As painful as it is to write this — we could lose this miracle called a four-year university.

Not that there aren’t legitimate questions about the infrastructure impacts in Oregon State University’s plans to build this institution on 56 acres of west-side property.

There are, and they have to be dealt with.

But on a different level, this is gut-check time for the city of Bend, its citizens, its civic, business and political leadership and its city administration.

If we allow a relatively few, privileged citizens advancing their domestic tranquility to delay unto death decades of dreams and dedicated work to build a better Central Oregon, then we should hang our heads in shame.

Hyperbole, you say? Not at all.

What the state Legislature gives, the state Legislature can take away.

And the assurances the state needed to give OSU the funds to begin this project were predicated, in no small part, on assurances the community generously and convincingly granted for support, both financial and nonfinancial.

Shake that perception and, I believe, that money is back in play for every legislator with a pet hometown project in Oregon.

Unfortunately, the dream killers have the loudest voices at the moment, and it’s time for supporters to be heard just as clearly.

Of all the cynical selfishness implied by the folks opposing this campus, the basest is the threat of tying up its development with one legal challenge after another.

This destructive instinct is regrettably coming from individuals who, among our citizens, are themselves likely the greatest beneficiaries of higher education.

A letter writer to The Bulletin expressed an often-heard view.

He bought a home near the site of the proposed campus and, essentially, he wants nothing to disturb the presumptions he had about his future surroundings.

Who could possibly make such a claim on any community, but especially one as dynamic as Bend?

Ironically, if Bend’s leaders held that view 30 years ago, none of the swankest west-side communities would exist today, because, believe me, they changed similar presumptions of old-time residents.

And, while we are at it, let’s put away the canard of loving the idea of a campus, but just not where OSU wants it.

Of course, there will be objections wherever it goes, but that’s not the most important point.

It’s the property owner’s land. It’s OSU’s money, and it is their expert opinion that this site gives them the best chance at success, which is in all of our interests if we want to keep it.

Why, after years of OSU’s adroit leadership in bringing us to this great moment, should we think they don’t know the best site for a campus or have the interests of the community at heart?

Tuesday is the public hearing on cars and parking.

Good. Let’s get all the objections out in the open and on the record.

And then the mission is to solve them, as it has been in the many community-changing projects that Bend has confronted in its recent history, including its massive west-side development.

But, at the same time, the city needs to listen to all its citizens, not just those living within a very limited radius of the OSU site and not just the naysayers.

If in the end the opponents want to spend themselves foolishly trying to block the development, then matching them is the order of the day.

And those who stay this decades-long course will have the sublime satisfaction of fighting an unselfish battle for the benefit of future generations.

— John Costa is editor-in-chief of The Bulletin. Contact: 541-383-0337, jcosta@bendbulletin.com.