EL
PAISANO
Wednesday April 11, 2018
RIO HONDO COLLEGE NEWSPAPER est. 1964 Serving the Rio Hondo Community
Volume 56 Issue 8
AND THE WINNER IS... Whittier’s Mayoral and Council Election Results
NOAH GARCIA News Editor
noah.garcia3720@my.riohondo.edu
The city of Whittier has re-elected Joe Vinatieri as Mayor. District two and four’s representatives have to wait until the final ballot count to see their winners, which will take place today, April 11. The polls were open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, with the votes being tallied and recorded until around 11 p.m. Mayor Joe Vinatieri was re-elected with a total of 5301 votes, with Raquel McLeod coming in second with 1027 votes, Rolando Cano in third with 663 and L. Leon Savage in fourth with 191. For District four, candidate Henry Bouchot won with 990 votes,in second with 889 was Bob Henderson. For District 2, Fernando Dutra is winning with 1235 votes, while Lizette Escobedo lost getting 1130 votes. Although the mayoral candidate is solidified, there are still votes to be counted
EDIT BY NOAH GARCIA/EL PAISANO NEWS After being re-elected mayor of Whittier, Joe Vinatieri (center) will continue to service his hometown like he has since 1984.
to conclude the final phase of the councilmen election. The remaining votes by mail and provisional votes will be counted today. Voters that mailed in their ballot have yet to get their votes counted. Vote-counters will also do extra work to make sure that the winners are verified. There are 549 uncounted votes that were turned in Tuesday, most of the winners are expected to remain the same, though. The seats in the council representing districts one and three will be voted on in 2020. During the race, several controversies took place over the duration of campaigning including: several negative campaign mailers targeting the challengers, complaints against large influx of campaign dollars to certain candidates, and confusion with filling out the ballots. For the final results of the entire election, visit ElPaisanoOnline.com.
Maura Bendett: Of Seedpods, Martians, and Flowers DIANA JUAREZ Reporter
diana.juarez8805@my.riohondo.edu
Artist and Otis professor Maura Bendett is the most recent artist presenting her art at the Rio Hondo Gallery. Her show, Seedpods, Martians, and Flowers, a survey, was an explosion of color and shapes that awoke curiosity in the attendees at the reception this past April 5th. “The idea of seedpods, Martians, and flowers have inspired all my work, even when it doesn’t look like it,” Bendett explained, “they say that what inspires you today is whatever inspired you between the ages of 5 and 12 and I grew up in an age when we didn’t have the internet and TV wasn’t all that great. So to me, nature has always been inspiring…I don’t really think of Martians in these sense of whether they’re real or not. The base of this is the origin of life and whether or not it even originated on earth because we really do not know.”
DIANA JUAREZ/EL PAISANO NEWS
Maura Bendett’s Of Seedpots, Martians, and Flowers will be showcased at the Rio Hondo College Art Gallery through April 30, 2018.
Her earlier pieces, which were mainly inspired by flowers and seedpods, were paintings. Abstract pieces of colorful flowers and strange antenna. Bendett says it’s her sculpting classes that gave her the need to make her art “pop out of the canvas” and
really give her art its unique characteristic. From far away, her round wall pieces give the impression of being paintings. In reality, the pieces are three dimensional collages of objects in different colors. The object that make up these collages
include but are not limited to shells, butterflies, flowers, and even blue lobsters. “I liked making wiry flowers and it was really uncool at the time because as a woman, you didn’t want to be caught doing flowers. But I didn’t care because I enjoyed
making them. Like the lobsters, many people ask why blue lobsters? But why not?” said Bendett, “I guess in artwork I fought the seriousness. I wanted to be silly. I took my art seriously, but I didn’t take it seriously as a whole.” That silliness whimsy in her art is what makes people gravitate to her pieces. With little to no straight lines in sight, the texture and color make her art approachable in a way that sometimes art won’t be. Her most recent work looks like an alien garden, with glass-like bulbs hanging off branches and spiraling vines curling over everything. Bendett’s art really portrays what her childhood interests and inspirations were. It calls to the viewers’ inner child and reminds us that art can be fun, both as a spectator and as a creator of it. The Rio Hondo Art Gallery will be hosting Bendett’s pieces until April 30th. Don’t miss out on this flurry of color.