Fall is glorious in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The colors are vivid, and the air is sweet. Winter, famously gray and rainy, will bring its downpours in time, but not yet. In a college town like Eugene, the atmosphere is charged with zesty expectation, especially for a freshman.

That’s the way it was 43 years ago for me and for my roommate Bob, who shared my provincial upbringing. Our small hometown was three driving miles away, but the cultural distance was measured in light years. The sophistication and the cosmopolitan flavor at the University of Oregon dazzled us. Portland kids, California kids, kids of different races and backgrounds. It was a new experience.

The anti-war movement hadn’t hit its stride yet, but communist speaker Gus Hall had put in a controversial appearance the year before. Life in this place overlapped the real world, and student government was serious business, epitomized by a student body president – tall and urbane – who seemed too mature to our naïve eyes to be just a fellow student.

“Someday,” Bob once predicted to me, “he’s going to be president of the United States.”

President? Not quite, but he reached the big leagues. Mayor of Portland, governor of Oregon, secretary of Transportation in the Carter administration. Neil Goldschmidt did OK politically.

A year and a half ago, in a blockbuster investigative story that crumpled Goldschmidt’s reputation, the alternative Portland newspaper Willamette Week summed up his stature this way:

“When the story of late-20th-century Oregon is written, Neil Goldschmidt will tower over most other public figures. His accomplishments as mayor and governor have stood the test of time.”

The newspaper went on to reveal that three decades earlier, as mayor, Goldschmidt began an affair with a 14-year-old girl. She was the daughter of a political associate, and he occasionally hired her as a baby sitter. The affair would last three years.

Eventually, threatened with a lawsuit, Goldschmidt agreed to a monetary settlement with the girl, who by then was a grown woman who had suffered from emotional problems.

The comparison between Neil Goldschmidt’s woes and Spokane Mayor Jim West’s woes is imperfect, but there are noticeable similarities. The most significant may be the contrast between political success in public and embarrassing moral failure in secret.

No question about it, Portland prospered because of Goldschmidt’s leadership. As Willamette Week noted, he put his city “on the map” with progressive civic developments that crowned Portland as a conspicuously “livable” city with a pedestrian-friendly downtown, clean and vibrant.

His forward-thinking policies on transit brought him to President Carter’s attention and landed him in the Cabinet. His legacy remains an urban asset, even if his personal image is in shambles.

West’s role in Spokane may not be on the same scale, but his accomplishments are striking. Beginning with an unsuccessful candidacy for Spokane County sheriff, he built a political career that took him to the pinnacle of the state Senate. He would have been a credible candidate for governor.

As mayor of Spokane, he brought civility to a City Hall that had rumbled with rancor. He helped establish thoughtful and realistic approaches to budgeting. He made headway on nagging problems like street maintenance and repair. City government improved under his watch. Now, many supporters say West’s positive impact needs to be preserved regardless of his sexual interest in high school-age partners.

When Goldschmidt’s 30-year-old secret was exposed, he stepped down from the Oregon State Board of Higher Education and other public positions, even taking a leave of absence from his consulting firm. West, in contrast, offered a vague apology to the community but clings tenaciously to his office.

If Goldschmidt had run for mayor back in the 1970s on a platform featuring his bold, visionary ideas while admitting his sexual relationship with a 14-year-old, how would Portland voters have reacted? Would they have accepted the scandal as a reasonable tradeoff for municipal vigor? It’s doubtful, but we can only speculate.

In Spokane, however, the voters will have a chance to address just that question in the recall election scheduled for Dec. 6. That vote will be a referendum not only on West’s tenure, but also on the public’s priorities.