Vidovich has been buying land in the Central Valley for more than 20 years. Stewart tries to interrupt, but hes not the boss in this room. Keep it Courteous. She remembers handing the boy to her sister-in-law, who carried phony papers, and watching them cross by bridge into California. Im actually not supposed to talk about it.. I had in mind a magazine profile on Stewart, the Nut King. John Vidovich is a real estate developer who specializes in land use and development deals involving everything from mobile home parks and large apartment complexes to wine vineyards and pistachio farms. I cash them the same. The partner kept the Cutie name but only after paying the Resnicks tens of millions of dollars. Fresh from a shower, a red Kabbalah string tied around his wrist and a multihued pair of socks covering his feet, he welcomed me. Theres a lot to commend here, I tell Anzaldo, but where does persuasion end and coercion begin?, As a second-generation Mexican American, Anzaldo says he knows the powerful clench of fast food and sugar among his own family. Thank you for reading! By Lois Henry The large, black pipe could be seen earlier this month being tucked into the ground along 21st Avenue just south of Highway 198 and west of Lemoore. 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. The citrus is still handpicked but all the nuts are machine picked, and thats idled workers as well. His second son is a psychiatrist. John Vidovich and the Discover executive team are rated an A- by 65 employees. Already mechanization is changing, you know, the labor situation. According to sources, an application for a proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse was submitted last month. Subscribers keep our independent community news in business. Hes thankful to the Resnicks, especially Lady Lynda, for that. Its gone. The farmer isnt here to smell the cracking open of wood, the ripping open of warm secret earth. On Oscar night, she handed out free samples to the stars at the Vanity Fair party. Arax: They lose their livelihood. He uses more water than any other person in the West. It takes a life every six seconds. I come upon a Wonderful field man in a four-by-four truck who listens to my bewilderment and takes pity. But its just a cover for taking water out, Pace said. We produced a short documentary film. She is here and there, but I have never seen her up close. At this point, he said, he uses about 30 percent of his land for farming and 70 percent for water. Gianquinto and Vidovich have repeatedly said that it would be nearly impossible for an individual to use state facilities to create a private water market using any water, let alone groundwater. The nets of the Chinese during the Gold Rush caught terrapin that was served as turtle soup in the fanciest restaurants of San Francisco. Each section of pipe is 40 feet long. Its been more than a year since he gave me the cold shoulder at the pistachio conference. I walk up and reintroduce myself. This is only $3? But for a lot of workers, bringing that big fat burrito from home still makes sense., I had seen what J.G. From the vaulted ceilings with gold-leaf moldings hung two blown-glass chandeliers. 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. Through the haze I can see the knoll of the aqueduct come closer. EIN: 41-0953924. Why not we start with an extended interview or two? I offered. Inside, a trainer watches over a line of treadmills, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes. Hundreds of giant praying mantises standing on platforms of concrete are pulling oil from a Chevron field. Look, these farmers go back two, three, and four generations. Before he died at age 86, J.G. Me, Im a carpetbagger from Beverly Hills. 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. Meet the water baron you (likely) haven't heard of - The San Joaquin They greet me with smiles and handshakes. Phone Number: (724) 495-**** John T Vidovich, age 84 View Full Report Address:***** Butternut Ridge Rd, Elyria, OH. They were farmers back in San Antonio, growing lettuce, cilantro, and radishes on a small plot of land. The Resnick story certainly deserved a book, but did he really want me to be the one to write it? One of the first things he did with his monopoly was kill the California Pistachio Commission, the industrys marketing group, by yanking his funding. Vidovich used the $73 million in 2010 to buy nearly 75 percent of the land in the Angiola Water District. I didnt see the tumbleweeds along the roadside and the strip of parched earth that separated what remained of the desert from the perfect rows of irrigated agriculture. In the kitchen corner, cases of bottled water are stacked halfway up the wall. Boswell had tried to tear apart a copy of The King of California when his secretary asked if he might autograph it. "There are a lot of unintended consequences in agricultural policies, (but) the intent is to maintain a viable and healthy agricultural base," he said. Hes using it to irrigate his almonds and pistachios in Lost Hills. Look, I delegate a lot of things, obviously. 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. It specifically set aside $2.7 billion for water storage projects. 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. In Kern County, one in two adults and almost one in five children are obese. Bernard, whats happened? It hardly ceases for the next five months. None of his three children had the slightest interest in taking over the company. He and his forebears from Georgia had dried up Tulare Lake, the biggest body of freshwater this side of the Mississippi, and planted 100,000 acres of cotton outside the town of Corcoran. So far, Lynda has shown only patience. He takes a look at his watch. This was the same road that took me to Selma, the raisin capital of the world, to pack peaches and plums for Mel Girazian, my fathers old friend. Where gravity needs a boost, the pipes run atop wooden crates used to pack boxes of fruit. This is my wife. 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. He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts. 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. The 5.3 acres are so flawless and at odds with the town that the whole thing feels like a movie set. What happens to Wonderful? To top it off, the greedy SOB (farmers rarely uttered Vidovichs name) intended to keep his 7,000 acres of nut trees in Dudley Ridge. Vidovich, in 2009, according to media reports, sold the rights to 14,000-acre-feet of state water from a Kings County water district to southern California for $73 million. Hes not only able to irrigate his nut trees with an imported flow of groundwater40,000 acre-feet in some years. 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? I stand over the pipes and give them a hard slap. The piece, I was told, had left Lynda embarrassed and fuming. 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. Not a chance. The State Water Project, for the first time in six years, delivers surplus flows. And one of the things he was doing was sort of an off-the-books irrigation deal? Both GSAs, along with three others in the Tulare Lake subbasin, submitted a single joint groundwater plan. It should be right here, but I dont see it. Vidovich is, after all, a powerful landowner in the Central Valley. You have no idea the people on my VIP list who drink it. Lost Hills finally has something to be proud about. The junk scattered about could be a lot worse. I sort of remember growing up on a farm, he said. All of it was Lyndas doing, of course. A lot of it is undocumented and they are in these sort of company towns that you describe that are maybe even more sort of dedicated to the company than most. 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. Im in another land, an expanse of hard, ugly, cratered-out earth the color of sand. Its John Vidovich. Rain likely. The net return on the pistachio proves that Wonderfuls dominance in the market has benefited every grower in the room. A pump is shooting water out of the canal and into the Rain for Rent pipes. At Highland Park High, he excelled in math and struggled in English. They are still paying off the $27,000 debt to relatives who hired the coyote. Vidovich says his quote was clipped and sewn back together to make it sound bad. Problem is, I feel like Im 50. These books indicate who obtained the land, and include a physical description of the tract and where the land is located. 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. What he knows is that Wonderful is buying up to 50,000 acre-feet of water a year in a series of hidden deals. You cant be exporting groundwater from one basin to another., Whatever water hes taking, its too little, too late.. A road will pick up and connect me to where the tube is going. But this outwardly unassuming multimillionaire has become a lightning rod of controversy. He is also known for his water deals. The wildfires cant be far behind. A California developer, farmer, and water buyer, John Vidovich, is seeking approval to build a beef feedlot and processing plant near Lemoore on what appears to be a 789-acre project located along Highway 41, just south of Highway 198. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I reached a moment in my life where I had to give back in a meaningful way, she tells the camera. 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. The sober man died. Nowhere to turn, I turn back around and roll down my window. Across the street, the Soto family has built a new Mexican restaurant named Gabbys that dwarfs every other business on the street with its Spanish Mission faade. John Vidovich, Student Loan Corp: Profile and Biography Indeed, as president of the board, Vidovich has a great deal of influence in directing much of the water districts business. Though the project is billed as flood control, the agreement also allows Vidovich to move groundwater. He launches into a CFOs riff on the pistachio market. The shelves spill piatas, gloves, hats, pruning shears, and loaves of Bimbo white bread. The tule fog sets down again in the valley. Not a single penny was put in that piggy bank.. These are loaded, Resnick says.
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