The hillocks that existed back in Yokut Indian days were flattened by a hunk of metal called the Fresno Scraper. The rain of almonds has moved on to the next tree. Wages that used to go to workers stay in the pocket of the nut growers. Mobil and Texaco and Prudential Life were willing to practically give the ground and trees away. 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 drought?. The dispute over the no fly zone was finally resolved by the invention of a netting that Resnick sheathes around his mandarins each spring. A good deal of sunshine. It was the early spring of 2008, and this time his secretary didnt hang up on me. The Resnicks brought him aboard in 1999, and now he works alongside Lynda and consults daily with the company chef. To provide context for the size of his subsidy, Vidovich estimated that the current California drought, which has led him to irrigate an additional 24,000 acres, will cost his business tens of millions of dollars this year, while the subsidy brought in $1 million. The water sent to Kern County1.4 million acre-feet a yearhas doubled the cropland. The land to him isnt real. use no threatening or hateful language. She is the brander of the empire, the final word on their Super Bowl ads, the creator of product marketing. 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. I leave Gabbys and follow a winding concrete path through the new Wonderful Park. She deftly places her body between him and me. One out of eight has diabetes. I take out my cellphone and swipe across Google Maps. But she doesnt dictate this or that. Angelica would prefer not to get into the details of their financial arrangement. You rely on Marketplace to break down the worlds events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. This is a park for the people, to give them a break from their hard lives. This is the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. Its an economy of scale on a scale no ones ever tried here. Yes, locals have a bad taste in their mouths from Vidovichs water moves, I was told by several people, many of whom said they were too afraid of retaliation to use their names. They were hardly the first rich people to use patronage to try to wheedle a citizenry toward their idea of a better life. This amounted to 14,000 acre-feet. In exchange, the state would get banking rights in Semitropic, said General Manager Jason Gianquinto. The idea was to enroll at Rutgers and study to become a doctor. You cant be exporting groundwater from one basin to another., Whatever water hes taking, its too little, too late.. Its artificiality had achieved a permanence; its permanence had created my California. He came to California in the 1950s to remake himself. At the plant, we built our gyms, and we have stretching and walking activities. When asked if he applies the skills he learned in his military intelligence training to his life today, he answers that we all use the things we learn through life. They made a new plantation here. During paid breaks, they do their 15 minutes of Zumba, take a walk along a designated path, and munch on the free fruits and veggies put out for them. john vidovich documentary It was a hit. It was going to houses. Number three, water from Angiola cant physically get to Semitropics proposed storage cells. It should be right here, but I dont see it. The truth a mercenary has landed on. As a consequence, the farmland here, nearly 100,000 acres planted in permanent crops, is completely reliant on the governments supply of mountain water. The film ends with the laughter of kids playing inside the giant sunburst at the center of the soccer field. But you ask the growers we process, and theyll tell you that year in and year out, no one offers a better price. Vidovich says his quote was clipped and sewn back together to make it sound bad. Just ahead I can see the last section of pipe throwing a cascade of white water into a main canal belonging to the Lost Hills Water District. He knows what I dont know. Executive Team Culture Ratings from Discover Employees TOP 15% Discover's Executive Team scores in the Top 15% of similar sized companies on Comparably See Detailed Executive Team Ratings I'm going to let the regulatory agencies go through their process and go from there. Vicente Fernndez, the king of Ranchera music, is crooning to no one, but it wont be this way in 30 minutes, Hussein tells me. United States Bureau of Land Management Tract Books, 1800-c. 1955 each comment to let us know of abusive posts. 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. Through Sandridge, Vidovich owns about 130,000 acres with 38,500 acres in Kern, 82,000 acres in Kings, 9,500 acres in Tulare and 300 acres in Fresno county, per ParcelQuest. Rather, it is the authority vested in Wonderful that counts. Since international sanctions were lifted five years earlier, Iran has been crowding the market with its more buttery-tasting pistachios. Resnick himself had sold 5,000 acre-feet to a proposed new town in the farm fields of Madera. About 25,000 acre feet of groundwater. It gives me the luxury to keep on working. The farmer isnt here to smell the cracking open of wood, the ripping open of warm secret earth. Whether he realizes it, hes part of the biggest pistachio harvest in history. A meat store, an auto repair, a pool hall, and an arcade pass for a commercial strip. A portion of his wages will be set aside each month to pay down the debt. For half my life, I never stopped to wonder: How much was magic? What was so disappointing and alarming was that West Hills College and other educational institutions in the area are not considered agencies of required notification and (that) needs to be amended," said Oliveira. 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. 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. A minute later, I reconnect with the pipeline and pursue its length for a football field. For college, he picked California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo over the hill and majored in agriculture business. I know theres a more forceful way to ask the question, but to what end? The water is being taken from unsuspecting farmers in an irrigation district in Tulare County more than 40 miles away. John Vidovich - Sandridge Partners, L.P., Buttonwillow, California 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 knoll begins to rise. Relatives arranged his passage, paying the coyote the new rate of $12,000. John Vidovich just wants to farm, he says. To do that, the state requires each area to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to account for whats going in and coming out of the aquifer. On Oscar night, she handed out free samples to the stars at the Vanity Fair party. And its an area that doesnt have ground water, so its there completely because of the State Water Project. Lynda has a son who works as a musician and a son who suffered a birth trauma and lives in a care facility. Or is he just the newest water baron on the block? Vidovich continues to run De Anza and in a surprisingly hands-on manner. Already, they are paying $69 a month to the local utility district. His 15 million trees in the San Joaquin Valley consume more than 400,000 acre-feet of water a year. The bunches of chartreuse-tipped nuts hanging from antler branches never touch the ground. Its going to be what its going to be. Mr. Vidovich was a descendant of one of the pioneer farm families that settled here from Croatia . This is the domain of Stewart Resnick, the richest farmer in the country and maybe the most peculiar one, too. She delivers it in classic Lynda style. It was linear, logical, fluid, and quite nearly destined. No one is out and about. When the Depression struck, his parents migrated to Middlebush, New Jersey, where they bought a few trucks and peddled coffee and pots and pans. Satellite images from NASA show the area around the well fields Angiola was pulling from is the epicenter for land subsidence in eastern Tulare County from overpumping. All Rights Reserved. Notices were sent to the oversight agencies, including the City of Lemoore, Caltrans, and other relevant agencies. Young men and women from Teach for America will do their two-year stints at the complex and live in village housing. They planted the first 640 acres, half the pomegranates in the country at the time, knowing there was zero market. You know so I could say, Well, I didnt pass because I was so busy with this project.. So off the developers went in search of farm water. Too many pomegranates. Why not we start with an extended interview or two? I offered. We're not trying to stop enterprise, okay," he added, suggesting that Lemoore's citizens, over the years, have invested heavily in Lemoore and might have problems with a feedlot and slaughterhouse within shouting distance of the city's population. Typically, each pound sells wholesale for $4.25. I stick to the left lane and try to stay ahead of the pack. 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. 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. The Federal Trade Commission found Wonderful guilty of false advertising and ordered the Resnicks to stop claiming that POM cured heart disease and erectile dysfunction. Carls Jr., Subway, McDonalds, Wendys, Loves, or Arbys. 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. 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. On the way out, the voice in their head, Lyndas voice, goads them to give one more hour to the Wonderful Fitness Center. Stewart would deny that Giblers reporting played a part in their philanthropy. In fact, Vidovich frequently moves water by pipeline, Pace said, pointing to a massive line Vidovich installed that appears to take Angiola groundwater through his Dudley Ridge lands. Its loaded, Bernard says. Whos it going to? About five years ago, Lynda started our community development organization in Lost Hills, and the journey has been an amazing one. "A small farmer, if he gets his whole limit, it keeps him in business, whereas for us, it's a very small fraction of our revenue," Vidovich said. Who would have thought the two of them in cahoots? Fussing with one input or another, he can produce 3,500 pounds of nuts an acre. These books indicate who obtained the land, and include a physical description of the tract and where the land is located. tupperware garlic keeper how many kids does jim harbaugh have As the growers punch more holes into the ground looking for a vanishing resource, the earth is sinking. But the smaller farmer still uses a pruning shears to make his most important cuts. As farmworker colonies go, this one isnt as grim as others Ive visited. 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. Bernards eyes are fixed straight ahead. I enter an equipment yard where a Wonderful farmhand is standing next to a tractor. The wide-open middle of California did its lullaby on me again. The making of a billionaire over the next half-century was a series of dots that connected in the California sunshine. I doubt the Resnicks have any idea of the fester that eats at this place, the shame piled on shame. He wonders what agriculture will look like in western Kern in ten years. The highway runs two lanes here, three lanes there, through miles of agriculture broken every 20 minutes by fast food, gas station, and cheap motel. "There are a lot of unintended consequences in agricultural policies, (but) the intent is to maintain a viable and healthy agricultural base," he said. His father, Stephen Vidovich, formed De Anza Properties and helped develop the valley. Theyre our future, she says. Bankers and their fair-weather financing exasperated Resnick. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. Kings and Tulare farmers and water managers want to know. If I follow them south into Resnick almonds, I can see where the water is going. Highway 46 shoots past Resnick almonds and takes you straight into town, population 1,938. When he materializes onstage, he is wearing narrow black jeans, a black mock turtleneck, and a dark jacket. 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. Hes fishing right now. Thousands of acres of pistachio trees now await the next flood. Page met Vidovich in 2005 when Page was farming 400 acres out near Wasco. 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. Vidovich is the owner of Sandridge Partners, LP - a farmland investment firm that has undertaken more than 100,000 acres of Valley farmland. Last time he checked, he told me he owned 180,000 acres of California. "The issue is the location. His account appeared in the Earth Island Journal, a small environmental quarterly out of Berkeley. When they get on their high horse, you dont want to argue with them.. He guides me to the caf, and we grab our lunches from the buffet. When youre making the kind of money were making, whats the upside? Yet the Resnick pipeline is doing just that. Subscribers support the Los Altos Town Crier please log in or subscribe to continue reading. He kept planting more and more trees. How can another record crop be sitting pretty on these trees? But if its the tube that Im looking to follow, I must drive through the almond grove. 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. When a farmers orchards encompass 186 square miles, finding the field man can be a challenge. 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). Angiola was ordered to stop pumping and eventually the districts came to a settlement. Angiola agreed not to pump more than 36,000 acre feet a year, or more than 130,000 acre feet in any consecutive five-year period. The men and women who planted, irrigated, sprayed, and picked our crops were phantoms. This was the same road that took me to Selma, the raisin capital of the world, to pack peaches and plums for Mel Girazian, my fathers old friend. Boswell told me what a fool he and his forebears had been for wasting water, sun, and soil in California to raise fiber, of all things. A husband and wife sharing the reins is rare for corporate America, rarer still for industrial agriculture. This drought has brought Stewart to his knees. Her brother-in-law was killed recently in a car crash along Highway 46. But when your neighbor is going to lose his crop, you do what you can to help him., I tell Vidovich this sounds almost charitable. This is an offering of cake handed down from king and queen to serfs. His first wife, the mother of his two sons and daughter, told him she was quite happy living in their $30,000 condo in Culver City. I follow him inside to a long line of workers that ends at a plastic window where Hussein sits on the other side, working the cash register like a teller at a race track. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. In December, Vidovich filed an application with the Kings County Planning Department for a slaughterhouse and a feedlot for up to 12,500 animals. John Vidovich - Green Dunes We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. A year into his studies, an uncle called from California. The three of them spent two weeks of all-nighters making copies. Scott: So we should talk about the labor that makes this all possible. Then there was the nail in the coffin for folks like Pace and Mitchell when Vidovich appeared in a National Geographic film called Water and Power: A California Heist, which ran in mid-March and again on June 25. Hes surrounded by a half-dozen of his top men and women, the same ones whove been artfully dodging me for the past three years. Be Proactive. The grass is a color green on the verge of blue, and the cutouts for trees are razor etched. A restaurant built by Wonderful for the purpose of making the company town look better from the roadside may enjoy a more forgiving bottom line than, say, the Subway up the road. Theres a lot of people who dont like me, he said after his fathers death. It isnt going down because he wont let it go down. Lupe gave birth to two daughters, U.S. citizens, who are now 11 and 6. 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. Hes never driven a tractor or opened an irrigation valve. The Iranians dont irrigate their trees. First of all, the myriad laws and rules that govern water wouldnt allow that to happen, they say. She had her own bookabout her genius as a marketergoing. The truth, as always, probably lies somewhere in between. I cut across Twisselman Road to the pipeline gliding along the aqueduct like a silver snake. Whether its the glint of a 15-carat, yellow canary diamond ring, a 25th wedding anniversary gift from Stewart, or one of the pomegranate-colored rubies she says are a girls best friend, its hard to tell from the back row. Theyve (Vidovich and Hurley) been way out front on SGMA, Mitchell said. She is twinkling from earlobe and finger. Join us for a free, virtual event for International Women's Day on March 8! Why not California? I had not seen any. He became more involved with De Anza, working with his dad, whom he describes as bigger than life.. No longer does it have to be a career that brings Mexicans to their hands and knees. Chance of rain 40%. Brown oxtail in batches and set aside. SGMA refers to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act passed in 2014 that mandates water basins be in balance by 2040. Since the middle of the drought, the price of almonds has dropped almost by half. In the distant background, under the gaze of a 10-foot-tall marble goddess, sat Stewart in a gold-skirted chair, head down. 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.