Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

19 citizens’ goal: What should Nevada be in 20 years?

Sun Coverage

CARSON CITY – Nineteen citizens, including 12 from Clark County, have been selected by a legislative committee to draw up a road map of where Nevada should be in five, 10 and 20 years in commerce, education, health and human services, infrastructure and public safety.

There have been complaints through the years that Nevada trails other states in providing services and also depends too much on gaming for its economy.

Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, said this committee is to “sit down and start looking longer than two years which we do now,” referring to the biennial meeting of the Legislature.

There were 85 people nominated for the project and the list was narrowed to 19 with some alternates. The recommendations of the group will be considered by the 2011 Legislature.

Four of the six members of the commerce and industry committee are from Las Vegas. They are Keith Smith of Boyd Gaming and Alan Feldman of MGM Mirage, along with contractor Boyd Martin and Donald Snyder of the Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

The other two are former Assembly Speaker Joe Dini of Yerington, who owns a small casino and was nominated by the Nevada Mining Association, and Douglas Dirks of Employers Holding in Reno. He once ran the state’s industrial insurance system.

Alternates were Doug Busselman of Sparks, who represents the Nevada Farm Bureau Federation and Devin Reiss of Las Vegas representing the Nevada Association of Realtors.

To chart the future of education, the legislative committee chose Paul Dugan of the Washoe County School District; Rene Cantu Jr., of the Latin Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas; Marsha Irvin of the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas and Brian Rippett of the Nevada State Education Association at Zephyr Cove.

The alternate in education was John Packham of the University Of Nevada School Of Medicine in Reno.

Four people from Las Vegas were selected to recommend where Nevada should be in the future. They were Peter Bernhard of the Cleveland Clinic Nevada; Sylvia Young of Sunrise Health; Susan Rhodes of the National Association of Social Workers and Denise Tanata Ashby of the Institute for Children’s Research and Policy at UNLV.

The alternate for human resources is Dan Goulet of United Way of Southern Nevada.

The legislative committee had the most difficult time selecting the three people to make recommendations for infrastructure in the future. Twice the committee deadlocked 4-4 with Northern Nevada lawmakers wanting one slate and Southern Nevada legislators favoring another group.

On the recommendation of Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, the deadlock was broken and the committee selected Thomas Perrigo of the department of planning and development for Las Vegas; Robert Lee Potter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Carson City and Terry Reynolds of the Reynolds Company in Sparks.

The alternate was Robert Lang of the Brookings Mountain West and the UNLV Department of Sociology.

For public safety, Washoe County Manager Katy Simon and Cedric Williams of the North Las Vegas Fire Department were named. The alternative was Janelle Kraft Pearce of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

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