Four years, four schools, one location. That’s the promotional tagline for Santa Fe Community College’s proposed Higher Education Center, which will allow students to earn bachelor’s degrees without leaving Santa Fe. There’s only one catch: For months, SFCC has been blocked from actually building the center—and if the state has its way, the center may never be built at all.

In the Democratic primary race for 1st Judicial District Attorney, challenger Lloyd Drager has made much of the “defense attorney” background of incumbent Angela “Spence” Pacheco’s administration. Whether it’s due to a shift in the office’s philosophy or not, court statistics from Pacheco’s administration compared to that of her predecessor Henry Valdez do show a marked decrease in filing of felony cases overall, with a particular decline in prosecution of sexual assault and DWI crimes.

As a young man, Stuart Hall wanted to be a novelist.

As the projected costs for a mysterious “ghost town” skyrocket, questions about the company’s financials, size and seemingly vague, unrealistic business plans pile up.

“DOH is sick and only you can make it better,” says a robovoice at the end of a voicemail greeting on the local Bullying, Abuse, Retaliation and Fraud Tip Hotline. The unofficial hotline, created last fall for the New Mexico Department of Health employees, is just one of many examples of ongoing dysfunction at the state’s largest agency.

To most who pay attention, Dist. 3 Public Regulation Commissioner Doug Howe is a marked improvement over former commissioner Jerome Block, Jr. Block resigned last September after pleading guilty to various felonies and is currently on probation.

Behind the push toward a national set of “common core” standards in English and math is the attractive idea that every kid in the nation should be more or less reading, writing and arithmeticking at the same level at the same age.

Voters in House District 46, which stretches from Santa Fe up through the northern pueblos to Española and includes parts of White Rock and Chimayó, have grown accustomed to power. Outgoing New Mexico House Speaker Ben Luján, who represented the district for more than 35 years, possessed a legendary ability to control the Legislature and defend northern New Mexico. But by next session, all of this will change.

On May 15, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission voted to grant a protest, lodged by a branch of the federal Department of Energy, that questions whether New Mexico Gas Company is adequately prepared for another weather event like last winter’s deep freeze—and whether it could have prevented the major service interruptions that devastated much of the state last year.

The campaign to unseat longtime state Sen. Phil Griego, D-Los Alamos, is heating up with allegations that Griego used campaign contributions for illegitimate purposes—NFL tickets, golf, personal credit card bills and new tires for his car. In 2010, Griego didn’t even have an opponent—yet according to challenger (and former Santa Fe County Commissioner) Jack Sullivan, he raked in and then spent tens of thousands of dollars.