Lawyer Disqualified in Gravel Mine Case

A Moorpark-area couple fighting the expansion of a local gravel mine scored a victory in court Friday when a judge disqualified the mine’s lawyer from participating in the case.

Tom and Pat Schleve had argued that attorney Glen Reiser should be removed from the proceedings because his former law firm represented the Schleves in an earlier case concerning the mine. Superior Court Judge Joe Hadden agreed.

“The judge ruled that as a practical matter, these cases are so closely related that it’s just not appropriate for Mr. Reiser to represent the mine owner,” the Schleves’ attorney, Kate Neiswender, said after the ruling.

Backed by a group of their neighbors, the Schleves filed a petition Jan. 10 against Ventura County supervisors, who in December granted the mine’s owners the right to build an asphalt plant at the site and increase the number of daily truck trips to and from the mine. The petition seeks further environmental study of the project.

In 1990, the Schleves unsuccessfully sued the county’s planning department, charging that officials had let a previous owner of the mine operate for years without a permit. Their case was handled by Nordman Cormany Hair & Compton, where Reiser worked at the time.

Although he did not personally represent the Schleves, Reiser did review their court documents. Pat Schleve said such “insider information” could give Reiser an unfair advantage now that he has switched sides.

But Reiser said Friday that the current case does not involve any personal secrets of the Schleves that he could have learned from the 1990 suit. Instead, it revolves around the accuracy and adequacy of environmental documents, which are all public information, he said.

The two cases also concern entirely separate companies now that Transit Mixed Concrete has taken over operation of the mine from Blue Star Ready Mix Inc.

“None of the issues are the same,” he said. “The parties are different.”

Reiser said he plans to appeal Hadden’s decision next week.