Standing behind a coffee-decorated cart situated in Concrete Jungle’s front patio, a scarf-clad Phil Santos prepares espresso, condensed milk and soda for a concoction he invented, called “Hola Cola.”

The plan: Despite the incubator’s success, however, shifting Santa Fe’s economy away from heavy reliance on its usual industries will take much more than one entity’s well-intentioned efforts.

Two years ago, Ernestine Morales spoke to SFR about her fear amid rumors of cuts in the state’s Medicaid-funded Developmental Disabilities Waiver. Morales’ daughter Monique was born with microcephaly, a neurological disorder that has kept her 44-year-old brain at the mental capacity of a 2-year-old. For the past decade, Morales has been taking care of Monique in her Albuquerque home under the DD Waiver for a monthly government stipend.

Chris Eyre has been involved with nine feature films since his 1998 debut Smoke Signals, yet the indie sensation, which was marketed as the first feature film written, directed and produced by Native Americans and which won a plethora of awards and acclaim, will likely remain his best-known work. In January, Eyre was named chairman of Santa Fe University of Art and Design’s Moving Image Arts Department, a big win for a college that nearly shut its doors for good three years ago. Now, Eyre is on a mission to make the department, in his words, a “world-class film school.” SFR sat down with Eyre to discuss his new position. This interview has been condensed from his comments.

If a recent tussle between a local engineer and officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory shows anything, it’s that one lab’s error is another man’s dilemma.

New Mexico Department of Health employees received an unwelcome Valentine’s Day gift last week when the agency’s Public Health Division director sent out a sweeping order.

On Jan. 17, the opening day of New Mexico’s 2012 legislative session, longtime state House of Representatives Speaker Ben Luján, D-Santa Fe, stood before a hushed chamber. Luján, a diminutive man in his 70s who for years had controlled much of what happened at the capitol, had just announced that he had lung cancer and planned to retire from politics. The 2012 session would be his last. It was the end of an era.

The New Mexico Supreme Court’s Feb. 10 order rejecting the latest New Mexico House of Representatives redistricting plan sent some Roundhouse Republicans into a fury.

In 2006, real estate developer Jeff Branch convinced the city to annex land near Agua Fria Village to help him build a 222-unit subdivision. In return, Branch agreed to bring the city 23 acre-feet of water rights and make 40 percent of his housing units meet the city’s affordability guidelines.

Paul Singdahlsen has been a state employee for 18 years. Each day, he helps with maintenance work on art pieces and exhibits for the Department of Cultural Affairs. But only in the past four years has he begun to notice a trend: He and his colleagues have been taking on more work for less pay.