Theres a lot happening in the world. Im sure I knew we had a pipeline in there. The borough measured no more than 2 square miles. Even so, Resnick says, he learned a lesson from the 2004 recall of 13 million pounds of the companys salmonella-tainted almonds: Dont fight the FDA. But that money enabled me to go into Angiola (a water district in Tulare County) and have other water sources.. It exists as one thing they can almost rationalize out in the fields. 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. He became more involved with De Anza, working with his dad, whom he describes as bigger than life.. Brown oxtail in batches and set aside. I feel his gaze going past me, his voice turning oddly sentimental. Vidovich John - De Anza Properties is located at: 960 N San Antonio Rd, Los Altos, California 94022. The relatives try not to press them, but the arrangement still feels like a form of indentured servitude. They point to three new pump stations along Angiolas main canal just north of the county line that have the ability to move 100,000 acre feet a year into pipes that head south and west. At age 81, hes gotten so big, he doesnt know how big. In Kern County, one in two adults and almost one in five children are obese. What? They are suing Angiola for what they say was Hurleys illegal takeover of the tiny Atwell Island Water District. Lynda isnt just writing checks, Donoso told me. Lupe knocks on his door, and he invites us in. 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. He didnt know where to begin. Yet Vidovich said he is not personally a booster of the farm bill, and that his company might be better off without it. A woman named Lupe is standing above me on the wooden stairway that climbs to the front door of her trailer. His father was 3 years old at the time. Here and there a mulberry tree, its canopy pruned back, breaks up the red-smeared sky.. John Vidovich, Student Loan Corp: Profile and Biography And so the question of sustainability is front and center here now in California. 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. We can surely help you find the best one according to your needs. The Iranians dont irrigate their trees. Suicide of Sladjana Vidovic - Wikipedia So I ask about the big picture. He can mix this private water with his leftover state water and ship it to at least one stranded neighbor who will pay the price. Kingdom. What to give a grieving widow and her five children in Lost Hills but drinking water? Not a single one of them wants any part of Wonderful. He maneuvers down the middle of the row, sweeps up the dried almonds, and throws them into a catcher. The checks the workers bring in here from Mr. Resnick are the same checks they bring in for years. That company led to another company, and he soon owned half the commercial alarm accounts in Los Angeles. 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). 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To fix the subsidence, and keep the town dry in the next flood, residents and the state prison are having to pay $10 million in extra taxes. Altogether, Resnick has purchased 300,000 acre-feet of water from farmers and water districtsat a cost of $200 millionto cover his shortfall during the drought. When Lynda learned that half the students receiving thousands of dollars in company scholarships were dropping out of school, she wasnt deterred. Yet he doesn't think the farm bill in its present form is going to achieve its protectionist goals. Past Delano and the first vineyards that Cesar Chavez marched against. The state of California has adopted a new law that finally regulates the pumping. Arax: This place called Lost Hills, it is kind of a modern-day company town not unlike Hershey, Pennsylvania. Your account number is your one-line street address as printed on your newspaper use normal capitalization. You have no idea the people on my VIP list who drink it. The farmers there are raising almost 1 million acres of crops, and fewer than half these acres are irrigated with flows from the Kern. Rain for Rent, the pipes say. Im down, Stewart, he protests. He was in military intelligence and had a top secret clearance that involved gathering data and evaluating products they made, he said. 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. He explains that Wonderful has grown too big to hassle such precision. The water is filtered for arsenic, boron, and other salts, and the monthly tests show no violation of state or federal standards. 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. Thank you for signing in! Brad Steinwede. watts towers arts center A fully equipped teaching kitchen will turn the harvest into school lunches. No way, according to Vidovich and his longtime associates. 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. It took time to gain the respect of the people, and I was afraid. 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. The baseballs will be crushed into juice. 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. And how will the Resnicks fare? The bunches of chartreuse-tipped nuts hanging from antler branches never touch the ground. To the growers, it must feel like a jab in the stomach. Last time he checked, he told me he owned 180,000 acres of California. Use the 'Report' link on Vidovich has been buying land in the Central Valley for more than 20 years. Web Directions. Its his pipe, not mine. Farmers near Pixley already have sued him once for taking too much water out of their ground and moving it. There are plans, crazy as it sounds, to take out 10,000 acres of almonds. Together, the Resnicks have wedded the valleys hidebound farming culture with L.A.s celebrity culture. The hospital, senior citizens center, and football stadium all bore the signature of his giving. Hes fishing right now. At Wonderful Health and Wellness, were educating our employees about this health crisis. Inside, a trainer watches over a line of treadmills, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes. Scott: So you set out with this question: how was he defying nature? His frat brother got bored, as rich boys do, and Resnick bought out his half interest for $300. Once, he came home from school and discovered the family car gone. I remind him of the time we spent together eight years earlier in his Sunset House. 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. Vidovich says his quote was clipped and sewn back together to make it sound bad. 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. The drought?. When a farmers orchards encompass 186 square miles, finding the field man can be a challenge. SANDRIDGE PARTNERS | LinkedIn "Ten percent of farmers get 70 percent of the payment," Perez said. The nuts are kept there a few more daysany longer and the ants will attack themto complete their drying. 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. Stephen Vidovich died in 2007, at the age of 81, driving a tractor near one of his remaining vineyards. His father grew grapes, cherries, and apricots in the Santa Clara Valley back when Stanford University still had a reason to be known as The Farm. Selfo works 50 hours a week as an irrigator. He recalled bidding on a construction project while studying for the bar exam. She is twinkling from earlobe and finger. PRIVACY POLICY. 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. San Antonio south doesnt exist anymore. He is a small, good-looking man with a patch of black hair under his lip. In fact, the piece is called A kingdom from dust. Its a pretty dry place right? Vidovich is, after all, a powerful landowner in the Central Valley. The biggest misconception about John is that he wants to sell water to LA, he said. They had survived the drought. The feedback were hearing is No. In fact, some of the workers think that we havent gone far enough., The workers arent around for a quick survey. Lucky for her that the young man was kind. Building an agricultural empire in a land of drought - Marketplace Except when you plug John Vidovichs name into the equation. Sandridge Partners received federal farm subsidies totaling approximately $1.06 million last year, the largest of any agribusiness in the nation, landing it a headline role in this year's debate. Links: www.sanjoseinside.com. Thank you for reading! The control Resnick exercises inside his $4.5 billion privately held company does relinquish to one person: his wife, Lynda, vice chairman and co-owner, the Pomegranate Queen, as she calls herself. This is a forgotten community. 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. In the kitchen corner, cases of bottled water are stacked halfway up the wall. The fog is our history. I grab my notebook and walk up to one of the vans. According to news reports, he owns Sandridge Partners, LP, a farmland investment firm that has accumulated more than 100,000 acres of Valley farmland in recent years. Shes designing the curriculum.. She divorced her husband in 1968 and began dating Anthony Russo, who worked at the RAND think tank in Santa Monica with military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. His many land purchases and involvement on water boards are all about farming, not selling water to L.A. As featured on. Yes, theyre still delivering water. His law license is inactive, according to the California State Bar Association website. To read more copy and paste or select. From now on, theyll grow on land that offers a double protection against drought. In the summer of 2010, hed spent several days documenting the deplorable conditions of the modern company town. 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. She was the daughter of Jack Harris, a film distributor, who moved the family to Los Angeles when Lynda was 15 to produce movies. Groundwater agencies up and down the San Joaquin Valley had to file plans with the Department of Water Resources earlier this year showing . He saved up a down payment for a raisin ranch west of Fresno, where my father was born in the worst of the Great Depression. As he bled the aquifer dry, he called on the government to bring him an even mightier river from afar. So why hasnt this place gone to tumbleweeds? Then it hits me. With that insight, he sold the company for $2.5 million and went into the security guard business. Shell check in every so often to see how business is going. I notice she keeps the water running for a long time. He was tough on the outside. Section, block, and row dont compute; he has to direct me by cellphone and guideposts. Hes a decent guy making $216,000 a year who doesnt pretend that he isnt beholden to Wonderful. As in most significant projects, there will be public hearings to review the proposed project's impacts. However, Vidovich has been somewhat of a welcome presence to some in Kings County. I write an email to the Wonderful PR team. It would return as tule fog to remind the white man of his theft. Hes serious about taking water out of this valley, Pace said. They were married only a short time when Manuel decided to cross the border almost 20 years ago. John Vidovich just wants to farm, he says. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. A van pulls up to the curb, and the door slides open. For a long time, she got no credit. The deed had been done in a series of hidden meetings in Monterey. Eat a corn tortilla instead, she urges. Youre the one who leads the way on selling agricultural water to the cities. He worked as a gardener in Los Angeles and then heard about the almond trees on the other side of the mountain where the living was so much cheaper. This is how Resnick became a pistachio, almond, and pomegranate grower. There is nothing here, one of the townsfolk told Gibler. Shoving aside the coins, they introduced a Scarlett OHara doll that, by itself, raked in $35 million in sales. Jun 27, 2007. One of the first things he did with his monopoly was kill the California Pistachio Commission, the industrys marketing group, by yanking his funding. I grew up in the suburbs where our playgrounds were named after the pioneers of fruit and canals of irrigation shot through our neighborhoods to the farms we did not know. Who would have thought the two of them in cahoots? 2022-02-14 - BY LOIS HENRY. I meet up with the Wonderful field man who first tipped me off to the pipeline. It is flowing to a place of dire thirst. He had moved out to Long Beach, bought some property, and built one of those new strip malls. He purchased his first 640-acre section in the late 1970s and kept adding more sections of almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, and citrus until he stretched the lines of agriculture like no Californian before him. The miles clock by not as road but as story. TV Shows. Its not the fidget of boredom. The eye numbed by the tedium of orchards isnt prepared for the 1.3 million square feet of industrial assault, though the palm trees and roses along the perimeter try for a transition. He knows what I dont know. Nearly a third of the harvestthe nuts grown by Wonderful, the nuts grown by hundreds of farmers who belong to the Wonderful brandwill come through these gates. Now its the seven-week nut harvest that brings out the inhalers. Wonderful is getting smaller, he says. Plastic drip-irrigation lines stick out of the ground at wrong angles. Contact [email protected] or call him at (650) 397-5213 with any questions or to learn more. for 30 days. Young men and women from Teach for America will do their two-year stints at the complex and live in village housing. 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 city of Los Angeles, by comparison, consumes 587,000 acre-feet. The land to him isnt real. The load will translate into 18,000 pounds of finished nuts in a matter of days. He had an industrial machine, hardly used, that scrubbed and waxed floors. If you already have a subscription, log in or register for an account on our website to continue reading.Click here if youre having trouble accessing your subscriber account. Now Lynda herself stands before us, a single light over her head. No luck. The vibration here isnt quite as vehement. 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. His dad had sold the bar and was adrift. "There are a lot of unintended consequences in agricultural policies, (but) the intent is to maintain a viable and healthy agricultural base," he said. My life is about California. When he materializes onstage, he is wearing narrow black jeans, a black mock turtleneck, and a dark jacket. 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. The courtship of Stewart and Lynda went fast. The only water Green Valley got was some surplus state water and natural groundwater, Pace said. He blames Iran. 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. Who anticipates that you cant fill a water bank for six or seven years?, Come on, I say. The biggest farmer of them all is tearing out 10,000 acres because he doesnt have enough water to cover the nuts to harvest. I take a last bite of cauliflower rice. He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts. Lynda spent $150,000 at an auction to buy the beaded gown and matching bolero jacket, the Elvis Dress, that Princess Diana had worn on a visit to Hong Kong. In the Wonderful fields, he tells me, at least 80 percent of the workers carry no documents or documents that are not real. She wanted me to put our $5 million in an account, draw interest, and we could live happily on the 50 grand a year.. Im not going to live forever, even with the massive amounts of pomegranate juice Im drinking. He says his bosses have been instructing him to cut the water each irrigation. On a Facebook page with postings in Spanish, they offer a glimpse of life inside pistachio world. They give thanks for a job that provides decent wages and access to a free wellness center next door staffed by a full-time doctor, physicians assistant, registered dietitian, and marriage and family therapist. When the next shift ends, he tells me, the gym will fill up with workers looking to win the cash bonuses from the companys GetFit program. Marketplace is a division of MPR's 501 (c)(3). I dont know. 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. It was the early 1900s, and his grandfather and grandmother decided to secure passage to America. Vidovich John - De Anza Properties, California (+14087384444) - VYMaps.com But theres no denying his desperation. 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. It was the early spring of 2008, and this time his secretary didnt hang up on me.