A ceremony celebrating local western Massachusetts businesses was held recently at the MassMutual Center.
Diana Szynal, is president of the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce, which hosts the Super 60 event annually.
“We give awards for growth. We give awards for nonprofits, for companies that are giving back to the community, and for startups,” Szynal said.
The event recognized businesses in categories including revenue, growth, start-ups, giving back, and non-profit. This celebration of businesses has gone on for more than 35 years.
Ahead of the event business and community leaders discussed the recent election and the outcome of several ballot questions in the state.
Question 2 on the ballot asked voters whether to remove passing the MCAS as a requirement for graduation. That question was approved by 58% of voters.
Lois Nesci, the CEO of Gandara Center, a counseling and mental health agency in the state, said it's important for communities to come together regardless of what their desired outcome was.
“Our educational system, our business community has to work together to prepare young people for the workforce,” she said.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said "the people have spoken, but we also have to make sure that you have to keep standards [that's] quite important...”
Sarno said there needs to be a balance between requiring the test for graduation and using it as an assessment tool.
A longtime advocate for economic development and small businesses Sarno also commented on Question 5, which would have raised the minimum wage for tipped workers. The question failed, with 64% of voters rejecting the proposed change.
“I was happy that didn't pass because those workers, the waiters and waitresses, they work hard…you want to be able to tip them well and they appreciate that,” he said.
Debra Kaylor, of the Meyers Brothers Kalicka accounting firm in Holyoke, attended the event and also weighed in on the tipped workers question.
“You have people working at really nice restaurants that with their tips, maybe they're making $50 an hour. If all of a sudden, they're knocked down to minimum wage, you know, a lot of people aren't going to tip anymore, and that will really cut into their hourly wage and what they're actually bringing home," she said.
Kaylor said her vote was impacted by her time as a waitress when she was in high school.
"I used to waitress. But I can certainly understand why if they did switch to going to the minimum wage requirement, that they would actually be making less money."
