A valuable name: Keep Friendswood Beautiful

The name of Friendswood's Community Appearance Board could be changed to Keep Friendswood Beautiful so the city would be eligible for beautification grant funding.
Mayor David Smith said he expects City Council to approve the renaming within the next month. The possibility was discussed during City Council's Jan. 4 meeting.
The potential name change and expanding the board's members from 12 to 20 would make the city eligible to apply for grant money from Keep America Beautiful and Keep Texas Beautiful, Smith said.
We need to tap into that," Smith said. It be a double or tripling of our local tax dollars to do things that we're already doing or to make some additional improvements."
The Community Appearance Board works with city staff to maintain aesthetics in the city's parks and properties as well as organizes the city's annual Fall Haul-A-Day and Spring Sparkle events for residents to dispose of unwanted non-hazardous items. It also organizes annual tree giveaways.
In the future, the possibly renamed Keep Friendswood Beautiful could also become a non-profit organization that is separate from the city, Smith said. That would allow people to make direct donations to the group, he said.
It would take on a whole different flavor of a community-based organization rather than a city-based organization," Smith said.
A non-profit Keep Friendswood Beautiful would expand the types of services it can provide, Smith said.
That is one awesome, go-getter group of people that work on Community Appearance Board," he said. They are total hands on. They are totally committed to what they do for the community. I've got a lot of confidence in them and appreciation for what they do."