Advice on breaking asphalt around supporting posts

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I want to redo our car port area. As can be seen it's a bit of a mess, it slopes down from the lane so when it rains water all run down to that little grate. Idea is to put a grate drain that spans the width of the driveway at the beginning of the car port, replace the current grate with a full width one, and maybe put pavers down. My question is can I break up the asphalt around the supporting posts (maybe cut the area to square them out)? Or would I compromise the integrity of the footing? ...