Poll workers, from left, Tony Duke, Mary Sue Freeman and Marie Sanford count votes after polls closed for the Berlin incorporation vote in Feb. 2018.

The Times continues its countdown of the biggest local stories of 2018.

After years of discussion and a handful of procedural hiccups that delayed a final vote, residents of the Walker’s Corner community just east of Cullman finally decided, in a low-turnout polling day, to incorporate.

Berlin became Cullman County’s 12th municipality this year on the strength of an Alabama incorporation law that allows a simple voting majority to carry the day. In a turnout that saw ballots cast from fewer than 70 of more than 300 eligible voters, the community — centered at the intersection of County Road 747 and U.S. Highway 278 — cleared its final hurdle on the long and sometimes-winding path toward becoming the area’s newest town.

Voters approved Berlin’s incorporation by a 45-23 margin in a Feb. 13 ballot that came about largely thanks to the efforts of longtime resident Patrick Bates, who spent more than two years researching, petitioning, and funding the drive toward referendum day. Bates has since become the town’s first mayor.

The vote set in motion the administrative wheels necessary to establish Berlin as a town. An April census of the area’s households preceded the town’s official May 3 incorporation date, and Berlin held its first council meeting — with an initial 4 of 5 seats filled, as well as the mayor’s post filled by Bates — at the Berlin Community Center on June 25.

Since then, Berlin has established a relationship with the Cullman County Sales Tax and Revenue Enforcement Office to collect its monthly apportionment of public funds, and expanded the town’s corporate limits via two annexations at its November council meeting. The council holds its regular meetings on the third Monday of every month.

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