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. Boswell farming company pumps there too. The piece, I was told, had left Lynda embarrassed and fuming. for 30 days. Yes, theyre still delivering water. Theres not much left over, he says. They knew little about the company except it was selling its keepsakes for five times the amount Teleflora was. In the maroon of sundown,I follow the workers back to Lost Hills. They had survived the drought. 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. She walks off the stage with Stewart. The relatives try not to press them, but the arrangement still feels like a form of indentured servitude. About 25,000 acre feet of groundwater. According to Lemoore's city manager, local officials will likely respond to the feedlot proposal at Tuesday's (Jan. 18) council meeting. That water would then be moved south through the aqueduct and banked in Semitropic. Who would have thought that people would be asking their bartender to fix them a Pomtini? he said. Thats why he built the pipeline. He remade himself into a graduate of the UCLA law school, a cleaner of Los Angeles buildings, a vendor of security alarms, a seller of flowers in a pot, a minter of Elvis plates and Princess Diana dolls, a bottler of Fiji Island water, a farmer of San Joaquin Valley dirt. Too many pistachios. However, first-term councilmember Frank Gornick, West Hills College's longtime chancellor and one of the guiding forces behind the expansion of the college in Lemoore, says he isn't opposed to a feedlot and processing plant. In the Wonderful fields, he tells me, at least 80 percent of the workers carry no documents or documents that are not real. I know theres a more forceful way to ask the question, but to what end? 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. 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. One way or the other, we got rid of our last farm a few years before I was born and moved to the Fresno suburbs. While fans often love to make their own posters inspired by the franchise, the new artwork is taking various facets of the franchise and highlighting it from the artist's . Agriculture in the south valley has extended far beyond the provisions of its one river, the Kern. A husband and wife sharing the reins is rare for corporate America, rarer still for industrial agriculture. My father, born in a vineyard outside Fresno, was a raisin grower before he became a bar owner. There are a lot more rural areas that would be able to support that operation.". John Vidovich, ultimately, followed in his fathers footsteps after obtaining a law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law. The growers would stand in front of the cull line and never stop moaning about how much of their fruit got rejected by Girazians graders. It should be noted here that Angiolas general manager is Matthew Hurley. Each face wears its own weary. I catch Highway 99 in rare somnolence. Thank you for reading! More often than not, it is hauling away some piece of the valleys bounty. Under her rethink agriculture program, the kids will be trained in plant science and irrigation technology, marketing and sales. 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. Somehow, it made its way to Lynda. Documentary film. If only Eve had offered Adam a pomegranate instead of an apple, Lynda wrote, every day could have been a holiday.. Plastic drip-irrigation lines stick out of the ground at wrong angles. Two strains of salmonella found in their pistachios had caused a multistate outbreak of illnesses. All I know is I dont want to split it up or sell it in some leveraged buyout. 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. When asked if he applies the skills he learned in his military intelligence training to his life today, he answers that we all use the things we learn through life. Hes a 61-year-old developer who grew up on a farm in Sunnyvale in the heart of what would become the Silicon Valley. Shes done giving big gifts to Los Angeles museums and mental health hospitals that name buildings after her and Stewart. I didnt see our creation, much less the figures bent under the canopies of vine that our creation counted on. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference. Then he motions to Lynda, whos standing off to the side of the light-dimmed stage. He commands his realm, and she commands hers, and he takes care to mind the line. It can be squeezed only so much. A minute later, I reconnect with the pipeline and pursue its length for a football field. The graders, sorters, and beeping forklift drivers head to an immaculate caf, where the Wonderful Saladroasted chicken, mixed greens, cilantro, pistachios, and slices of mandarin in a blue cheese vinaigrettesells for $3. The hospital, senior citizens center, and football stadium all bore the signature of his giving. From the east side of Tulare County to the west side of Fresno County, theyre planting more nuts and Halos. As the nuts pour down onto the roof of the catcher, the operator shifts the trough so that it becomes a conveyor belt. He had his hands on 65 percent of the nations crop. Resnick himself had sold 5,000 acre-feet to a proposed new town in the farm fields of Madera. The truth a mercenary has landed on. She had recently divorced and wasnt about to settle for a life in Culver City. Besides, Pace and others say, overreaching is another Vidovich hallmark. 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. Shes built a grocery section in the back of the caf stocked with grapeseed oil and what she touts are Whole Foodsquality vegetables and fruits that sell at Walmart prices. Why grapeseed oil, I ask Andy Anzaldo, head of grower relations and a fitness buff, whos taken on the added duties of what might be called Wonderfuls Minister of Health. Thousands of Wonderful acres lay bare. My grandmother said it was his leftist politics that ate up that vineyard and the ones that followed. I feel too good to give any of it up.. I understand the fear, but its not based on reason.. 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. It gives me the luxury to keep on working. Phone Number: (724) 495-**** John T Vidovich, age 84 View Full Report Address:***** Butternut Ridge Rd, Elyria, OH. But I couldnt have picked a more cinematic name than Lost Hills. Every last tree has been torn out of the ground. Get an email notification whenever someone contributes to the discussion. 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. It sure looks heavier than last year., Bernard smiles and nods to the others. A judge found this past March that the initiative was flawed because Vidovich used his own project description instead of the neutral description by the Cupertino city attorney. These are loaded, Resnick says. None of his three children had the slightest interest in taking over the company. I dont know how Hershey did Hershey, Pennsylvania, but Lynda is present in every painted sunburst, every planted flower, every blade of grass. Carls Jr., Subway, McDonalds, Wendys, Loves, or Arbys. I write an email to the Wonderful PR team. It might be nice if my kids and grandkids could turn to a book someday and read about what weve built., He and Lynda were changing the way food was grown in California and sold to the world. Your current subscription does not provide access to this content. "We're just in the preliminary parts of planning for this," he said. The Wonderful Company is located in Californias Central Valley where droughts hit frequently, but that hasnt stopped the company from harvesting record crops. When a farmers orchards encompass 186 square miles, finding the field man can be a challenge. 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. Each time I called, his secretary hung up the phone. 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. Seventy-five years ago, writer Carey McWilliams, in Factories in the Field, lambasted the ribboned Dukes and belted Barons of California agriculture. We changed the culture of safety, and we think we can do the same with health, Anzaldo says. Like the wheat barons of the 1870s who lived on San Franciscos Nob Hill, Resnick isnt of this place. "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. Stewart tries to interrupt, but hes not the boss in this room. 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. Shes designing the school. I turn back around and find Route 46, the road that killed James Dean. Kings Officials Unhappy About Water Proposal, Local Water Guys Eyeing Kings River Flood Water. To grow, Big Ag needed a bigger and more dependable supply. The biggest farmer of them all is tearing out 10,000 acres because he doesnt have enough water to cover the nuts to harvest. Each square-mile section is divided into blocks, and each block counts a precise number of rows. She washes two kinds of lettuce and cuts up fresh papaya to mix into a salad. And then it hits me when I reach the road to Weedpatch, where my grandfathers story in Americaa poet on his hands and knees picking potatoesbegan. I think I paid $9 million. You get exempted from the companys wellness program? Bernard has actually lost a few pounds. By . John Vidovich. When we learned of the terrible situation, not to mention our poor reputation within the community, we were ashamed and are sorry, their official statement reads. 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. Stewart and Lynda planted 15,000 more acres and bought a juice plant. The nets of the Chinese during the Gold Rush caught terrapin that was served as turtle soup in the fanciest restaurants of San Francisco. 650) 397-5213 with any questions or to learn more. So off the developers went in search of farm water. But the one thing he cant control is what hes most dependent on water. What happens to them if Wonderful downsizes? 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. No water in the ground to make up for the missing government supply. He was dressed in the latest slim-fit style. A woman named Lupe is standing above me on the wooden stairway that climbs to the front door of her trailer. The crops we grow can only be grown in a few places in the world. He got himself into this jam. But I had some good people helping me.. There are often laws binding it to a basin. The jolt and shudder would tear out the roots of a lesser species. Its not the fidget of boredom. Since the middle of the drought, the price of almonds has dropped almost by half. Id rather be unknown than known. He had recently read The King of California, and that got him thinking. "There is a national will to be self-sufficient in agriculture. The State Water Project, for the first time in six years, delivers surplus flows. 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. Wonderful is getting smaller, he says. He emptied the sky of tens of millions of geese and drained the 800 square miles of Tulare Lake dry. Six hundred and forty acres dont look like 640 acresa square mileuntil they start ripping out the trees. He was semi-retired living in Clovis when another Kings County farmer, Pat McCarthy not Vidovich called him to do some work for Angiola. Its loaded, Bernard says. Hes now the president of that powerful panel. Twenty miles outside Fresno, I cross the Kings, the river that irrigates more farmland than any other river here. 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. They were farmers back in San Antonio, growing lettuce, cilantro, and radishes on a small plot of land. As we hop down from the van to inspect the pomegranates on the eve of harvest, Resnick motions to Bernards belly. Im a billionaire. Hes got an awful temper hes trying to control through Kabbalah. You dont believe me?, No, I believe you, Resnick says. They just do what they want and you have to sue to stop em, Mitchell said. Im sure I knew we had a pipeline in there. 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. He kept planting more and more trees. Young men and women from Teach for America will do their two-year stints at the complex and live in village housing. The Lemoore City Council Tuesday night (Jan. 18) will discuss a proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse proposed for the southwest corner of Highway 198 and Highway 41. 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. They are suing Angiola for what they say was Hurleys illegal takeover of the tiny Atwell Island Water District. 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. When I got out of law school, I probably had 100 people I was employing.. Numbers havent been set in stone just yet, but its looking like the Kings/Tulare farming areas will settle somewhere near allowing 1.5 acre feet of water to be pumped per acre. Boswell, who owned more land and controlled more water than any other person in the West for most of the 20th century. A pair of those eyebrows belonged to former farmer and three-term Kings County Supervisor Tony Oliveira, who served from 1999 through 2010 and didn't find out about the upcoming project until Jan. 11. He came on board full-time in 2011, give or take, he said. The boss came back in, saw his do-nothing, and said only three words: Just get started. He began to move, and the job went quickly after that. Only after the media were alerted did Stewart and Lynda claim to have discovered the clear-cutting. The giant J.G. For as far as I can see, the water in the canal runs inky through the orchards. Across the field, a heavy machine is stacking whats left of the trees into giant mounds. Once a river is at flood stage, that usually means all other rights have been filled and the overflow is free game. They were actually harvesting record crops. The sentimental ones stay away. John Vidovich just wants to farm, he says. The 789 acre project . This is Lynda.. 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. Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. The proposed project has raised local eyebrows. The calculation and hubris inside it. Page said Vidovich is a tough businessman but thats all. By the decree of Lynda, who once contemplated a bowl of those juicy little seedless mandarins and on the spot named them Cuties, this is now the land of Wonderful. The water is cold, clean, and salty, though not too salty for a desperate man. Groundwater agencies up and down the San Joaquin Valley had to file plans with the Department of Water Resources earlier this year showing . His 15 million trees in the San Joaquin Valley consume more than 400,000 acre-feet of water a year. Thats $83 a tree. Talk to me, Hussein says, draining a can of Rockstar. The GSAs are supposed to set pumping limits to stop overdraft. A restaurant built by Wonderful for the purpose of making the company town look better from the roadside may enjoy a more forgiving bottom line than, say, the Subway up the road. 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. A van pulls up to the curb, and the door slides open. 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. She described commodity programs as making up less than 13 percent of the farm bill. Floodwater is considered a nuisance, a menace even. And you know why? Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. According to published articles, Vidovich comes from a Silicon Valley family, and he bought his first Kings County property in a foreclosure in 1994. Even as the supplies of federal and state water have dropped to near zero, agriculture in Kern keeps chugging along, growing more intensive. The Resnick story certainly deserved a book, but did he really want me to be the one to write it? 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. Lets meet again in two weeks, he said. (See sidebar online.). I look back at Resnick. The Mojave Water Agency in the high desert needed a backup supply to serve its growing communities of Barstow and Apple Valley, Hesperia and Victorville. Under lights, he prunes, plows, and irrigates the almonds. What kind of place is this? Rain for Rent, the pipes say. He had no papers, like so many others, just an image of what this side of the border looked like. Rather, it is the authority vested in Wonderful that counts. But he did pass and was admitted to the bar in 1980 at the age of 24. Buried in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, USA. The stacks of bottles gave him no answer. My old well cant compete with his new wells. 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. Feudal. Vidovich says he uses that Angiola groundwater to farm in Dudley Ridge, so the groundwater isnt leaving its home basin. Ninety-nine is the deadliest highway in America. No stranger enters this zone unless its to get rid of a body or dump waste from cooking meth or drown a hot car. Posted on August 6, 2018 Bakersfield Californian. (Vidovich said he didnt think Sandridge had hit 100,000 acres, total, yet.). Me, Im a carpetbagger from Beverly Hills. The space for a familys secrets is only a few feet. You can plant only so many acres on ground that has no groundwater. Past McFarland and the high school runners who won five state championships in a row in the 1990s. For a silent minute, we dig into our bowls. This is a big crop, the field man tells me. It was going to houses. The farmer moved the rain. Hes farming water. She is small with lively brown eyes and a sweet but confident voice. The farmers there are raising almost 1 million acres of crops, and fewer than half these acres are irrigated with flows from the Kern. But those deals were one water district selling to another water district. At Highland Park High, he excelled in math and struggled in English. Yet he doesn't think the farm bill in its present form is going to achieve its protectionist goals. San Antonio south doesnt exist anymore. He is a small, good-looking man with a patch of black hair under his lip. They were married only a short time when Manuel decided to cross the border almost 20 years ago. What can I say? Its gone. You have no idea the people on my VIP list who drink it. She had her own bookabout her genius as a marketergoing. In my lifetime alone, California has gone from 13 million people to 40 million people. Do they sense the shaming about to come? Every river busting out of the Sierra was bent sideways, if not backward, by a bulwark of ditches, levees, canals, and dams. Or at least this is what I can glean through the car window. Even if they had wheels, they wouldnt be going anywhere. It was good for the bottom line. Wonderful has enough water to irrigate its orchards in Lost Hills and park tens of thousands of acre-feet in the water bank. I applaud, too. But inside he had these weaknesses. 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. There is also an existing subdivision just southeast of the college near Highway 198 (Cimmaron Park). He recalled bidding on a construction project while studying for the bar exam. No bee can penetrate the shield, and his mandarins remain seedless. Now its the Bobcats turn. Nothing will stop the houses. He maneuvers down the middle of the row, sweeps up the dried almonds, and throws them into a catcher. That was eight or nine years ago. Billionaire comes to the rescue of billionaire., But those two guys hate each other., Not anymore. She gestures to the young students in the front row, the ones enrolled in the ag-prep classes, and asks them to stand up and take a bow. Hes headed to the Wonderful plant, 13 miles north of Lost Hills, to drop off his load. Water that has shipped you know hundreds of miles from the north of California where there are these abundant rivers. They married in 1972, and he sold the alarm company for $100 million. He lives down the road in Wasco, the Rose Capital of America, though the roses, too, have turned to nuts. None of this is my idea. I doubt the Resnicks have any idea of the fester that eats at this place, the shame piled on shame. In contrast, John Vidovich, who helms Sandridge, comes from a Silicon Valley farming-turned-developer family. Thats how he came upon the San Joaquin. The bowls on her kitchen table are filled with grapes, berries, bananas, and red and green bell peppers. I grab my notebook and walk up to one of the vans. 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. When I crossed the border and found Lost Hills, there was nothing here, he says. The abundance of that water in good years has created this overreach of agriculture. His frat brother got bored, as rich boys do, and Resnick bought out his half interest for $300. At age 81, hes gotten so big, he doesnt know how big. Keep it Courteous. Its gambling. It cant be farmed like it was, he says. I get out of the car and walk down an embankment. 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. This amounted to 14,000 acre-feet. He takes a look at his watch. Contact howardb@latc.com or call him at (650) 397-5213 with any questions or to learn more. Arax: So because there is no groundwater out in Lost Hills, they came up with this idea of pumping groundwater from 40, 50 miles away. If the workers doubt the benefit of the enzymes from apple cider vinegar, video banners stream a continuous message of bad food habits to be broken and body mass indexes to be measured and met. So I ask about the big picture. He became more involved with De Anza, working with his dad, whom he describes as bigger than life.. 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. Brown oxtail in batches and set aside. Hes serious about taking water out of this valley, Pace said. If that happens, theyll go down the highway, and hell lose the $1 he takes for every $100 worth of their checks. This isnt any road. If I follow them north through Resnick pomegranates, I can find out where the water is coming from. When the mansion was built in 1927, it was known as the Sunset House.
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