An update was presented on the Stevenson Park parking lot at the regularly scheduled meeting of the Friendswood City Council Monday, August 1, 2022 at City Hall.
An approval at the previous Council meeting was made for funding of the consulting firm of Halff Associates to prepare a Stevenson Park Conceptual Design Plan. Funds were authorized from the Friendswood Downtown Economic Development Corporation (FDEDC).
City staff has since held an introductory kickoff meeting with the consultant. It was decided a total of three townhall meetings will be held at the Friendswood Public Library. The first meeting will be in September 2022.
The first meeting will be held to collect public input on features and concepts that residents would like to see at the parking lot site in Stevenson Park.
The second meeting will be a continuation of the first with refinement of the previous public input received. The final meeting will be a presentation of the findings in the form of a conceptual plan.
It is reported that an online survey will be offered to collect similar input as the townhall meetings at the library and it will be available concurrently with the public meetings.
A resolution was also proposed and passed August 1 designating a portion of Skyview Terrace as Joycina Day Baker Memorial Lane. Joycina Baker was considered the City’s unofficial historian after having written the book Friendswood – A Settlement of Friendly Folks in the mid-1990s about the history  the city. An avid member of the Historical Society, Baker was an active member of the community also and participated in many civic initiatives.
In 2019, she was named a Friendswood Legend by the Mayor during his State of the City Address at the Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon. Also in 2019 a conference room at the library was also named in her honor.
At the July City Council retreat, Mayor Mike Foreman appointed an ad hoc committee of Council members Sally Branson, Trish Hanks, and Brent Erenwert to consider naming a section of Skyview Terrace in Baker’s honor.
The roadway is not renamed but is authorized to have the placement of a memorial marker between the Brown Museum and the Quaker Village Townhomes.
In other City Council news, the date of the September regularly scheduled Council meeting has been rescheduled from Monday, September 5, 2022 to Monday, September 12, 2022 because of the Labor Day Holiday.
