For as far as I can see, the water in the canal runs inky through the orchards. Inside sits a young man named Pablo. Already, they are paying $69 a month to the local utility district. But inside he had these weaknesses. Once, he came home from school and discovered the family car gone. They thwack back. They married in 1972, and he sold the alarm company for $100 million. Even if they had wheels, they wouldnt be going anywhere. Vidovich says he uses that Angiola groundwater to farm in Dudley Ridge, so the groundwater isnt leaving its home basin. Vidovich is the owner of Sandridge Partners, LP - a farmland investment firm that has undertaken more than 100,000 acres of Valley farmland. If he were on the scene today, hed have to add sashed Queens to the list. 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. According to Lemoore's city manager, local officials will likely respond to the feedlot proposal at Tuesday's (Jan. 18) council meeting. Kings and Tulare farmers and water managers want to know. Movies. When the mansion was built in 1927, it was known as the Sunset House. They may have been associated with this organization before or after these years as well. Not long before, Vidovich was trying to grab water from Resnick, not give it. 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. Already mechanization is changing, you know, the labor situation. The three of them spent two weeks of all-nighters making copies. If he sticks even a toe onto her turf, says a former business partner, she gives him a look that sends him right back.. Theyre listening with their heads bent down. Stewart was the second of their four children, the only boy. 2022-02-14 - BY LOIS HENRY. It can be squeezed only so much. From now on, theyll grow on land that offers a double protection against drought. It takes a life every six seconds. He was about my size, but he was very tough. If you have any trouble accessing your account or linking your subscription, ourSubscription FAQmay have the answer you need. Or is he just the newest water baron on the block? Theyre droughts best buddies.. I did not name the town, Lynda says. Let the smaller grower walk among his trees and farm by the row. They had survived the drought. He didnt know where to begin. Twenty miles outside Fresno, I cross the Kings, the river that irrigates more farmland than any other river here. Thats how he came upon the San Joaquin. He sat behind a desk without clutter and stood up to shake my hand. Links: www.sanjoseinside.com. Since the middle of the drought, the price of almonds has dropped almost by half. So everybody should have it, right? 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. They spend $50 a month on bottled water. Arax: They lose their livelihood. Why not California? But you ask the growers we process, and theyll tell you that year in and year out, no one offers a better price. By car and foot, I trace the silver pipeline as it creeps north through Wonderful pomegranate orchards. They were hardly the first rich people to use patronage to try to wheedle a citizenry toward their idea of a better life. Stewart gambled and won for many years. What happens to Wonderful? "We're just in the preliminary parts of planning for this," he said. 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. The family takes showers in it, and she washes their laundry in it, and if she runs the water long enough, she will use it to wash her vegetables and cook her rice and potatoes. On Sleepy Farm Road outside Paso Robles, the Resnicks were looking to add 380 acres of wine grapes and build a small reservoir with groundwater. Its the summer of 2016, eight weeks before the big pick, and Im zigzagging across the almonds and pistachios, square mile after square mile of immaculate orchards lined with micro-irrigation systems and heavy with nuts. This 79-minute documentary focuses upon the overall culture of bullying at Mentor High School; outlining the abuse both teenagers endured and the efforts made by both sets of parents to address their concerns prior to their children's suicide. 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. Hundreds of giant praying mantises standing on platforms of concrete are pulling oil from a Chevron field. I ask her if she is concerned about wasting water, given the drought and the distance the water has traveled20 miles from a well in Wascoand that the cost goes up the more they use. Springsteen shook his head and smiled a thin, ironic smile. The water sent to Kern County1.4 million acre-feet a yearhas doubled the cropland. At one point, he was moving nearly 30,000 acre feet a year, according to Angiolas records. They both knew what they wanted. This is a company that runs its resources to the max, he tells me. The giving goes to college scholarships and tutors. It comes out to $2,000 a month. Seventy-five years ago, writer Carey McWilliams, in Factories in the Field, lambasted the ribboned Dukes and belted Barons of California agriculture. Exactly what groundwater would be moved? Thats 281 square miles. The wide-open middle of California did its lullaby on me again. The giant J.G. 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. Each tree produces 38 pounds of nuts. Now, hes involved in a project that could set him up as a water marketer on an extreme scale. The big man with the goatee behind the wheel is Bernard Puget, a Basque sheepmans son who oversees these orchards. Except when you plug John Vidovichs name into the equation. If I want to know more, I need to talk to Lupes brother, Gustavo, who has worked as an irrigator at Wonderful for five years and knows what the company is planning for the future. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. This is where the pistachios, 400 truckloads a day, 50 days of harvest, come to be weighed, washed, peeled, dried, gassed, sorted, salted, roasted, packaged, and shipped out to the world. He doesnt wave me off or give chase. Research is showing that grapeseed oil is healthier than corn oil and canola oil and may be better for you than olive oil, he tells me. Compulsive gambler and alcoholic. The Wheat King begets the Cattle King, and the Cattle King begets the Cotton King, and the Cotton King begets the Nut King and Pomegranate Queen. Across the field, a heavy machine is stacking whats left of the trees into giant mounds. First of all, the myriad laws and rules that govern water wouldnt allow that to happen, they say. Boswell Company, and Sandridge Partners, controlled by John Vidovich, will be back in court on March 23 when Judge Valerie Chrissakis will decide whether the Sandridge pipeline is subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act If so, it would mean the A balancing of books in an office in the city has decided that this orchard and others around it, covered by too little water, can go. They greet me with smiles and handshakes. I feel his gaze going past me, his voice turning oddly sentimental. Wild salmon and all these sides made from scratch. Stephen Vidovich died in 2007, at the age of 81, driving a tractor near one of his remaining vineyards. The punitive damage portion, about $73 million, was overturned on appeal and the case has been sent back to Kings County. And, you know, at some point in time that water is in risk of going to an urban area. The Resnicks brought him aboard in 1999, and now he works alongside Lynda and consults daily with the company chef. Selfo works 50 hours a week as an irrigator. The matter was headed to court when Vidovich paid a visit to Resnick. Now, Pace said, Vidovich will do the same thing on a larger scale by moving Kings and Tulare groundwater to Kern County. Hes oblivious, or so it seems. Rain for Rent, the pipes say. Too many pomegranates. After Vidovich sold his Dudley Ridge state water, Pace said he drilled several wells in Green Valley, built a pipeline across I-5 and took the valleys groundwater to keep his Dudley Ridge trees alive. But this wasnt the Resnick Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The rain starts to fall, big, fat, slashing drops that feel like electricity on my open palm. His dad had sold the bar and was adrift. Giant pincers manned by a single worker grab the tree by the throat and start shaking. Michelle Perez, an analyst for the activist watchdog Environmental Working Group, perceives the bill differently, arguing that because the subsidies are calculated on a per-acre basis, the cash infusions "provide liquidity to the largest, most prosperous farms, allowing them to outbid and outcompete their smaller, less prosperous neighbors. 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. It takes a lot of work to get ahead. She and Manuel were able to buy their trailer several years ago. If he had his druthers, he said, hed still be living in a little ranch house in Culver City. 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. Thats $83 a tree. According to published articles, Vidovich comes from a Silicon Valley family, and he bought his first Kings County property in a foreclosure in 1994. Shes designing the school. This sale made headlines because it was engineered by one farmeran outsider from the cityfor his benefit only. Mitchell agreed, giving Vidovich credit for seeing where groundwater laws were headed before anyone else. Of course, I know everyone in the world, she told one reporter. This is gamblers ground unlike any other in California, and as I drive from hill to dale, examining each orchard, my head spins. 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. The south valleyits people and poverty, its obesity and diabetesis her newest mission. "I have sent my opinion to three county supervisors and our city manager. Thousands of California oaks were felled. By: jdubble07. It gives me the luxury to keep on working. She had her own bookabout her genius as a marketergoing. Yet the Resnick pipeline is doing just that. 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. Wow. 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. Typically, each pound sells wholesale for $3.75. "There are a lot of good places for it (feedlot). This project may not be fully thought out," said Neves. Frankly, Im having too much fun to think about retiring., Even if he were inclined to wind down, he had no successor in mind. He had an industrial machine, hardly used, that scrubbed and waxed floors. He works year-round for Wonderful. Lets call it what it is, he says. 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. His accountant suggested he buy apartments. Somehow, 30 or 40 nuts arent compelled to drop. Of all the wonders of Wonderful, this is the one I find most mystifying. It was Lynda who teamed up with the USDA to develop 21 new single-family homes and 60 new townhouses on a couple of acres of almonds that Wonderful tore out. 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. A few weeks later, I found myself riding up the elevator of a high-rise on the Westside of Los Angeles. We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. Its loaded, Bernard says. None of the sales taxes go to City Hall because Lost Hills isnt a city. He doesnt know what pipeline means. High 53F. I'm not sure that it (location) being one of the busiest places in Kings County is the right place for that. But I had some good people helping me.. Stephen Vidovich died in 2007, at the age of 81, driving a tractor near one of his remaining vineyards. All I know is I dont want to split it up or sell it in some leveraged buyout. Shes now providing tutors and counselors in every region of California to boost the graduation rate. Includes Address (3) Phone (3) Email (1) See Results. Before we go much further, you should probably know a little more about Vidovich. 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. This is the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. San Antonio south doesnt exist anymore. He is a small, good-looking man with a patch of black hair under his lip. Developers now had to identify a source of water before a city or county would green light their projects. Down the great aqueduct, by freight of politics and gravity, came the excess waters of the Sacramento River. We'd love to hear eyewitness He lingers in the crowd long enough to shake hands with a friend from Bel-Air whos planting thousands of acres of pistachios in the worst ground of Tulare Lake. According to sources, an application for a proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse was submitted last month. No whistle shouts mealtime in the modern-day company town. But theres no denying his desperation. Drought turning to floodit is the story of California. 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. Then the men of cotton, driven out of the South by the boll weevil, put the five rivers into canals and dried up the lake. He was 13 and standing inside the Rutgers Pharmacy on the first day of his first job. It sure looks heavier than last year., Bernard smiles and nods to the others. Residential. The State Water Project, for the first time in six years, delivers surplus flows. The river is nothing if not fickle. 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. When the clamps let go of the trunk, 8,000 almonds, green outer shells wilted and partly opened, the meat inside a wooden womb, lie scattered on the flat dry earth. April 17, 2020. Well still make money.. At Wonderful Health and Wellness, were educating our employees about this health crisis. Hes a decent guy making $216,000 a year who doesnt pretend that he isnt beholden to Wonderful. No farmer ever is. Making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process?. Shoving aside the coins, they introduced a Scarlett OHara doll that, by itself, raked in $35 million in sales. This water basically came from a land owned by someone whos also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. Brown oxtail in batches and set aside. This is an offering of cake handed down from king and queen to serfs. "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 looks like no other campus in the valley: a modern, minimalist two-story design that uses paneled wood and fabricated metal, wild colors, and terraced landscaping to create the feel of a high-tech mountain retreat. The Southwest Kings GSA is chaired by John Vidovich, who runs Sandridge Partners, which owns hundreds of thousands throughout the San Joaquin Valley. It becomes something else as soon as they encounter their workers in another guiseas a fellow shopper at Costco or as the parents of the kid who goes to school with their kid. His grandfather Resnick had fled the Ukraine in the wake of another killing of Jews by Cossacks. He launches into a CFOs riff on the pistachio market. It goes to doctors and nurses, trainers and dietitians, who track the weight of workers, prod them to exercise, and wean them off soda and tortillas. 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. Share with Us. Its been more than a year since the grand opening, and theyre still operating in the red. I cut across Twisselman Road to the pipeline gliding along the aqueduct like a silver snake. 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. 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. Vidovich made an offer on the land and Page took it. His daughter, who used to own a restaurant, is busy raising her one son. "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. Shes designing the curriculum.. To manage the disease. Lupe and I walk to the far side of the trailer park to find Gustavo. This drought has brought Stewart to his knees. 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. The footprint of agriculture has grown a good deal beyond what the water can cover. Want to book a hotel in California? But he did pass and was admitted to the bar in 1980 at the age of 24. Hes getting ready to introduce Lynda, the main speaker, but first he wants to address the federal governments recent recall of Wonderful pistachios. Her brother-in-law was killed recently in a car crash along Highway 46. Vidovich is known in the area for his political activity as well as his development projects. His story is the one Ive been carting around in my notebook for the past few decades, sure I was ready to write it after five years or ten years, only to learn of another twist that would lead me down another road. Number two, Angiola is trying to maintain the local aquifer by retiring land to limit pumping. A minute later, I reconnect with the pipeline and pursue its length for a football field. The making of a billionaire over the next half-century was a series of dots that connected in the California sunshine. Vidovich John - De Anza Properties is located at: 960 N San Antonio Rd, Los Altos, California 94022. It also means giving back.. Now theres something here. "The issue is the location. We produced a short documentary film. Groundwater agencies up and down the San Joaquin Valley had to file plans with the Department of Water Resources earlier this year showing . 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. Laton Lions Club shows off at popular annual rodeo and parade held April 1-3, City officials say developer says he will not pursue a controversial 12,600-cow feedlot outside city's boundaries, City of Lemoore officials cite serious concerns about proposed cattle feedlot, Lemoore Council likely to respond to proposed feedlot near Lemoore and college, Photo Gallery: NAS Lemoore aviators conduct change of command while in the air, Naval Air Station Lemoore to get new Carrier Air Wing commander in December. Their concern is where Vidovich is taking the groundwater. That was the last straw for Pixley, which sued in 2013. In case the growers are fearing the antitrust cops from the Department of Justice, they neednt. In a valley of dead rivers, each one killed on behalf of agriculture, the aqueduct was the one river still alive. 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. The aqueduct brings the water, yes? I leave Gabbys and follow a winding concrete path through the new Wonderful Park. Somehow, it made its way to Lynda. I was 16, and his packing house was my first job, a baptism into the money, money, money world of the men who grew fruit and the men who sold it. The water is cold, clean, and salty, though not too salty for a desperate man. When they get on their high horse, you dont want to argue with them.. Theres no garbage piled high and smoldering, no chickens picking at scratch. Sports and playground activities are prohibited at the beach, picnic areas are closed, and masks must be worn by all visitors. The extraction of water beneath the lake bottom wont last forever. 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. Ninety-nine is the deadliest highway in America. His father met his mother, the cantors daughter, and they married. Lynda sent the first batches of POM, week after week, as gifts to David Bowie, Rupert Murdoch, and Disney head Michael Eisner. The net return on the pistachio proves that Wonderfuls dominance in the market has benefited every grower in the room. What? Our relatives have been patient. He worries because there isnt enough water now to properly irrigate the almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates. They were selling 2,500 acres of oranges and lemons and a packing house for a third of their appraised value, Resnick said. Up and down the Central Coast, restaurants are boycotting their wines. During the holiday season, they sent out 4,000 gift boxes to their nearest and dearest friends filled with their fruits and nuts, along with a card of the two of them dressed in skin-colored body stockings, posing as Adam and Eve. On the whiteboard in front of the weights, the big boys list their totals. What spikes blood sugar more than a can of Coke? The drought?. This was Lost Hills before Lynda got involved. He says his bosses have been instructing him to cut the water each irrigation. They issued a commemorative medal of Tiger Woods winning the 1997 Masters that offended the golfer. Just get started became one of his guiding principles. His father, Stephen Vidovich, formed De Anza Properties and helped develop the valley. One mile, two miles, three miles, fourit keeps going until it reaches another county and back to one of the main canals in the Dudley Ridge Water District. This means he can avoid the thievery of a labor contractor who acts as a middleman between the farmer and the farmworker and charges for rides and drinks and doesnt always pay minimum wage. For now, theyre selling to farmers like Resnick who can pay the price. 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 guides me to the caf, and we grab our lunches from the buffet. The citrus is still handpicked but all the nuts are machine picked, and thats idled workers as well. for 30 days. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Who anticipates that you cant fill a water bank for six or seven years?, Come on, I say. Water that he will take, critics fear, and eventually sell to Southern California cities. By then, Wonderful, if it still exists, will be a portfolio run by men even farther away than Beverly Hills. Manhattan was 30 minutes in one direction; the Jersey Shore, 30 minutes in the other. Kingdom. And in fact these guys were able to squeeze and buy water in the open market, and do a few other things to keep their crops going and they were in the midst of drought. When your current subscription expires later this year, you will be able to renew at losaltosonline.com/users/admin/service/purchase. Thats all fine and good, Resnick replied, but what about the $1 million-plus hed spent on lawyers fees? Resnick dipped into his savings from his job at a mental hospital and went in half on the machine. A member of the commission, on the eve of its demise, told me, Stewart wants to be a benevolent dictator. We can surely help you find the best one according to your needs. Wheres it coming from? 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. In contrast, John Vidovich, who helms Sandridge, comes from a Silicon Valley farming-turned-developer family. When nature bites down hard, and the government flow gets reduced to a trickle, growers in Kern turn on their pumps and reach deeper into the earth. I thank him and hurry down the dirt road through the almonds, eyeing the rearview mirror to see if a Resnick truck is following me. He left in 1956. I never liked New Jersey, but I never knew why. It wasnt a midlife crisis, he told me. And its an area that doesnt have ground water, so its there completely because of the State Water Project. Resnick grabs at a pomegranate that might win a blue ribbon at the fair and tries to twist it free.