Art Vibe v. Guerra, public works consultant, new video streaming and more City Council notes

While the city’s budget was the big-ticket item at Tuesday’s meeting,  several other items were also on the agenda:

– Councilman Mario Guerra withdrew a measure to force the Downey Art Vibe to include the name ‘Downey’ in a new art gallery scheduled to be opened soon in Downtown Downey. The city put up the money for the gallery, which will be run by the Art Vibe.  Guerra says the citizens deserve to have the city in the title, sort of the like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He backed off after he received assurances from the city’s staff that the gallery will properly promote the city.

I hear there’s a pretty juicy back story behind all this that involved Guerra and Art Vibe point man Val Flores. But everybody seemed pretty happy after Tuesday’s meeting, so I think I’ll let this one go untold. I couldn’t get the Art Vibe guys to cough up the name, so stay tuned.

– In case you haven’t heard, the city is going to start ripping up and replacing streets at a breakneck pace over the next few years. So the city hired a company headed by former Lynwood Public Works Director Yadi Fardhadi to help out with some of the public works duties. The firm is being paid $9,750 a month.

– The city approved a contract with a new company to stream City Council meetings on the Internet. The city hired the firm AV Capture at a big discount. The old contractor, Grancicus, charged $18,300 to stream the meetings. AV Capture is charging about $5,000. I can’t remember if that fee was yearly or monthly.

These notes are a little short on detail because the city still hasn’t fixed the part of its website that publishes City Council and other agendas. The service has been down since Friday, and the city is aware of the problem.