I arrived at The Bulletin nearly 18 years ago.

Bend then was a city of about 35,000 souls, but shortly thereafter climbed to more than 50,000 through annexation.

It was — still is — a beautiful city, but like now, had reminders of a fading industrial past.

One, of course, was the riverside deserted mill site just south of a prosperous downtown that could have come right out of central casting.

And one day, a man named Bill Smith described what he had in mind for what would become the Old Mill District.

The site resembled something out of post-industrial Gary, Indiana, or Toledo, Ohio.

My first thought was that this man has more dollars than sense.

At The Bulletin, one of my colleagues predicted that there would be a mobile missile emplacement before a retail operation at the site.

When asked why, he listed his reasons: The site is an environmental disaster, and if developed it will despoil the Deschutes River and it will kill the downtown, not to mention generating road-choking traffic.

It took Smith nearly five years to get the first permit for development for the district, but today we all have better access to the river, the old downtown remains vibrant, and the environmental debris field has been cleared up on the way to a remarkable addition to Central Oregon.

Do we today, do you suppose, have the same imagination, tenacity, skill and political will to see beyond the challenges that come with every dream?

Of course, I am referring to the west-side expansion plans of OSU-Cascades.

Though it is being challenged, OSU has purchased 10 acres to begin its expansion and has an option on 46 adjacent acres, the site of a mining pit. It’s fair to say it also has an eye on a larger county dumpsite next door.

It’s also fair to say it has its critics, who have been nothing if not vociferous.

Their points range from insulting to debatable to sound.

We’ve heard that the OSU leadership doesn’t know what it’s doing or is purposefully deceptive. Or the students represent nothing but Friday night drunks. This from folks who, to my knowledge, have not recently created a new university.

We’ve heard that better sites are available, though they are hard to envision when all costs are included or when desirability from a student perspective is considered

Like it or not, future students will be the ultimate deciders of the wisdom of our decisions.

The most salient questions from my perspective remain housing and parking. They were critical when the plan was proposed, and they remain critical today.

But are these really the central questions on the path to realizing the decades-long dream of a university?

Would it not be better to focus on what community qualities — educational, social and cultural — would be enhanced by a four-year university in our midst?

Do we have the imagination to foresee a campus where today there is an open mining pit and an adjacent, environmentally corrupted dump?

Do we have the skill, political will and tenacity to solve the problems inherent in this development?

Or, by God, are we going to rally behind the preservation of the pit and the dump?

Or is it that some are afraid, not of the potential failure of the future campus, but of its likely success and the inevitable influence it will have on what Central Oregon is and what it stands for?

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