And so we bid farewell to 2011.

It was an eventful year — earthquakes, tsunami, debt ceiling debate — but we expect 2011 might seem placid compared with the inevitable spectacle of the presidential campaign.

The economy failed to rouse itself as we had hoped.

But there were positive trends, too. It was a good year, generally speaking, for the agriculture industry, a mainstay of Baker County’s economy.

And it has nothing to do with maple syrup.

Or ice cream.

We’re curious, rather, about that state’s attempt to show that universal health care is attainable in the U.S.

A group visited Baker City last week to promote Vermont’s first-of-its-kind program.

Their enthusiasm, though palpable, doesn’t answer the key question: How to pay for supplying health insurance to people who don’t have it now?

Apparently Vermont is still working on its answer.

Lean times, these past few years.

But not for everyone.

Oregon state government, for instance, in what seems to us a contradiction of its incessant claims of financial trouble, barely trimmed its spending in areas that could hardly be described as essential.

Unless, of course, you consider it essential that the state pay for employees to attend meetings and conferences in places such as Salishan, Sunriver and, in one case, Gibraltar.

The case of Baker City’s newest cell phone tower raises an interesting conundrum for City Hall.

But the episode also gives the city a chance to possibly mend fences with some residents, and avoid controversies.

Last winter T-Mobile applied for a conditional-use permit to install a 50-foot tower and a 220-square-foot building on Spring Garden Hill.

The only trouble with a bequeathed gift is that you can’t personally thank the giver.

A pity, because we’d like to shake Anthony Silvers’ hand and tell him how much we appreciate what he’s done for Baker City.

It points to a disappointing trend, but the BLM’s decision to close the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center three days per week this winter makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense is keeping the Center open on days when just a couple dozen visitors show up.

During the past eight Januarys, for instance, the daily average has been 19 visitors.

But no matter how many people paid admission, the BLM had to make sure the Center was staffed and the snow plowed from the access road.

Center Director Sarah LeCompte estimates the BLM will save $20,000 to $30,000 by closing on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays through Feb. 12.

Not a king’s ransom, to be sure. But the savings could be important considering BLM is expecting 5-percent cuts in the Center’s budget each of the next three years.

Fortunately, the BLM will open the Center, regardless of the day, for large tour groups that pre-arrange a visit. That will help local tourism officials who are trying to attract just such groups.

Ideally, as the economy improves, visitor numbers will increase enough to justify resuming the Center’s normal, 7-days-per-week schedule.

Imagine that a U.S. citizen is arrested as a suspected terrorist, on U.S. soil, and then placed in military custody for as long as officials deem necessary.

Oh, and this citizen doesn’t get a trial, so the mere suspicion of complicity in promoting terrorism is sufficient grounds for an open-ended detention.

It sounds like the plot of a novel.

In fact it’s part of a bill that the U.S. Senate passed by a 93-7 vote on Dec. 1.

Greatest deliberative body in history, right?

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, won’t allow any inmates to be executed on his watch. Kitzhaber, elected last November to his third term (and second stint), recently described Oregon’s death penalty system as “broken,” “inequitable” and “compromised.”

Those terms imply certain things about Oregon’s recent experience with capital punishment that, if true, would indeed be cause for citizens to worry.

“Inequitable” suggests that Oregon is executing minorities or some other specific group of death row inmates at a disproportionate rate.

“Broken” and “compromised” indicate that the state has perhaps had to free condemned inmates who were exonerated by DNA or some other indisputable evidence of innocence.

Yet none of these things is true.

Baker City Editorial Board

Some super committee, huh?

Rarely has an entity been so inaptly named as the 12-member bipartisan panel tasked with trimming at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade.

Oh, those poor tobacco companies.

The gall of the U.S. Food and Drug and Administration, to mandate that cigarette packs include color photographs showing diseased lungs and other effects of smoking.

Beastly.

Fortunately for beleaguered Big Tobacco, it has at least one federal judge on its side.