LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Now a staple for Nevada lawmakers, the Southern Nevada Forum started in 2013 as a way for members of the business community and others to select issues that legislators should consider during the 2015 session in Carson City.
This year's forum — which basically serves as a steering committee — met for the first time on Tuesday at Las Vegas City Hall.
The group was broken up into a handful of smaller committees charged with studying how to best tackle some of the region's biggest issues, such as economic development, education, health care, transportation and infrastructure, and governance.
"It's important to be involved and to have a voice," said Monica Pappas, co-founder of Fingerprinting Express, a local backgrounding company.
Pappas said that education and health care are areas where she'd like to see the state improve.
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Nevada is often lumped in with the lowest-rated states for public education in national rankings, and it has long faced a shortage of health care professionals, such as medical doctors and nurses.
On the education side, members of the Clark County Education Association teacher's union demonstrated publicly for months before reaching a contract agreement with the Clark County School District late last year.
Among the union's biggest concerns — that public school teachers here have long been underpaid.
Democratic state lawmaker Steve Yeager of Las Vegas, who served as Assembly Speaker during last year's legislative session, was at Tuesday's forum meeting.
"This is an opportunity for legislators, business leaders and other interested citizens to come in and talk about issues that important to our community," Yeager said. "At the Legislature, we only meet every other year and only for 120 days, so this time is important because we can prioritize what's important for Southern Nevada."
Individual sections of forum members will meet once per month from now until July, when final results will be presented.
