting takes place Monday, June 5 at 7pm, at 4 Ridge Road. For more information see http://www.cityofpleasantridge.org/documents/Meetings/2017/prec0617.pdf.
