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Bernards eyes are fixed straight ahead. 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. Scott: So you set out with this question: how was he defying nature? EIN: 41-0953924. Hes using it to irrigate his almonds and pistachios in Lost Hills. And Vidovich ended up pumping water an extraordinary amount of water out of. The four grandchildren have visited the orchards once or twice. He indicated that a proposal was currently being drafted for the council's Tuesday night approval. Hes a 61-year-old developer who grew up on a farm in Sunnyvale in the heart of what would become the Silicon Valley. 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Burglar alarms, on the other hand, offered round-the-clock vigilance without coffee breaks. Theyre baby tumbleweeds that have come home. So why hasnt this place gone to tumbleweeds? Example: 138 Main St. 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. The bureau happened to be my house in northwest Fresno. When a farmers orchards encompass 186 square miles, finding the field man can be a challenge. The junk scattered about could be a lot worse. Id rather be unknown than known. He had recently read The King of California, and that got him thinking. His oldest son is retired in Seattle. "Ten percent of farmers get 70 percent of the payment," Perez said. Theres not much left over, he says. A public resource had been privatized for the purpose of growing tens of thousands of acres of nuts, he charged. Pace farmed in the valley and partnered with Vidovich for a while. Not that long ago, we used to time our sinus infections by the immense cloud of defoliants sprayed on the cotton fields at the end of Indian summer. "The plan is to hold a special meeting on Tuesday, then submit," he explained to The Leader via a text. My business approach right now is to acquire as much water as I can to be diversified in water. Their concern is where Vidovich is taking the groundwater. "At a time of high food prices and record farm income, this bill lacks program reform and fiscal discipline," Bush said in a statement May 21. Proposition 1 is a $7 billion bond passed in 2014 that would pay for a host of projects from flood control to water quality. I roll past Tulare, where every February they hold the biggest tractor show in the world, even bigger than the one in Paris. Subscribers keep our independent community news in business. I had finished the last chapter of The King of California, a book I wrote with a good friend about J.G. The 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno has overturned a $73.4 million verdict against McCarthy Family Farms and Bay Area developer John Vidovich and Sandridge Partners involving a land and. His frat brother got bored, as rich boys do, and Resnick bought out his half interest for $300. Lynda is also mapping out a farm-to-food program where students will grow fruits, vegetables, and grains on a plot of village land. It was linear, logical, fluid, and quite nearly destined. However, Vidovich has been somewhat of a welcome presence to some in Kings County. The white flowers have set into buds, and the buds have become baby almonds covered in fuzz. As we sat down to chat, one of his assistants leaned over and whispered into his jewel-studded ear. The son, 5 foot 6 and thin, with closely cropped blond hair and blue eyes that fix on you, isnt concerned about ingratiating himself. This is a park for the people, to give them a break from their hard lives. But thats not an issue I deal with., I dont even know what it was, to be honest with you.. These are loaded, Resnick says. As we hop down from the van to inspect the pomegranates on the eve of harvest, Resnick motions to Bernards belly. The bunches of chartreuse-tipped nuts hanging from antler branches never touch the ground. Hes fishing right now. This doesnt count the 21,000 acres of grapefruits and limes hes growing in Texas and Mexico. Somehow, it made its way to Lynda. This isnt any road. Then some of the money we save goes to pay the coyote. When they get on their high horse, you dont want to argue with them.. I follow one of the engines of harvest as it rolls into an orchard like a tank. watts towers arts center All I know is I dont want to split it up or sell it in some leveraged buyout. Vidovich John - De Anza Properties is located at: 960 N San Antonio Rd, Los Altos, California 94022. He ran, unsuccessfully for city council in his hometown of Los Altos Hills in 2006. Young men and women from Teach for America will do their two-year stints at the complex and live in village housing. Even if he has access to the California Aqueduct, Vidovich would have to jump through a lot of state hoops to move water independently of Semitropic. Vicente Fernndez, the king of Ranchera music, is crooning to no one, but it wont be this way in 30 minutes, Hussein tells me. "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. The price for pistachios has climbed from $4.50 a pound to an unbelievable $5.25 a pound. 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. Brown oxtail in batches and set aside. Ill have to go deeper if I can.. Phone Number: (724) 495-**** John T Vidovich, age 84 View Full Report Address:***** Butternut Ridge Rd, Elyria, OH. She described commodity programs as making up less than 13 percent of the farm bill. You and I look at this meal, he says. He was a big drinker, a big liver who loved the fast life. 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. The nuts are kept there a few more daysany longer and the ants will attack themto complete their drying. why teaching is challenging yet rewarding Then it hits me. Use the 'Report' link on He holds a little more than 100,000 acres in Kings County, 40,000 acres in Kern, and 10,000 acres in Tulare County. A few weeks later, I found myself riding up the elevator of a high-rise on the Westside of Los Angeles. They greet me with smiles and handshakes. I steer past Wasco to the dust-blowing orchards that flank Lost Hills, the densest planting of almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates on earth. From the east side of Tulare County to the west side of Fresno County, theyre planting more nuts and Halos. Coke, Gatorade, and Monster Energy are sky-high in sweeteners, but dont be fooled by that SunnyD, either. The farmer corralled the snowmelt and erased the valley, its desert and marsh. The 5.3 acres are so flawless and at odds with the town that the whole thing feels like a movie set. No stranger enters this zone unless its to get rid of a body or dump waste from cooking meth or drown a hot car. Now, hes involved in a project that could set him up as a water marketer on an extreme scale. The project would consist of a small reservoir, more like short-term storage cells, along the California Aqueduct just north of Kettleman City where floodwater off the south fork of the Kings River would be captured. These books indicate who obtained the land, and include a physical description of the tract and where the land is located. He had an industrial machine, hardly used, that scrubbed and waxed floors. Page had been a longtime board member of the Semitropic Water District and Vidovich wanted that kind of expertise. The making of a billionaire over the next half-century was a series of dots that connected in the California sunshine. When a copy found its way to The New York Times, Lynda was pursued by federal prosecutors until they concluded she was more dilettante than radical. 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. These are trees and vines raised in nurseries and put into the ground at a cost of $10,000 an acre to satisfy the worlds growing appetite for nuts and fruits. With that insight, he sold the company for $2.5 million and went into the security guard business. But why is insulin so expensive in the first place? The Kings is as erratic a river as the Kern so floodwaters are unpredictable. So the state couldnt deliver, in one year couldnt deliver any of it. Their houses made from railroad boxcars have been painted purple, blue, yellow, and gold. At age 81, he's gotten so big, he doesn't know how big. All of it was Lyndas doing, of course. If he were on the scene today, hed have to add sashed Queens to the list. Rick Stein Spanish Oxtail Recipe - Share Recipes Shes designing the curriculum.. Because its so much fun to say that Lost Hills has been found., The room full of growers applauds. Compulsive gambler and alcoholic. He had moved out to Long Beach, bought some property, and built one of those new strip malls. 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. I head straight into the glare of the sun shooting over the Coast Range. One of his frat brothers was a wealthy kid whose father ran a janitorial business. Hes dressed Italian chin to footLoro Piana jeans and Hogan tennis shoes. State or federal water isnt enough. The Sotos made a name for themselves in Lost Hills by taking their taco trucks into the agricultural fields. He started cleaning pizza parlors and drugstores. While he was just starting out, he also enlisted in the Navy and served in the reserves for six or eight years, he cant recall the exact term. 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. Look, these farmers go back two, three, and four generations. He bought 20,000 acres in the Tulare Lake basinland that not even Boswell dared farm. That was eight or nine years ago. He was the bad guy in agriculture for no bigger offense than that he was big. Suicide of Sladjana Vidovic - Wikipedia It cant be farmed like it was, he says. Lupe excuses herself to prepare dinner. Six hundred pistachio growers in blue jeans isnt her usual crowd. Past McFarland and the high school runners who won five state championships in a row in the 1990s. Stewart Resnick is the biggest farmer in the United States, a fact he has tried to keep hidden while he has shaped what we eat, transformed Californias landscape, and ruled entire towns. Yet Vidovich said he is not personally a booster of the farm bill, and that his company might be better off without it. Past Delano and the first vineyards that Cesar Chavez marched against. Though the project is billed as flood control, the agreement also allows Vidovich to move groundwater. When youre making the kind of money were making, whats the upside? Menu. My life is about California. I had not seen any. Yes, theyre still delivering water. In Lost Hills, they call her Lady Lynda. She shows up in high fashion and stands in the dust and tells them about another charter school or affordable-housing project she is bringing to them. I thwack both lines. Hes so involved, in fact, he even chairs the monthly meetings for Buena Vista Water Storage District where Sandridge owns thousands of acres. The choices for the Kern farmer now come down to two: He can reach deep into his pocket and buy high-priced water from an irrigation district with surplus supplies. Thats more than double the crop that Resnick boasted about when I saw him eight years ago. Hes a decent guy making $216,000 a year who doesnt pretend that he isnt beholden to Wonderful. John Vidovich will tell you hes the interloper who came over the other mountain, the Coast Range. 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 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. Even if I were to move water and sell it, it would be to farming operations.. Sitting in his mansion in 2008, he already counted more than 100,000 acres of orchards across five counties. Frankly, Im having too much fun to think about retiring., Even if he were inclined to wind down, he had no successor in mind. You dont believe me?, No, I believe you, Resnick says. When your current subscription expires later this year, you will be able to renew at losaltosonline.com/users/admin/service/purchase. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. He packed his bags and left his wife and kids. California is free to return to its amnesia. 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. 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. He and Lynda decided in 1984 to buy the Franklin Mint, the maker of commemorative coins and other kitsch, for $167.5 million. This is a lot of gestures to unpack, and as I exit the grounds, I keep turning around to get one last look thats true. Thousands of Wonderful acres lay bare. As farmworker colonies go, this one isnt as grim as others Ive visited. If I follow them north through Resnick pomegranates, I can find out where the water is coming from. Fussing with one input or another, he can produce 3,500 pounds of nuts an acre. You get exempted from the companys wellness program? Bernard has actually lost a few pounds. He is also known for his water deals. A road will pick up and connect me to where the tube is going. No luck. Being Wonderful means more than growing, harvesting, and distributing the best of the best. Here, private water jumps from Tulare County to Kern County, but government jurisdictions dont count. 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. 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. 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. Now theres something here. He became more involved with De Anza, working with his dad, whom he describes as bigger than life.. LOIS HENRY: Is John Vidovich planning to sell off the valley's lifeblood? 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. They have no way to grasp the $50 million to $80 million a year that the Resnicks say they are spending on philanthropy. Thank you for signing in! If you study his moves, you can see a method to the acres he is accumulating. Vidovich is gobbling up all the parcels he can so he can keep on pumping, Mitchell said. 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. I had in mind a magazine profile on Stewart, the Nut King. 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. Month after month, she made ends meet on a $1,600 budget. I dont know. The aquifer either doesnt exist or is so befouled by salts that the water is poison. Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. I do all the calculations from the numbers I am able to gather, and I cannot figure out how these nuts are getting enough water. She deftly places her body between him and me. He got into UCLA and joined a Jewish fraternity. The Cutie and the Halo are now warring in the fields outside the Visalia Convention Center. I didnt grow up here, but if it wasnt for California, its openness and opportunities, I wouldnt be sitting where Im sitting., No other farmer, not even Gallo, had cornered a market the way Resnick had cornered the growing, buying, processing, and selling of pistachios. In any event, Vidovich fallowed his Angiola land and took its groundwater about 25 miles west to his Dudley Ridge lands. None of the sales taxes go to City Hall because Lost Hills isnt a city. The man and his pincers cant be bothered. Residential. Who knows when a five-year drought is coming? 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: What spikes blood sugar more than a can of Coke? So much snowmelt comes down the mountain that it nearly takes out Oroville Dam. The wildfires cant be far behind. His dad had sold the bar and was adrift. Is John Vidovich Planning to Sell Off the Valley's Lifeblood? When you first meet John Vidovich, everything from his ball cap to his dirty boots tells you, Positive Cases Among Kern Residents: 310,095, Recovered and Presumed Recovered Residents: 305,002, Percentage of all cases that are unvaccinated:71, Percentage of all hospitalizations that are unvaccinated:83.13, Source: Kern County Public Health Services Department. When pressed, though, they acknowledged it could be done. Because of a lack of water? I ask. The City of Lemoore is one such agency obligated to respond. Buried in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, USA. But we werent there long. They moved to Highland Park, home to Johnson & Johnson and close enough to Rutgers University to hear the fans screaming at Neilson Field. By age 19, Lynda had dropped out of college, married a magazine ad man, and opened her own advertising agency. It then dawned on him that guards were good, but they had to be paid an hourly wage. Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. On the way out, the voice in their head, Lyndas voice, goads them to give one more hour to the Wonderful Fitness Center. Wonderful is getting smaller, he says. He only needed to find groundwater from another basin to replace the state aqueduct water he had just sold. Vidovich has more than one reason to be evasive. The deed had been done in a series of hidden meetings in Monterey. In the years of plentiful rains and heavy snowmelt, the bank fills up with more than 1 million acre-feet of stored water. Stephen Vidovich died in 2007, at the age of 81, driving a tractor near one of his remaining vineyards. 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. That still leaves the majority of the workforce beyond his cajole. Sorry, no promotional deals were found matching that code. 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. Twenty miles outside Fresno, I cross the Kings, the river that irrigates more farmland than any other river here. If youve ever had Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful pomegranate juice or Halo mandarin oranges, youve had produce grown on one of the largest farms in the world. Its not easy to hear, but Im not going to sugarcoat this, she says. I pity the outsider trying to make sense of it. John Vidovich just wants to farm, he says. Lost Hills finally has something to be proud about. Bernard, hard to believe, is driving straight toward the aqueduct. The rent is $540. 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. Theyre now building an $80 million charter-school complex in Delano, just down the road from Cesar Chavez High. Lynda is making the trip on the company jet more often these days. I cut across Twisselman Road to the pipeline gliding along the aqueduct like a silver snake. John Vidovich Vice President, Business Development Brad Steinwede. Then he turned and faced me. And its an area that doesnt have ground water, so its there completely because of the State Water Project. Vidovich says he uses that Angiola groundwater to farm in Dudley Ridge, so the groundwater isnt leaving its home basin. I stick to the left lane and try to stay ahead of the pack. He went out and bought an alarm company. Mitchell agreed, giving Vidovich credit for seeing where groundwater laws were headed before anyone else. In the trailer next door, Lupes cousin Margarita lives with her husband, Selfo, and their three young children. John, his oldest son, had served in the military as an intelligence officer and graduated from Santa Clara law school. And whats the end game of moving that water? But a pipeline, which Vidovich is allowed to build under the Semitropic agreement, could span that distance. To manage the disease. Main Street is Highway 46, which slices through the middle of town. Our relatives have been patient. He worries because there isnt enough water now to properly irrigate the almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates. This water basically came from a land owned by someone whos also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. One of the most dramatic alterations of the earths surface in human history took place here. When he first planted seedless mandarins in the valley 17 years ago, the bees from the citrus orchards around him were flying into his groves, pollinating his flowers, and putting seeds into the flesh of his fruit. What happens to Wonderful? It takes a lot of work to get ahead. She and Manuel were able to buy their trailer several years ago. The sentimental ones stay away. For now, theyre selling to farmers like Resnick who can pay the price. Shoving aside the coins, they introduced a Scarlett OHara doll that, by itself, raked in $35 million in sales. It was kind of a crutch in case I flunked, he said. Highway 46 shoots past Resnick almonds and takes you straight into town, population 1,938. I was prepared to knock on the door, but a housekeeper, flanked by two blow-dried dogs, greeted me on the front steps and led me inside. He called it fake junk, sued, and won. 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. Now Lynda herself stands before us, a single light over her head. In fact, his detractors call him the single greatest threat to Central Valley farming ever to come down the pike. Ever since I was a kid, I have felt its pulla gravitational presence on the land and in my own story. So off the developers went in search of farm water. And one of the things he was doing was sort of an off-the-books irrigation deal? Mr. Vidovich was a descendant of one of the pioneer farm families that settled here from Croatia . 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. Now its the Bobcats turn. Yes. 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. Not a single one of them wants any part of Wonderful. Its his pipe, not mine. Every river busting out of the Sierra was bent sideways, if not backward, by a bulwark of ditches, levees, canals, and dams. Each face wears its own weary. For a silent minute, we dig into our bowls. Theyre no longer in danger. The big man with the goatee behind the wheel is Bernard Puget, a Basque sheepmans son who oversees these orchards. Water is what led me to Stewart Resnick in the winter of 2003. Vidovich, he said, is just the new water baron on the block, thats all. 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. I come upon a Wonderful field man in a four-by-four truck who listens to my bewilderment and takes pity. At Wonderful Health and Wellness, were educating our employees about this health crisis. He had none of his fathers sentimentality. The land is turning to salt. But this is water for Mr. Resnick. His many land purchases and involvement on water boards are all about farming, not selling water to L.A. As featured on. The front gates of the 25,000-square-foot Beaux Arts mansion on Sunset Boulevard magically opened without a guard giving a nod. Theyre droughts best buddies.. So how do we do even better next year?. The rain starts to fall, big, fat, slashing drops that feel like electricity on my open palm. But that money enabled me to go into Angiola (a water district in Tulare County) and have other water sources.. Number three, water from Angiola cant physically get to Semitropics proposed storage cells. He got himself into this jam. 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. Theres a mountain range to my left and a mountain range to my right and in between a plain flatter than Kansas where crop and sky meet. The net return on the pistachio proves that Wonderfuls dominance in the market has benefited every grower in the room. All but a handful come from Mexico. The borough measured no more than 2 square miles. A minute later, I reconnect with the pipeline and pursue its length for a football field. One more hour and Im outta this fucking place.. ! it says. Everyone knew where it was going. This hasnt convinced the people of Lost Hills, however. But he got too big. 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. The wide-open middle of California did its lullaby on me again. Measuring the reach of the Resnicks, its tempting to lean on the hyperventilated language of the 1930s: Empire. 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. 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. Summer or not, theyre dressed in shirt layered upon shirt and the same no-name dusty blue jeans. And then they pump more groundwater. No bee can penetrate the shield, and his mandarins remain seedless. He came on board full-time in 2011, give or take, he said. He yanks and pulls, and it finally comes off, throwing him a foot backward. The farmer moved the rain. Each tree produces 22 pounds of nuts. Iranian pistachios show up in Tel Aviv as nuts from Turkey. To the growers, it must feel like a jab in the stomach. They were hardly the first rich people to use patronage to try to wheedle a citizenry toward their idea of a better life. Like a lot of empires, it comes to an end., So what about you? I ask. By the time he died an old man on his tractor in the Cupertino Hills, where he had planted grapes again and was making wine, the transformation of his valley by the silicon chip was complete.