Magazine congratulates wrong town in listing

UNION, Ohio (AP) -- There are more than 25 Union Townships in Ohio and one city of Union. None is the community that Money magazine meant to honor in its list of "America's Hottest Towns."
So Union Mayor Robert Packard, in the city with 6,400 residents north of Dayton, was surprised to get a congratulatory call from the magazine last month.
"I thought it was a joke," he said.
The accolades were meant for West Chester Township, population 56,800, in Butler County about 20 miles north of Cincinnati. The community changed its name from Union Township in 2000, but the U.S. Census from that year uses the old name.
The magazine chose 87 communities as among the best in the nation to live, using income, employment and education statistics compiled by OnBoard LLC, a real estate information company. Dublin, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, also made the list.
Mix-up
Money's Web site at first listed Union, linked to a map of the city. The link was removed when editors learned of the mix-up, and the listing was corrected first to Union Township, then West Chester Township.
The change came too late for the print edition, reading "Union Twp.," which goes on newsstands today.
"I'm a little blind-sided by it," associate editor Michael Powe said. "We had someone fact-check this vigorously."
West Chester administrator Davie Gully said he gives little credence to such lists.
"These types of articles are just fillers between ads," Gully said. "If it wasn't worth pointing out correctly, it's not a serious article."