“This is a big thing,” said Mayor Leonard Scarcella. He enumerated four consecutive events he’d recently attended and said at every one “people were talking about us receiving this award. People asked how we got it, what we did to get it. It’s something that is special. This is the first year Fortune has given out a small business award and hopefully, we can be on it in future years as well.

“We were selected out of New York by this group that does evaluations of this nature and we do have a lot to be proud of,” he said, and added that when you read the article, “I’m convinced that having no city property tax was huge. They didn’t find that anywhere else. By doing business in Stafford you have some advantages and opportunities you may not have in a lot of other places.

“I think we should do what we can to appropriately note this accomplish. I think it’s a substantial accomplishment -- when you are one of the best in the nation, No. 36, out of 40,000 cities, you’ve got to feel really good. Other cities have received awards and have certainly tooted their horn. We need to do the same thing.”

All councilmen agreed with the mayor and the ideas began to flow. Councilman Wen Guerra suggested getting shirts for councilmen with the logo printed on it. The logo is in the shape of an interstate highway sign with wings on each side and says “best place to live and launch.”

Scarcella suggested that “best place to live and launch” be put below all street names on Stafford street signs. Councilman Cecil Willis said it should be added to all of Stafford’s stationary, envelopes and forms.

Councilman Mike Sachs suggested putting a replica of the award certificate at the entrances to Stafford and hang banners about it on U.S. 90A “like we do the holiday lights.”

As a personal touch from the city, Councilman Ken Mathew suggested the city write a letter to all Stafford businesses and churches informing them of the award and asking them to tell all their employees and parishioners about it.

Sachs also suggested writing a flier about it for the Stafford Economic Development Corp. for chamber of commerce packages and for broker packages they send out to people.

Scarcella said he believes the city needs to provide a t-shirt or something for each city employee “who made a great majority of this possible and I don’t think we should fail to recognize that.”