This water basically came from a land owned by someone whos also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. He leveled its hog wallows, denuded its salt brush, and killed the last of its mustang, antelope, and tule elk. His operation is extensive and very smart.. Thank you for reading! He says his bosses have been instructing him to cut the water each irrigation. The deed had been done in a series of hidden meetings in Monterey. I would have worn my Levis, he says, but Lyndas here, and she thinks I dress like a bum. Were standing in the sun outside the plants corporate office, a building whose clean lines and retro furniture wear the imprint of Lynda, too. Water fight between two of Valley's largest growers heads to court I know theres a more forceful way to ask the question, but to what end? They arrive in Chevy trucks and Dodge vans and spill out in groups of four or five under the sweat-stained hats of the 49ers, Penn State, and the Yankees. Antioxidants that delivered 32 grams of sugar in each serving didnt come cheap: $11 a bottle. The film ends with the laughter of kids playing inside the giant sunburst at the center of the soccer field. But those 20,000 acres near the town of Pixley came with an endowment: a little spit of earth that produced endless amounts of groundwater. A bunch of trees are going dry, he says. Once, he came home from school and discovered the family car gone. She washes two kinds of lettuce and cuts up fresh papaya to mix into a salad. This is how the land of Wonderful is keeping alive its trees. use no threatening or hateful language. The Ninth Annual Wonderful Pistachio Conference at the Visalia Convention Center is an invitation-only affair, but I managed to sneak in and grab a seat. Instead of trying to sell the fruit as a piece of fruit, they squeezed its seeds into POMWonderful. Ever since I was a kid, I have felt its pulla gravitational presence on the land and in my own story. The proposed project has raised local eyebrows. It then dawned on him that guards were good, but they had to be paid an hourly wage. Fifty-three percent of our employees are obese, and 12 percent of them have diabetes., The growers start to fidget. The bill is a hot political item, as party members on both sides of the aisle try to secure perks for their own constituents potentially at a detrimental cost to taxpayers. The space for a familys secrets is only a few feet. Lynda is also mapping out a farm-to-food program where students will grow fruits, vegetables, and grains on a plot of village land. But this is water for Mr. Resnick. Whichever dish they choose, workers are asked not to take a bite until they have considered Lyndas latest concoction: an ounce of apple cider vinegar cut with ginger, mandarin juice, and turmeric served in small plastic cups like the wine of Mass. It exists as one thing they can almost rationalize out in the fields. 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However, Vidovich has been somewhat of a welcome presence to some in Kings County. I didnt see our creation, much less the figures bent under the canopies of vine that our creation counted on. The designers at the Mint made a porcelain doll with a tiny replica outfit so precise that it had to be hand-beaded with 2,000 fake pearls. Kings County Supervisor Joe Neves, whose district would contain the proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse, suggests that the process for approval is just beginning. "I have sent my opinion to three county supervisors and our city manager. He was a small, trim man, no more than 5 foot 5, in his early 70s with thinning silver hair and brown eyes rimmed in pink. A large water pipeline being built near Lemoore in Kings County is raising eyebrows as much for its possible uses as for the name associated with its construction John Vidovich. Theyre coming up with ideas that might lead to an even bigger drop in the number of employees with diabetes. The brick-hard ground cant be bought. Even so, Resnick says, he learned a lesson from the 2004 recall of 13 million pounds of the companys salmonella-tainted almonds: Dont fight the FDA. Numbers havent been set in stone just yet, but its looking like the Kings/Tulare farming areas will settle somewhere near allowing 1.5 acre feet of water to be pumped per acre. The miles clock by not as road but as story. The plastic unfurls across the grove like a giant roll of Saran Wrap. The idea of capturing Kings River floodwaters isnt new. for 30 days. She is twinkling from earlobe and finger. In exchange, the state would get banking rights in Semitropic, said General Manager Jason Gianquinto. Lost Hills finally has something to be proud about. I feel his gaze going past me, his voice turning oddly sentimental. The bells in the churches pealed, and out came the villagers with their scythes and axes, believing they had found the reason for their poverty. What is the phone number of Vidovich John - De Anza Properties? And I want to keep farming.. How much water are we talking about?, Id rather not get too specific. The borough measured no more than 2 square miles. While fans often love to make their own posters inspired by the franchise, the new artwork is taking various facets of the franchise and highlighting it from the artist's . I saw her a few months ago. Groundwater accountability sparks clash of Central Valley ag titans Of all the property available in Kings County, I'm not sure why he chose that property. Theres a lot of people who dont like me, but nobody didnt like my dad.. We are creating foods. Nothing keeps prices high like a monopoly. The state of California has adopted a new law that finally regulates the pumping. The drought?. I walk up and reintroduce myself. A dozen or so U.S.-grown crops are traded as commodities on the stock market, and the greatest subsidies go to corn, wheat, cotton, soybean and rice. By the decree of Lynda, who once contemplated a bowl of those juicy little seedless mandarins and on the spot named them Cuties, this is now the land of Wonderful. Because the road ends here, there is no physical way to follow the canals flow. This was Lost Hills before Lynda got involved. She didnt understand his drive. Boswell, who owned more land and controlled more water than any other person in the West for most of the 20th century. As you know, our philosophy at Wonderful is doing well by doing good. He had his hands on 65 percent of the nations crop. Because a human picker is not needed in the almond and pistachio groves, the nut harvest doesnt spread around money the way it spreads around dust. Where the pipes butt up against Twisselman Road, a more clever bit of engineering is required. I get it. One of the most dramatic alterations of the earths surface in human history took place here. At issue? I take a last bite of cauliflower rice. Angelica, one of four sisters, runs the restaurant. The Mojave Water Agency in the high desert needed a backup supply to serve its growing communities of Barstow and Apple Valley, Hesperia and Victorville. So, if i cant make money on that water farming, I will sell it eventually to an urban area and thats a right I have. He emptied the sky of tens of millions of geese and drained the 800 square miles of Tulare Lake dry. Low 44F. This is a park for the people, to give them a break from their hard lives. The growers would stand in front of the cull line and never stop moaning about how much of their fruit got rejected by Girazians graders. A balancing of books in an office in the city has decided that this orchard and others around it, covered by too little water, can go. But western Kern has no groundwater to draw from. Ive done no big wrong in my life that would cause me to have any. It would return as tule fog to remind the white man of his theft. Not long before, Vidovich was trying to grab water from Resnick, not give it. You have no idea the people on my VIP list who drink it. The water is filtered for arsenic, boron, and other salts, and the monthly tests show no violation of state or federal standards. Often an equal amount of water splits south, wreaking havoc on farmland in the old Tulare Lake bottom, about 60 miles northwest of Bakersfield. And so the question of sustainability is front and center here now in California. Why not send him an email? the secretary suggested. Do they sense the shaming about to come? Even if they had wheels, they wouldnt be going anywhere. Theyre droughts best buddies.. This is one of the ways the Nut King and the Pomegranate Queen are defying the California drought. It was the early 1900s, and his grandfather and grandmother decided to secure passage to America. You look like Border Patrol undercover.. And then what happens in drought is there is this desperation to keep it going. So its a really extraordinary kind of development thats never happened in agriculture in California before really to raise the living of your workers. 650) 397-5213 with any questions or to learn more. Page met Vidovich in 2005 when Page was farming 400 acres out near Wasco. Vidovich used the $73 million in 2010 to buy nearly 75 percent of the land in the Angiola Water District. Thousands of California oaks were felled. He ran unsuccessfully for the Los Altos Hills City Council in 2006, served on the Santa Clara County Planning Commission and is former chairman of the Santa Clara County Republican Committee. The image of water moves on and on through miles of western Kern. But she cannot remember the last time she or Manuel or their children drank it. Every river busting out of the Sierra was bent sideways, if not backward, by a bulwark of ditches, levees, canals, and dams. We produced a short documentary film. And whats the end game of moving that water? What Lynda seems to have in mind is a kind of utopian village set amid orchards, not unlike the utopias that were tried by the early dreamers of Southern California. But I couldnt have picked a more cinematic name than Lost Hills. My father, born in a vineyard outside Fresno, was a raisin grower before he became a bar owner. Hurley, who also serves as general manager of Green Valley, said that basin, which is separate from the Tulare Lake basin, is actually in balance. But she doesnt dictate this or that. Angelica would prefer not to get into the details of their financial arrangement. As in most significant projects, there will be public hearings to review the proposed project's impacts. He and his forebears from Georgia had dried up Tulare Lake, the biggest body of freshwater this side of the Mississippi, and planted 100,000 acres of cotton outside the town of Corcoran. Inside, a Wonderful media specialist sees that Resnick needs to be rescued. Frankly, Im having too much fun to think about retiring., Even if he were inclined to wind down, he had no successor in mind. Not a single penny was put in that piggy bank.. I call the manager of the Lost Hills Water District. First off, Hurley said, hes not Vidovichs henchman. Theyve (Vidovich and Hurley) been way out front on SGMA, Mitchell said. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Hes a decent guy making $216,000 a year who doesnt pretend that he isnt beholden to Wonderful. The shelves spill piatas, gloves, hats, pruning shears, and loaves of Bimbo white bread. She is the brander of the empire, the final word on their Super Bowl ads, the creator of product marketing. The sober man died. Vidovich didnt have to wait long for a buyer to come calling. I grab my notebook and walk up to one of the vans. One million acres of the valley floor, greater than the size of Rhode Island, are now covered in almond trees. In a swirl of dust, a worker atop a different machine is blowing the almonds from their spot beneath the trees to the middle of the row. Sandridge Partners, L.P. Company Profile - Dun & Bradstreet Wow. Ive learned that I have to be diversified in my water, Vidovich said. Where he takes the water is none of my business., Hes taking it into his orchards in Kern. Problem is, I feel like Im 50. Before we go much further, you should probably know a little more about Vidovich. This doesnt count the 21,000 acres of grapefruits and limes hes growing in Texas and Mexico. My grandmother said it was his leftist politics that ate up that vineyard and the ones that followed. If you already have a subscription, log in or register for an account on our website to continue reading.Click here if youre having trouble accessing your subscriber account. We cant insist on wellness the way we can insist on plant safety. Before he left her to cross alone, he gave her soda, water, chips, and Cheetos. Along a fan of the Kings River, a raisin farmer in Selma shows me his well thats coughing up sand. Hes headed to the Wonderful plant, 13 miles north of Lost Hills, to drop off his load. At Wonderful Health and Wellness, were educating our employees about this health crisis. Wonderful is getting smaller, he says. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you. The harvest begins in January with one type of mandarin and ends in December with another type of mandarin and in between spills forth everything in your supermarket produce and dairy aisles except for bananas and mangoes, though the farmers here are working on the tropical, too. But he is also a farmer in the Central Valley through the family's other business, Sandridge Partners, and thus a reluctant participant in the national debate currently swirling around the 2008 Farm Bill. Is John Vidovich Planning to Sell Off the Valley's Lifeblood? I applaud, too. each comment to let us know of abusive posts. It must have wounded all the more because she and Stewart thought of themselves as progressive Democrats. The crops we grow can only be grown in a few places in the world. They dont do agribusiness. He doesnt know about the pipeline. Anzaldo grew up in Bakersfield and attended a Catholic high school where he played football and basketball. Now shes getting lots of credit.. About 25,000 acre feet of groundwater. It should be noted here that Angiolas general manager is Matthew Hurley. Includes Address (3) Phone (3) Email (1) See Results. Even if he has access to the California Aqueduct, Vidovich would have to jump through a lot of state hoops to move water independently of Semitropic. It wouldnt even make a couple of sections of his almonds. The project is indeed within eyesight of Lemoore and across Highway 198, where West Hills College sits, and, also, where an approved 200-house subdivision is scheduled within walking range of the college. All but a handful come from Mexico. She was a very frugal lady. Every mogul, every movie star. California is free to return to its amnesia. Maybe not since the wheat barons has the income disparity between farmer and farmworker been greater. The giving goes to college scholarships and tutors. His dad had sold the bar and was adrift. In the trailer next door, Lupes cousin Margarita lives with her husband, Selfo, and their three young children. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. The 20-year-olds look like 20-year-olds; the 30-year-olds, like 40-year-olds; the 40-year-olds, like 60-year-olds. Marketplace host Amy Scott spoke with Mark Arax, who wrote an articlein The California Sunday Magazine about the Wonderful Companys farming business and issues of sustainability in the Central Valley. In the years of plentiful rains and heavy snowmelt, the bank fills up with more than 1 million acre-feet of stored water. And, importantly, Angiola promised not to take the groundwater outside of Tulare or Kings counties or allow any of its landowners to do so. Vidovich says his quote was clipped and sewn back together to make it sound bad. Selfo works 50 hours a week as an irrigator. One of the first things he did with his monopoly was kill the California Pistachio Commission, the industrys marketing group, by yanking his funding. I feel too good to give any of it up.. If you study his moves, you can see a method to the acres he is accumulating. Wheres it coming from? While he was just starting out, he also enlisted in the Navy and served in the reserves for six or eight years, he cant recall the exact term. Vidovich says he uses that Angiola groundwater to farm in Dudley Ridge, so the groundwater isnt leaving its home basin. John A Vidovich, age 60, Moneta, VA Background Check Locations: Long Beach CA Possible Relatives: Crystal Nicole Purdue, Erin Eileen Vidovich Show More John L Vidovich, age 65 View Full Report Address:***** Lisbon Rd, Beaver, PA. Lupe and Manuel, like many of the residents, grew up next to each other in a pueblo called San Antonio deep in the state of Guerrero, a mountainous region of dramatic beauty. The district has already paid him $40 million for an easement, or right of way, on that land and signed an agreement with him for how the project would operate. They went to law school together and joined the same program in the Navy reserves. Want to book a hotel in California? The man and his pincers cant be bothered. Digging in was its own wisdom, he discovered. Look, these farmers go back two, three, and four generations. This is how Resnick became a pistachio, almond, and pomegranate grower. He became more involved with De Anza, working with his dad, whom he describes as bigger than life.. But most of this water has been spent by the Resnicks and other account holders in years two, three, and four of the drought. Between March and May of this year, 25 new sales were recorded in Kern alone, according to ParcelQuest, a web service that tracks real estate deals by county. She had her own bookabout her genius as a marketergoing. There she stood in the foreground of the photo that accompanied a New Yorker profile titled Pomegranate Princess. She was wearing a black pantsuit with open-toed silver pumps and a single piece of jewelry around her neck. Tender sprouts poke out of the dry soil, and I bend down to feel their prickle. The 789 acre project . I pity the outsider trying to make sense of it. On our trips to Disneyland, I must have blinkered my eyes heading down 99. In the maroon of sundown,I follow the workers back to Lost Hills. But Paramount isnt Paramount anymore. The great drought is officially over. Twine strung trailer to trailer hangs with the laundry of fathers, mothers, and children. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Theres a lot happening in the world. Subscribers keep our independent community news in business. Then hed lose his temper and get the strap out.. John Vidovich Vice President, Business Development The sellers include farmers in the Tulare Lake basin who are pumping so much water out of the ground that the levees protecting the town of Corcoran are sinking, not by inches but by feet. Vidovich made an offer on the land and Page took it. Exactly what groundwater would be moved? How can this be? Vidovich is the owner of Sandridge Partners, LP - a farmland investment firm that has undertaken more than 100,000 acres of Valley farmland. Stewart refers to the occasional trek between Lost Hills and Beverly Hillsroughly 140 milesas a carpetbaggers distance. It seems even longer, he says, if you add in the psychological distance of being an East Coast Jew in a California farm belt where Jews are few and far between. They married in 1972, and he sold the alarm company for $100 million. She described commodity programs as making up less than 13 percent of the farm bill. The Kings is bone-dry as usual. She had recently divorced and wasnt about to settle for a life in Culver City. Theres a mythology out there that Angiola is stealing water, he said. So were seeing a shift now and then to have nature imposing its will on the situation. But he got too big. I thank him and hurry down the dirt road through the almonds, eyeing the rearview mirror to see if a Resnick truck is following me. "At a time of high food prices and record farm income, this bill lacks program reform and fiscal discipline," Bush said in a statement May 21. This is a big crop, the field man tells me. Vidovich says the animus against him goes back to his 2009 sale of State Water Project (SWP) contract rights tied to land he owned in the Dudley Ridge Water District in Kings County. Born on 7 Jun 1934. I had in mind a magazine profile on Stewart, the Nut King. Its happening. The bosses wont speak of it, he says. Its a bad day, he says, shooing me out. When I tell her my name, she whispers into his ear. It isnt going down because he wont let it go down. The price for pistachios has climbed from $4.50 a pound to an unbelievable $5.25 a pound. My grandfather, a survivor of the Armenian genocide, traveled 7,000 miles by ship and train in 1920 to find out if his uncles exhortationThe grapes here are the size of jade eggswas true. A giant pistachio nut flashes on the big screen. Vidovich is, after all, a powerful landowner in the Central Valley. Big fish eat the small fish here. When the next shift ends, he tells me, the gym will fill up with workers looking to win the cash bonuses from the companys GetFit program. I saw horrible things, Margarita says. Lets call it what it is, he says. In one orchard, half the trees are dying., I had traveled the fields of Wonderful from one end of western Kern to the other, looking for dying trees. He knows what I dont know. The POM tanks, Im told, are backed up with a three-year supply. She won a gold Effie, advertisings Oscar. Selling the farm to migrant families has required Lynda to rebrand agriculture. Main Street is Highway 46, which slices through the middle of town. Past Delano and the first vineyards that Cesar Chavez marched against. He uses more water than any other person in the West. Still, he insists that it doesn't belong near the city and college. He had an industrial machine, hardly used, that scrubbed and waxed floors. Lupe and I walk to the far side of the trailer park to find Gustavo. The Southwest Kings GSA is chaired by John Vidovich, who runs Sandridge Partners, which owns hundreds of thousands throughout the San Joaquin Valley. It goes to doctors and nurses, trainers and dietitians, who track the weight of workers, prod them to exercise, and wean them off soda and tortillas. For the bright kids who have no interest in a bachelors degree, she has designed the Wonderful Agriculture Prep Program to serve an additional 1,000 students. Hes got another meeting to attend. The oil companies and insurance companies were looking to unload their farms in Kern County, Steir learned, chunks of earth that measured 20,000 and 40,000 acres. The winter goes down as one of the wettest in recorded history. Shes now providing tutors and counselors in every region of California to boost the graduation rate. Vidovich threatened that all FPB members critical of "Operation Catch-Up" or who spoke to . Family Office Market Place, and any affiliates, (the "Company") have adopted and implemented this privacy policy as part of our commitment to protecting your personal information from misuse. He hired Bert Steir, a Bostonian with a Bronze Star from the Second World War and a degree from Harvard, to come west and work his deals. The Wheat King begets the Cattle King, and the Cattle King begets the Cotton King, and the Cotton King begets the Nut King and Pomegranate Queen. I ask him about his delivery of servicespruning, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, waterthat can be calibrated and timed to enable the smallest unit to achieve maximum yield. Ive gone too far. Her husband, Manuel, will awaken in 30 minutes to prepare for his night shift. Resnick dipped into his savings from his job at a mental hospital and went in half on the machine. He had no papers, like so many others, just an image of what this side of the border looked like. (Vidovich said he didnt think Sandridge had hit 100,000 acres, total, yet.). And when youve been as lucky as weve been, you start to think you can ride out drought, too., He did learn one lesson. And he served two terms on the Santa Clara County Planning Commission, appointed once in 1990 and he again in 2010, igniting controversy among activists concerned about sprawl. Was Fire Marshal John Vidovich Taken Out by the Firefighters Union To fix the subsidence, and keep the town dry in the next flood, residents and the state prison are having to pay $10 million in extra taxes. Altogether, Resnick has purchased 300,000 acre-feet of water from farmers and water districtsat a cost of $200 millionto cover his shortfall during the drought. Annual sales at the Mint jumped to nearly $1 billion. As we sat down to chat, one of his assistants leaned over and whispered into his jewel-studded ear. Nothing will stop the houses. This is the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. What if he dropped his lawsuit and the two of them worked together to solve their water problems? The farmer corralled the snowmelt and erased the valley, its desert and marsh. From a safe, Ellsberg had lifted the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of how successive presidents lied to the public to cover up the failings of the Vietnam War. Hes planting ground that no one has ever planted before. Twenty miles outside Fresno, I cross the Kings, the river that irrigates more farmland than any other river here. By car and foot, I trace the silver pipeline as it creeps north through Wonderful pomegranate orchards. The new plant, the size of seven super Walmarts and built at a cost of $300 million, rises out of a clearing like an apparition.
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