3 Las Vegans join state Commission on Nuclear Projects

Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

When the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects meets Tuesday at Las Vegas

City Hall, three new commissioners will take their seats, and they are all from Las Vegas.

The new members will join commission Chairman Richard Bryan, a former U.S. senator and Nevada governor, and hear from Bruce Breslow, executive director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, in Nevada’s continuing opposition to a license application hearing for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Gov. Jim Gibbons appointed the three — Lia Roberts, Brian Scroggins and

Lois Tarkanian — last month to serve on the state commission for Nevada’s oversight of the Energy Department’s plan for a national nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Roberts was born in Bucharest, Romania, graduating in 1972 from the

University of Bucharest with a degree in geology and specialized in geotechnical engineering.

She retired at 30 when she moved to the United States in 1979. She was a two-term president of the Republican Women’s Club and a past chair of the Nevada Republican Party. She has chaired the state Taxicab Commission and served on the state’s Judicial Selection Commission.

She has also represented the United States as honorary consul general to her native Romania, where she has earned several national honors and once ran for president.

Scroggins, a graduate of Brigham Young University, was a candidate for

Nevada Secretary of State in 2006 and the Clark County Commission in 2008.

Before Gibbons appointed him to the state commission, Scroggins had served on the Clark County Enterprise Town Board, the Nevada State Contractors

Board and the Nevada State Construction Education Commission.

Scroggins owns United Sign Inc. in Las Vegas and continues to serve on the board of directors for the Las Vegas Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian has represented Ward I since 2005. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in education, a master’s degree in speech pathology and a doctorate in leadership and human behavior.

Before serving on the City Council, she served for 12 years as a member of the

Clark County Board of School Trustees.

As city councilwoman, Tarkanian serves on the city of Las Vegas Recommending

Committee, the Southern Nevada Water Authority Board, the Colorado River

Commission, the Oversight Panel for School Facilities, the Southern Nevada

Regional Planning Commission and as vice chair of the Debt Management

Commission. She also serves on boards that include Catholic Charities and the

Clark County Public Education Foundation.

She worked as a classroom teacher, a speech pathologist, principal, central office administrator and an instructor at Nevada Community College and California State University.

Tarkanian has been married to former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian for 50 years. The Tarkanians have four children and 10 grandchildren.

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By cignettis

11/5/09 at 8:04 a.m.

Suggest removal

Credentials to be on such a committee???? I see very little here to qualify any of them for such a task. When you really get dowwn to it the greatest mistake was made in the 1970s when this country went away from nuclear power generation. For that point on we are losing daily and this is one of the factors that in the near future will help to destroy this country. Most of these so called committee members have a hard time finding their rear ends on a bright sunny Vegas Day. And that's the rest of the story!!!!!! Why do I make these statements -----been there done it (all of it concerning nuclear) in the 1960s and 1970s then read the writng on the wall and left.
By 5r9i

11/5/09 at 8:20 a.m.

Suggest removal

It's important to note that the only green behind these efforts is money, not concern for the environment. These groups are very well-financed, backed, as they are, by corporations and other capitalist interests. What they lack in public support, they make up for in resources and powerful connections. Gov. Jim Gibbons,along
with the rest of his " Anti-Environmentalist,
backers,and supporter's for the opening and operation of the " Yucca Mountain Project, are in fact the "Nuclear waste" in question , that posses a real Health risk to all Nevadan's lives . If these Gov,contracted Labs dont have
the necessary Technology to deactivate the " Nuclear Matter, then they are all in the wrong line of business. What a Waste of American Tax Dollar's .
By Pete

11/6/09 at 10:32 a.m.

Suggest removal

I have to agree with cignettis -- the credentials (or lack of them) for such a committee on nuclear projects is laughable.

Again, another issue crucial to Nevada is left to politics. But why should I be surprised?

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