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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT
The WHQR News Team has recapped several major stories for the year, and now, it’s your turn to let us know what events you think were most important and have had the biggest impact on our community.Then, tune in the week of December 26-30 when WHQR will be airing its 2011 Top Ten Countdown.

#9 News Story of 2011: Monkey Junction Annexation Battle

State lawmakers approved a new annexation process in June, allowing unincorporated areas to block a neighboring city’s advances if 60 percent of their property owners dissent. 

WHQR’s Michelle Bliss reports that this year’s battle over Monkey Junction in New Hanover County has reached #9 on our 2011 top ten story countdown.

Nearly 75 percent of property owners in Monkey Junction spoke up loud and clear: they don’t want to be annexed.

But the City of Wilmington and a handful of other municipalities across North Carolina have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s new petitioning process.

The City also filed a preliminary injunction to block the county board of elections from certifying the petition signatures its staff has been collecting for months. That injunction was later withdrawn.

Next month, property owners in Monkey Junction will motion to intervene in the City’s lawsuit so they can present their arguments in favor of the opportunity to petition against what would otherwise be an involuntary annexation.

Tune in all this week as we air WHQR’s 2011 Top Ten Countdown of news stories across the Cape Fear region and state. 

After growing up in Woodbridge, Virginia, Michelle attended Virginia Tech before moving to Wilmington to complete her Master in Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. Her reporting and nonfiction writing have been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, within the pages of Wrightsville Beach Magazine, and in literary journals like River Teeth and Ninth Letter. Before moving to Wilmington, Michelle served as the general manager for WUVT, a community radio station in Blacksburg, Virginia. She lives with her husband Scott and their pups, Katie, Cooper, and Mosey.