Jimmy Quick Sr., left, talks with Don Bates Saturday at a rally organized to encourage Berlin residents to head to the polls this week. Eligible voters in the east Cullman County community will decide Tuesday whether Berlin should incorporate to become the county's newest municipality.

Whether Berlin does or doesn’t vote to become a town this Tuesday, one thing’s for certain: it’s taken a long time, and a lot of work, to put the choice in front of residents in this east Cullman County community.

“If we don’t succeed, this will probably be my one and only time to try,” said Patrick Bates, the incorporation movement’s most active organizing force. “But I do think that, as much interest as it’s generated throughout this process, you might eventually see another attempt, oh, 10 or so years down the road.”

Born and raised in Berlin, Bates has done the lion’s share of the legwork over the past two years to research tax apportionments, circulate and submit a petition, and persuade members of the community to get out and vote. But, he’s quick to add, it hasn’t been a one-man effort.

“I did do a lot of the work on the front end to get it going, but we had a lot of people who got out and collected signatures, and made it known that we think we should incorporate,” said the 1992 Fairview grad.

Don Bates, Patrick’s father, was among the several dozen locals who turned out Saturday at the Berlin Community Center for a voter rally on the eve of Tuesday’s incorporation vote. Like other supporters of turning Berlin into a town, he cites access to legislatively-apportioned municipal tax money as one of the chief reasons for voting “yes.”

“So many people, I think, don’t realize that our money’s going elsewhere, the way things are now,” he said. “Our money goes elsewhere — and we don’t get the benefit of it. And, [The City of] Cullman is out of room, and they’re looking in this direction.”

Under a handful of byzantine legislative acts, all municipalities in Cullman County, except for the City of Cullman, share an equally-proportioned slice of funding drawn from sales and related taxes, with Census-based population changes factored into a reformulation of each town’s share every ten years.

But the more municipalities there are in Cullman County, the less money each one receives.

If the vote is successful, then, and Berlin becomes Cullman County’s twelfth municipality, does that mean Berlin residents would oppose some future effort by another local community to become the thirteenth?

“See, that’s just it,” said Berlin resident Jimmy Quick Sr. “The places that are already incorporated — they won’t say it, but they don’t really want anyone else to incorporate, because that’s less money for them.

“All these other municipalities — Hanceville, Holly Pond, Vinemont and all the rest of them — they already get those thousands and thousands of dollars, while we get nothing.”

Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s vote, Bates — finally nearing the end of two long years of work — said he wants people to make their voices heard.

“It’s a simple majority vote, but I still just want as many people as possible to turn out and vote,” he said. “Pass or fail, I want to see a large turnout. I just want people to participate.”

 

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 145.