Oregon’s Public Meetings Law explains in admirably clear language what school boards and other public agencies aren’t supposed to do during an executive session, which is a meeting, or portion of a meeting from which the public can legally be excluded.

Among these prohibitions, to quote the law: “No executive session may be held for the purpose of taking any final action or making any final decision.”

The Baker School Board violated that provision of the law Friday evening when it agreed to have vice chair Damien Yervasi telephone Walter Wegener Jr. and offer him the job of superintendent.

Wegener accepted the board’s offer. He later confirmed that in a telephone interview with Herald education reporter Chris Collins.

Yervasi, along with Board Chair Deon Strommer, disagree with our contention.

They argue that their actions don’t constitute a final decision because Wegener had only verbally accepted the board’s $102,537 salary but had not signed a contract.

The Baker School Board brought to town this week the three finalists for the job of replacing Don Ulrey as superintendent.

But in our estimation the board’s decision should come down to just two candidates: Earl Pettit of Douglas, Ariz., and Walter Wegener Jr. of Friday Harbor, Wash.

The third finalist, George Park of Panguitch, Utah, disqualified himself by failing to disclose a significant, and relevant, fact to the board when he was interviewed earlier this month.

The fact is that Park had been on paid administrative leave from his job as superintendent of the Garfield County district since July 2009. Park resigned from that job on April 1 of this year.

The Baker School Board didn’t learn about Park’s situation until board members Ginger Savage and Lynne Burroughs traveled to Utah, after Park’s interview, to talk with locals about his performance.

On the one hand, Baker City’s police and fire department unions had exquisite timing.

They signed five-year labor contracts, with guaranteed yearly salary increases, in June 2008, right about when the economy went from a little sluggish to downright sloth-like.

You remember the $4-plus gas that summer, right?

On the other hand, the two unions locked in 3-percent cost-of-living pay raises while the city’s revenues have stayed basically stagnant.

Of course nobody forced the City Council to ratify those contracts.

Both pacts were negotiated in good faith, both are legally binding, and the 3-percent annual raises are reasonable by the standards of the city’s past contracts.

Malheur County’s Education Service District doesn’t want to merge with the Baker County portion of the Union-Baker ESD.

We don’t blame our neighbors to the south for their reluctance.

The proposed merger would have increased property taxes for Malheur County residents.

The Umatilla-Morrow ESD board of directors, however, is still interested in aligning with Union-Baker.

UBESD Superintendent Mike Sowder is amenable to that plan, too.

We don’t much care which direction UBESD officials look as they try to get ahead of a possible state-mandated merger.

What we do care about is making sure the UBESD’s innovative South Consortium survives the transition.

The Consortium, which was formed a few years ago, comprises four school districts: Baker, Pine-Eagle, Burnt River and North Powder.

The inventor who figures out how to manufacture snow tires with retractable studs is going to make a real pile.

In the meantime we’re left to argue about saving lives or keeping Oregon’s highways rut-free.

The debate over the use of studded tires is hardly a new one, of course.

Every now and again critics dredge up ODOT’s estimate that studs cause $40 million in damage to the state’s roads each year. Studded tires are blamed specifically for wearing ruts into the asphalt.

The current anti-stud spokesman is Jeff Bernards.

He wants to get an initiative on the ballot in 2012 that would let Oregon voters decide whether to ban studded tires.

“Our state is in trouble financially and I think it’s a small sacrifice to ask that handful of people to forego studded tire use,” Bernards said.

We’re not sure what, or who, he means by “handful.”

Finally we can put some dollar figures on what Oregon ranchers stand to lose because their Legislature keeps failing to do something about wolves.

Or perhaps our lawmakers don’t follow the news and so aren’t aware that lobos, some with a taste for lambs, have returned to the state after being absent, at least officially, for more than half a century.

But then again the Legislature did accomplish some vital business when it convened for a special session in February.

For instance, specifying that foreign exchange students who live in a dorm run by the school district are residents of that district.

Nice of them to clear that up.

President Obama’s seemingly sudden affinity for offshore oil drilling makes tempting fodder for charges that the president is a hypocrite.

But we will resist the urge.

Not that it’s a particularly strong urge, come to that.

The reality, at any rate, is rather more complicated than those “Obama’s a flip-flopper” allegations going around.

Yes, the president did accuse John McCain, during the 2008 campaign, of pandering to conservative Republicans by calling for Congress to overturn the federal moratorium on offshore drilling.

But Obama also pointed out that doing away with the moratorium then, during the $4 gas crisis, probably would have little immediate benefit.

And he was right.

But he was also wrong.

We had a feeling those “Furlough Fridays” for state workers would devolve into a fiasco.

It looks as though our skepticism was well-founded.

The idea, promoted by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, was that the state could save $40.8 million over two years by requiring 26,500 state employees to take 10 days off, without pay.

But rather that mimicking private businesses, most of which require employees to treat furlough days as unpaid holidays that must be scheduled in advance, the state mandated that most affected workers stay home on pre-determined Fridays.

As a result, many state offices, including DMVs, have been closed on the three “Furlough Fridays” since the program started last October.

We’ve been wondering just how many national parks Oregon’s two senators have visited.

Of course Oregon only has the one — Crater Lake.

Still and all, we figured Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley had traveled rather more extensively.

The occasion that piqued our curiosity about the senators’ experience with national parks was their touting of a piece of legislation they introduced recently.

This bill, which passed the Senate but is pending in the House, would allow the National Park Service to decide whether to prohibit a Bend company, Leading Edge Aviation, from taking visitors to Crater Lake National Park on flights following the Rim Road that encircles the lake.

What’s the perfect complement to an air show?

The answer, of course, is a steak dinner.

This little quiz goes toward explaining why we’re so pleased about this summer’s revival, after a one-year absence, of the Wings over Baker show at the Baker City Municipal Airport.

But the display of pilots’ aerobatic skills isn’t the only thing that’s being rejuvenated.

This year’s event, set for July 23-24, is combined with another popular, and more venerable, Baker County tradition: the Durkee Steak Feed.