Number two, Angiola is trying to maintain the local aquifer by retiring land to limit pumping. Where gravity needs a boost, the pipes run atop wooden crates used to pack boxes of fruit. I didnt see the tumbleweeds along the roadside and the strip of parched earth that separated what remained of the desert from the perfect rows of irrigated agriculture. Bruce Springsteen turned it into a song on his Ghost of Tom Joad album. He ran, unsuccessfully for city council in his hometown of Los Altos Hills in 2006. Here, private water jumps from Tulare County to Kern County, but government jurisdictions dont count. 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 and pistachio farms. Because it is a community of all Hispanics.. The farmers there are raising almost 1 million acres of crops, and fewer than half these acres are irrigated with flows from the Kern. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. The crops we grow can only be grown in a few places in the world. Kingdom. I head straight into the glare of the sun shooting over the Coast Range. After Vidovich sold his Dudley Ridge state water, Pace said he drilled several wells in Green Valley, built a pipeline across I-5 and took the valleys groundwater to keep his Dudley Ridge trees alive. She wanted to tell the story of the pomegranate, he told me with a touch of sarcasm. No rain in five years. It was the early 1900s, and his grandfather and grandmother decided to secure passage to America. He had left for the cornfields a few minutes before the killings.. I think I paid $9 million. tupperware garlic keeper g2c advantages and disadvantages. His bar was a place for guys, Damon Runyontype guys., Resnicks pals were all Jewish kids from upper-class families, so it wasnt easy being the poorest one, the one whose father was a gambler and capable at any moment of losing the few comforts they had. This road ends abruptly at the rise of a second fence. They were farmers back in San Antonio, growing lettuce, cilantro, and radishes on a small plot of land. On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. By the time they returned to Beverly Hills, he had lost interest in a book about his life, at least one that I might write. Vidovich continues to run De Anza and in a surprisingly hands-on manner. Who anticipates that you cant fill a water bank for six or seven years?, Come on, I say. All the new water pours into the delta, and what doesnt go out to sea fills up the aqueduct again. Here and there my boots crunch down on the dried remains of pomegranates that look like small pieces of scat dropped by a coyote. Then it hits me. I get out of the car and walk down an embankment. Its loaded, Bernard says. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. He had none of his fathers sentimentality. 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. Overview Company Description: Key Principal: John Vidovich See more contacts Industry: Peanut farm Printer Friendly View Address: 960 N San Antonio Rd Ste 114 Los Altos, CA, 94022-1346 United States Phone: Website: www.sunnygem.com Employees (this site): Modelled Employees (all sites): Modelled Revenue: Modelled Year Started: ESG ranking: Central Californias family raisin farms are drying up, Commercial bees, the unsung heroes of the nut business, Drought has California farms destroying crops, rather than pay for water, A California farm battles drought: Were out here trying to survive, Farm country frets over impact of John Deere strike, Inside the trial of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes, Californias drought takes a toll on the states clothing manufacturers, Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. To top it off, the greedy SOB (farmers rarely uttered Vidovichs name) intended to keep his 7,000 acres of nut trees in Dudley Ridge. One year, it delivers 900,000 acre-feet of snowmelt. Even the community water tank is painted baby blue with a big sunflower. This is how Resnick became a pistachio, almond, and pomegranate grower. Vidovich and a co-defendant were found guilty in 2014 of conspiracy to breach a land sale contract and ordered to pay nearly $130 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Im actually not supposed to talk about it.. For as far as I can see, the water in the canal runs inky through the orchards. He gambled on the price of nuts going up, and he gambled on the water never going dry. watts towers arts center Vidovoch's New Kings County Water Pipeline Triggers Alarm Bells - GV Wire for 30 days. Burglar alarms, on the other hand, offered round-the-clock vigilance without coffee breaks. Talk to me, Hussein says, draining a can of Rockstar. Is John Vidovich Planning to Sell Off the Valley's Lifeblood? A worker can still order a hamburger, but its half the size of the old hamburger and costs $6twice what the wild salmon served with creamed leeks and raw asparagus salad costs. Welcome to San Antonio del Norte, he says. However, first-term councilmember Frank Gornick, West Hills College's longtime chancellor and one of the guiding forces behind the expansion of the college in Lemoore, says he isn't opposed to a feedlot and processing plant. I try to calculate how many hundreds of aluminum sections need to be linked seamlessly, or at least watertight, to cover the distance of a mile. 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. California growers, in the grip of drought, have produced 900 million pounds of the green nut. State or federal water isnt enough. He sold rights to more than 14,000 acre feet a year to the Mojave Water Agency in San Bernardino County for a headline-grabbing $73 million. Then some of the money we save goes to pay the coyote. Thousands of acres of pistachio trees now await the next flood. 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. She was the daughter of Jack Harris, a film distributor, who moved the family to Los Angeles when Lynda was 15 to produce movies. Water fight leads to $128.6 million award | Local News Theres a mythology out there that Angiola is stealing water, he said. 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. 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. "We have one of the premier colleges in the country, and they want to put a slaughterhouse right next to it? No stranger enters this zone unless its to get rid of a body or dump waste from cooking meth or drown a hot car. SGMA refers to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act passed in 2014 that mandates water basins be in balance by 2040. Wild salmon and all these sides made from scratch. But I couldnt have picked a more cinematic name than Lost Hills. Shoving aside the coins, they introduced a Scarlett OHara doll that, by itself, raked in $35 million in sales. Thats a billion-dollar crop. He and the Resnicks had fought an ugly legal battle that tore their Cutie brand in two. Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. And so the question of sustainability is front and center here now in California. My health, knock on wood, is good. I saw horrible things, Margarita says. Our relatives have been patient. He worries because there isnt enough water now to properly irrigate the almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates. 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. None of this is my idea. If he sticks even a toe onto her turf, says a former business partner, she gives him a look that sends him right back.. Look, I have no guilt. But those deals were one water district selling to another water district. It was true that agriculture had been selling state project water to cities for two decades. For years, agriculture has been given a wide berth when it comes to monopolistic practices. Together, the Resnicks have wedded the valleys hidebound farming culture with L.A.s celebrity culture. I get it. The water sent to Kern County1.4 million acre-feet a yearhas doubled the cropland. Four thousand peoplemore than double the number on the highway signlive in town, and three out of every four rely on a payday from Wonderful. But when the Kings does flood, as its doing now, millions of acre feet rush north to join up with the San Joaquin River and empty into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. None of the sales taxes go to City Hall because Lost Hills isnt a city. The courtship of Stewart and Lynda went fast. When it goes into full effect, in a decade or two, more than a million acres of cropland across the valley will have to be retired. A flour tortilla. 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. The biggest farmer of them all is tearing out 10,000 acres because he doesnt have enough water to cover the nuts to harvest. As for making a major water grab in the Central Valley, Page said Vidovich has nothing on the Wonderful or JG Boswell companies, both of which have far larger land holdings than Vidovich. I enter an equipment yard where a Wonderful farmhand is standing next to a tractor. It was the early spring of 2008, and this time his secretary didnt hang up on me. Ive gone too far. Just get started became one of his guiding principles. Like many billionaires, he didnt have a decent explanation for his fortune. The big-rig drivers are cranky two ways, and the farmworkers in their last-leg vans are half-asleep. John Vidovich - Board of Directors - Tri-County Lakes - LinkedIn Once his parents decided to go, he decided to go, too. He sat behind a desk without clutter and stood up to shake my hand. Inside sits a young man named Pablo. It becomes something else as soon as they encounter their workers in another guiseas a fellow shopper at Costco or as the parents of the kid who goes to school with their kid. Through the haze I can see the knoll of the aqueduct come closer. And its that groundwater part of Semitropics agreement with Vidovich that is raising hackles along with eyebrows. John Vidovich. Theres a lot happening in the world. Mr. Vidovich was a descendant of one of the pioneer farm families that settled here from Croatia . It was simply a place to park some money and have another opportunity. He drove to Delano, the farm town where Chavez and his union had made so much trouble and history. John Vidovich and the Discover executive team are rated an A- by 65 employees. I feel too good to give any of it up.. He said he bought his first parcel here in 1994 when he invested in a foreclosed property in Kings County. We saved the best for last, he says. Now, hes involved in a project that could set him up as a water marketer on an extreme scale. They dont do agribusiness. This was Lost Hills before Lynda got involved. Boswell, who owned more land and controlled more water than any other person in the West for most of the 20th century. More than one ballad was about the valley, so he came to Fresno. Because the road ends here, there is no physical way to follow the canals flow. Like the waters of the lake, the indent of the Resnicks will recede from the land, too. It can be squeezed only so much. Hes got another meeting to attend. I pity the outsider trying to make sense of it. Still, he insists that it doesn't belong near the city and college. This is the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. The water is cold, clean, and salty, though not too salty for a desperate man. Sugar kills, she tells them. But that doesnt make people buy a second bottle. The vibration here isnt quite as vehement. Main Street is Highway 46, which slices through the middle of town. Fallowing the farm until the footprint gets smaller and smaller. The city sued. Do you know what I am? He studied the situation. Longtime friend and associate Ted Page defended Vidovichs operations. One out of eight has diabetes. 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. I sort of remember growing up on a farm, he said. Only after the media were alerted did Stewart and Lynda claim to have discovered the clear-cutting. The ceiling, all sheetrock and spackling, remains a work in progress. He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts. Turn onto Twisselman Road off I-5 and continue west until it intersects with the California Aqueduct. For a long time, she got no credit. The graders, sorters, and beeping forklift drivers head to an immaculate caf, where the Wonderful Saladroasted chicken, mixed greens, cilantro, pistachios, and slices of mandarin in a blue cheese vinaigrettesells for $3. Then the men of cotton, driven out of the South by the boll weevil, put the five rivers into canals and dried up the lake. They plaintiffs' lawyers argued that Vidovich pursued the McCarthy water to offset the $73 million sell-off, even though he knew that it was already spoken for. His oldest son is retired in Seattle. Your current subscription does not provide access to this content. Vidovich has been buying land in the Central Valley for more than 20 years. Compulsive gambler and alcoholic. "There is a national will to be self-sufficient in agriculture. Thats all fine and good, Resnick replied, but what about the $1 million-plus hed spent on lawyers fees? I returned for two more sessions, and then he and Lynda took off to their $15 million vacation house in Aspen, where they were warring with the locals over a housing project for community workers that was blocking their view. Like a lot of empires, it comes to an end., So what about you? I ask. This year's farm bill, the most recent incarnation of agricultural policy dating back to the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, is a controversial $300 billion package that combines poverty-relieving nutrition programs with big payoffs to agribusinesses. As we sat down to chat, one of his assistants leaned over and whispered into his jewel-studded ear. She washes two kinds of lettuce and cuts up fresh papaya to mix into a salad. Theres not much left over, he says. is tobay beach open to the public So, capturing that south fork floodwater would benefit both Kings and Kern county farmers, according to Semitropics Gianquinto. The way the Bobcat goes full steam, it takes but a few seconds of splendid violence to uproot a tree. He tells me to meet him in Lost Hills. State water dwindling year after year. Theyre now building an $80 million charter-school complex in Delano, just down the road from Cesar Chavez High. Theyve gone back to the nut line. The borough measured no more than 2 square miles. But for every good-sized fruit, theres a bunch that never sized up. Resnick is giving him one of his looks. Ive told them all no. Ever since I was a kid, I have felt its pulla gravitational presence on the land and in my own story. It might be nice if my kids and grandkids could turn to a book someday and read about what weve built., He and Lynda were changing the way food was grown in California and sold to the world. Now its the Bobcats turn. When I got out of law school, I probably had 100 people I was employing.. Special Report: Small Farmers Struggle as Ag Titans Boswell, Vidovich The 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno has overturned a $73.4 million verdict against McCarthy Family Farms and Bay Area developer John Vidovich and Sandridge Partners involving a land and. 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. Vidovich owns the property in question, and he is well known in Valley circles. Fresh from a shower, a red Kabbalah string tied around his wrist and a multihued pair of socks covering his feet, he welcomed me. The scale of productionand the ability to process, market, and sell its own cropsallows Wonderful to be mostly mediocre in the fields and remain highly profitable. How come?, We dont need it anymore, he whispers., Back at the plant, Lynda is meeting with Wonderful doctors, nurses, and farmworkers. Vidovich is known in the area for his political activity as well as his development projects. You have no idea the people on my VIP list who drink it. The aqueduct was built with tax money, yes? Tell me, he asked, though it wasnt entirely a question. Look it, Im from Beverly Hills. 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. All told, 36 men operating six machines will harvest the orchard in six days. Yes, critics agree, but Boswell uses that water to irrigate in the district. If I want to know more, I need to talk to Lupes brother, Gustavo, who has worked as an irrigator at Wonderful for five years and knows what the company is planning for the future. Though the project is billed as flood control, the agreement also allows Vidovich to move groundwater. One of the most dramatic alterations of the earths surface in human history took place here. Were still trying to figure out who our typical customer is going to be, Angelica says. The State Water Project that allowed western Kern County to grow into a farming behemoth has given no water or very little water over the past three years amid the worst drought in California history. Wow. "There are a lot of good places for it (feedlot). 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. The suit alleges that then-Fire Marshal John Vidovich implemented an "Operation Catch-up" program in which he used untrained and inexperienced inspectors to perform duties after media reports that the LAFD had thousands of overdue inspections. If you have any trouble accessing your account or linking your subscription, our. At the buildings he was cleaning, he noticed that no one was watching the front and back doors. 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. The curriculum is being created by Noemi Donoso, the chief of education for the Chicago public schools before Lynda recruited her to Wonderful. The river is nothing if not fickle. Web Directions. Frankly, Im having too much fun to think about retiring., Even if he were inclined to wind down, he had no successor in mind. He wonders what agriculture will look like in western Kern in ten years. 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 dam ends up holding and the levees, too. Notices were sent to the oversight agencies, including the City of Lemoore, Caltrans, and other relevant agencies. Resnicks billions rely on his ability to master water, sun, soil, and even bees. The math works out to $162 a tree. His real estate empire became big enough to bring aboard each of his four children. What is indisputable is that over the past 20-plus years, Vidovich has quietly amassed more than 100,000 acres in the Central Valley, gaining footholds on numerous water boards, which has given him control over vast amounts of groundwater the valleys lifeblood. When your current subscription expires later this year, you will be able to renew at losaltosonline.com/users/admin/service/purchase. His partner in the mandarins once told me that when Stewart is done with you, hes done with you. When a copy found its way to The New York Times, Lynda was pursued by federal prosecutors until they concluded she was more dilettante than radical. Seventy-five years ago, writer Carey McWilliams, in Factories in the Field, lambasted the ribboned Dukes and belted Barons of California agriculture. If those seem like minute details for the head of a major development company to trouble with, hes even more hands-on with Sandridge Partners LP, the family business he formed for farming acquisitions. The giant J.G. So why hasnt this place gone to tumbleweeds? Resnick picks up the water in Dudley Ridge, Vidovich says. I notice she keeps the water running for a long time. He bought his first Kings County property in a foreclosure in 1994 and eventually amassed 102,000 acres in Kings - as well as nearly 40,000 acres in Kern County, 10,000 in Tulare County, and 1,700 in Fresno County, according to . Thats more than double the crop that Resnick boasted about when I saw him eight years ago. In any event, Vidovich fallowed his Angiola land and took its groundwater about 25 miles west to his Dudley Ridge lands. The concept changed the industry. Fussing with one input or another, he can produce 3,500 pounds of nuts an acre. Vidovich is gobbling up all the parcels he can so he can keep on pumping, Mitchell said. Vidovich went on a shopping spree. We are creating foods. Nothing keeps prices high like a monopoly. The Southwest Kings GSA is chaired by John Vidovich, who runs Sandridge Partners, which owns hundreds of thousands throughout the San Joaquin Valley. I walk into the supermarket El Toro Loco, and the clerk directs me to the back office, where a tobacco-chewing Yemeni named Anthony Hussein is sitting beneath a photograph of an uncle in his U.S. Army uniform. And, you know, at some point in time that water is in risk of going to an urban area. Im driving too fast for the ruts in the road. A public resource had been privatized for the purpose of growing tens of thousands of acres of nuts, he charged. I gaze out the passenger window, looking for the glint of the pipeline. Bankers and their fair-weather financing exasperated Resnick. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference. The nut must be hurried from bin to truck to processing plant to keep it from discoloring. It was a permanent water loss for Kings County and put Vidovich under a lingering cloud of suspicion among area farmers and water managers. 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. This is the domain of Stewart Resnick, the richest farmer in the country and maybe the most peculiar one, too. Lupe excuses herself to prepare dinner. Subscribers keep our independent community news in business. Understanding water, water rights and the often complex structures of water districts has become a Vidovich hallmark. 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. The calculation and hubris inside it. He could collect the rents while he slept. John Vidovich serves as the Vice President, Business Development of Discover. Stephen Vidovich died in 2007, at the age of 81, driving a tractor near one of his remaining vineyards. He says his bosses have been instructing him to cut the water each irrigation. He says he doesnt feel sorry for Resnick. Under his leadership, Buena Vista has installed a pipeline system to reduce reliance on canals, which lose a lot of water to seepage and the district has become extremely active in buying up land for water banking. He started cleaning pizza parlors and drugstores. Theyre droughts best buddies.. Hes farming water. Its gambling. Weve had our battles in the past, and I dont agree with everything hes doing. She was in her late 20s, almost a decade younger than Stewart, and the mother of two children. Now shes getting lots of credit.. This is one of the ways the Nut King and the Pomegranate Queen are defying the California drought. The only water Green Valley got was some surplus state water and natural groundwater, Pace said. If I follow them south into Resnick almonds, I can see where the water is going. No one pushes their product harder. It was this persistence and, above all, good timing that explained his bigness. Damn, if he doesnt look even younger and more fit than the last time I saw him eight years earlier. It cant be farmed like it was, he says. Lynda isnt just writing checks, Donoso told me. So the question before me was how are these guys farming? Though Vidovich describes them as simply having known each other at school, others in Tulare and Kings water circles say Hurley is Vidovichs right-hand man some say henchman. Michelle Perez, an analyst for the activist watchdog Environmental Working Group, perceives the bill differently, arguing that because the subsidies are calculated on a per-acre basis, the cash infusions "provide liquidity to the largest, most prosperous farms, allowing them to outbid and outcompete their smaller, less prosperous neighbors. He doesnt feign surprise when I tell him about the pipeline, but he dismisses it as a private matter between private parties. He had no papers, like so many others, just an image of what this side of the border looked like. I steer toward the almonds, past a row of worker housing and a main gate. Everything but the turkey had come from his orchards. They greet me with smiles and handshakes. My grandfather lost the farm to vine hoppers is the story he told. john vidovich documentary. Scott: And of course that could have serious implications for these workers. Too many pistachios. I ask her if she is concerned about wasting water, given the drought and the distance the water has traveled20 miles from a well in Wascoand that the cost goes up the more they use. In the distant background, under the gaze of a 10-foot-tall marble goddess, sat Stewart in a gold-skirted chair, head down. Preview. Thousands of California oaks were felled. But if he thinks youre defying him, hell start with, Nobody realizes the good Ive done for agriculture. Then he moves on to, Do you know who I am? He got himself into this jam. Five years ago, they decided to get rid of the nacho chips, french fries, and soft drinks. The water is filtered for arsenic, boron, and other salts, and the monthly tests show no violation of state or federal standards. Theres Cheat Death for their antioxidant-rich pomegranate juice and Get Crackin for their pistachios and Untouched by Man for their Fiji water. The independent growers and processors, no surprise, regarded him as a bully eager to employ teams of lawyers and tens of millions of dollars to force his agenda. We cant insist on wellness the way we can insist on plant safety. Vidovich wrote out a check for the full amount, then went looking for the water to prop up Resnicks monopoly. Tender sprouts poke out of the dry soil, and I bend down to feel their prickle. The boss showed him a storeroom filled with chemicals tossed here and there and told him to bring order to the mess. The neighborhoods didnt have sidewalks; when it rained, the kids had to walk to school in the mud. how many kids does jim harbaugh have - aspire-english.jp

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