Poll: Vote for Local Story of the Year

With elections, earthquakes, hurricanes, courthouses and more than enough crime reports over the last year,

Now that 2011 is drawing to a close, let's look back on the year's most important stories. What follows is a list of 5 stories which shaped the year for residents across the area. Some stories on this list were chosen by virtue of the traffic they received, others were chosen because they chronicled important or controversial events.

So, now we want to hear from you, the reader. In your eyes, which of the following stories was the most important one of the year. The winning story will be the subject of a larger followup to be published on New Year's Eve.

Timm Loses Sheriff's Race After Alleged Campaign Controversies

Many readers, especially in Spotsylvania County, were first acquainted with Fredericksburg Patch through coverage of that county's

Articles on the race account for Fredericksburg Patch's top three most read stories in all of 2011. They also sparked a wave of contentious comment threads, in turn receiving more total comments than any other topic.

Reporting by Patch revealed that the campaign of Spotsylvania County Sheriff Michael Timm had been and showed that The investigations never amounted to much legal trouble for Timm's campaign,

For whatever reason, that race touched a nerve in the community. It's not hard to see why. With no incumbent running, the three way race was hotly contested and was the most expensive local race in the region.

Rare Quake Shakes City, Region, Coast

On a rather literal sense, no other story on this list affected as many readers as . Centered 5 miles outside of Mineral Va., the on Aug 23, reminding nearly the entire east coast of the Virginia Seismic Zone. You'd have to go back to 1897 to find a quake in Fredericksburg to match did it's fair share of , but luckily there were few injuries and no deaths reported.

This story also introduced many readers to the site for the first time. Records for the number of readers viewing Fredericksburg Patch at once were set in the hours immediately after the quake.

Irene Douses but Does Little Local Damage

Overhyped? Maybe. But hurricanes are always big news, and when we all learned about cones of uncertainty. In Fredericksburg, but did Some sections of downtown Fredericksburg around Old Mill Park were without power for 26 hours,

Fredericksburg Patch . Readers joined in on the coverage as well, providing updates on Twitter, Facebook and email which added to our coverage. As a result, the live blog was one of the top 10 most read stories of the year.

City Moves Forward on Courthouse

As a topic it's not sexy - no story on this subject cracked Fredericksburg Patch's 2011 50 most read list - but in terms of sheer size and cost, it's easy to see why the City Council's should be on this list.

The project will be the largest single public works expenditure in Fredericksburg's history. In the process, it will leave to replace the facility, a building which witnessed the Civil War.

Two Stories Emerge in Jailhouse Death

The after spending a little more than 24 hours in the Rappahannock Regional Jail raised questions among readers as two distinct versions of her last hours emerged.

Police and jail officials say that Cochran, arrested on an outstanding Stafford County warrant for charges relating to the distribution of drugs, suffered a heart attack likely brought on by a heart defect. Aside from a nose bleed which sent Cochran to the prison infirmary where she eventually died, they say she never showed any signs of serious medical distress until she was discovered unresponsive.

They say she was wrongfully arrested on drug charges, the victim of mistaken identification. They also blame Cochran's subsequent death on negligent jail staff who ignored pleas to provide her with medications which they said she needed to live a normal life.

The differences in the story, despite being reported on, have never been publicly reconciled.