They rely only on rain, which concentrates the flavorful oils. It was Lynda who teamed up with the USDA to develop 21 new single-family homes and 60 new townhouses on a couple of acres of almonds that Wonderful tore out. A fully equipped teaching kitchen will turn the harvest into school lunches. Rain for Rent, the pipes say. Who anticipates that you cant fill a water bank for six or seven years?, Come on, I say. We are horrified by the lack of regard for both neighbor and nature, and we hope that the community will accept our deepest and most sincere apologies and find it in their hearts to forgive us. They pledge to donate the 380 acres to charity. John Catsimatidis, the billionaire CEO of the Gristedes supermarket chain who donated to Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign, says that Florida Gov. She is determined that their lives will play out differently from the lives of their parents, but she means no disrespect by this. He came to California in the 1950s to remake himself. Tracts of houses, Californias last affordable dream, civilize three or four exits, and then its back to the open road splattered with the guts and feathers of chickens that jumped ship on the slaughterhouse drive. Because when we dont manage it, they end up with severe chronic health issues and amputated limbs., Anzaldo is a man wired for solemn, but he does manage to smile once during lunch, when talking about the 1,150 workers whove earned bonuses of up to $500 for losing a collective 14,000 pounds in two years. We want good groundwater, too., You mean no more pipelines carrying water in the dead of night?, The pipeline. He stammers a bit. The south valleyits people and poverty, its obesity and diabetesis her newest mission. STRATFORD Water is the lifeblood in the parched San Joaquin Valley, sustaining endless acres of trees, seeds and pastures that feed a hungry nation. Wonderful, by contrast, shoots for the middle. Financial Data. To get there, the pipeline has to cross under a Boswell-controlled canal. What started as a dispute about a tube of plastic under a muddy ditch is escalating into a bitterlegal fight between the two multimillion-dollar businesses, pitting old power against new money and ambition. He did this first in the name of wheat and then beef, milk, raisins, cotton, and nuts. And Vidovich ended up pumping water an extraordinary amount of water out of . The truth a mercenary has landed on. I study the terrain. And while Resnick and Vidovich have been at odds in the past over San Joaquin Valley water feuds especially centering on the appearance that Resnick was overly-familiar in his utilization of the Kern Water Bank the feud is long gone. Lynda sent the first batches of POM, week after week, as gifts to David Bowie, Rupert Murdoch, and Disney head Michael Eisner. It is the ditch up the road, the one that carries no water, that is filled with old mattresses and spent appliances. Coke, Gatorade, and Monster Energy are sky-high in sweeteners, but dont be fooled by that SunnyD, either. Im sure I knew we had a pipeline in there. The men and women who planted, irrigated, sprayed, and picked our crops were phantoms. The pizza dough is cauliflower, too. Vidovich did not immediately respond . And Vidovich ended up pumping water an extraordinary amount of water out of the ground in an area where theyre pumping so much water on the ground the land is sinking. He doesnt know about the pipeline. She divorced her husband in 1968 and began dating Anthony Russo, who worked at the RAND think tank in Santa Monica with military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. Alex Tavlian is the Executive Editor of The San Joaquin Valley Sun and Executive Director of Valley Future Foundation. Vidovich fires back: Kings Co. water pipeline battle picks up steam Before he left her to cross alone, he gave her soda, water, chips, and Cheetos. So the company drafted a list of demands. John was vital in helping the company's executive group reposition its strategy. The pipeline project is suspended while the two sides battle in court. And state groundwater regulations restrict the drilling of new agricultural wells. One more bin, a post reads. Some of them have paid $12,000 to buy their trailers and spent thousands more to fix them up. See All Contacts. Lupe gave birth to two daughters, U.S. citizens, who are now 11 and 6. He started cleaning pizza parlors and drugstores. It gives me the luxury to keep on working. The giving goes to college scholarships and tutors. Falling groundwater levels are stressing their wells. No journalist had written a word about his rise as an agricultural giant, how he had turned public water into private water by grabbing control of Californias largest water bank, a project jump-started with $74 million in taxpayer money. The Boswell comments are in a letter sent from the El Rico GSA, while Vidovich's concerns are outlined in a letter from the Southwest Kings GSA.. He didnt know where to begin. She tells me her not-so-silent partner is Lady Lynda, who was so bothered that Lost Hills didnt have a sit-down restaurant of its own that she sought out Angelica. The Spanish rice isnt rice but cauliflower made to look like rice. You cant be exporting groundwater from one basin to another., Whatever water hes taking, its too little, too late.. A day later, I get a call from Mr. Resnick. 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. Iranian pistachios show up in Tel Aviv as nuts from Turkey. Its his pipe, not mine. His face is still blank. He thinks Ive understated the crop.. His grandfather, who came to California from Croatia in 1908, got his start with 10 acres of cherries and apricots in Mountain View. If I follow them south into Resnick almonds, I can see where the water is going. Today is quincena day, twice-a-month payday, and he needs me to scram because the workers coming in to cash their checks and wire 25 percent back across the border to families in Guanajuato and Guerrero will wonder if Im with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. John Vidovich lives in Los Altos, CA; previous city include San Jose CA. I walk to another part of the orchard and watch phase two. She can be reached at lois.henry . Dynamic search and list-building capabilities. The sober man died. More than half our employees are obese or near obese, Anzaldo tells me. Ex-Fire Marshal Sues City, Alleges Quid Pro Quo Deal - LA Weekly Lynda is also mapping out a farm-to-food program where students will grow fruits, vegetables, and grains on a plot of village land. I get out of the car and walk down an embankment. The concept changed the industry. John Vidovich is a real estate developer who specializes in land use and development deals involving everything from mobile home parks and large apartment complexes to wine vineyards, pistachio farms and water baron. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. In a profile of Vidovich written by Lois Henry then of The Bakersfield Californian now writing exclusively for her own service, SJVWater the farmer-lawyer-real estate magnate made no bones about where local misgivings began. In 2009, Vidovich sold the annual rights to 14,000 acrefeet of water belonging to property sitting in the Dudley Ridge Water District, located in Kings County, for an eye-popping $73 million. The historic king of the region is the J.G. This hasnt convinced the people of Lost Hills, however. It looks like no other campus in the valley: a modern, minimalist two-story design that uses paneled wood and fabricated metal, wild colors, and terraced landscaping to create the feel of a high-tech mountain retreat. The way the Bobcat goes full steam, it takes but a few seconds of splendid violence to uproot a tree. In a timespan even shorter than Resnicks, the 61-year-old Vidovich has bought up more than 100,000 acres of farmland scattered across the valley. Native Americans fished from reed boats. I cross the Tulare County line heading south into Bakersfield, and there in front of me, for no eye to miss, stands the Wonderful Citrus complex with its four-story storage building designed in the shape of an almighty box of Halo mandarins. The farmers there are raising almost 1 million acres of crops, and fewer than half these acres are irrigated with flows from the Kern. His daughter, who used to own a restaurant, is busy raising her one son. Once he finished grabbing the flow of the five rivers that ran across the plain, he used his turbine pumps to seize the water beneath the ground. They are still paying off the $27,000 debt to relatives who hired the coyote. Then the autumn of 2016 arrives with the strangeness of clouds. Hes never put a dusty boot on the neck of a shovel and dug down into the soil. When will it be used? Ah, he says, so youre the one whos been snooping around. She grabs him by the wrist, and they make a beeline for the convention hall door. Look it, Im from Beverly Hills. On a Facebook page with postings in Spanish, they offer a glimpse of life inside pistachio world. They give thanks for a job that provides decent wages and access to a free wellness center next door staffed by a full-time doctor, physicians assistant, registered dietitian, and marriage and family therapist. But she cannot remember the last time she or Manuel or their children drank it. A van pulls up to the curb, and the door slides open. She wasnt content to pursue the usual list of wealthy businessmen as clients. It was a hit. The next year, it delivers 300,000 acre-feet. Lupe and I walk to the far side of the trailer park to find Gustavo. VIDEO: Christmas wonderland featuring the Grinch . In the summer of 2009, he and Lynda attended a dinner lecture by Harvard political philosophy professor Michael Sandel about the moral obligations of wealth. Nowhere to turn, I turn back around and roll down my window. But theres none for his precious corn, almond and pistachio trees in the south county and, because of new restrictions, he cant simply drill a new wellthere. Thats why hes in trouble., So he makes a deal for private water?, Yep. I didnt know good land from bad land. Anzaldo grew up in Bakersfield and attended a Catholic high school where he played football and basketball. I did not name the town, Lynda says. Theyre our future, she says. Lemoore Council likely to respond to proposed feedlot near Lemoore and The front gates of the 25,000-square-foot Beaux Arts mansion on Sunset Boulevard magically opened without a guard giving a nod. The extraction of water beneath the lake bottom wont last forever. In a region of wall-to-wall plantings, one of the walls is crashing down. Maybe not since the wheat barons has the income disparity between farmer and farmworker been greater. Youre the one who leads the way on selling agricultural water to the cities. Each square-mile section is divided into blocks, and each block counts a precise number of rows. Each face wears its own weary. He can mix this private water with his leftover state water and ship it to at least one stranded neighbor who will pay the price. The company was founded in 1925 by the father and unclesof James Griffin J.G. Boswell II, a Stanford grad who served on the boards of General Electric, Safeway and the California Institute of Technology. With that insight, he sold the company for $2.5 million and went into the security guard business. The eye numbed by the tedium of orchards isnt prepared for the 1.3 million square feet of industrial assault, though the palm trees and roses along the perimeter try for a transition. Whatever remains is not nearly enough to make up for the shortfall of imported water from the state. Im down, Stewart, he protests. Every time I see it, Im inspired and proud of what weve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Im 80 years old. John Vidovich, Student Loan Corp: Profile and Biography Marketplace is a division of MPR's 501 (c)(3). Why not send him an email? the secretary suggested. California had passed a law intended to stop the rising of new towns in the middle of nowhere. The imported flow arrives by way of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, the one-of-a-kind hydraulic system built by the feds and state to remedy Gods uneven design of California. The gas to and from the orchards costs him $80 a week. The aquifer, a sea of water beneath the clay that dates back centuries, isnt bottomless. The bloodless ones stay away. Ninety-nine is the deadliest highway in America. The vibration here isnt quite as vehement. From the vaulted ceilings with gold-leaf moldings hung two blown-glass chandeliers. He wants his fair share, but he wants everybody else to prosper, too.. What market share has been lost in Asia and the Middle East, the company is looking to get back in Mexico with its spicy Latin line of nuts. She wanted me to put our $5 million in an account, draw interest, and we could live happily on the 50 grand a year.. They thwack back. More often than not, it is hauling away some piece of the valleys bounty. Thats all fine and good, Resnick replied, but what about the $1 million-plus hed spent on lawyers fees? Uneasy about a slowly-marching plan to siphon Valley water for Southern California, farmers and some water managers are worrying about the growing shadow of one of the regions largest land owners. Im in a dire situation.. Judge Orders Boswell, Vidovich Back to Their Corners in Ditch Bank Here and there a mulberry tree, its canopy pruned back, breaks up the red-smeared sky.. One million acres of the valley floor, greater than the size of Rhode Island, are now covered in almond trees. Days Inn or Motel 6. California water war: San Joaquin Valley landowners battle over scarce This is a magnitude of intervention that no other agricultural company in California has ever attempted. A road will pick up and connect me to where the tube is going. Fiefdom. The nets of the Chinese during the Gold Rush caught terrapin that was served as turtle soup in the fanciest restaurants of San Francisco. Or he can devise a scheme to steal water from a neighbor up the road. I remind him of the time we spent together eight years earlier in his Sunset House. Weve had our battles in the past, and I dont agree with everything hes doing. So do the Israelis, who go to the trouble of repackaging the nuts so it doesnt appear that theyre consuming the product of an enemy. She is the brander of the empire, the final word on their Super Bowl ads, the creator of product marketing. None of this is my idea. He was tough on the outside. Im going to Kern County, just shy of the mountains, to figure out how the biggest farmers in America, led by the biggest of them all, are not only keeping alive their orchards and vineyards during drought but adding more almonds (79,000 acres), more pistachios (73,000 acres), more grapes (35,000 acres), and more mandarins (13,000 acres). Their houses made from railroad boxcars have been painted purple, blue, yellow, and gold. There is nothing here, one of the townsfolk told Gibler. Fifty-three percent of our employees are obese, and 12 percent of them have diabetes., The growers start to fidget. No whistle shouts mealtime in the modern-day company town. We hope you enjoy Finding Lost Hills., The 11-minute film opens with a shot of swirling dust. The water will be stripped from the land and sold to developers of new towns both here and over the mountain. When all three phases are finished, 1,800 students will be attending the high school, middle school, elementary, and preschool. Union pressured Mayor Garcetti's office to oust top fire official And its an area that doesnt have ground water, so its there completely because of the State Water Project. The rain of almonds has moved on to the next tree. Get a D&B Hoovers Free Trial. On Oscar night, she handed out free samples to the stars at the Vanity Fair party. Past Bakersfield and the high school football stadium where Frank Gifford and Les Richter, two future NFL Hall of Famers, squared off in the Valley Championship in 1947 in the driving rain. You sure this isnt 18 tons an acre? he says, goading. Russo and Ellsberg needed a place to photocopy the 7,000 pages, and Lynda volunteered the Xerox machine at her ad agency on Melrose Avenue. When you first meet John Vidovich, everything from his ball cap to his dirty boots tells you he's a farmer. But a controversial pipeline sits empty, as dry as dust, caught in an angry feud between two of Californias largest land barons, Silicon Valley developer and farmer John Vidovich and Pasadena-based longtime cotton king J.G. No luck. Vidovich went home with $74 million in his pocket. It cant be farmed like it was, he says. Title. The wildfires cant be far behind. This was Lost Hills before Lynda got involved. The tumbleweeds on open ground give you a peek into what Lost Hills looked like before the aqueduct made a river here. Burglar alarms, on the other hand, offered round-the-clock vigilance without coffee breaks. He isnt farming dirt, Arax wrote. Bernard, hard to believe, is driving straight toward the aqueduct. Meet the water baron you (likely) haven't heard of - The San Joaquin Making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process?. Stephen Vidovich, founded De Anza Properties | Archives On one side of the road and the other, for miles in both directions, the dirt belongs to Wonderful. This is the closest to hills it comes. Because he hadnt done it with Daddys money or what he considered a superior brain, he attributed his wealth to luck and to a simple lesson he had learned early in life. Jun 27, 2007. Where is the water going? Inside, a trainer watches over a line of treadmills, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes. As the nuts pour down onto the roof of the catcher, the operator shifts the trough so that it becomes a conveyor belt. The sale meant Kings County farmers and water users lost out on the ability to buy utilize Vidovichs portion of water, all while keeping it local. China (including Macau and . Ultimately, it drives a lucrative if sad mission, as uttered by the looming giant himself. The leathery skin on the fruit has turned a nice orange-red. LOIS HENRY: Is John Vidovich planning to sell off the valley's On the south end stands the Wonderful Community Center, where residents are urged to attend thrice-weekly Zumba and core-training sessions, healthy cooking classes, and weekend cultural outings featuring the likes of Americas Premier Latino Dance Company. Id have to say that fully half of my success has been luck. Vidovich has more than one reason to be evasive. The bunches of chartreuse-tipped nuts hanging from antler branches never touch the ground. John T Vidovich, 67 - Los Altos, CA - Has Court or Arrest Records Look, I delegate a lot of things, obviously. We produced a short documentary film. Hes farming water. It was the early spring of 2008, and this time his secretary didnt hang up on me. A lot of it is undocumented and they are in these sort of company towns that you describe that are maybe even more sort of dedicated to the company than most. This isnt any road. Its not the fidget of boredom. That still leaves the majority of the workforce beyond his cajole. They were hardly the first rich people to use patronage to try to wheedle a citizenry toward their idea of a better life. He had left for the cornfields a few minutes before the killings.. She remembers handing the boy to her sister-in-law, who carried phony papers, and watching them cross by bridge into California. Under his leadership, the company used its business smarts, political clout and legal strategies to acquire water and transform a modest cotton farm into an agricultural empire. At the east end, where the highway meets Interstate 5, the traveler gets a choice. One day, gunmen mowed down residents with AK-47s and threw grenades at the church filled with parishioners. As we sat down to chat, one of his assistants leaned over and whispered into his jewel-studded ear. All Rights Reserved. Lessons? he says, sounding perplexed. The land to him isnt real. Digging in was its own wisdom, he discovered. I head straight into the glare of the sun shooting over the Coast Range. He did little, if any, catting around. In the late 1970s, he went looking for a hedge against inflation. The partner kept the Cutie name but only after paying the Resnicks tens of millions of dollars. The three of them spent two weeks of all-nighters making copies. He points to the young almond trees that envelop his 20 acres like a siege. When Resnick plants, he plants his trees wall to wall. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference. It makes interesting reading. 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. General Partner. He was about my size, but he was very tough. It comes out to $2,000 a month. EMEA +44 20 7330 7500. The softballs will go to market as whole fruit or as seed pods in a package. 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. The project would take five days to completewhen the canal wasnt in use. He yanks and pulls, and it finally comes off, throwing him a foot backward. Two days after the Tulare Lake Canal Company sued Sandridge Partners, the farming and water giant owned by John Vidovich, to halt trenching work on a water pipeline set to cut . And when youve been as lucky as weve been, you start to think you can ride out drought, too., He did learn one lesson. The GPS tells me to take Interstate 5, the fastest route through the belly of the state, but Im partial to Highway 99, the old road that brought the Okies and Mexicans to the fields and deposited a twang on my Armenian tongue. Me, Im a carpetbagger from Beverly Hills. Theres a mountain range to my left and a mountain range to my right and in between a plain flatter than Kansas where crop and sky meet. Real-time trigger alerts. He had none of his fathers sentimentality. For years, agriculture has been given a wide berth when it comes to monopolistic practices. The fog is our history. Theyre listening with their heads bent down. Welcome to San Antonio del Norte, he says. What he knows is that Wonderful is buying up to 50,000 acre-feet of water a year in a series of hidden deals. The aqueduct was built with tax money, yes? Thirty-five percent of our pre-diabetic population has gone into the healthy range, she tells the team. He says he doesnt feel sorry for Resnick. Were still trying to figure out who our typical customer is going to be, Angelica says. Its gambling. Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. The next day, I drive to a spot a few miles beyond the trailer park where the county road dead-ends in a pomegranate orchard, or what used to be a pomegranate orchard before a Caterpillar came crashing through. Yosemite Valley to reopen as Big Melt flood concerns persist across California. As farmworker colonies go, this one isnt as grim as others Ive visited. I enter an equipment yard where a Wonderful farmhand is standing next to a tractor. Is John Vidovich Planning to Sell Off the Valley's Lifeblood? What kind of empire are you trying to build?, Im here to show the farmer that ags footprint needs to get smaller., I chew on his answer for a second. Lucky for her that the young man was kind. This is a lot of gestures to unpack, and as I exit the grounds, I keep turning around to get one last look thats true. Sandridge Partners, L.P. Company Profile - Dun & Bradstreet Never mind that this is one of the most over-drafted basins in California or that the land is sinking a half-foot a year. Each tree produces 38 pounds of nuts. Everyone knew where it was going. It should be right here, but I dont see it. How much bigger can agriculture get. Either way is a trespass. He brought great ideas to the table and helped make and then execute tough choices. They were actually harvesting record crops. A native of Sunnyvale, Vidovich was the son of a Bay Area real estate scion. 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. 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. Each section of pipe is 40 feet long. By then, Wonderful, if it still exists, will be a portfolio run by men even farther away than Beverly Hills. The junk scattered about could be a lot worse. Angiola has become a critical element of Vidovichs water moves, transferring water across the Valley for additional sales, so much so that it put him and the district in hot water. Im not going to live forever, even with the massive amounts of pomegranate juice Im drinking. View the profiles of people named John Vidovich. Stewart and Lynda created a new brand, the Halo, from the same variety of mandarin. You look like Border Patrol undercover.. He could collect the rents while he slept. When he was told there were fields upon fields, he did not believe there could be this many fields. It must have wounded all the more because she and Stewart thought of themselves as progressive Democrats.

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