Opp Mayor John Bartholomew is responding to the city being placed on RoadSnack’s Top 10 Most Boring Cities in Alabama list.

The release from RoadSnack says, “There’s no denying it: there are plenty of places in Alabama that are downright beautiful and full of excitement. Unfortunately, not all towns and cities in Alabama are so lucky.”

RoadSnack officials go on to say that just like in all U.S. states, there are definitely some boring places within the state’s borders.

“You know the places: the ones where everyone has an AARP card and the most exciting thing to do all day is post a picture of their grandchild on Facebook,” the release reads.

Opp ranks third on the list released recently, but the mayor said the list isn’t about how much fun is to be had in a particular city.

“Before you get all upset if your city’s name is on the list, rest assured that we didn’t use personal opinion when it comes to what classifies a city or town as boring or exciting. We crunched actual numbers to figure out which towns are statistically more boring.”

The organization said it uses a complex algorithm that factors in generally thought of to make people exciting, and then figure out which cities have the least number of those people.

Here are some things factored in:

• Percentage of population over 35;

• Percentage of married households;

• Average age;

• Percentage of households with kids;

• Percentage of households over 65; and

• Population density.

Each city on the list had a population of at least 5,000.

“Since last week, several of you have sent me the link to the story that placed Opp on the Top 10 Most Boring places to live in Alabama,” Bartholomew said. “While several of you have expressed your satisfaction with this designation, some of you were very vocal. There are some things that need to be cleared up.

“First, this list has nothing to do with fun things to do in a city,” he said. “It does not take into account whether you have this fast food place or that fast food place. It does not rank us on industry. In fact, this list is far from any of that.”

Bartholomew said it is about Opp’s population and the age range of the people who live in the city.

“Well, we’re just two behind Orange Beach, so we’re in good company,” he said. “And Fairhope, which is a very bustling city suburb of Mobile is also on the list.”

Bartholomew said he doesn’t profess that Opp is perfect.

“Nor that we have all that we want or need here,” he said. “But I will say this, if you think this list is an embarrassment for us, think again. It shows the rest of Alabama that we have stability when it comes to our population. It shows that we are family-oriented here and that we have a higher than average marriage rate. It also shows that we have a larger number of folks 65 and older who have chosen Opp as where they want to live out their lives. Are we perfect? No, but I’d much rather be on this list than some of the others that are out there that measures Top 10 Crime Cities, Top Murder Cities. So, I’m going to choose to celebrate boring.”

Here is the complete list:

• Orange Beach;

• Scottsboro;

• Opp;

• Rainbow City;

• Glencoe;

• Trussville;

• Pike Road;

• Gardendale;

• Guntersville; and

• Fairhope