TROY, N.Y. -- It's a noisy discussion over some noisy dunking and dribbling.
A portable basketball hoop called the CORE Church's parking lot home until neighbors called a technical foul on what was going on.
“Stones were being thrown against the houses. Kids were playing until 1-1:30 in the morning, urinating in the back yards,” said Troy DPW Commissioner Bob Mirch.
Mirch says the city told CORE Church Pastor David Lewis and Missing Link Ministries Pastor Willie Bacote to take the hoop down and they did. Mirch says after it was put back up over the weekend, the city took it down for good.
"The city has constructed basketball courts in places where kids can go and play basketball safely and not disturb the neighbors," Mirch said.
"I respect Mr. Mirch, I think it was a big misunderstanding about taking the goal," Bacote said.
A noisy game of hoops has some in Troy hopping mad. As Curtis Schick reports, the church that put up the court might have other programs dunked because of complaints.
Bacote and a few dozen followers were planning a march to the DPW garage. That's where the hoop that caused the harm is warming the bench. But instead, they stayed in the lot where Pastor Willie runs his feed a kid program three day a week. Neighbors say those nights are noisy too and hope Bacote considers moving it to a little league field a few blocks away.
“Anybody who living here trying to work, knows that people who live here work all three shifts and it was going to bother somebody at sometime,” said Tina Urzen of the North Central Troy/Lansingburgh Neighborhood Association.
“We will continue with the feed the children program and how long we will continue, we will be here for the rest of this week and next week,” Bacote said.
“I think that the feeding the children issues and the basketball hoop issue are two different things and should not be linked,” Mirch said.
Lewis says the most important thing is to keep the feeding program going. And many people we talked to off camera say in a city with so many problems, they wonder if a battle over a basketball hoop really worth it.