“Stop Fighting and Start Fixing”: Jim Bagby Makes His Case in Walton County District 4

Key Notes

🛠️ Core Message: Bagby is pitching himself as the candidate of practical change, running on the slogan: “Stop Fighting and Start Fixing.”
🇺🇸 Background: A graduate of West Point, he served for over two decades in the U.S. Army before retiring in 2003, and later served four terms on the Destin City Council.
🔄 Leadership Criticism: He identifies Walton County’s high turnover rate—nine county administrators in eight years—as a major source of dysfunction, stressing the need for steady leadership.
⚖️ The Race: He casts the District 4 primary as a choice between himself (“the people’s candidate”), the incumbent Donna Johns (status quo), and opponent James Calkins (whom he labels “the developers’ candidate”).
🚧 Growth Management: His central issue is reforming the county’s Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code (LDC) to eliminate the gap that allows developers to choose whichever rule is most favorable to them, leading to unpredictable, intense development.
⚽ Priority Benchmarks: He established four specific metrics for voters to judge his first term, including fully aligning the LDC and Comprehensive Plan, building more ball fields for local kids, securing critical permits and funding for beach nourishment, and prioritizing road paving and infrastructure in North Walton.
🏖️ Beach Access: He notes that the county’s ability to file customary use cases is limited by a prior settlement, arguing that the focus should shift to comprehensive beach nourishment and strategic public land acquisition.
🛑 Short-Term Beach Rule: He proposes a county ordinance banning signs, poles, ropes, and similar obstructions within 50 feet of the wet sand to ease tensions and improve safety.
🗣️ Transparency: He emphasizes the need for forthright communication and honesty from the county, drawing on his experience with the opaque Noriega Point land deal in Destin.

Candidate Profile on Walton County Board of County Commissioners Candidate Jim Bagby

In a Republican primary that’s shaping up as a referendum on growth, governance, and the future of Walton County, Jim Bagby is pitching himself as the candidate of practical change — someone who wants fewer political fights and more long-delayed problems finally solved.

Bagby, a former Destin City Councilman and longtime local leader, is running for Walton County Commission, District 4. In a recent interview, he outlined his background, drew sharp contrasts with his opponents, and laid out specific benchmarks by which he says voters can judge his first term if he’s elected.

From East Texas to Grayton Beach

Bagby’s story starts far from the Emerald Coast. He grew up between Tyler and Longview in East Texas, eventually enlisting in the U.S. Army. That decision set him on a path that would define his adult life: he attended the West Point Prep School, then the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1982 and commissioning as a second lieutenant.

Over more than two decades in uniform, Bagby served in Germany, Kuwait, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. He retired in 2003 while serving at Hurlburt Field. Along the way, his family became experts in relocation.

His wife, he notes, made 13 homes in 17 or 18 years during his military career. The movement was constant, but he says the experience shaped him as a leader — used to working in complex organizations, building teams, and teaching younger officers.

Two bases stand out in his telling: Fort Polk, Louisiana, where he spent about 220 days in the field as a young lieutenant, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he served as chief of leadership and chief of training at the Mounted Warfare School and later taught captains tactics.

Those years, he suggests, lay at the heart of his leadership style today: hands-on, team-focused, and oriented toward training and mentorship rather than quick political wins.

Local Leadership and a Revolving Door Problem

After retiring from the Army, Bagby put down roots along the Gulf Coast and plunged into local public service. He served a total of four terms on the Destin City Council, stepping away due to term limits and returning after what he describes as a destabilizing period of turnover in city management.

He recalls Destin going through its fourth city manager in five years, prompting residents to ask him to run again. That experience colors how he views Walton County’s own leadership churn.

By his count, Walton County has seen nine county administrators in eight years, if you include one who held the position twice. For Bagby, this is not a minor administrative footnote but a primary cause of the county’s dysfunction.

“You have to have steady leadership,” he argues. Executives like a county administrator need time to build a team, select deputies, and shape departments. Without that, priorities shift constantly, projects stall, and the public loses confidence.

He says he’s “hopeful” about current County Administrator Brian, whom he helped bring into county government while at the Tourist Development Council (TDC), but stresses that commissioners have to give him room to lead rather than cycling through administrators whenever they become politically inconvenient.

A “Change Election” — But What Kind of Change?

Bagby describes 2026 as a “change election” in Walton County. In his view, the race for District 4 is less about party — all three leading candidates are Republicans — and more about the type of change voters want.

He sketches the choice this way:

Voters who are comfortable with the status quo, he says, should back incumbent Commissioner Donna Johns, arguing that “the next four years are not going to be any different” from the last four.
Those who want a more aggressively pro-development direction, he contends, should consider James Calkins, a former Santa Rosa County Commissioner whom Bagby labels “the developers’ candidate,” pointing to his alignment with interests involved in controversial developments like Driftwood Estates.
Bagby casts himself as “the people’s candidate” — someone with more than 20 years invested in Walton County, from serving as town manager of Rosemary Beach to working at the TDC and on local boards and committees.

“We’re all good Republicans… we’re all good Christians. We want what’s best for the people of Walton County,” Bagby says. The difference, he insists, is that he’s bringing detailed plans to long-standing problems, not just slogans.

“We need to, as I tell folks, stop fighting and start fixing,” he says.

Growth, the Land Development Code, and North Walton’s Fears

One of Bagby’s central issues is growth management — specifically, reforming the county’s Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code (LDC).

He explains the relationship in simple terms: the Comprehensive Plan is the county’s big-picture blueprint, while the LDC is the “how-to manual” that tells property owners, developers, and staff exactly what can be built and how.

Right now, he argues, there’s a dangerous disconnect. The county hired renowned planning firm DPZ to update the Comprehensive Plan, but those amendments haven’t been fully adopted. As a result, there’s a gap between what the plan says and what the LDC enforces — a gap that can be exploited.

Developers, Bagby says, can look at both and choose whichever version is most favorable to them, often allowing for more intense development than residents expected. On top of that, he criticizes the LDC as being vague by design, leading to an excessive number of “director determinations” — case-by-case interpretations by senior staff.

The result, he says, is a perception of favoritism: “If you were friends with the director, you pretty much got what you wanted… if you weren’t, it could take you eight months, a year, two and a half years.”

Bagby wants to:

Fully adopt and finalize the updated Comprehensive Plan
Rewrite and clarify the Land Development Code
Make allowed uses, setbacks, height limits, and stormwater rules clear and predictable for everyone

He links this directly to growing alarm in North Walton. For years, he says, residents shrugged at intense development in South Walton as “too bad to be y’all.” Now that growth is exploding around Freeport and creeping toward DeFuniak Springs, Mossy Head, and Paxton, those communities fear they are “next on the menu.”

“There’s an urgency,” Bagby says, “to stop this overdevelopment… and have kind of a plan.”

Four Ways He Wants Voters to Judge His First Term

Rather than asking voters to trust vague promises, Bagby lays out specific metrics he believes should define a successful first term:

Planning and Code Alignment
The county should have a fully approved Comprehensive Plan and an updated LDC that is synchronized with it. No more policy documents chasing each other.
More Ball Fields for Kids
Bagby calls the county’s current inventory of 18 sports fields for roughly 90,000 residents unacceptable. He wants the county to buy land where needed and build new fields, especially on property it has already owned — in some cases for seven years — but never prioritized.
Real Progress on Beach Nourishment
He doesn’t promise to complete a countywide beach nourishment project in a single term — litigation and permitting make that unrealistic — but he says within 3–5 years, the county should at least have:
- Permits in process or secured
- Core samples and beach profiles completed
- Borrow pits and sand quality identified
- A solid funding match from the state lined up
He points to the brief window while State Senator Jay Trumbull will serve as Senate President as a critical opportunity to secure funding.
Better Roads and Basic Infrastructure
Bagby wants to see real, visible progress on road paving and maintenance, particularly in the north end of the county, where some residents still navigate washed-out, sandy dirt roads. He cites Okaloosa County’s partnership with an aggregate provider that allowed them to lay base on 200 miles of road in one year as proof that ambitious progress is possible.

“There’s so many things that need fixing that we haven’t,” he says, “and it’s not money… It’s a lack of leadership. It’s the lack of making it a priority, and I’m going to make those [things] priority.”

Customary Use, Signs in the Sand, and Beach Solutions

On the emotionally charged issue of customary use and beach access, Bagby strikes a more pragmatic tone than some activists on either side.

He notes that a prior Board of County Commissioners approved a settlement agreement with prejudice, meaning the county cannot refile a broad customary use case on roughly 1,100 privately owned beachfront parcels. Customary use remains in play on about 95 parcels, and he believes the county should still pursue it where possible — but he’s honest about the limitations.

“Customary use is not an option for the county on over 1,000 parcels,” he says.

Instead, Bagby argues, the county should focus on two big solutions:

A comprehensive beach nourishment project, which would expand the usable beach, protect property, and create a more stable shoreline.
Strategic public acquisition of beachfront where feasible, giving residents and visitors more guaranteed access.

In the short term, he proposes a county ordinance banning signs, poles, ropes, and similar obstructions within 50 feet of the wet sand, both for safety and to ease tensions. He also encourages beachfront property owners — who, he notes, largely “won” when the county settled — to take down unnecessary barriers and for visitors to behave respectfully.

“Let’s just be nice to each other,” he says, recalling his years managing beachfront communities where he saw bad behavior from both tourists and owners.

Lessons from Noriega Point: Transparency First

Bagby’s skepticism about opaque government deals is informed in part by his experience with the Noriega Point controversy in Destin. There, the state paid more than $80 million for less than four acres of sand from businessman Bobby Guidry, then pushed to make it a state-managed park — even though the City of Destin owns the road and parking through the property.

Bagby calls the arrangement a “horrible idea” and is particularly critical of the county’s role, accusing a senior staff member of downplaying or denying any deal while quietly working with the state and even listing the county as the designated manager of a park entirely within city limits.

For Walton County, he says, the lesson is clear: residents deserve honesty, transparency, and forthright communication, especially when major land or funding decisions are at stake.

“Help Right This Ship”

In the end, Bagby returns to where his connection to Walton County began: a 1977 camping trip at Grayton Beach, which he calls “the most beautiful place I had ever seen.”

Nearly five decades later, the retired Army officer, former councilman, and local manager says he’s running because he doesn’t want to watch that place be diminished by what he sees as avoidable failures in leadership and planning.

“I love Walton County,” Bagby says. “I want to help Walton County move into the 21st century… I’m just asking you for your support to give me your vote, or honor me with your vote, and give me a chance to help right this ship.”

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Christopher Saul is the publisher of Mid Bay News. He graduated from Southern Methodist University's School of Journalism with a Convergance Journalism Degree and a Master's Degree in Public Administration From Florida State.

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