Howard County man defends his go-kart track in latest hearing as neighbors continue fight
During the nearly seven-hour-long Howard County Board of Appeals hearing, Chris Siperko argued for his conditional use application for the track. Earlier this month, the board gave him the green light to keep the track on his property.
Siperko started construction on the race track in December 2023 and finished the work by January 2024. The go-kart track is about a half-mile long and approximately 24 feet wide.
Ever since then, his neighbors have wanted him to get rid of the track.
Experts testify on Siperko's behalf
Sang Oh, Siperko's attorney, called up two experts -- Robert Vogel, a civil engineer, and Jeffrey Straw, a vibration and acoustic consultant based out of Florida.
In both of their testimonies, Vogel and Straw explained why Siperko's application should be approved -- with Oh going over the standards under Howard County code.
Vogel testified that what's proposed in the application won't have much adverse effects, like odors or add intensity like traffic.
Straw, meanwhile, testified that the noise from the race track will likely be able to meet the 65 or lower decibel threshold required.
Neighbors continue fight against the race track
During Siperko's cross-examination, his neighbors' lawyer, G. Macy Nelson, honed in on the environmental impact, noting part of the existing track is on wetlands.
He also noted the potential encroachment on neighboring properties in what's proposed in the application.
Vogel and Oh acknowledged Nelson's criticisms, also saying they will be able to adjust down the line.
Vogel said he's been consulting with the Maryland Department of the Environment.
"In no event will we go bigger or radically different than what was approved. The approval of a plan that varies in some way from what is approved by the board is what's known as a minor modification," Oh said.
Nelson called up two neighbors to testify against the application. Both complained about hearing loud noises from the track, as well as echoing environmental concerns.
"I believe the quality of life for us and other neighbors will be diminished by the continued use of a race track," Joe Quill said.
More witnesses will be called at the next hearing scheduled for July 10 at 6:30 p.m. The board is expected to make a decision then.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Democratic Congressman Suozzi's $50,000 stock sale took advantage of a loophole in Congressional disclosure rules
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) sold up to $50,000 of Global Industrial Co. stock in March 2025, despite never publicly disclosing ownership due to a now-closed loophole in federal law. Suozzi received the stock as unvested compensation in 2023 and did not report it, citing then-current disclosure rules. He has a history of delayed or missing disclosures and past violations of the STOCK Act. WASHINGTON — When Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) sold a chunk of his personal stock holdings two days before President Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariff announcements in April, the transaction appeared to be yet another routine financial move for someone Congress itself once investigated for his often opaque trading habits. But Suozzi's March 31 sale of up to $50,000 worth of Global Industrial Co. stock is notable for what it's not: The congressman has never publicly disclosed owning the stock, prompting the question of how a federal lawmaker can sell a security he doesn't appear to own in the first place. The answer? Suozzi simply didn't disclose his Global Industrial Co. stock, which he obtained more than two years ago, because of an apparent loophole in federal law—a loophole recently closed by Congress to address stock situations precisely like Suozzi's, according to a Fortune review of federal documents and interviews with government officials. Suozzi's mysterious stock trade comes at a time when a bipartisan coalition in Congress are agitating to ban federal lawmakers from trading stocks altogether. They cite what they regard as abuses of a financial disclosure law known as the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. Suozzi has violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provision on four different occasions earlier this decade, according to media reports. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and even President Donald Trump have offered support, in principle, for a congressional stock-trade ban. Suozzi's congressional office told Fortune the congressman has done nothing wrong by not yet reporting his Global Industrial Co. stock ownership, arguing that he followed congressional rules that applied to him when he last filed mandatory personal financial disclosures in 2024. 'Congressman Suozzi has complied completely with the rules of House Ethics,' Suozzi Chief of Staff Matt Fried told Fortune. Suozzi's latest stock saga began in June 2023. That month, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records, Suozzi received $50,000 worth of restricted, unvested stock in Global Industrial Co., while serving as a 'non-management director' of the company after leaving Congress earlier that year following a failed campaign for governor of New York. Later that year, Suozzi decided to run in a special election for New York's 3rd Congressional District seat, which Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) vacated after the House of Representatives expelled him amid a swathe of federal criminal charges on which he was later csentenced to more than seven years in prisononvicted. When Suozzi filed a mandatory candidate financial disclosure report on January 12, 2024, he did not disclose his stock in Global Industries Co. The company markets industrial and repair products through various e-commerce websites. Nor did he disclose it in two subsequent financial disclosures, in August and September of 2024, after he won his congressional seat in February 2024. The three financial disclosures applied to Suozzi's personal financial activity during 2023. Fried explained that Suozzi's Global Industries Co. stock 'had not vested and had no value' when Suozzi filed his personal financial disclosure in January 2024. Because House Committee on Ethics financial disclosure rules at the time did not specifically address unvested stock holdings, Suozzi did not disclose his Global Industries Co. stock holding, Fried said. However, Suozzi's Global Industries Co. stock did vest at some point between Suozzi's financial disclosure on Jan. 12, 2024, and his swearing-in to Congress on Feb. 28, 2024, Fried said. The Global Industries Co. stock 'will be reflected' when Suozzi discloses his 2024 personal financial activity in a document that must be filed by August 2025, Fried said. In May, Suozzi requested, and received, a 90-day extension to file it., Fried said. When the House Committee on Ethics released updated disclosure rules earlier this year, it included new language directly addressing the kind of situation Suozzi finds himself in, although it doesn't appear to apply to members of Congress retroactively. 'You are required to disclose for yourself, your spouse, or dependent children your participation in a restricted stock plan if the value of stock was more than $1,000 at the end of the reporting period or earned more than $200 in income during the reporting period,' the House guidance reads. 'Provide the name of the unvested stock (vested stock should be disclosed on a separate line item), value, type of income and amount.' Tom Rust, chief counsel for the House Committee on Ethics, declined to comment. 'These disclosure requirements are important because they're the only sort of ethical obligation members of Congress have been willing to impose on themselves,' said Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. 'If they'd finally pass the long-languishing stock trading ban to uphold the bedrock ethical principle of avoiding conflicts of interest, they wouldn't have to worry about these disclosures.' In 2021, NPR reported — citing research from the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group — that Suozzi failed to properly disclose about 300 financial transactions. Separately, Business Insider reported that Suozzi — on three different occasions in March, May and December of 2022 — violated the STOCK Act by waiting months or years past a federal deadline to disclose dozens of additional stock trades. 'Quite frankly, we have a lot going on in Congress. I have a lot of other stuff going on. And it's just not—ethics is a big priority for me. But the—some of the formalities are not necessarily something I make a priority of,' Suozzi told the independent Office of Congressional Ethics in 2022 during its investigation of his stock trading practices, while noting a financial adviser directed his trades. The Office of Congressional Ethics's board unanimously referred Suozzi to the House Committee on Ethics, writing that there was 'substantial reason to believe' Suozzi had failed to properly disclose hundreds of personal stock trades. But the House Committee on Ethics, which members of Congress themselves constitute, unanimously concluded in July 2022 that there 'was not clear evidence' that Suozzi committed a 'knowing or willful' violation of the STOCK Act. The committee declined to penalize him. In his second stint as a congressman, Suozzi is a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, which is responsible for tax-writing, revenue-raising and other core government financial functions. He sits on the committee's oversight and tax subcommittees, as well. Fried, Suozzi's chief of staff, said Suozzi backs the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act of 2025, one of several pending bills that, if passed, would ban or otherwise limit members of Congress from trading individual stocks. On May 5, Suozzi became a co-sponsor of the bill, which is also sponsored by 10 other ideologically diverse lawmakers ranging from Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). When Suozzi sold his Global Industrial Co. stock on March 31, it was trading around $22 per share — down from about $27 a share when he obtained it in June 2023. It's the only stock trade Suozzi has reported making this year after reporting making just a handful last year. 'The congressman has made a point of not buying or selling stock since his new term began in January,' Fried said. 'This was his only trade. It was done to raise money to pay fees to his financial adviser. This stock was sold because it was the only stock in which he had no capital gains.' Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist. Dave previously worked as editor-in-chief of Raw Story, deputy editor at Business Insider and as an editor or reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, Politico, OpenSecrets and the Dallas Morning News. He has also written for The Atlantic, TIME, Rolling Stone, Columbia Journalism Review, the Daily Beast, NOTUS and The Ankler. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump criticized for using antisemitic slur in Iowa speech
Jewish advocacy groups slammed President Donald Trump for using an anti-Semitic descriptor on Thursday during his Iowa speech celebrating the passage of his spending bill. Trump used the term "Shylocks," which evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jewish people and greed, to talk about the tax changes in the bill. "No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and bar exam from, in some cases a fine banker, and in some cases Shylocks and bad people, but they took away a lot of family. They destroyed a lot of families, but we did the opposite," he told the crowd. Shylock is a reference to the name of the Jewish moneylender and villain in playwright William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" who demands a "pound of flesh" from protagonist Antonio. MORE: Trump admin live updates The Anti-Defamation League on Friday morning criticized the president, reiterating that the term is "extremely offensive and dangerous." "President Trump's use of the term is very troubling and irresponsible. It underscores how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply entrenched in our country. Words from our leaders matter and we expect more from the President of the United States," the organization said in a statement. Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, also condemned Trump's comments, saying in a statement it was one of "the most quintessential antisemitic stereotypes." "This is not an accident. It follows years in which Trump has normalized antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories -- and it's deeply dangerous," she added. Trump was asked about his use of the word after he returned to Washington D.C. early Friday. The president, who has made combating antisemitism in schools a priority in his administration, claimed he has "never heard it that way." "To me, Shylock is somebody that's a money lender at high rates. I've never heard it that way. You view it differently than me. I've never heard that," Trump claimed. MORE: Video Concerns grow over the rise in incidents of antisemitic hate crimes This is not the first time that an executive branch member came under fire for using the term. In 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden took heat for using the term during the 40th anniversary celebration of the Legal Services Corporation, referring to predatory bankers as "these Shylocks who took advantage of these women and men while overseas." Biden apologized after then-Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman criticized the use of the term. "He's correct, it was a poor choice of words, particularly as he said coming from 'someone as friendly to the Jewish community and open and tolerant an individual as is Vice President Joe Biden.' He's right," Biden said in a statement. ABC News' Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Supreme Court to consider reviving lawsuit restricting evangelizing in small Mississippi town
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Thursday it will consider whether to revive a lawsuit from a man barred from evangelizing outside a small-town Mississippi amphitheater after authorities say he shouted insults at people over a loudspeaker. Gabriel Olivier, an evangelical Christian, says restricting him from public property violated his religious and free speech rights, but a legal Catch-22 has barred him from challenging the law in court. Lower courts found he couldn't file a civil-rights lawsuit because he'd been arrested, and instead needed to file under habeas corpus, a legal remedy open to prisoners. But because he was ticketed rather than imprisoned, his lawyers say that option wasn't open either, effectively denying him a day in court. The city of Brandon, Mississippi, on the other hand, says the restrictions aren't about religious speech, but rather about limiting disturbances caused when he and his group yelled insults like 'Jezebel,' 'nasty,' and 'drunkards" at people passing by. The ordinance restricts demonstrations near the amphitheater but does allow him to preach from a designated 'protest zone," and has already survived another lawsuit, the city said. The city says the case is about Olivier and his group's 'desire to have their preferred method of protest, without regard for the rights or interests of anyone else.' Olivier's attorneys say he was engaging in respectful and protected speech at the time of his arrest, and the case centers on a key legal issue affecting free speech across the political spectrum. 'Every American has First Amendment rights to free speech; and every American has a right to their day in court,' said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO for First Liberty Institute, which is representing him along with attorney Allyson Ho of the firm Gibson Dunn. 'Both of these rights were violated for Gabe Olivier. The Supreme Court will now decide whether those rights will be protected for all Americans.' The court is expected to hear arguments in the fall.
