A California developer, farmer, and water buyer, John Vidovich, is seeking approval to build a beef feedlot and processing plant near Lemoore on what appears to be a 789-acre project located along Highway 41, just south of Highway 198. . 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. 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. The pipeline, bankrolled by his investment firm Sandridge Partners, is an efficient and conservation-minded way to ship water, he says. John Vidovich, Student Loan Corp: Profile and Biography In his best Borscht Belt nasal, he takes a jab. I head straight into the glare of the sun shooting over the Coast Range. Wild salmon and all these sides made from scratch. He unfolds a $20 bill from a wad he keeps inside a bent paper clip, and we take a seat in the far corner. Growers a tenth the size of Resnick flee the dust in their Ferraris to their second houses in Carmel. 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. Theres a section stacked with weights and a yoga room with mats on a hardwood floor. Right there in the big canal of the Dudley Ridge Water District. Vidovich did not immediately respond . We had gangs and murders, but thats better, too., He has come to El Toro Loco to cash his check and buy some beer. Surely, no one does this better than Wonderful? A meat store, an auto repair, a pool hall, and an arcade pass for a commercial strip. Inside, a trainer watches over a line of treadmills, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes. This is a park for the people, to give them a break from their hard lives. I think were going to see more of these fights break out over water among competing users, said Richard Frank, professor of environmental practice at the UC Davis School of Law. He works year-round for Wonderful. You cant reverse diabetes, but you can control it with a blood sugar level between 6.5 and 8. The deed had been done in a series of hidden meetings in Monterey. Were building infrastructure, and they dont like it.. The citrus is still handpicked but all the nuts are machine picked, and thats idled workers as well. Developers now had to identify a source of water before a city or county would green light their projects. These trees are pruned by a machine that hedges one side and then the other, he says. The vibration is a stunning piece of violence to behold. Arax: That is the question that you know Im dealing with in this magazine piece. Now the land is dry and saline, drained to support a vast and rigid geometry of nut, fruit and dairy farms. On the way out of the market, Pablo buys a case of Pacifico. Did it teach him any lessons? It comes out like pee, says her 11-year-old daughter. Vidovich, who has declined to sign paperwork ensuring his pipeline wont cause harm, filed a lawsuit alleging trespass. Everyone knew where it was going. The land to him isnt real. Shes designing the curriculum.. Under lights, he prunes, plows, and irrigates the almonds. All Access Digital offer for just 99 cents! But the players are different. But I couldnt have picked a more cinematic name than Lost Hills. His 15 million trees in the San Joaquin Valley consume more than 400,000 acre-feet of water a year. Then I get lucky. Like other small farmers, my water stays on my ground. Now its the seven-week nut harvest that brings out the inhalers. For a long time, she got no credit. Lucky for her that the young man was kind. Theres an unease about the room. He landed a steady job with a big grower and a year later paid a coyote $5,000 to bring Lupe and their baby son to Lost Hills. Under his leadership, the company used its business smarts, political clout and legal strategies to acquire water and transform a modest cotton farm into an agricultural empire. She owns this place. He goes on to explain what he means by own. The GPS tells me to take Interstate 5, the fastest route through the belly of the state, but Im partial to Highway 99, the old road that brought the Okies and Mexicans to the fields and deposited a twang on my Armenian tongue. As it happened, just down the road, on the other side of the lake bottom, Resnick had captured his own body of water, the Kern Water Bank, and planted millions of nut trees on desert scrub. Theres a lot of people who dont like me, he said after his fathers death. Instead, Southern California water users in the arid desert municipal and industrial alike now hold the rights. Whatever remains is not nearly enough to make up for the shortfall of imported water from the state. Round 1, No. To grow, Big Ag needed a bigger and more dependable supply. The helicopter buzzing started in February, scattering cattle. The colors turn brilliant in the light made spectacular by the particles of dust. By the time he drove back, he was a citrus grower. Rubbish, said Vidovich, in a Los Altos office decorated with maps of his land holdings. LOIS HENRY: Water conspiracy or just poor optics? A year into his studies, an uncle called from California. When I started to realize the socioeconomic issues of the Central Valley, I decided to stop writing checks to other charities and bring my business acumen into the project. All told, 36 men operating six machines will harvest the orchard in six days. You sure this isnt 18 tons an acre? he says, goading. I dont know how Hershey did Hershey, Pennsylvania, but Lynda is present in every painted sunburst, every planted flower, every blade of grass. But Vidovich has a history of selling and shipping water outside the valley, so some locals dont trust him. Also set to pitch in is hedge fund executive Donald Sussman who told . 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. No longer does it have to be a career that brings Mexicans to their hands and knees. You dont lose one drop at all.. Summary. This water basically came from a land owned by someone who's also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. She wanted to tell the story of the pomegranate, he told me with a touch of sarcasm. Summer or not, theyre dressed in shirt layered upon shirt and the same no-name dusty blue jeans. The state of California has adopted a new law that finally regulates the pumping. Theyre coming up with ideas that might lead to an even bigger drop in the number of employees with diabetes. And like other of the regions water barons present and past Resnick and Boswell Vidovichs last name is a sort of shorthand in coffee shop chatter from Delano to Easton. I feel too good to give any of it up.. When we learned of the terrible situation, not to mention our poor reputation within the community, we were ashamed and are sorry, their official statement reads. Even now, months later, the flyovers continue, said Wilson. 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. Groundwater agencies up and down the San Joaquin Valley had to file plans with the Department of Water Resources earlier this year showing . When the Depression struck, his parents migrated to Middlebush, New Jersey, where they bought a few trucks and peddled coffee and pots and pans. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference. Bernards eyes are fixed straight ahead. Boswell had tried to tear apart a copy of The King of California when his secretary asked if he might autograph it. John was vital in helping the company's executive group reposition its strategy. 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. He was tough on the outside. My father, born in a vineyard outside Fresno, was a raisin grower before he became a bar owner. On our trips to Disneyland, I must have blinkered my eyes heading down 99. Its my property, and I have a right to cross.. Once each tree has been shaken, the nuts are left on the ground for a few days to dry. The Sotos made a name for themselves in Lost Hills by taking their taco trucks into the agricultural fields. Well, maybe just a little guilt, but thats Jewish. He said the prod for all their giving in Lost Hills happened in Aspen, of all places. Fiefdom. And neither was 1952, Tri-Valley bids farewell to water restrictions as end of drought emergency declared. How come?, We dont need it anymore, he whispers., Back at the plant, Lynda is meeting with Wonderful doctors, nurses, and farmworkers. Of the 22,000 acres they ripped during the drought, 18,000 acres are being replanted in pistachios. In the Wonderful fields, he tells me, at least 80 percent of the workers carry no documents or documents that are not real. And so I began with slaughter and madness and then moved on to bartenders for fathers. Together, the Resnicks have wedded the valleys hidebound farming culture with L.A.s celebrity culture. 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. Boswell, Vidovich is heir to a real estate empire. 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. Or at least this is what I can glean through the car window. He isnt farming dirt, Arax wrote. More recently, he earned $40 million in an easement deal with a water bank and exchange that seeks to siphon flood water out of a Kings County canal for storage in Kern County. Weve had our battles in the past, and I dont agree with everything hes doing. Lynda sent the first batches of POM, week after week, as gifts to David Bowie, Rupert Murdoch, and Disney head Michael Eisner. He says his bosses have been instructing him to cut the water each irrigation. Twenty miles outside Fresno, I cross the Kings, the river that irrigates more farmland than any other river here. The wealth-tracking platform provides ongoing updates on the net worth and ranking of each . As we hop down from the van to inspect the pomegranates on the eve of harvest, Resnick motions to Bernards belly. When all three phases are finished, 1,800 students will be attending the high school, middle school, elementary, and preschool. 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. Anything else I can help you with?, He seems in a hurry. Where is the water going? His real estate empire became big enough to bring aboard each of his four children. When its Pablos turn, he hands Hussein a check for $437, and Hussein counts out $433 back to him in cash. Yes, the pipeline belongs to Resnick. Why not California? Boswell says no 2022-08-07 - By Lisa M. Krieger and Veronica Martinez Staff writers . Somehow, 30 or 40 nuts arent compelled to drop. Not a single penny was put in that piggy bank.. Because, while he does farm thousands of acres of pistachios, almonds [] Its ridiculous, he said. A piece of pipeline south of Stratford rests in the arm of a piece of heavy equipment on Dec. 16, 2021. In the years of plentiful rains and heavy snowmelt, the bank fills up with more than 1 million acre-feet of stored water. . 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. Resnick himself had sold 5,000 acre-feet to a proposed new town in the farm fields of Madera. Thats how he came upon the San Joaquin. This is how the land of Wonderful is keeping alive its trees. John Vidovich, the owner of the Santiago Villa and Sahara mobile home parks in Mountain View, is listed as a partner in both businesses. In the city of trees, I find a paved road with speed bumps that takes me to the harvest of pistachios. Water wars in a drying California: New money, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), First Republic Bank seized, sold to JPMorgan Chase, Water wars in a drying California: New money vs. old power in San Joaquin Valley, PG&E measures 211 inches of snow in final Northern California park survey, Walters: Lengthy California water rights battle moves into the Legislature, This California town hasnt had clean drinking water in 11 years, California snowpack data debunked: 2023 was no record year. So why hasnt this place gone to tumbleweeds? In 2009, Vidovich sold the annual rights to 14,000 acrefeet of water belonging to property sitting in the Dudley Ridge Water District, located in Kings County, for an eye-popping $73 million. For now, shes playing country western music on the sound system and trying to lure a combination of oil-field workers, supervisors at Wonderful, and travelers driving the last miles of James Dean. It can be squeezed only so much. Other billionaires getting behind Biden are investor Haim Saban, worth $2.9 billion, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, worth $1 billion, and Signum Global Advisors founder Charles Myers whose net worth is unknown. Thousands of acres of pistachio trees now await the next flood. Central Californias family raisin farms are drying up, Commercial bees, the unsung heroes of the nut business, From California to the Midwest, examining the perils of industrial farming and the risk to food, Drought has California farms destroying crops, rather than pay for water, Californias drought is all but over, but some wells are still dry, The color of the year has a political past, A California farm battles drought: Were out here trying to survive, Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on, Seasonal foreign workers fill critical landscaping jobs, enabled by easier access to visas. Its a water-saving method, Vidovich said. Today, most everything in this desolate reach of Kern County, save for the oil wells, belongs to Paramount Farming, which belongs to the Resnicks. 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 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. 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. All Rights Reserved. Now Lynda herself stands before us, a single light over her head. For the next two or three seconds, the almonds pour down like hail. Silicon Valley developer John Vidovich wants to build a water pipeline on his property; cotton king J.G. John also answers to John Visovich, John Vodovich, John T Vidovich, John Thomas Vidovich and Johnathon T Vidovich, and perhaps a couple of other names. I did not name the town, Lynda says. Fussing with one input or another, he can produce 3,500 pounds of nuts an acre. There's a reason to lose sleep over mislabeled melatonin gummies, The debt limit is not a tool for "extortion," Biden adviser Lael Brainard says. Turn onto Twisselman Road off I-5 and continue west until it intersects with the California Aqueduct. We were asleep at the wheel. So the question before me was how are these guys farming? Wonderful is getting smaller, he says. The bunches of chartreuse-tipped nuts hanging from antler branches never touch the ground. Angiola has become a critical element of Vidovichs water moves, transferring water across the Valley for additional sales, so much so that it put him and the district in hot water. In fact it should be getting smaller, more sustainable and thats what youre seeing play out on the land right now. Last time he checked, he told me he owned 180,000 acres of California. Theyre paying $340 a month for its privilege. Thats all fine and good, Resnick replied, but what about the $1 million-plus hed spent on lawyers fees? We tell the children about the fields when they are young so they dont know the fields when they are old, she says. More than a dozen family members have followed Lupe and Manuel to Lost Hills. At the time we were handing out college scholarships in the valley, but Lynda decided it wasnt nearly enough. A year and a half after hearing Sandeland in the wake of Giblers storyLynda kicked into high gear their mission to save Lost Hills and several other farmworker towns where Wonderful operated its orchards and processing plants. 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. Lupe gave birth to two daughters, U.S. citizens, who are now 11 and 6. Resnick wanted no part in my story. In an era of climate change, everybody is scrambling. In a report filed Wednesday with the county . He guides me back into the main store with its displays of fresh fruit and vegetables, meats, cold cuts, and baked goods. If only Eve had offered Adam a pomegranate instead of an apple, Lynda wrote, every day could have been a holiday.. Eat a corn tortilla instead, she urges. Wages that used to go to workers stay in the pocket of the nut growers. To change the microbial life in our digestive tracts and reduce inflammation that leads to disease, we have to reintroduce fermented foods into our diet. She is the brander of the empire, the final word on their Super Bowl ads, the creator of product marketing. We hope you enjoy Finding Lost Hills., The 11-minute film opens with a shot of swirling dust. He wants his fair share, but he wants everybody else to prosper, too.. She is here and there, but I have never seen her up close. The truth a mercenary has landed on. It moves in a wave from trunk to limb to nut and back down to earth. Each tree produces 22 pounds of nuts. A Kingdom from Dust The California Sunday Magazine He brought great ideas to the table and helped make and then execute tough choices. They're drought's best buddies." John Vidovich will tell you he's the interloper who came over the other mountain, the Coast Range. 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. Thats changing. This is one of the ways the Nut King and the Pomegranate Queen are defying the California drought. On Oscar night, she handed out free samples to the stars at the Vanity Fair party. It supports two full-ride college scholarships to the top graduates of Corcoran High School and a faculty position at Fresno State. Vidovich, whose total compensation was about $236,000 in the last fiscal year, was previously the agency's chief of staff. Another intrepid California billionaire named John Vidovich, scion of the Vidovich fortune, has a different path forward for the Golden State, one that he's established in his own land and water grabs. One of his films, The Blob, became a cult classic, and they lived in a house on the Westside with two Rolls-Royces in the garage. On the shallow bottom, the women fished mussels and clams with their toes. This is Lynda.. So in that time, we started cleaning windows, too. They named the business Clean Time Building Maintenance. Vidovich is the owner of Sandridge Partners, LP a farmland investment firm that has undertaken more than 100,000 acres of Valley farmland. He is a San Joaquin Valley farmer from Northern California. Im in a dire situation.. What market share has been lost in Asia and the Middle East, the company is looking to get back in Mexico with its spicy Latin line of nuts. On a chilly morning in January, the day the pipe was to cross under the canal, Boswells crew arrived to block construction with trucks, trailers, excavators, a motor grader and a bulldozer with the diamond B logo, according to the lawsuit. In the maroon of sundown,I follow the workers back to Lost Hills. Billionaires Line Up Behind Biden for 2024: 'Stakes Are - Breitbart She was a very frugal lady. More pumping, locals say, worsens the regions destructive land subsidence. He did this first in the name of wheat and then beef, milk, raisins, cotton, and nuts. Legendary Investor Strategies And Stocks For The Current Market - Forbes John Vidovich - Biography
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