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 a farmers orchards encompass 186 square miles, finding the field man can be a challenge. To find its flow, Id have to go looking in a thousand irrigation ditches in the fields beyond. Our relatives have been patient. He worries because there isnt enough water now to properly irrigate the almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates. Lets meet again in two weeks, he said. Cotton still grows on the lake bottom, but less and less each year. Posted on August 6, 2018 Bakersfield Californian. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you. The bloodless ones stay away. Where he takes the water is none of my business., Hes taking it into his orchards in Kern. Theres no waiting around. He sold a chunk of land to the builders of Sunnyvale and decided he could develop the rest himself. Id have to say that fully half of my success has been luck. But theres no denying his desperation. Stewart was the second of their four children, the only boy. Whether he realizes it, hes part of the biggest pistachio harvest in history. So far, Lynda has shown only patience. Absolutely not. He has painted the interior and put down two new patterns of linoleum, one to mark the living room and the other to mark the kitchen. Thousands of Wonderful acres lay bare. He got into UCLA and joined a Jewish fraternity. I dont know how Hershey did Hershey, Pennsylvania, but Lynda is present in every painted sunburst, every planted flower, every blade of grass. The designers at the Mint made a porcelain doll with a tiny replica outfit so precise that it had to be hand-beaded with 2,000 fake pearls. Menu. 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. How come?, We dont need it anymore, he whispers., Back at the plant, Lynda is meeting with Wonderful doctors, nurses, and farmworkers. LOIS HENRY: Is John Vidovich planning to sell off the valley's lifeblood? He sat behind a desk without clutter and stood up to shake my hand. According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a farm bill supporter, nearly 75 percent of the bill's $300 billion will aid nutrition programs such as food stamps and emergency food providers and provide free fresh fruits and vegetables in public schools. Too many almonds. Im down.. It must have wounded all the more because she and Stewart thought of themselves as progressive Democrats. Wow. The fight between the Tulare Lake Canal Company, controlled by the J.G. "What I was most alarmed about was how I, and most people in the area, knew nothing of this proposal," he told The Leader. It was true that agriculture had been selling state project water to cities for two decades. The Southwest Kings GSA is chaired by John Vidovich, who runs Sandridge Partners, which owns hundreds of thousands throughout the San Joaquin Valley. The truth a mercenary has landed on. Promotional Rates were found for your code. Yet Vidovich said he is not personally a booster of the farm bill, and that his company might be better off without it. In a swirl of dust, a worker atop a different machine is blowing the almonds from their spot beneath the trees to the middle of the row. 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. 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 hired Bert Steir, a Bostonian with a Bronze Star from the Second World War and a degree from Harvard, to come west and work his deals. No one is out and about. 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. Get an email notification whenever someone contributes to the discussion. At the buildings he was cleaning, he noticed that no one was watching the front and back doors. Yeah, hes got a lot of money and hes been buying up land, makes some people nervous, Page said. They issued a commemorative medal of Tiger Woods winning the 1997 Masters that offended the golfer. Here, private water jumps from Tulare County to Kern County, but government jurisdictions dont count. The purpose of the Butcher's Corner Final EIR is to provide written responses to comments received on the Draft EIR.An electronic copy of the Final EIR, appendices and revised project plans are available on the project webpage at ButchersCorner.InSunnyvale.com.Hard copies of the Final EIR also available for review at City Hall, the Sunnyvale Public . Theyre either working in the heat or hiding from the heat. Because the more you invested in your employees and their communities, the more productive they became. Buttonwillow, California Search Background Check John Vidovich was associated with Sandridge Partners, L.P. between 2018 and 2021. There, he tells me, in the shadow of the states great concrete vein moving snowmelt north to south, I will find a private, off-the-books pipeline that Stewart Resnick has built to keep his trees from dying. Wonderful has enough water to irrigate its orchards in Lost Hills and park tens of thousands of acre-feet in the water bank. Vidovich went on a shopping spree. If he had his druthers, he said, hed still be living in a little ranch house in Culver City. 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. Use the 'Report' link on So why hasnt this place gone to tumbleweeds? 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. Welcome to San Antonio del Norte, he says. The wall of Pacifico and 16-ounce cans of Bud is rebuilt daily. To manage the disease. The net return on the pistachio proves that Wonderfuls dominance in the market has benefited every grower in the room. Lupe excuses herself to prepare dinner. He had spent the morning on his exercise bike reading Fortune. Here, a crew has dug a culvert beneath the road and hiked the pipeline under the asphalt that divides one field from another. Hes dressed Italian chin to footLoro Piana jeans and Hogan tennis shoes. He was semi-retired living in Clovis when another Kings County farmer, Pat McCarthy not Vidovich called him to do some work for Angiola. But western Kern has no groundwater to draw from. I dont believe we should be sending water to LA, he said. Look, I have no guilt. He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts. A pump is shooting water out of the canal and into the Rain for Rent pipes. My head keeps hitting the sunroof. Be respectful, truthful, and After school and on weekends, wed clean and wax floors. 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. 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. Of the 22,000 acres they ripped during the drought, 18,000 acres are being replanted in pistachios. By the time he drove back, he was a citrus grower. It moves in a wave from trunk to limb to nut and back down to earth. 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. As the growers punch more holes into the ground looking for a vanishing resource, the earth is sinking. Problem is, I feel like Im 50. He used to work for the Resnicks before Stewart put him in charge of the district. Month after month, she made ends meet on a $1,600 budget. This water basically came from a land owned by someone whos also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. But he did pass and was admitted to the bar in 1980 at the age of 24. Twine strung trailer to trailer hangs with the laundry of fathers, mothers, and children. Under lights, he prunes, plows, and irrigates the almonds. They were married only a short time when Manuel decided to cross the border almost 20 years ago. So were seeing a shift now and then to have nature imposing its will on the situation. Share with Us. The speech of his parents and grandparents, the Yiddish-inflected New York with its humors and cut-to-the-quick impatiences, had not left his own speech in the half-century since hed come to California. 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. The bowls on her kitchen table are filled with grapes, berries, bananas, and red and green bell peppers. They are suing Angiola for what they say was Hurleys illegal takeover of the tiny Atwell Island Water District. As you know, our philosophy at Wonderful is doing well by doing good. I waited five years before placing another call to his headquarters. 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. Whatever remains is not nearly enough to make up for the shortfall of imported water from the state. Kingdom. Wonderful is getting smaller, he says. Pablo prunes and irrigates the almond and pistachio trees and applies the chemicals that cannot be applied by helicopter. Subscribers keep our independent community news in business. I saw her a few months ago. And the Resnicks run the place, thats where this story gets conflicted and very complicated because in the last five to eight years they have committed millions and millions of dollars to making this place better educating the children, helping the workers deal with obesity and things like that. Why not we start with an extended interview or two? I offered. They went to law school together and joined the same program in the Navy reserves. As he walks away, I notice his $400 sneakers. Hes got another meeting to attend. He thinks Ive understated the crop.. No water in the ground to make up for the missing government supply. Angiola was rehabbing old wells, drilling new ones and installed a large pipeline. Amy Scott: Theres a stunning aerial photo in the magazine that shows these green green trees surrounded basically by dust. PRIVACY POLICY. From a safe, Ellsberg had lifted the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of how successive presidents lied to the public to cover up the failings of the Vietnam War. On one side of the road and the other, for miles in both directions, the dirt belongs to Wonderful. Drought turning to floodit is the story of California. Bruce Springsteen turned it into a song on his Ghost of Tom Joad album. They were pushing plates, costume jewelry, perfume, and model cars. Too many pomegranates. No farmer ever is. Theyre now building an $80 million charter-school complex in Delano, just down the road from Cesar Chavez High. His law license is inactive, according to the California State Bar Association website. Observers worry that Vidovich plans to pump Kings and Tulare counties dry, park that water in Kern County and then sell it to the highest bidder in dry years, leaving a once-thriving farm district barren. Preview. His dad had sold the bar and was adrift. This sale made headlines because it was engineered by one farmeran outsider from the cityfor his benefit only. 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. I think I paid $9 million. Being Wonderful means more than growing, harvesting, and distributing the best of the best. Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Inside, a trainer watches over a line of treadmills, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes. The agency did not balk at the price tag: $5,321 an acre-foot. It was good for the bottom line. That breaks your agreement with those farmers. I try again to pin him down, but hes a man who likes to think of himself as wily. Even if I were to move water and sell it, it would be to farming operations.. And he was able to use canals and pumping stations to then get that water in this pipeline that very secretively was connected to irrigation ditches in Lost Hills. Every time I see it, Im inspired and proud of what weve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Often an equal amount of water splits south, wreaking havoc on farmland in the old Tulare Lake bottom, about 60 miles northwest of Bakersfield. "There are a lot of good places for it (feedlot). I enter an equipment yard where a Wonderful farmhand is standing next to a tractor. Water that has shipped you know hundreds of miles from the north of California where there are these abundant rivers. The stacks of bottles gave him no answer. Either way is a trespass. The borough measured no more than 2 square miles. One out of eight has diabetes. Each bush is saddled with more than a hundred pomegranates the size of softballs and baseballs. What if he dropped his lawsuit and the two of them worked together to solve their water problems? I walk to another part of the orchard and watch phase two. And one Kern County water district could be the linchpin to it all. He did his internship at Alkaloid - the la. The farmer moved the rain. 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? He commands his realm, and she commands hers, and he takes care to mind the line. Theres a lot of people who dont like me, but nobody didnt like my dad.. He is irrigating 121,000 of those acres. Includes Address (3) Phone (3) Email (1) See Results. ", "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. The winter goes down as one of the wettest in recorded history. Its going to be what its going to be. use no threatening or hateful language. And, importantly, Angiola promised not to take the groundwater outside of Tulare or Kings counties or allow any of its landowners to do so. Many are here without documents, after all. The tule fog sets down again in the valley. Since international sanctions were lifted five years earlier, Iran has been crowding the market with its more buttery-tasting pistachios. Vidovich owns the property in question, and he is well known in Valley circles. His partner in the mandarins once told me that when Stewart is done with you, hes done with you. In fact, his detractors call him the single greatest threat to Central Valley farming ever to come down the pike. The aqueduct was built with tax money, yes? This was Lost Hills before Lynda got involved. He leveled its hog wallows, denuded its salt brush, and killed the last of its mustang, antelope, and tule elk. We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. 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. Vidovich is gobbling up all the parcels he can so he can keep on pumping, Mitchell said. Most Los Altos residents don't know it, but one of their neighbors known locally as a developer and political candidate moonlights as a farmer, one currently receiving a dose of notoriety. She seems a little nervous waiting in the wings. Its been more than a year since the grand opening, and theyre still operating in the red. 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. They were selling 2,500 acres of oranges and lemons and a packing house for a third of their appraised value, Resnick said. She is the brander of the empire, the final word on their Super Bowl ads, the creator of product marketing. Even the community water tank is painted baby blue with a big sunflower. More than half our employees are obese or near obese, Anzaldo tells me. Developers now had to identify a source of water before a city or county would green light their projects. My health, knock on wood, is good. I get it. Hes a 61-year-old developer who grew up on a farm in Sunnyvale in the heart of what would become the Silicon Valley. The oil companies and insurance companies were looking to unload their farms in Kern County, Steir learned, chunks of earth that measured 20,000 and 40,000 acres. Feudal. Yet the Resnick pipeline is doing just that. The 789 acre project . Kings Officials Unhappy About Water Proposal, Local Water Guys Eyeing Kings River Flood Water. The parents of Vidovi and Mohat were featured in a documentary film titled Mentor, which premiered on December 9, 2014. 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 Lemoore City Council Tuesday night (Jan. 18) will discuss a proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse proposed for the southwest corner of Highway 198 and Highway 41. And its that groundwater part of Semitropics agreement with Vidovich that is raising hackles along with eyebrows. Its not true, he wants to farm.. What? The water sent to Kern County1.4 million acre-feet a yearhas doubled the cropland. But its just a cover for taking water out, Pace said. But he got too big. I park the car and walk across the barren rows. Once his parents decided to go, he decided to go, too. "I have sent my opinion to three county supervisors and our city manager. This must be the spot the Wonderful field man was describing. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. However, Vidovich has been somewhat of a welcome presence to some in Kings County. The cost of loneliness: Social isolation holds back workers and costs employers billions, Businesses and consumers are borrowing more, despite rising interest rates, Why a Guarneri violin is expected to fetch $10 million at auction. My business approach right now is to acquire as much water as I can to be diversified in water. (See sidebar online.). Or he can devise a scheme to steal water from a neighbor up the road. The miles clock by not as road but as story. Other water districts contended it was much more. They both knew what they wanted. Read our full comments policy: losaltosonline.com/comments, $5.00 Chance of rain 40%. Residential. Both men saw Hurleys involvement in numerous local districts including Angiola, Deer Creek Storm Water District, Green Valley Water District and the Tri-County Water Authority, a newly formed GSA, as more Vidovich control.
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