Globe columnist Adrian Walker welcomes the coming Boston mayoral campaign, the first open race for the city’s top job since Tom Menino took power 20 years ago. What’s more, he writes this morning, “the most important statement Menino made last week was that he had no intention of attempting to pick successor. Call me naive, but I believe he meant it,” writes Walker.

Adrian: I think you’re naive.

And one didn’t have to dig much harder than yesterday’s Herald for some early clues on that front.

“At this time I have no intentions at all to endorse anybody. I’m staying out of this race, at this time,” Menino told the Herald during a stop at an Easter egg hunt in Roslindale Square. “If somebody says derogatory things about the city, that will hurt the city, of course I’ll have to make up my mind.”

Now it seems highly unlikely that anyone seeking votes to be Boston’s next mayor would speak ill of the city they hope to lead. Mayoral candidates might, however, have the temerity and nerve to suggest a new path or to even criticize ways the city has been led under Menino’s watch. In the mayor’s mind, it appears that being critical of any aspect of his reign would be the same as saying “derogatory things about the city” — and that could void his carefully crafted pledge to stay out of the race “at this time.”

Praise, much of it deserved, has been heaped on Menino in the wake of his announcement that he’ll step down early next year after a record-breaking five terms as Boston’s mayor. He has been a steady leader for Boston, a prudent steward of its fiscal purse strings, and an unequivocal voice for inclusion in the increasingly polyglot precincts of the city he so clearly loves.

But he has also been a leader that brooked little dissent, was always worried about perceived challenges to his reign, and drained much of the life out of local politics. A city once known for freewheeling debates and lively political give-and-take went into virtual lockdown mode under his watch. With most of the city’s civic, business, and nonprofit leaders fearful of ever voicing reasoned disagreement with a Menino initiative, It became, like the Roslindale park where he appeared yesterday, a land blanketed with eggshells .

“Everybody got used to doing business this way,” Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham wrote yesterday. “There are employees at colleges and corporations all over this city who are paid handsome salaries because they have managed to stay on Menino’s good side. The amount of energy that goes into trying not to tick off the mayor could put Cape Wind out of business.”

All of which makes the prospects of an open race for mayor a particularly welcome development for the city. The race itself should be a chance for civic debate and dialogue to breathe free. And one hopes the ultimate winner might also bring a more open-door governing style to City Hall. A healthy airing of different opinions should be seen not as a threat to be squelched but as the fertile soil from which civic innovation emerges in a city riding the crest of the innovation economy.

Menino would do well to try to follow the lead of the last mayor to finish out his term while the race to succeed him went on. Kevin White didn’t feel compelled to weigh in anytime the 1983 mayoral race hinted at criticism of his tenure, a not infrequent occurrence in a campaign that centered on a pledge to cater to neighborhood needs following the undue downtown focus White was accused of having adopted.

White gracefully stayed out of the mix and let Boston move forward on its own terms, not his, the mark of a leader secure with his place in the city’s history.