Bridgeport Mayor John M. Fabrizi can sip a glass of champagne this weekend. He deserves it.

Standard & Poor's last week upgraded the city's bond rating to its highest classification in 22 years — as sure a sign as any that Connecticut's largest city is on its way back.

Bridgeport's new A-minus rating from S&P is good news for city taxpayers because such ratings determine how much a governmental entity pays to borrow money for a variety of things, from capital construction to the funding of pension obligations.

Fabrizi, aided by the Bridgeport City Council, had to make tough decisions and take the resulting flak, but this bond rating upgrade lends proof that the mayor made the correct decisions.

Foremost was his decision to fully implement the city's most recent property tax revaluation rather than phasing it in. It was a decision not lost on Wall Street and Standard & Poor's.

That decision led to considerable outrage from many city taxpayers, largely because the city's tax base has been shifting to the residential side of the ledger.

But Fabrizi faced the city's fiscal realities, lived to tell about it and now deserves to reap a share of the credit.

In its evaluation of the city, the S&P analysts were pleased with the administration's financial management and budget practices, which they noted have "contributed to maintenance of an adequate financial position," the building of ample financial reserves and the signs of redevelopment

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that are sprouting up around the city and especially in the downtown, much of it funded through private and not public money.

Bridgeport's current stable position — it's still not out of the financial woods — certainly is a far cry from the start of the last decade, when the city embarked on an ill-advised attempt to declare municipal bankruptcy and ended up with a state financial review board making major financial decisions.

It's a small facet of Bridgeport's rising star — and Standard & Poor's analysis made no mention of it — but I'm of the opinion that a four-year term for mayor is a part of the groundwork for a mayor's success in Bridgeport.

It was a change in government that this newspaper championed for most of the 1990s, in the face of plenty of citizen opposition at the polls, until voters and the political establishment were convinced of the wisdom of it.

It didn't help that the first recipient of the charter change was disgraced ex-Mayor Joseph P. Ganim, but the longer term is certainly helping Fabrizi.

A four-year term allows a mayor to actually develop a vision for the city, hire a "team" to make that vision work and then methodically put the vision into play.

Bridgeport may be a one-political-party town, but most would agree that even if as mayor you're of the majority party, you're always looking over your shoulder to see who's going to challenge you from within. A four-year term offers a little breathing room and less time spent trying to raise funds and fend off challengers.

There are always going to be bumps in the road — and some occasional accidents — in running a city the size of Bridgeport. And there remain the problems of a tax base too heavily reliant on residential property taxes and a population with a large number of citizens living below the poverty line and with above-average unemployment.

Progress takes time and sweat, but the Standard & Poor's upgrade offers good reason to put that element into Bridgeport's future.

Stephen J. Winters is editorial page editor of the Connecticut Post. You can reach him at 330-6203 or by e-mail at swinters@ctpost.com