By Steve Kemme
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WEST CHESTER TWP. - The latest issue of Money magazine calls this Butler County community one of America's best places to live. The only problem is, the magazine uses the wrong name.

In its list of America's 87 "hottest towns," the magazine refers to West Chester Township as Union Township, the name West Chester used before 2000.

"That's like getting a trophy with somebody else's name on it," West Chester Administrator Dave Gully said, laughing.

The magazine's Web site compounded the error by confusing Union, Ohio, with West Chester and providing a link to a map of the small city north of Dayton. Last month, the mayor of Union even received a congratulatory call from the magazine.

By the time Money's editors realized their mistake, it was too late to substitute West Chester Township for Union Township in the print edition, which went on newsstands Monday. But they corrected the mistake on the Web site.

To compile its list, the magazine used income, employment and education statistics from a real estate information company.

The township's population, which stands at more than 55,000, has almost tripled in the past 20 years.

The mix-up occurred because the magazine relied on the 2000 U.S. Census for its information.

Gully took the blunder in stride. "Anybody can make a mistake," he said.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report. E-mail skemme@enquirer.com