May 15, 2008 Issue

Some decisions that local governments make can seem to be trivial in nature, yet later prove to be monumental in their effects on a town.

Well meaning residents are meeting tonight with the Okaloosa County School Board to discuss a high school for Destin. The high school is not going to happen. But had our city and county made a different decision years ago, we’d already have our high school.

Destin Elementary has been at it current location since the mid-1950’s. In the early 1990’s it was the only school in Destin. It still is, since the Destin Middle School is in an unincorporated area of the county.

Fifteen years ago Destin Elementary was undergoing a significant growth in enrollment. The facilities at the school were also being enhanced. Additional portable classrooms were brought in. Softball fields were developed. The county’s only 400 meter synthetic track was built with money raised within the community. This was before the Morgan Sports Center was built and the grounds of Destin Elementary were used for youth football, little league baseball, and soccer for all ages. Lights were added to the ball fields to accommodate our residents. It was a busy place.

There were only a couple of long-time residents on Benning Drive whose property adjoined the school grounds. There were constant complaints about the extra-curricular activities, the noise, the lights, and the softballs being hit into their back yards.

The other border to the school property was on Beach Drive. A deep wooded lot owned by the Corpus Christi church still sits unused.

About the same time, talk of a middle school in Destin began. The developer of Regatta Bay offered land for the school. Almost no land had ever been donated in our city and this seemingly magnanimous gesture was accepted.

For the past 12 years, Destin has had a middle school that doesn’t just embody urban sprawl; it demands it. No sane parent would allow their child to walk or ride a bicycle to Destin Middle School, unless they lived in Regatta Bay.

We could have a middle school and a high school at the site of Destin Elementary. Fifteen years ago the church property was available and the home owners on Benning Dr. would have welcomed the city’s purchase of their property. The cost of the land could have been underwritten by developers. Nothing could have helped property values and home sales more than a school complex for children from kindergarten through high school. There could have been a football stadium and a first class gymnasium and so much more.

A central school site in the heart of Destin would have been a great deterrent to the sprawl that we now live with. Between the Destin Harbor and our children’s school, all activities of any import would have taken place in Destin proper.

Graduations, athletic events, community programs, and recreation for all ages would have happened in the same place.

The sprawl taking place east of Destin, with all of the chain stores and corporate restaurants and Wal Mart wannabes, could have continued at its break neck pace. But at least we wouldn’t be contributing to it.

There wouldn’t have been any need to re-make our lovely harbor as some sort of ongoing carnival experience. Cheap advertising gimmicks meant to draw people to the harbor district would not have been required. The heart of Destin would have been where it always should have been. With our fishermen. And with our children.

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