The two sides in an ongoing neighborhood legal battle over a go-kart race track have at last begun to argue the merits of their cases to the Howard County Board of Appeals.
After numerous meetings, legal filings and proceedings, Charles “Chris” Siperko was able to fight for the go-kart race track he built for his son on the edge of his property and his neighbors began their arguments against it.
Attorney Sang Oh represented Siperko, and attorney G. Macy Nelson represented the group of neighbors who want the track removed because of noise and environmental concerns. The neighbors were also upset that Siperko had not informed or consulted them he was building a go-kart track, nor had he filed any permits with the county to have the work done. His petition for conditional use was filed after the fact, once he learned he had indeed needed to clear the plans with Howard County and adhere to certain Department of Planning and Zoning regulations.
Board members present were Gene Ryan (Chair), Felita Phillips, Lynn Foehrkolb, and Robbyn Harris. Tsega Girma Kyere, Howard County Solicitor, provided legal clarification to the board when necessary.
The hearing and arguments were solely to address planned track renovations, which Siperko hoped to make to bring the track into compliance with Howard County rules and assuage his neighbors. The board made clear that none of the neighbors’ arguments could be about whatever violations Siperko may have committed before. They wanted the hearing to be completely “forward-looking.”
The board heard Siperko’s side first, and Oh called upon Robert Vogel, a civil professional engineer with over 40 years of experience in land use development. Vogel is the consultant for the proposed conditional use for the Siperko racetrack. He testified that no buildings, parking areas, or outdoor activity areas would cross the required 100-foot buffer line from adjoining properties.
Vogel also described the landscaping planned intended to reduce noise, his understanding of when the track would be in use, and other details of the proposed project. He did not believe the track would adversely affect the shared driveway, the environment, or real estate value of neighboring properties.
Nelson cross-examined Vogel, asking why his plan has shading of the track that crosses the 100-foot buffer line from the adjoining property. Upon closer inspection, Vogel realized that was true and said there may have been a coloring error by his office when the plan was drafted.
Nelson also questioned him about the grading and steepness of the land around the track to determine if runoff from the track might adversely impact the adjoining property, the wildlife or other environmentally sensitive areas surrounding the property.
Once Nelson finished cross-examining Vogel, the board members asked questions, the most significant of which involved making certain that the plan would follow Howard County and state zoning and environmental requirements, and no changes to the plan would be made without going through the proper channels.
Oh then brought Jeffrey Straw as Siperko’s second witness, to testified via video. Straw is vice-president and area manager of GeoSonics/Vibra-Tech, a company specializing in monitoring vibrations. The Siperkos brought the go-kart to GeoSonic’s track in Orlando, Florida to have the noise and vibration levels tested.
Straw testified that the test of Siperko’s go-kart involved going around the 105-foot track one time, and the noise level recorded was below the 65-decibel maximum set by Howard County. If two or three go-karts are racing at the same time, the decibel level exceeds 65 by a small amount, and that might happen occasionally at the Siperko residence.
Nelson cross-examined Straw about that and asked him about other details regarding topography and the impact on other structures surrounding the racetrack. Board members asked Straw why the test took place in Florida, and only for one lap around the track. He explained that he thought the Siperkos were not permitted to use their track. As for the one lap at his test site, to measure the single go-kart, all other cars had to stop work and practice, and they would only permit that for one lap.
Finally, Siperko testified about the racetrack, the kind of tires the electric go-kart uses, and his impression that the kart is much quieter than a gas-powered go-kart.
Nelson began the neighbors’ case by calling Joe Quill, who lives in the house whose property adjoins Siperko’s. Their properties share a driveway as well. Quill and his family have lived there since 2005. They own horses and other livestock who live on the property in sheds, and there is also a garden shed on the property. He explained that his water source for the animals was a cistern fed by a freshwater spring that is part of a system installed in the early 1980s. The system includes three cisterns, two of which are on Siperko’s property.
Quill testified that for the first 15 years they lived there, the system worked perfectly, with the cistern always filled with fresh water.
“Now, after the track was built, what disruption, if any, was there to the water supply, to your water crop or your water system?” Nelson asked.
“Well, there is currently no water supply to the system,” Quill said. “It’s empty. It’s dry.”
Quill then described the day he heard Siperko’s son using the racetrack, Sept. 10, 2024. He and his family were inside with the windows and doors closed, and the air conditioning was on.
“We heard very loud screeching, and we could hear our dogs barking and going nuts,” Quill said. “I actually thought it was an animal in distress and ran out. Thought maybe my dog had gotten a hold of a baby deer or something, who knows. But ran out, and the dogs were running back and forth along our fence line. And that’s when we noticed that they were actually running a cart on the track. And you could hear the tires screeching inside the house.”
He said that once they were outside, they heard what they described as a loud, high-pitched whine. His family opposes the track because their quality of life would be diminished by the noise, and he expressed concern about the stress the noise would cause animals and livestock in the area.
When Oh cross-examined him, he asked about the time he and Siperko had worked together to fix the water system when it needed repairs. Oh established that Siperko told Quill about the track before he built it, but Quill pushed back on Oh’s general line of questioning.
“You told him you didn’t have a problem with it, right?” Oh asked.
“I told him I didn’t know that there was anything I could do to stop it,” Quill replied.
During construction, Siperko informed Quill he was removing the second cistern and paving over it for the track. Quill and Siperko attempted to connect the first cistern to Quill’s third cistern, which Quill said worked for a short time, and then water stopped flowing completely.
After the board asked their questions of Quill, Oh asked a few more questions about the cistern piping, and then changed subjects, mentioning that he and Quill went to high school together. Implying that he would recognize Quill, he said, “I’ve never seen you at any pre-submission meeting or prior to any hearings.”
“I was at both pre-submission meetings,” Quill responded.
Nelson objected to this line of questioning, and Ryan asked Oh to explain.
“I just wanted to ask him he had the conversation with my client,” Oh said. “I believe my client had an understanding with Mr. Quill about the proposal. His actions appearing today, I want to try to find out why he’s here.”
Oh said that Quill’s issues seem to only involve the water and not the track, and he did not know why he was at the conditional use hearing “complaining about the track.”
“So, I’m just trying to find out why he’s here,” Oh said. “What gives him the motivation to be here? Is it his neighbors that talked him into being here?”
“I get it, but we explicitly forbid talking about a witness’s motivations to testify, that’s explicitly prohibited,” Ryan said, sustaining Nelson’s objection.
The second witness for the neighbors was Dr. Tara Goldberg, who also lives on Mink Hollow Road with her wife and son. She has a Ph.D. in environmental policy and does environmental assessments for federal agencies. She primarily works from home. Goldberg answered many questions about topography and the stream that runs through her property and Quill’s, and the potential impact of future construction on stormwater runoff.
Goldberg also described Sept. 10, 2024, when she heard the Siperko racetrack being used. She described being inside her house with the windows and doors closed and hearing “loud squealing, screeching noises.”
“It sounded like an ongoing car accident, and we didn’t really know what that was, what was happening,” Goldberg said. “Our dogs had started barking inside the house. We walked out, we walked to over towards the property line, where our chicken coop is, and looked across and could see that the go kart was racing on the track. And at that point, both of us turned on our cameras. We were 20, 30, feet away from each other at that point, and different points, kind of along our property line, and we both took video of the go-karts on the track.”
At that point they played the two videos, each of which were less than 90 seconds long. Goldberg reiterated her opposition to the application for conditional use, emphasizing the environmental and noise impacts.
After determining that likely two more hearings would be necessary to complete the proceedings, the meeting was adjourned. The next meeting is set for July 10, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. Goldberg will return for cross-examination from Oh and questions from the board, and more witnesses from the neighbors’ side will testify.
