At the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it seemed as though some diminutive version of “shock and awe” had stumbled from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, Calif. American police forces had been “militarized,” many commentators worried, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere.

Five years ago, state agencies were in an uproar over New Mexico’s new online accounting system, known as SHARE. They blamed it for financial misstatements, unaccounted-for federal funds and other mistakes. In one high-profile case, the Federal Highway Administration threatened to cut off crucial funding when the New Mexico Department of Transportation failed to properly reconcile its federal funds with SHARE data.

At 18, Nick Montoya, a member of the Taos Pueblo, exuded health, he says. But that changed after a year of duty in Vietnam, where he was exposed to Agent Orange. Since 1969, Montoya has dealt with post-traumatic stress, alcoholism, depression, diabetes, kidney disease, a heart attack and, last September, open-heart surgery.

Instead of a City Council that produces radical, outside-the-box ideas—the types of ideas that are beginning to turn a crumbling Detroit into an urban-planning mecca, for instance—Santa Fe’s leaders turn repeatedly to the same government and tourism industries. Instead of stopping to think carefully about where we want our city to go, elected officials often seem complacent, quietly biding their time until “the economy gets better.” What if it doesn’t? What if Santa Fe won’t improve unless we take action?

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.

Santa Fe County is betting on a new highly paid administrator to help it save money in the long run, and it’s willing to overlook his controversial past.

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.

Check out the sexy version of SFR's weekly matrix--a Love & Sex issue special!

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.