LAFD Fire Prevention Bureau Members Settle Retaliation Suit Now shes getting lots of credit.. 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 And one of the things he was doing was sort of an off-the-books irrigation deal? She was the daughter of Jack Harris, a film distributor, who moved the family to Los Angeles when Lynda was 15 to produce movies. It was simply a place to park some money and have another opportunity. He drove to Delano, the farm town where Chavez and his union had made so much trouble and history. why teaching is challenging yet rewarding 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. The POM tanks, Im told, are backed up with a three-year supply. He made friends everywhere he went, John Vidovich told the Mercury News in 2007. He spends much of his off hours fixing it up. But I had some good people helping me.. But those deals were one water district selling to another water district. He is also known for his water deals. The sale got under the skin of valley farmers. Feudal. Im a billionaire. Hes got an awful temper hes trying to control through Kabbalah. The Kings is bone-dry as usual. Too many pistachios. Because the road ends here, there is no physical way to follow the canals flow. 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. This is Lynda.. 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. Join us for a free, virtual event for International Women's Day on March 8! 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. They are still paying off the $27,000 debt to relatives who hired the coyote. Its loaded, Bernard says. The bells in the churches pealed, and out came the villagers with their scythes and axes, believing they had found the reason for their poverty. The district has already paid him $40 million for an easement, or right of way, on that land and signed an agreement with him for how the project would operate. Hes using it to irrigate his almonds and pistachios in Lost Hills. If their fears come true, the Los Angeles water grab in Owens Valley would pale in comparison. Brad Steinwede. The State Water Project, for the first time in six years, delivers surplus flows. 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. Ive done no big wrong in my life that would cause me to have any. Rain likely. Resnicks billions rely on his ability to master water, sun, soil, and even bees. The bloodless ones stay away. Vidovich is known in the area for his political activity as well as his development projects. In any event, Vidovich fallowed his Angiola land and took its groundwater about 25 miles west to his Dudley Ridge lands. A van pulls up to the curb, and the door slides open. It cracks open and out pops the head shot of Stewart Resnick in a pistachio green tie. Those figures dont include recent land purchases hes made in the Kern Delta Water District and Fresno Irrigation District both areas Sandridge is targeting for even more land purchases because of its solid rights to the Kern and San Joaquin rivers. One out of eight has diabetes. When he materializes onstage, he is wearing narrow black jeans, a black mock turtleneck, and a dark jacket. Activate your all-inclusive access for print subscribers: Link your losaltosonline.com account to your print subscription here. So, capturing that south fork floodwater would benefit both Kings and Kern county farmers, according to Semitropics Gianquinto. He uses more water than any other person in the West. He lives down the road in Wasco, the Rose Capital of America, though the roses, too, have turned to nuts. Through the haze I can see the knoll of the aqueduct come closer. Summer or not, theyre dressed in shirt layered upon shirt and the same no-name dusty blue jeans. The only water Green Valley got was some surplus state water and natural groundwater, Pace said. If they pass a law saying I cant sell it, then I cant sell it. 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. Scott: So you set out with this question: how was he defying nature? Its California., Sure. He had none of his fathers sentimentality. The extraction of water beneath the lake bottom wont last forever. Whether its Fresno or Kings or Tulare or Kern counties, hes grabbing land where the groundwater is plenty or a river runs through it or the aqueduct spills its north-to-south flow. The stacks of bottles gave him no answer. Four thousand peoplemore than double the number on the highway signlive in town, and three out of every four rely on a payday from Wonderful. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. I follow one of the engines of harvest as it rolls into an orchard like a tank. Kern County Public Health Services Department, Mansion's $3M sale tops high-end price trend, California community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty and misspend funds, audit finds, Frontier's Estrada repeats as 145-pound state boys wrestling champion; Golden Valley's Roby is runner-up in girls 189, Aera sells to German energy investor, Canadian pension fund, Home prices still under pressure as Bakersfields median skids, PHOTO GALLERY: Day 3 of the 3-day CIF State Wrestling Championships, PHOTO GALLERY: Day 2 of the 3-day CIF State Wrestling Championships, PHOTO GALLERY: Day 1 of March Meet at Famoso Raceway, PHOTO GALLERY: Opening day of the 3-day CIF State Wrestling Championships, PHOTO GALLERY: Kennedy hosts Delano in the Central Section Division V boys soccer championship, PHOTO GALLERY: 'It keeps them wanting to come to school': Shirley Lane Elementary celebrates Read Across America, PHOTO GALLERY: 'A beautiful Black History Month party', PHOTO GALLERY: Cold snap causes snow, road closures near Frazier Park, PHOTO GALLERY: CALM's black bear Cid makes Super Bowl pick. Bernards eyes are fixed straight ahead. This is my wife. 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. Ah, he says, so youre the one whos been snooping around. She grabs him by the wrist, and they make a beeline for the convention hall door. Often an equal amount of water splits south, wreaking havoc on farmland in the old Tulare Lake bottom, about 60 miles northwest of Bakersfield. Angelica, one of four sisters, runs the restaurant. Your account number is your one-line street address as printed on your newspaper use normal capitalization. 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 fight between the Tulare Lake Canal Company, controlled by the J.G. John Vidovich will tell you hes the interloper who came over the other mountain, the Coast Range. His accountant suggested he buy apartments. Later, Page would run for and win a seat on the Kern County Water Agency board. 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. His father, Stephen Vidovich, formed De Anza Properties and helped develop the valley. It was a curious statement but true. It specifically set aside $2.7 billion for water storage projects. Arax: This place called Lost Hills, it is kind of a modern-day company town not unlike Hershey, Pennsylvania. Lupe and I walk to the far side of the trailer park to find Gustavo. Halfway through his solo performance, he interrupted his set to tell us a piggy bank had been set up by the exit to donate money to the hardworking men and women in the fields. When the concert was over, I took my wife and children backstage to meet him. The land to him isnt real. All Rights Reserved. He found it. Hes dressed Italian chin to footLoro Piana jeans and Hogan tennis shoes. He sold a chunk of land to the builders of Sunnyvale and decided he could develop the rest himself. According to some observers, the facility is expected to hold a 1,000-cow feedlot (which can be developed upwards of 12,500 animals) and a slaughterhouse at the proposed site, within spitting distance of the city of Lemoore and West Hills College Lemoore. They dumped their stolen car into the canals black waters and got away with murder for the next 32 years. My father, born in a vineyard outside Fresno, was a raisin grower before he became a bar owner. Thats more than double the crop that Resnick boasted about when I saw him eight years ago. Hes serious about taking water out of this valley, Pace said. He turns out to be a kindly religious man whose short hair is dyed the black of shoe polish. Was Fire Marshal John Vidovich Taken Out by the Firefighters Union I hop out of the car. 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. Hes farming water. Theyre now building an $80 million charter-school complex in Delano, just down the road from Cesar Chavez High. But she doesnt dictate this or that. Angelica would prefer not to get into the details of their financial arrangement. The believer and the skeptic do their tussle inside my head. Boswell had done for the town of Corcoran. But the appellate court still found Vidovich liable and he could still have to pay out a major amount. "Even with the subsidy, I think cotton is a losing battle," he said, predicting that the commodity would increasingly come from China. 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. Born on 7 Jun 1934. One hundred and twenty thousand acres of nuts and fruits and berries in California and still counting. His father was 3 years old at the time. We are sensitive to that. John T Vidovich - Family Office Marketplace It exists as one thing they can almost rationalize out in the fields. I kept my notes and tapes and waited for another day. Vidovich John - De Anza Properties, California (+14087384444) - VYMaps.com Fallowing the farm until the footprint gets smaller and smaller. Since international sanctions were lifted five years earlier, Iran has been crowding the market with its more buttery-tasting pistachios. The tumbleweeds on open ground give you a peek into what Lost Hills looked like before the aqueduct made a river here. This was the same distancegeographic, psychicthat allowed him and Lynda to clear-cut the oaks and to kill the independent pistachio commission, to grab a water bank that belonged to the state and to pretend for 30 years that Lost Hills wasnt a place of dire need. You and I look at this meal, he says. Thank you for signing in! The shelves spill piatas, gloves, hats, pruning shears, and loaves of Bimbo white bread. Already, they are paying $69 a month to the local utility district. All I know is I dont want to split it up or sell it in some leveraged buyout. By harvests end, the Resnicks will have put their clamps on 4.4 million almond trees. Its vastness makes you feel safe and in jeopardy at the same time. How can this be? Vidovich isnt the only pumper in that area, his supporters note. Carls Jr., Subway, McDonalds, Wendys, Loves, or Arbys. He knows what I dont know. The Resnicks are growing again. 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. Its a bad day, he says, shooing me out. At one point, he was moving nearly 30,000 acre feet a year, according to Angiolas records. Theres no garbage piled high and smoldering, no chickens picking at scratch. He kept planting more and more trees. If youre messing with peoples lives and it doesnt work, thats serious. It had to work. Tens of millions of dollars spent on philanthropy in Lost Hills wasnt just good for the people, she discovered. John Vidovich serves as the Vice President, Business Development of Discover. 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. If Resnick retains every drop, he might squeeze 25 acre-feet of water a day out of both pipes. Pace gave a nod to Vidovich on that count. Theres an unease about the room. John Vidovich's House in Los Altos Hills, CA (Google Maps) Everything about our physical selves, Lynda believes, begins in our guts. He studied the situation. John Vidovich just wants to farm, he says. But if he thinks youre defying him, hell start with, Nobody realizes the good Ive done for agriculture. Then he moves on to, Do you know who I am? Nowhere to turn, I turn back around and roll down my window. 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. When they get on their high horse, you dont want to argue with them.. I had not seen any. The water is cold, clean, and salty, though not too salty for a desperate man. The aqueduct was built with tax money, yes? Vidovich is gobbling up all the parcels he can so he can keep on pumping, Mitchell said. He is a single man who rents a bedroom from other family members for $150 a month. Inside sits a young man named Pablo. He commands his realm, and she commands hers, and he takes care to mind the line. Let the smaller grower walk among his trees and farm by the row. 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. He wonders what agriculture will look like in western Kern in ten years. Subscribers support the Los Altos Town Crier please log in or subscribe to continue reading. Buttonwillow, California Search Background Check John Vidovich was associated with Sandridge Partners, L.P. between 2018 and 2021. Her husband, Manuel, will awaken in 30 minutes to prepare for his night shift. Even if I were to move water and sell it, it would be to farming operations.. No luck. U.S. immigration has little say-so here. Low 42F. 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. Preview. Over the years, they had donated large sums of money to political campaigns, and some of it went to Republicans who had pledged to prop up California agriculture. When a farmers orchards encompass 186 square miles, finding the field man can be a challenge. Still, he was starting to think about his legacy, and thats why he finally agreed to meet with me. The project is indeed within eyesight of Lemoore and across Highway 198, where West Hills College sits, and, also, where an approved 200-house subdivision is scheduled within walking range of the college. The biggest farmer of them all is tearing out 10,000 acres because he doesnt have enough water to cover the nuts to harvest. He and Lynda decided in 1984 to buy the Franklin Mint, the maker of commemorative coins and other kitsch, for $167.5 million. Hes not only able to irrigate his nut trees with an imported flow of groundwater40,000 acre-feet in some years. Who would have thought the two of them in cahoots? What kind of place is this? Its gone, I say. They were pushing plates, costume jewelry, perfume, and model cars. On our trips to Disneyland, I must have blinkered my eyes heading down 99. Marketplace is a division of MPR's 501 (c)(3). Vidovich freely admits that most of his land is for water rights. At issue? 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. Mr. Vidovich was a descendant of one of the pioneer farm families that settled here from Croatia . More than half our employees are obese or near obese, Anzaldo tells me. One of the most dramatic alterations of the earths surface in human history took place here. His company has donated items to Stratford Elementary School and recently helped Kings County Sheriff Dave Robinson create a pheasant-raising and release program for jail inmates to earn credit. Past Delano and the first vineyards that Cesar Chavez marched against. You cant be exporting groundwater from one basin to another., Whatever water hes taking, its too little, too late.. Dont let his boots, blue jeans, and ball cap fool you, the old-timers say. Damn, if he doesnt look even younger and more fit than the last time I saw him eight years earlier. Yet the Resnick pipeline is doing just that. But farmers Jack Mitchell and Milt Pace are upfront about their distaste for Vidovich and especially Hurley. Resnick picks up the water in Dudley Ridge, Vidovich says. Farm bill strikes local note with developer/farmer, losaltosonline.com/users/admin/service/purchase, Los Altos teen wins Food Network top prize, Los Altos teen stars as featured contestant on Food Networks Kids Baking Championship, Snow in the hills: Unusual weather (for Los Altos) brings white winter to area, Running the table: Bullis Charter sixth-grader rules his age group in table tennis, Outside Santa Clara County Annual Subscription, Outside Santa Clara County Monthly Subscription. 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. A good deal of sunshine. "This is the first step of a long journey. Thanks to Wonderfuls $15 million Get Crackin campaignthe largest media buy in the history of snack nutspistachios now rank among the top ten bestselling salty snack items in the U.S. We are no longer processing nuts, he says. 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. We saved the best for last, he says. Tell me, he asked, though it wasnt entirely a question. Groundwater agencies up and down the San Joaquin Valley had to file plans with the Department of Water Resources earlier this year showing . supernatural tattoos designs. The courtship of Stewart and Lynda went fast. Springsteen shook his head and smiled a thin, ironic smile. Thats $83 a tree. Menu. The men and women who planted, irrigated, sprayed, and picked our crops were phantoms. He doesnt know about the pipeline. And so that water was feedingResnick pistachios and almonds and keeping them alive in the worst of the drought. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference.