.Gimme Shelter

Neighbors of the Altamont Motorsports Park say their criticism of the track has earned them harassment and death threats.

The towering stadium lights strategically turned to set Mark and Karin Rivard’s bedroom aglow, sometimes as late as 2 a.m., were pretty bad. Even worse was the time that a stark naked Mark stepped out of the tub and locked eyes with the giggling passengers of a helicopter hovering outside his second-story bathroom window. But the YouTube video accusing Karin of bestowing herpes on an Alameda County supervisor sympathetic to her family’s plight — that cut the deepest.

And that’s just the short list of punishments the Rivards say they have endured in return for meddling in the business of their new neighbor, the Altamont Motorsports Park.

The Rivards and their two daughters live in a tall, industrial-style house nestled among the white windmills of the Altamont Pass. They designed the three-bedroom, 4,500-square foot home themselves, carefully selecting its high ceilings, concrete and metallic flooring and walls, and vast, open rooms. They imagined they’d spend the rest of their lives there. And yet, 120 feet from the Rivard’s property line and 1,000 feet from their front door sits the Altamont Motorsports Park, a paved, half-mile oval racetrack on 83 acres. From their driveway, the Rivards can see the entire track below.

In 1999, when the Rivards bought the property on which their house now stands, the Altamont Speedway was rarely used. For the five years before they started building there, the Rivards traveled often to their 56-acre plot. They rode their bikes and took long walks, a welcome alternative to their home in the Oakland Hills. Occasionally, they saw cars circling the track, but most days during the two and a half years their house was under construction, Altamont appeared all but abandoned.

“The argument we hear all the time is, ‘How stupid can you be; what did you expect when you built your house next to a racetrack?'” said Karin, 38. “But it’s not that simple.”

After all, the couple had done their research. In the forty years since Altamont was built, it had rarely hosted more than a couple dozen races a year. At one point, it shut down completely for years. Odds are, they thought, not much will change in the next forty years. “We had no problem with how the racetrack had been used historically,” Karin said.

Then, two weeks after the Rivards moved in, the speedway sold to a new owner. The Rivards didn’t know it had been up for sale until trucks, pavers, and bulldozers began rolling up the narrow country road that winds to their property, just west of the Alameda County line.

The track was no longer in the hands of someone looking to run a few weekend races for a small profit. Altamont now belonged to a group of investors headed by a man looking to make a name in racing — a man whom some say will change the face of motorsports in California, but whom others regard as an unscrupulous businessman who doesn’t play by the rules.

Two million dollars in improvements later, Altamont runs at least three days a week, well into the night, seven months out of the year. It hosts stock car, truck, and motorcycle races, and the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. On good days, Altamont attracts a couple hundred people. On the best days, it draws a few thousand. And the track’s new owners want to add more, including live concerts for as many as 6,500 fans and year-round, daily operations.

The changes at the track instantly transformed the neighborhood. On race days, the Rivards and other neighbors say, it’s too loud to go outside. When Altamont’s new lights are on at night, the neighbors closest to it say they can’t go to sleep. “What’s going on over there now is nothing like it’s ever been the entire time we’ve lived here,” said Jim Tanner, who has lived a half-mile from Altamont for 25 years. “You wouldn’t believe how fast I’ve seen people drive down our two-lane country roads,” added his wife, Tina. “We have kids and we have animals. It’s scary.”

In the spring of 2006, four months after the track was sold, a small group of neighbors formed Community for a Better Altamont to oppose the racetrack’s new way of doing business. In the last year and a half, they have held nearly two dozen meetings with Alameda County officials. They’ve made countless phone calls, typed hundreds of e-mails, snapped dozens of pictures, and spent tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers and noise experts.

In May, Karin took a leave of absence from her job as the manager of a medical office to focus full-time on the fight against Altamont. Instead of the job, she now has a two-drawer Rubbermaid filing cabinet on wheels, stuffed with noise reports, legal bills, letters from county agencies, copies of Altamont’s permits, and stacks of police reports. “This is just some of it,” Karin said on a recent Saturday.

Although deeply unsatisfied with the results of their efforts, the Rivards have undoubtedly gotten the track’s attention. Alameda County is requiring Altamont’s owners to seek a new zoning permit. County supervisors also recently banned drifting, a particularly noisy class of motor sport. Finally, attitudes toward Altamont have begun to change, as county supervisor and former track supporter Scott Haggerty has concluded that the facility’s managers can’t be trusted to tell the truth.

But the Rivards and their neighbors were hoping for a lot more. They were counting on Alameda County’s noise, land-use, and building rules to protect them as the track’s neighbors. Instead, for their role in leading the fight against Altamont, Mark and Karin say they’ve become the targets of frightening retaliation from Altamont and some factions of the racing community.


As soon as the new owners began racing, neighbors began complaining about the lights, noise, litter, traffic, and late-night races. One month into the racing season, the Rivards had hired three lawyers. First, they hired Mark Cohen, a Fremont-based land-use attorney. As soon as he became familiar with their case, he recommended they bring in a second lawyer with expertise in environmental law. Then they added a Lafayette-based sound attorney when the county wouldn’t send someone out to measure the noise.

After some investigation, Alameda County officials discovered that the stadium lights that keep Altamont’s neighbors up at night were installed without the required county building permits. So were an electrical substation, a billboard, two cargo containers, new bleachers, and awnings to shelter patrons from the sun. The Rivards also suspected that noise from the track was regularly surpassing the level allowed under the county’s noise ordinance. So they bought a sound meter. It confirmed their suspicions. Just to be sure, they hired a sound engineer at their own expense to come out and take some readings. Again, their suspicions were validated.

The track’s operations are subject to numerous limitations that are spelled out in its county-issued conditional-use permit. The Rivards say the track has violated its terms numerous times by hosting races later and on different days than permitted. Altamont and the county say those charges aren’t true. Nonetheless, the county did advise Altamont’s managers that they would no longer be allowed to operate under the prior owner’s permit. As part of this rezoning, the new owners must conduct costly environmental studies on how their plans will affect the neighbors. When the studies are done, the track’s status will be reviewed by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

But in the year that has passed since Altamont’s owners were told they must rezone, the track has continued to operate under the old permit. Building inspectors first sent notice of the violations to Altamont a year ago. Allen Lang, head of Alameda County’s building inspection department, said last month that the track still had not rectified them. The Rivards say that the lights are still blinding and the noise is still earsplitting. “Who gets to put up stadium lights without a permit?” asks Mark, the fifty-year-old president of a nationwide staffing company. “My neighbor had to rip the fireplace out of his house because it wasn’t up to code. But those lights are still there.”

The county’s environmental health department eventually sent someone to measure the noise, but the Rivards say nothing came of that except a decision last February by the county’s environmental health department to allow Altamont to exceed the noise ordinance. The neighbors sued over that decision. “Nothing the county has done has made any difference for me and my family,” Mark said. “There’s no enforcement. We’re totally on our own out here.”

Tona Henninger, the county code enforcement officer assigned to Altamont, said she’s made countless trips to the track and responded to every neighborhood grievance. Henninger said she’s worked with the track to replace its dilapidated fences, redirect its lights away from nearby homes, install “no parking” signs on nearby roads, and provide appropriate security during certain events. While Henninger admits there has been a lot to work on at Altamont, she said the track’s officials have always agreed to make the necessary changes.

County officials say the neighbors’ concerns will all be addressed through the environmental studies now underway. And they insist they’ve done everything possible to make life next to Altamont livable while that process continues. The county’s lead attorney, Richard Winnie, said Alameda County stands firmly as an honest broker in the dispute between Altamont and its neighbors. “We’re doing our very best to be fair and impartial,” he said.

But the Rivards say their day-to-day problems with the track have only gotten worse. About a year ago, Altamont began leaving its stadium lights burning hours after its races ended. “At first we just thought they forgot to turn them off, but then it became a pretty regular pattern,” Karin said. “We think it was intentional.”

The nuisance became a menace, they say, when the lights were turned to shine directly on their house. “You could see their house just lit up,” said Jaime McNeely, who has lived down the street from Altamont for seven years. “It was glowing.” Soon, the Rivards say, Altamont added blaring rock music to its late-night repertoire. To their bedtime routine, the Rivards added regular phone calls to the sheriff’s department.

The Rivards blame Altamont CEO John Condren for their torments. “I think what triggered it all was when he realized we weren’t going to back down,” Karin said. “I think it became pretty apparent that we were the ones leading all this. We had the lawyers. The county ordered the studies because of us. And I think he knew that if we hadn’t come forward, they would have been able to do whatever they wanted out here.”


Mark Rivard first met Condren in May of 2006 at the Holiday Inn Express in Tracy.

The county had learned a few weeks earlier that the track had never held a meeting with the neighbors to discuss their concerns, and promptly ordered one. About fifteen people showed up. After a brief presentation by Altamont’s staff, the neighbors piped up: Do you have to run seven days a week? Can we negotiate on the hours? What about the concerts? One neighbor, Roberto Valencia, asked about Altamont’s proposal to erect, directly behind his house, an electronic sign to be visible from Interstate 580.

“I said, ‘There has to be some other alternative,'” recalled Valencia. “They basically laughed at me and then ignored me. That was the last meeting I went to.”

Mark says it was clear the neighbors were wasting their breath. “We went there thinking we could make some suggestions — actually have a conversation about what was bothering us,” he said. “Condren basically said there would be no flexibility on anything. It was very disheartening.”

Still, Mark says he approached Condren after the meeting and held out his right hand as a gesture of goodwill. “He refused to shake my hand,” Mark said. “He said, ‘I will get you for what you’re doing. I have more money than you. You’re not even worth my time.'”


On Saturday, September 2, 2006, as Mark was taking a bath, he heard a low droning sound outside. As it grew louder, he stood up to investigate. “I looked out the window and the helicopter was right there,” he said. “I could see their faces. Our eyes met and I watched them laughing at me.”

Jim Johnson, who worked as Altamont’s event manager during the track’s first season, said he hired Las Vegas-based Silver State Helicopters to give short helicopter rides to race fans for $30. Johnson says the helicopter never flew near the Rivards’ home. “We stayed over the track,” he said. “We knew he would complain if we even got near his house. … Rivard complained about everything.”

Not true, the Rivards and other neighbors say. They say that from 3 p.m. until after 11 p.m., the helicopter took off from the track, circled directly over the Rivards’ house, and then returned to the track. “They did it over and over and over,” Karin said. “From my view from our bedroom window, I could describe in detail the rivets on the bottom of the helicopter. That’s how close it got.”

The Rivards called the sheriff’s department. So did at least one other neighbor, Rob Gould. “They’re getting closer and closer to our house and they’re doing it on purpose,” Gould told a dispatcher, according to a tape of the 911 call. The dispatcher said there was nothing the sheriff’s department could do — controlling airspace isn’t within its jurisdiction. The neighbors were instructed to contact the Federal Aviation Administration when its Oakland office opened on Monday.

Jim McNeely, Jaime’s husband, also witnessed the helicopter flights. “It flew in the same pattern over the Rivards’ house several times at least,” he said. “It was a real strange sight because it was flying so low. They didn’t try to avoid the houses by going over the freeway or somewhere else.”

When the races ended, things quieted down — for a little while, anyway. Shortly after 11 p.m., the Rivards say the rock music began blaring from Altamont’s speakers, the stadium lights were turned to shine directly on their house and the helicopter returned for a final flyover.

The Rivards called the sheriff’s department again. This time, the department agreed to send a deputy. The Rivards say Altamont’s lights were finally shut off on the deputy’s order at about 2 a.m. The deputy assigned to Altamont did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

“I’m not a bullshitter,” Mark says. “I don’t exaggerate. I feel like a fool when I tell this story because it sounds so unbelievable.” He added that his four-year-old daughter is still terrified of helicopters.

The Rivards lodged a complaint with the FAA and the agency conducted a short investigation. In a November letter to Altamont, the FAA instructed the track to notify its Oakland office before giving any more helicopter rides. “Because of the flight pattern, many residents felt terrorized by the continuous flights,” wrote David Smith, manager of the FAA’s Flight Standards Office in Oakland. “Our inspectors will assist you in developing a plan for your aviation activities to avoid the local residents.”

Altamont’s Neal Sebbard declined to comment on the neighbors’ allegations. “I think a lot of this is old news, so I don’t think it’s appropriate to go into that now,” Sebbard said. “We’re working hard to establish a more positive dialogue.” All but one of the Altamont officials called for this story did not respond, including Condren. Sebbard, one of the managing owners, said the track has worked diligently to respond to the neighbors — holding neighborhood barbecues, encouraging the neighbors to call the track directly with their concerns, and working to lower the noise and the lights. He said allegations that the track has violated its conditional-use permit aren’t true, and that Altamont is working to rectify the building permit violations. The 55-year-old Condren grew up in Southern California and now lives in Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County. He claims to have held high-ranking positions at top companies in the sales, marketing, and engineering fields. But his exact history is difficult to discern. He holds a bachelor’s degree in management from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, but claimed on his web site that he possesses an “advanced degree in international business marketing.”

Condren is perhaps best described as a serial entrepreneur with widely varied pursuits. Altamont isn’t the first time that one of his plans has gotten off on the wrong foot. He has filed for bankruptcy twice. In Nauvoo, Illinois, where he started several businesses, Condren was excommunicated from the Mormon Church. According to a former bishop of Nauvoo’s Mormon congregation, Merlin Reittinger, Condren was ousted in part because of complaints from other church members about his business dealings. Condren, however, has said that his excommunication had nothing to do with business.

After Nauvoo, Condren moved to Silicon Valley. In 1996, he started a software development company that saw little success and no longer exists. Three years later, he started a marketing and consulting firm that catered to high-tech companies. He split ways with that company’s cofounder in 2002.

Altamont is the by-product of Condren’s latest and most ambitious undertaking — a quarter-billion-dollar motorsports complex that he intends to build ninety miles away from Altamont in Merced. Condren first proposed the Riverside Motorsports Park in 2003. It was approved by the Merced County Board of Supervisors three and a half years later but has yet to break ground. The plan, which includes paving over 1,200 acres of farmland, sparked heated debate among residents in Merced. Farmers and ranchers near the track’s planned site chastised Condren and other Riverside officials for their unwillingness to compromise with their future neighbors. After one public hearing on the matter last year, the dispute between Riverside and the neighbors exploded in a shouting match in the lobby outside the Board of Supervisors’ chambers.

Altamont entered the picture about two and a half years after Riverside was proposed. The track — best remembered as the site of the 1969 free Rolling Stones concert that ended with three accidental deaths and the murder of a teenager stabbed by the Hell’s Angels — was close to shutting down again. Its owner was looking for a buyer. Condren was interested.

A group of Riverside’s investors put up the money. The track would operate as a subsidiary of Riverside Motorsports Park , LLC. The company would change the track’s name from the Altamont Speedway to the Altamont Motorsports Park and use it as a test run to prepare for the real thing in Merced. Kenny Shepherd, a NASCAR driver who served on Riverside’s board of directors, signed on as general manager.

After a packed, all-night public hearing, the Merced County Board of Supervisors approved the Riverside proposal in December of last year. But that was far from the end of the controversy. In the months that followed, reports surfaced about turmoil within Condren’s company. Two of his former business partners, Shepherd and John Nolind, a racing team owner who cofounded Riverside, now say Condren hijacked the company. They say they watched Condren blow through investors’ money, refuse suggestions to scale back the plan for Riverside, drive the company into debt and, ultimately, fire those who had carried Riverside to its approval. Contention between Condren and Nolind grew so extreme that Nolind grabbed Condren by the throat and shoved him to the ground at a NASCAR race at Altamont last September. Race fans watched as the two struggled in the dirt by the barbecue pit.

Shepherd and Nolind say they are no longer connected to Riverside or Altamont in any way. They’ve both hired lawyers, and they both recently declined to discuss the way Altamont’s officials have handled relations with the track’s neighbors.

With the departure of most of Condren’s Riverside partners, the company is now managed by Condren, his wife, and Mark Melville, the company’s vice president of operations. Riverside’s advisory board is comprised of two additional people, Sebbard and Steve Nasser, both of whom work for the San Francisco-based investment services firm Stone & Youngberg, LLC. Condren, his wife, Melville, and Nasser did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

In addition to the trouble within the company, Altamont’s parent company has also recently hit snags with Merced County. In August, Merced officials said they believe Condren’s company unscrupulously altered a lease agreement it made with the county to rent an office space in 2003. The county says Riverside officials changed the terms of the lease to their benefit after the document was e-mailed to Condren. Melville admitted that he and Condren typed more than a dozen edits into the document, but he says they notified the county of the changes before the agreement was signed. The county says the document was largely non-negotiable and that Riverside never mentioned the alterations. County officials in Merced also say they’ve had difficulty collecting money owed to the county by Riverside.


Cohen, the Rivards’ lead attorney, uses the term “mind-boggling” to describe the way Alameda County has handled Altamont. “The more I look into this, the more I’m amazed,” he said. Never mind the building permits Altamont still hasn’t obtained and its regular violation of the county’s noise ordinance. Cohen argues that, under Alameda County zoning laws, operating a racetrack at Altamont’s location — no matter how few races it hosts or how quiet its events might be — has been illegal since 1972.

Cohen cites a 35-year-old decision by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to ban racetracks in agricultural zones. At the time of the decision, Altamont was shut down. Since then, the county has issued a handful of special permits to a handful of different owners to allow Altamont to operate as an “outdoor recreational facility,” instead of as a racetrack. But in the zoning code’s list of examples of what constitutes an outdoor recreational facility — parks, golf courses, picnic areas, playing fields, swimming pools — the word racetrack never appears, Cohen says. In fact, the zoning code offers an entirely separate definition for what constitutes a racetrack. “For all these years, the county has been approving these permits illegally,” Cohen said. “They’ve been screwing up since 1972. And this would have all continued to fly under the radar if it wasn’t for the Rivards.”

While the Rivards say they’re not looking to shut Altamont down entirely, Cohen says the legal means exist to do just that. The county disagrees and argues that the issue isn’t nearly that simple.

Chris Bazar, the head of Alameda County’s planning department, said Cohen’s assertion is laughable. “Everyone knew that the track was there and that it was continuing to get permits for all those years,” he said. He added that the county can cite plenty of case law to show that because the track has been there for forty years, Altamont has a vested right to continue to operate as it historically has.

Bazar said a more realistic interpretation is that the decision was meant to prevent new racetracks from paving over the county’s agricultural lands, and to prevent existing agricultural land racetracks from expanding. For that reason, he said, the county concedes that it would be illegal to allow Altamont to expand. “We’ve told Altamont upfront that an expansion isn’t allowed,” Bazar said. But in Altamont’s case, he says, defining the term “expansion” isn’t simple.

The Rivards argue that because the track is operating more often than it ever has before, it has expanded. Altamont argues that it’s only doing what has been permitted for the last forty years, and just because the track’s previous owners chose not to operate to the extent allowable, it doesn’t mean the track has expanded. Bazar believes both arguments make sense.

To add to the complexity, Bazar said many types of racing that are popular today didn’t exist when Altamont’s permit was first issued decades ago, so the permit doesn’t address them. And he admits that the permit isn’t written as clearly as it needs to be. For example, the permit says races can’t be held after 11 p.m., but it doesn’t say by what time the track has to turn all the lights off. “There’s never been an owner who’s pushed the envelope like this before, so we’ve never faced these kinds of questions before,” Bazar said.

He says that’s why — after months of complaints from Altamont’s neighbors and their lawyers — the county decided that Altamont should no longer be allowed to operate in perpetuity under the conditional-use permit. With a rezoning application, Bazar said, Altamont will be forced to spell out all of its plans in detail — including what types of events it wants to host, when it wants to host them, and how loud they’ll be — and to study how all that will affect the neighbors and the environment.

Bazar said all that information is expected to make it to the Board of Supervisors before the new track’s third race season begins in March. The board will ultimately decide what in Altamont’s plans constitutes an expansion and what, if anything, the track’s owners will be allowed to do at the site. He said the track’s stadium lights and the other additions made without building permits have been allowed to stay because they don’t pose any immediate health or safety risks.

“We know there’s a lot of frustration and there’s a lot of people who say we should just shut them down,” Bazar said. “But in our interpretation, that’s not an option we have legally. The neighbors have raised lots of valid questions and concerns, and that’s why we’ve insisted on the studies.”

But Cohen says he thinks the county asked for the rezone so it wouldn’t have to openly admit the error it’s been making for 35 years. He said the rezone simply offers Altmont another way around the rules. “The county is bending over backward to find ways to justify the racetrack,” Cohen said.

The ban on drifting was what provoked the death threats.

Soon after Altamont’s second race season began in March, Alameda’s East County Board of Zoning Adjustments held a hearing to determine whether drifting should be permitted at Altamont. Though the track had hosted drifting events during its first season, Altamont’s conditional-use permit didn’t address them.

Drifting events aren’t races. Instead, competitors are judged on style and showmanship. The drifter who exhibits the most control while sliding his speeding car through a turn and producing the most smoke usually wins.

When the county announced a hearing on the matter, the neighbors spoke against drifting. Drifters came and spoke in favor of it. Altamont officials said the organized competitions gave racers a safer place than public roadways to engage in the sport.

The zoning board agreed with Altamont and the drifters. Neighbors appealed the decision to the board of supervisors. During the month before the appeal, Altamont was directed to hold no drifting events. But according to both neighbors and county officials, Altamont drifted anyway. County code enforcement officer Tona Henninger said the racetrack renamed its drifting events as “autocross” races in an attempt to avoid the ban.

The neighbors snapped some pictures and sent them to the county. Henninger made a trip to the track and concluded that they were drifting. She reported her findings to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

At the appeal hearing in April, Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who represents the area and had previously voiced support for the track’s revitalization, lit into Melville, who appeared on the track’s behalf. Condren sat at the back of the room but didn’t speak. “Would you admit that your autocross was in fact drifting?” Haggerty asked Melville.

“No, sir. I wouldn’t,” he answered.

“So, we’re going to start off that way,” Haggarty said, raising his voice. He said another Altamont official had admitted to him in a private meeting that the track had defied the ban. “You can’t even keep your story straight within your own business. You can’t even give me an honest answer and say, ‘Yeah, we drifted.’ … You guys have a problem with the truth. … From the beginning, I told you that you needed to bring the community along on this. But for some reason you decided it’s better to give everyone the finger and do whatever the hell you want.” Then the board of supervisors voted unanimously to make the temporary drifting ban permanent.

Within a couple days, the threats were posted all over the Internet on drifting message boards. Some simply insulted the Rivards. Others detailed the physical punishments they should endure. “If I see Karin Rivard on the street, I’ll hit her in the face with a baseball bat for you,” said one posting. Others threatened to drag her through the street and to light the Rivards’ house on fire.

Some postings came with distastefully altered photos of the Rivards. Others posted the Rivards’ address, photos of their home, and tips on which window might provide the best angle for a sniper’s shot. Then there was the YouTube video alleging that Karin provided Haggerty with sexual favors in exchange for his vote.

“There were tons that talked about killing us,” Karin said. She estimates that she saw at least 1,000 postings — about 100 of them direct threats — on dozens of web sites. “Judging by what was posted and by how fast it went up, there was obviously some kind of effort to get the word out that we were responsible for the drifting ban. … It was everywhere and it was all directed specifically at us.”

Jaime McNeely spent hours transferring the web postings to CDs to turn over to the sheriff’s department. After a particularly frightening batch of threats appeared, the sheriff’s department sent two deputies to spend the night parked in the Rivards’ driveway. “It was so over the top and it was all about the Rivards,” McNeely said. “It was pretty disturbing.”

Mark and Karin say they’ve tried not to take the threats seriously. But they admit they haven’t been too successful. “For a while, I couldn’t even look at it all,” Karin said. “I was so distraught. I basically had a breakdown.” She says she still gets scared when she’s home alone with their children, and that the whole family has had nightmares.


The Rivards say they still imagine they’ll spend the rest of their lives in the tall house nestled among the windmills. “We’re not backing down,” Mark said.

For now, they’re pinning their hopes on the Board of Supervisors. In recent months, the neighbors have met with two supervisors and the chiefs of staff of two others. “We’ve spent a lot of time educating each of them about what the racetrack has been doing,” Karin said. “I think they realize that the racetrack has broken a lot of rules and that they can’t be trusted.”

In early August, the county Planning Commission denied the Rivards a hearing to consider revoking Altamont’s conditional-use permit. The Rivards’ lawyer appealed that decision. It’s expected to go to the supervisors in the coming weeks. “We’re confident that they’ll at least give us a hearing,” Karin said.

Cohen is less optimistic and says he believes the final decision over whether Altamont should continue to exist will likely be made by a judge. Winnie, the county’s lead attorney, agrees.

Sebbard said he believes Altamont has made progress with its neighbors in its second season, that the complaints have abated, and that the track’s officials have established more positive communication with the neighbors. “We want to work with the neighbors,” Sebbard said. “We respect their way of life out there.” He said Condren is less involved in the track’s day-to-day operations, as he is focusing his efforts on Riverside.

The Rivards say life next door to Altamont is just as loud, bright, and unsettling as it’s ever been. The threats have slowed, but they haven’t stopped. “We were ready to compromise with the track from the beginning,” Mark said. “All we wanted was a few less days a week than every day and for them to end a little earlier. We could have avoided all of this.”

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