Uniontown Pennsylvania Message Forums - WWW.UNIONTOWN.COM

My comments are regarding the new anti-fun ordinance against children in Uniontown as quoted below (according to a story in the Herald Standard):

"The installation of any devise (sic) by any person for the purpose of playing games, including, but not limited to, basketball, football, tennis, volleyball, hockey, and all other games of any kind and/or the playing of such games by any person, on the highways, streets, alleys, sidewalks and thoroughfares within the geographical boundaries of the City of Uniontown, is hereby prohibited."

(reference URLs rewritten, remove parenthesis (http:)//www.heraldstandard.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=20209913&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=565757&rfi=8)
(reference URLs rewritten, remove parenthesis (http:)//www.pittsburghlive.com/x/dailycourier/news/uniontown/s_598243.html)

Although I applaud Kathryn Jones for her efforts and viewpoint, I think it goes much deeper than the obvious.

Uniontown has a history of making pisspoor decisions like this. The mindset of Uniontown must be that they can control behavior without presence.

Example number 1: Traffic STOP SIGNS for speed control. A stop sign should not be a form of SPEED CONTROL in the City of Uniontown. The city is absolutely polluted with 4-way stop signs that exist (by their own admission!) as a form of slowing down traffic. This is asinine.

IF THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH SPEED ON A STREET, HOW ABOUT THE POLICE PATROL THE STREET AND REMEDY THE PROBLEM CORRECTLY? If it is indeed a problem, there will be sufficient FINE REVENUE from TICKETS to further support the efforts of the POLICE, and the end result will be that traffic is slowed to an adequate speed. This is the CORRECT ANSWER to this problem, not to force every single vehicle to come to a complete stop, sometimes 4 and 5 times in a row, because some vehicles are speeding.

A stop sign is meant to stop one flow of traffic to give right of way to another flow of traffic. I'm not saying there are no reasons to have a 4-way stop. Occasional 4-ways to permit flow of pedestrian traffic would be one correct use of a 4-way stop sign. But they are absolutely and completely misused within the city of Uniontown.

Example number 2: This anti-hopskotch ordinance is more of the same. If there is a disturbance for whatever reason somewhere in the City, have the police officers do their job and go on site and evaluate the situation and remedy it accordingly. You should not need to write specific laws plunging the government deeper into our lives and limiting our freedoms even further because someone feels that kids are making excessive noise while playing.

As I think about it, I don't think I ever see city police enforcing traffic laws. In my recent memory, I cannot recall a single instance of seeing a City Police car issuing a traffic stop on a motorist in Uniontown. I have seen the State Police enforcing laws, but not the Uniontown City Police. Ultimately, this might be the real problem.

More cops visiting means more money for more cops.

Uniontown is having money problems. I don't think they want to have bodies present because bodies cost money.

If there really are lawbreakers, the fines could be used to fund the Police.

If the speeding is such a big problem on those streets the fine revenue should be huge. The city could likely make a profit and slow traffic AND get rid of the annoying 4-way stops all at the same time.

not sure if hopskotch counts with this ordinence because the ordinence refers to installing equipment and I don't think hopskotch fits that bill.

I looked at it that it's aimed at kids blocking throughways. Technically, an argument could be made that drawing hopskotch grid on a sidewalk is installing the game on the sidewalk, and the kids would be blocking a throughway. I realize that's a stretch.

The surface of any given item rarely gives you a true picture of the interior. Think a little deeper about what the idea might really be behind this.

In the simple view, this is as good an attempt as any to avoid the gathering of a crowd in an area that might block an easy way of breaking up said crowd. Start with a couple guys with a portable basketball hoop on a side street. A few more join in, girlfriends come in, before you know it twenty or thirty people are on the scene. Somebody wants to get through and the crowd won't budge, somebody gets an attitude. Here comes the altercation. Say a fight starts over a missed hoop and somebody draws a weapon, mini riot in a tight neighborhood and no easy way to break it down. Old Minnie gets upset that the kids are tramping her roses, she calls the police who chase the kids off, the kids come back and bother old Minnie who now lives in terror just because she didn't want her roses hurt.

Take the same bunch to a playground and you have a much easier way to control the situation with a couple firehoses if things get nuts. Contained area, better to keep an eye on things. Also, these days it isn't just a few harmless kids wanting to shoot some hoops like in Mayberry of old. Somebody's packing, somebody's dealing, somebody's nuts, somebody's high and so on. Reality.

Yep, I totally understand your point about the issue being deeper than the obvious, but I must still respectfully disagree with you.

Here's why.

Let's say that the reason that the group you refer to is gathering instead around a Lemonade Stand. Or a group of spectators is gathering to watch a couple of particularly good skateboarders, or "insert your own crowd attraction here".

The law was already broken at the point where the crowd did not let traffic pass. That's what should have been enforced. The law may also have already been broken at the point where the crowd started to become unruley. These are the actual illegal acts that should be enforced. I find it silly to tie this to something like a basketball hoop even if most of these recent events happened to have involved one.

Do we need to now make Lemonade Stands, or Skateboarding, or "insert your crowd attraction" now illegal?

It's not the basketball hoop that's causing the problem. It's the people's behavior. But now anyone who plays street basketball is technically breaking the law, and we have now started down the slippery slope of outlawing Basket Ball Hoops and Lemonade Stands and Skateboarding, because this is how the government works. They start with one crack in the armor, and once that's passed they just pile on the rest that would not have been tolerated initially.

Being from a much older crowd what we have are cases of bad parenting. If an older person in my youth even sad he was going to talk to my parents about something I did you can bet I worked a deal out very quickley to the tune of "I promise I won't do it again".

My dad had this habit of action before explainations. Today if you tell Johnny's or Susie's parents about their children they as much say or not say mind your own business.

In fact I think most children are looking for parents not friends !

Granted that hoops, stands and boards aren't the real problem. But it can be said that they are ways a problem could be created based on past experience. Somebody put something up which in turn caused a problem to somebody else who had to then involve the police. So now instead of waiting for the call to action after something starts, they now have the authority to break things up at first sight.

It is "Big Brother" watching over us but then we've sort of allowed it to happen by our previous courses of action.

Yes big brother is getting closer and closer. Laws never go the other direction, laws always only go the big brother direction. It's like a ratchet, little by little its just a matter of time before we have a real big brother society.