We're Not No. 2: Hartford Magazine Re-Ranks South Windsor No. 9 Top Town

First the good news: South Windsor is still ranked as one of the top 10 towns in the Greater Hartford area by Hartford Magazine.

The bad news, however, is that the town slipped from No. 2 to No. 9 in the overall rankings, all in a matter of a week, due to an error the magazine made in classifying the town as "Large" (population over 30,000) instead of "Medium" (population 15,000 to 30,000).

Deputy Mayor Gary Bazzano said at the Town Council's meeting on Monday that he alerted the magazine's editor of the error.

The editor explained to Bazzano that the magazine had swapped South Windsor’s population with Southington’s, and vice versa. The error resulted in the magazine re-ranking the towns, while Hartford Magazine’s website now reads the following:

*Due to an error in population tabulation, Southington and South Windsor were included in the wrong size town category in the June Top Towns article. With a current population of 43,387, Southington belongs in the "Large Town" category (population over 30,000), while South Windsor, with a population of 25,661, belongs in the "Medium Town" category (population 15,000-30,000).

Bazzano noted that South Windsor actually dropped from No. 5 in the magazine’s ratings in 2012 to No. 9 in 2013.

“We still need to strive to improve the town,” Bazzano said.

(South Windsor is ranked No. 3 in Medium Towns behind Farmington and Simsbury.)

Bazzano’s revelation came after several councilors touted the magazine’s ranking South Windsor as No. 2 in the area.

“South Windsor just needs to be South Windsor,” Mayor Tom Delnicki said prior to Bazzano’s comments.

Still, even with the re-rankings, Bazzano and other councilors said they found some conclusions arrived at by the magazine were still confounding.

For example, South Windsor was ranked No. 10 in crime for Medium Towns, an area that several councilors said they would have expected to be ranked much higher.

(Clarification: Deputy Mayor Gary Bazzano was not responsible for the re-ranking of South Windsor. The error was the magazine's in considering South Windsor a large town, when it should have been classified as a medium town. Bazzano merely alerted the magazine of the error. The original version of this article made it seem as though Bazzano was responsible for the re-ranking. South Windsor Patch regrets the confusion.)