Vidovich says he uses that Angiola groundwater to farm in Dudley Ridge, so the groundwater isnt leaving its home basin. 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. 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. 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. Tell me, he asked, though it wasnt entirely a question. 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. The contents of each catcher, 500 pounds of almond meat, are placed on a conveyor 20 feet high and dumped into a big-rig hauler for transport to the Wonderful processing plant. Thats when the Resnicks decided to sell the concept of wellness to their 4,300 employees throughout the valley the same way they sell workplace safety. You may have never heard of John Vidovich, but his impact on the day-to-day life of the average southern San Joaquin Valley farmer is difficult to be understated. 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. supernatural tattoos designs. They planted the first 640 acres, half the pomegranates in the country at the time, knowing there was zero market. He only needed to find groundwater from another basin to replace the state aqueduct water he had just sold. Wheres it coming from? This is the route my grandfather, one of a legion of fruit tramps, took as he drifted from farm to farm in the 1920s picking crops. The neighborhoods didnt have sidewalks; when it rained, the kids had to walk to school in the mud. At issue? I pity the outsider trying to make sense of it. He started cleaning pizza parlors and drugstores. A cross of Jesus hangs from the bedpost. These trees are pruned by a machine that hedges one side and then the other, he says. With water from the delta becoming more unreliable, he said, farmers have to hoard land for the groundwater. Taxpayers support the continued production of such commodities, at least in theory, through direct payments to farmers amounting to $5 billion last year under the direction of the farm bill. But for every good-sized fruit, theres a bunch that never sized up. Resnick is giving him one of his looks. I look back at Resnick. One of Angiolas main well fields is actually inside the Pixley Irrigation District boundaries where water managers were concerned by the amount of water leaving their district. Twenty miles outside Fresno, I cross the Kings, the river that irrigates more farmland than any other river here. Where does the water end up? Drought turning to floodit is the story of California. But those deals were one water district selling to another water district. It comes out like pee, says her 11-year-old daughter. Sandridge Partners, L.P. Company Profile - Dun & Bradstreet Before he died at age 86, J.G. Mr. Vidovich was a descendant of one of the pioneer farm families that settled here from Croatia . 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. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference. The extraction of water beneath the lake bottom wont last forever. 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: Ive done no big wrong in my life that would cause me to have any. I now hear whispers of water belonging to farmers two counties away being pumped out of the ground and hijacked in the dead of night to irrigate the nuts of Lost Hills. Since it is also true that Lost Hills has belonged to the Resnicks for 30 years, one of us might have blurted out, What took you so long to find it? As the film runs to credits, I can see that one credit is missing. Thirty-five percent of our pre-diabetic population has gone into the healthy range, she tells the team. Vidovich is, after all, a powerful landowner in the Central Valley. Selfo works 50 hours a week as an irrigator. He was dressed in the latest slim-fit style. Already, Wonderful has bulldozed 8,000 to 10,000 acres of pomegranate trees over the past few years to send more water to its nuts. The July sun is a scorcher, and I fuss with the dial on the AC long enough to blow past the towns one stoplight and the aqueduct, too. 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. So the way Pablo uses own isnt necessarily a pejorative. When the mansion was built in 1927, it was known as the Sunset House. 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. It would involve a public permitting process and be very difficult, not to mention expensive, both men said. I stand over the pipes and give them a hard slap. At Highland Park High, he excelled in math and struggled in English. The space for a familys secrets is only a few feet. Over the years, they had donated large sums of money to political campaigns, and some of it went to Republicans who had pledged to prop up California agriculture. 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. The 5.3 acres are so flawless and at odds with the town that the whole thing feels like a movie set. Theres not much left over, he says. Boswell had tried to tear apart a copy of The King of California when his secretary asked if he might autograph it. Lynda believes that if theyre enticed in the right direction, the 1,300 workers might choose to prepare the same healthy fare at home. Sitting in his mansion in 2008, he already counted more than 100,000 acres of orchards across five counties. John Vidovich of De Anza Properties | eyesunnyvale.com This is only $3? But for a lot of workers, bringing that big fat burrito from home still makes sense., I had seen what J.G. Angiola was ordered to stop pumping and eventually the districts came to a settlement. The bureau happened to be my house in northwest Fresno. San Antonio south doesnt exist anymore. He is a small, good-looking man with a patch of black hair under his lip. Maybe this explains why the United Way could declare the valley one of the nations skinflints, a place where the wealthy farmers donated to the childrens hospital or Fresno State athletics but almost never to the communities filled with Mexicans where their crops grew. 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. 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. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. Hes oblivious, or so it seems. Fussing with one input or another, he can produce 3,500 pounds of nuts an acre. John Vidovich serves as the Vice President, Business Development of Discover. Arrayed before him were small bowls of almonds, pistachios, and easy-to-peel mandarins, a plate of ground white turkey meat cooked in olive oil, and a glass of pomegranate juice. High 61F. So much snowmelt comes down the mountain that it nearly takes out Oroville Dam. He isnt farming dirt. Thats how he came upon the San Joaquin. 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 . Now, Pace said, Vidovich will do the same thing on a larger scale by moving Kings and Tulare groundwater to Kern County. The stacks of bottles gave him no answer. 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. 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. If the workers doubt the benefit of the enzymes from apple cider vinegar, video banners stream a continuous message of bad food habits to be broken and body mass indexes to be measured and met. But most of this water has been spent by the Resnicks and other account holders in years two, three, and four of the drought. A pump is shooting water out of the canal and into the Rain for Rent pipes. Scott: How sustainable is this operation given that California only recently came out of a long drought and may actually be headed there again soon? And one of the things he was doing was sort of an off-the-books irrigation deal? Vicente Fernndez, the king of Ranchera music, is crooning to no one, but it wont be this way in 30 minutes, Hussein tells me. His grandfather Resnick had fled the Ukraine in the wake of another killing of Jews by Cossacks. 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. A road will pick up and connect me to where the tube is going. 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. Kings County Supervisor Joe Neves, whose district would contain the proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse, suggests that the process for approval is just beginning. He accused Resnick in 2008 of using various shell companies to monopolize control of the Kern Water Bank. Developers now had to identify a source of water before a city or county would green light their projects. Vidovich is known in the area for his political activity as well as his development projects. Maybe not since the wheat barons has the income disparity between farmer and farmworker been greater. 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. Boswell had done for the town of Corcoran. The relatives try not to press them, but the arrangement still feels like a form of indentured servitude. By locking up the land, he said, Vidovich will be able to deny smaller farmers like him and Pace the water they need for their own operations. 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. On Sleepy Farm Road outside Paso Robles, the Resnicks were looking to add 380 acres of wine grapes and build a small reservoir with groundwater. Her brother-in-law was killed recently in a car crash along Highway 46. He did this first in the name of wheat and then beef, milk, raisins, cotton, and nuts. Who anticipates that you cant fill a water bank for six or seven years?, Come on, I say. And so the question of sustainability is front and center here now in California. The juice isnt selling like it used to. He came on board full-time in 2011, give or take, he said. 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. His face is still blank. More than half our employees are obese or near obese, Anzaldo tells me. This water basically came from a land owned by someone whos also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. All the new water pours into the delta, and what doesnt go out to sea fills up the aqueduct again. EIN: 41-0953924. The gas to and from the orchards costs him $80 a week. His frat brother got bored, as rich boys do, and Resnick bought out his half interest for $300. The City of Lemoore is one such agency obligated to respond. Carls Jr., Subway, McDonalds, Wendys, Loves, or Arbys. It takes a life every six seconds. 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. He made friends everywhere he went, John Vidovich told the Mercury News in 2007. Who would have thought that people would be asking their bartender to fix them a Pomtini? he said. She described commodity programs as making up less than 13 percent of the farm bill. His accountant suggested he buy apartments. When I got out of law school, I probably had 100 people I was employing.. Stewart and Lynda created a new brand, the Halo, from the same variety of mandarin. He was the bad guy in agriculture for no bigger offense than that he was big. But you ask the growers we process, and theyll tell you that year in and year out, no one offers a better price. Youve read the 0 free articles available to you. John Vidovich, Student Loan Corp: Profile and Biography 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. Typically, each pound sells wholesale for $4.25. He makes $10.75 an hour. I leave Gabbys and follow a winding concrete path through the new Wonderful Park. ", "I don't know why the county can't work with Sandridge (Vidovich's company) and suggest other locations because it's going to cause the county significant issues in terms of air quality Kings County doesn't have the best," said Gornick. This is Lynda.. Judge Orders Boswell, Vidovich Back to Their Corners in Ditch Bank The sober man died. By Lois Henry The large, black pipe could be seen earlier this month being tucked into the ground along 21st Avenue just south of Highway 198 and west of Lemoore. This is the west end of Lost Hills, the extraction end. Court reverses $73.4 million verdict in Kings County land, water sale In contrast, John Vidovich, who helms Sandridge, comes from a Silicon Valley farming-turned-developer family. You can plant only so many acres on ground that has no groundwater. Last time he checked, he told me he owned 180,000 acres of California. These books indicate who obtained the land, and include a physical description of the tract and where the land is located. Building an agricultural empire in a land of drought - Marketplace Though the project is billed as flood control, the agreement also allows Vidovich to move groundwater. Thats all fine and good, Resnick replied, but what about the $1 million-plus hed spent on lawyers fees? "I want to be as open-minded as I can and get all the facts I can," he insisted. The GSAs are supposed to set pumping limits to stop overdraft. Yet Vidovich said he is not personally a booster of the farm bill, and that his company might be better off without it. He kept planting more and more trees. And how will the Resnicks fare? My old well cant compete with his new wells. 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. But she doesnt dictate this or that. Angelica would prefer not to get into the details of their financial arrangement. She delivers it in classic Lynda style. A public resource had been privatized for the purpose of growing tens of thousands of acres of nuts, he charged. It moves in a wave from trunk to limb to nut and back down to earth. Then it hits me. The pizza dough is cauliflower, too. Rethink Your Drink is the latest slogan. Youre the one who leads the way on selling agricultural water to the cities. Hes farming water. They hide from the fact that it relies on the subjugation of peasants from Mexico they themselves have brought here. Want to book a hotel in California? 3,907 tract books containing official records of the land status and transactions involving surveyed public lands arranged by state and then by township and range. His dad had sold the bar and was adrift. 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. Page said Vidovich is a tough businessman but thats all. It took time to gain the respect of the people, and I was afraid. Read our full comments policy: losaltosonline.com/comments, $5.00 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. She was a very frugal lady. He was short, bull-like, and didnt take crap from anyone. This is a company that runs its resources to the max, he tells me. If Resnick retains every drop, he might squeeze 25 acre-feet of water a day out of both pipes. Its California., Sure. Vidovich has more than one reason to be evasive. He unfolds a $20 bill from a wad he keeps inside a bent paper clip, and we take a seat in the far corner. He studied the situation. Once each tree has been shaken, the nuts are left on the ground for a few days to dry. He takes a look at his watch. For half my life, I never stopped to wonder: How much was magic? It was the same distance that allows them to control more land and water130 billion gallons a yearthan any other man and woman in California and still believe it isnt enough. The curtains were made of a fabric woven in Venice and substantial enough that they might finish off a person who happened to be looking out the window in the throes of an earthquake. 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. One day, gunmen mowed down residents with AK-47s and threw grenades at the church filled with parishioners. The jolt and shudder would tear out the roots of a lesser species. The nuts are kept there a few more daysany longer and the ants will attack themto complete their drying. Even as the supplies of federal and state water have dropped to near zero, agriculture in Kern keeps chugging along, growing more intensive. It takes my visiting the irrigation district office during a public meeting for him to cough up more details. Yes, critics agree, but Boswell uses that water to irrigate in the district. I walk up and reintroduce myself. Even if they had wheels, they wouldnt be going anywhere. A member of the commission, on the eve of its demise, told me, Stewart wants to be a benevolent dictator. New 'John Wick: Chapter 4' Poster Turns Keanu Reeves Into a - imdb.com 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. "I am a farmer and a big farmer," Vidovich said. U.S. immigration has little say-so here. A van pulls up to the curb, and the door slides open. It agreed to pay Pixley/Lower Tule $240,000 a year to bring in federal water to recharge the groundwater. 2022-02-14 - BY LOIS HENRY. Other water districts contended it was much more. Hes now the president of that powerful panel. That company led to another company, and he soon owned half the commercial alarm accounts in Los Angeles. 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. Groundwater agencies up and down the San Joaquin Valley had to file plans with the Department of Water Resources earlier this year showing . Somehow, 30 or 40 nuts arent compelled to drop. She is determined that their lives will play out differently from the lives of their parents, but she means no disrespect by this. Shes done giving big gifts to Los Angeles museums and mental health hospitals that name buildings after her and Stewart. Its been more than a year since the grand opening, and theyre still operating in the red. She remembers handing the boy to her sister-in-law, who carried phony papers, and watching them cross by bridge into California. On Oscar night, she handed out free samples to the stars at the Vanity Fair party. It must have wounded all the more because she and Stewart thought of themselves as progressive Democrats. He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts. "In talking to the planning department, I found out that the initial step is to notify essential agencies in the area for comments. Vidovich used the $73 million in 2010 to buy nearly 75 percent of the land in the Angiola Water District. Anything else I can help you with?, He seems in a hurry. Unlike the almond, the pistachio is moist and combustible. I know theres a more forceful way to ask the question, but to what end? Do they sense the shaming about to come? Domestic sales are up 42 percent over the past eight years, but foreign sales have stalled. In Kern County, one in two adults and almost one in five children are obese. The farmer moved the rain. The next year, it delivers 300,000 acre-feet. I meet up with the Wonderful field man who first tipped me off to the pipeline. Its vastness makes you feel safe and in jeopardy at the same time. "I don't want to make any. 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. By then, Wonderful, if it still exists, will be a portfolio run by men even farther away than Beverly Hills. If he knows what hes doing, the shears can make a thousand more pounds an acre.. Vidovich digs 17 new wells, several to the depth of 1,400 feet, and pumps groundwater into ditches and canals that move the flow across miles of flat lake bed. FAMILY OFFICE MARKETPLACE. My health, knock on wood, is good. My grandfather lost the farm to vine hoppers is the story he told. Before anything gets built, Kings County planners will study the project, and county officials will likely hire a consultant for an environmental impact study (CEQA). Because, while he does farm thousands of acres of pistachios, almonds and grapes, many believe the only harvest Vidovich is truly interested in is water. Too many pomegranates. Whatever remains is not nearly enough to make up for the shortfall of imported water from the state. 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. So how do we do even better next year?. One cousin arrived only last week. Nowhere to turn, I turn back around and roll down my window. 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. We want good groundwater, too., You mean no more pipelines carrying water in the dead of night?, The pipeline. He stammers a bit. As a class of people, the farmers and real estate developers harbor a deep-down contempt for what they have built. Ive never given an interview to a newspaper or magazine before. The boss showed him a storeroom filled with chemicals tossed here and there and told him to bring order to the mess. In exchange, the state would get banking rights in Semitropic, said General Manager Jason Gianquinto. Subscribers support the Los Altos Town Crier please log in or subscribe to continue reading. So far, Lynda has shown only patience. The plastic unfurls across the grove like a giant roll of Saran Wrap. Hes headed to the Wonderful plant, 13 miles north of Lost Hills, to drop off his load. The wind kicks up dirt from the reap of oil and almonds, and the dust cloud carries back into town, raining down on the elementary school first. Vidovich says his quote was clipped and sewn back together to make it sound bad. Its not true, he wants to farm.. If she has her way, they will go to college, too. He wouldnt know one of his Valencia orange groves from one of his Washington navel orange groves. 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. It also means giving back.. for 30 days. I notice she keeps the water running for a long time. 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. You rely on Marketplace to break down the worlds events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. John Ivo Vidovich (1934-2005) - Find a Grave Memorial When John Vidovich was appointed as fire marshal in September 2014, he was given the difficult task of cleaning up the city of L.A.'s stubbornly antiquated Fire Prevention Bureau, making it more .