EDITORIAL: Happy trails to a trailblazing mayor

My, how you’ve grown.

The man who infused youth in the Destin body politic hands over the mayor’s gavel as a veteran politician.
From the days that Craig Barker first arrived on the City Council in 1996 as an unmarried professional, Log editorials recognized his leadership potential, reflecting often on his boyish charm and can-do attitude.

An editorial from the time began: “Some of Destin’s city councilors are old enough to be Craig Barker’s father. They have more years, more life experience and more miles on their tires than Barker, the youngest city councilor. Maybe it’s no surprise the youngest councilor shows more energy in trying to improve things in Destin than his elder brethren.”

Since his earliest days in office, Barker has been a tireless champion of the fishing fleet and Destin harbor. He had the vision to seize onto an idea that tourism officials have just come around to in the past few years.

“In my opinion, the harbor sets Destin apart from every other coastal community. It’s the essence of a working maritime environment that everyone should enjoy, as well as nurture,” Barker told The Log in 2001.

For a decade, Barker has pushed for a cohesive harbor boardwalk — one that wouldn’t force walkers into parking lots and around chain link barricades. Fast forward 10 years, and that idea seems more likely than ever as the city plans out a central park that could at last reveal our hidden harbor.

“Any project worth doing is worth fighting for,” Barker told The Log.

Another editorial from around that time states: “Barker, the youngest councilor and probably the most energetic of the seven, seems to have recognized the dearth of leadership at city hall. He’s showing an aggressiveness that we like.”

But over the years that aggression gave way to consensus building as Barker guided the city through days of boom and bust.

“I had expected issues to be black or white. I found huge gray areas, with no right or wrong answers,” Barker told

The Log in an interview in 2001 as he was mulling over his first run for mayor. “I learned to pick my battles, and I learned to be savvy to get things done. I try my best to get legislation passed, but you can’t do it by standing up and hollering. You have to protect the strength of every vote.”

And now he is trying to take that motto to Tallahassee as he makes a bid for the District 4 House Seat.

While Freedom newspapers such as The Log have had a long history of not endorsing candidates for higher office, we recognize that there is something poetic about a man who bleeds Destin helping to undo the taint left after the fall of Destin’s Ray Sansom.

Godspeed and good luck, Mr. Mayor.