Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

3 Las Vegans join state Commission on Nuclear Projects

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.

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