PRESIDIO COUNTY — Last week, a district judge disqualified Rod Ponton from representing a client in a lawsuit between two ranches over access to a private road heading out of Shafter.
Cibolo Creek Ranch, owned by John Poindexter, sued the Flying W Ranch in June, claiming it had historical access to La Morita Road and that the Flying W had no right to bar it from the road with locked gates — as it started doing last fall. Ponton, a former Presidio County attorney, was part of a team of lawyers representing the Flying W Ranch and its owner, Johnny Weisman, who recently purchased what was the 66,000-acre Lely Ranch that sprawls east and south of Shafter.
Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort northwest of Shafter, claims it needs to use La Morita Road to maintain its other section of the resort, La Cienega, a restored fort in the Cienega Mountains east of Highway 67 — as well as maintaining its access to its Harper Ranch plot with a herd of cattle.
Flying W attorneys maintain that there are other options for access to those properties and that use of La Morita Road by Cibolo Creek was always by permission of ranches owning the land the road crosses. Weisman is not giving permission, according to court documents.
In an August 27 hearing, Cibolo Creek attorneys argued that Ponton had represented the interests of their ranch in the past and thus had a conflict of interest. Flying W attorneys disagreed and portrayed Ponton as merely an advisor on area real estate trends.
In addition to booting Ponton from the case, 394th District Court Judge Monty Kimball also denied a Flying W motion to halt the case to identify if any other parties — such as landowners on La Morita Road — needed to be added to the case.
Cibolo Creek is seeking a temporary injunction stopping Flying W from locking it out of the road, and the court is expected to have a hearing on that pleading soon.