Local university?We need to dream bigger

I appreciate the civic zeal, but I think the NIMBY card is overdone. For the record, I live nowhere near the proposed site. The issue is what vision did people have for The University of Central Oregon. Mine was not a University of Phoenix run by OSU. The vision I hear most often for UCO is, year one, start building on a 200- to 300-acre campus. Year five, be the fourth-largest school in the state system. Years 10 to 15, the highest entrance standards in the state system, a university with top scholars from all over the nation and beyond. Years 20 to 30, Wilson Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, Supreme Court clerks.

We have a community college. We don’t need two. This is a very desirable area. Dream a little. Let’s play on the varsity, not on the JV team.

Dell Squire

Bend

Important to protect sage grouse

Recently, my wife and I hiked up Warner Peak in the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge. Along the way, we accidentally flushed a female sage grouse that was likely protecting a nest, and on top there were two males. The Oregon High Desert presents a stunning landscape to the visitor and wildlife such as the greater sage grouse are an integral part of it. Across the West, the sage grouse is in decline and it’s necessary to act now in order to save this amazing bird.

The sage grouse requires large areas of intact sagebrush habitat to survive. As those areas have become increasingly rare in the West, so have the sage grouse. Wildfire, noxious weeds, irresponsible OHV use and poor management threaten the High Desert. The impacts on this fragile landscape are long-lasting. Other wildlife, like bighorn sheep and pronghorn, as well as many native plants, are likewise affected.

The BLM is working on a plan to protect the sage grouse. A good plan will set aside large areas of prime habitat for sage grouse and also limit development that permanently damages the land. What the BLM decides will be important for the future of the region because protecting the sage grouse is equated with protecting the most unspoiled places of Oregon’s High Desert.

Gary Winter

Bend

Is editorial stance a conflict of interest?

I rarely question intentions. I read The Bulletin’s June 10 editorial supporting the OSU campus location as proposed on Mt. Washington Drive. This is not The Bulletin’s first supportive editorial on this issue. This paper is very supportive of the proposed campus location. I have to question why this newspaper is such a strong supporter of the OSU campus move to the location off Mt. Washington Drive. Is there a conflict of interest here? Does The Bulletin see a big benefit from selling its building to OSU? The Bulletin must be looking at the location as a potential windfall. As technology develops, The Bulletin’s need for physical building space decreases. The Bulletin could sell their building to OSU for a lot of money. Am I way off the mark?

Donna Raymond

Bend

Appalled at Brooks’ positions

I am appalled that David Brooks can argue that the basis for citizenship in this country requires us to set aside standards of obligation and honor for ourselves and think only in terms of the general population. His suggestion that it doesn’t matter that Bergdahl deserted his post, nor does it matter that the five released terrorists can rejoin the Taliban community in as much as the Taliban is not a terrorist organization the way al-Qaida is, makes me wonder if he has spent too much time listening to Susan Rice. On the very next page of the paper in which his column appeared was the story of the attack on the airport at Karachi, and a Taliban spokesman is quoted as saying that the attack is payback for the recent U.S. drone attack which killed their leader.

Of course it matters that Bergdahl deserted his post. No member of any of our services can be allowed to simply walk away from his or her post without significant consequence. How would any branch of our military maintain order and discipline if this obligation of duty was not required? He may have paid a terrible price for the last excursion he took, but that doesn’t change his basic abrogation of responsibility to his fellow servicemen and to his country. When we refuse to do our duty, there should be consequences, not excuses.

The president’s instincts were political. The price we paid was irresponsible.

Robert Rossio

Sisters