 Good morning. Commissioner Cameron. Present. Commissioner O'Brien. Here. Commissioner Zunica. Here. Good morning, everybody. Commissioner Stevens. I'm here. Good morning, everyone. And we're five. So we can get started today. As I've noted, each of our meetings here using remote technology. That is permissible. Might have the open meeting law because I relieved the governor provided it in an executive order. At the beginning of the. Endemic crisis. Today is Thursday, September 10th. And we are calling today. Public meeting. Number 319. We'll get started with item number two on our. Agenda. The minutes. Mr. Stevens. Thank you, Madam chair. My colleagues in your packet. You have the minutes from the very extensive July 2nd, 2020 meeting. I would move their approval subject to any. Typographical errors or any other non-material. Any questions or edits for. The minutes. I do have one area that I think you should clarify at 316 p.m. Yeah, just one minute commissioner. On page 10. Page 10. The bottom. Ms. Regan is talking. We're in the middle of the conversation about. The MTBA and our authority. The second sentence. I think we need to rewrite it to make clear that the representation of. Fulfilling the statutory and fiduciary obligations. It's Ms. Regan's interpretation of Mr. Grossman's comments and not Mr. Grossman's comments. Because we have that outstanding issue of our other on over arching fiduciary obligations. So I think it should probably read. Ms. Regan stated. That. Fulfilling it would fulfill the statutory and fiduciary obligations of the commission. I think we take Mr. Grossman out of it. And then there's no confusion that's her sort of interpretation. And on his. Okay. That was all I had. Okay. Any additional edits or suggestions? They were extensive minutes. Thank you so much. Okay. Hearing none. I'll take a roll call. Second. Thank you. No further discussion. Roll call. Commissioner Cameron. I. Commissioner O'Brien. I. Commissioner Zuniga. I. Commissioner Stubbins. I. And I vote yes. Five zero. Thank you so much. Move on to the administrative update interim executive director. Well, please. Karen, you are on mute. Thank you. The phrase of 2020 year on mute. So before I go without saying it. Before I get started. I think Agnes is, is on the meeting here. Agnes. Are you there? You could. Yes. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. So before we get started, I just wanted to recognize that after. What is it? Almost 30 years or how many years of service? Agnes. I have to say. Yeah. You don't have to say. 37. Many, many years. Any successful years of service to the Commonwealth. Agnes is going to be retiring. So I really just wanted to recognize her for all she's done for this office. You know, I talked to Derek this morning, unfortunately, had an emergency. He had an emergency dental appointment. He had to get to. So we're going to address Agnes at a later meeting, but I just wanted to say thank you, Agnes. We are not saying goodbye and that you'll be back as a 960 employee, but I just wanted to say hi. Thank you. And just recognize this milestone. You know, Derek, it said you have, you know, that that division a great place to work contributed a lot to our agency. And I just wanted to acknowledge that this morning. Thank you very much, Karen. I appreciate your comments and sentiments. It's been a joy being at the gaming commission. I have worked at many different state agencies, and I can't say that they were as fun as the gaming commission. It was always something new and different. Do you want to kept me on my toes? That's for sure. Yeah. And, and the people all worked together, which was. Something different in state government, you know, they weren't as tunnel visioned. So it was really fun. I enjoyed my time at the commission and. I will be back for a little bit. Okay. So thank you for that. I don't know if I hear it. Other commissioners wanted to say anything to Agnes. Yeah, let me, let me start. If I may, um, you know, as a stressor, I interacted with that with, I interact with finance quite a bit. And of course a big part of that is Agnes and she's been, she's got here. She's helped us really run that whole department in a very good way, efficient way. She brings a lot of great humor to the work as well. A camaraderie. And I'm glad to see that the transition plan. For replacing Agnes means that she will be back in the limited capacity, I suppose, but with the ability to do a lot of great work. She's helped us really run that whole department in a very good way, efficient way. And I'm glad to see that with the ability to do a lot of great work that we really need. Even with those. So thank you for all the contributions you've made Agnes. And thank you for agreeing to stay with us a little bit longer. In these, in these most of the mutual times. Thank you, Enrique. Yeah, I would, I would love to chime in as well. Agnes. I always enjoyed your visits to the 13th floor. And you, you know, you helped build this organization with us. You were one of our early folks and you understood finance, but you also, you contributed so much more. I mean, you were the problem solver in the office, whatever was going on, you were there to help you and Janice usually, but things got done and you did it in a way that was, you were decisive, but yet, as you say, you had fun along the way too. So those are really nice comments about the commission. It's nice that you feel that way. I know I share how you feel about this commission. And that we will miss you, but you'll still be here. So I just don't know who's going to solve all the problems. Thank you. I'm sure you'll find someone. Mr. Stevens. I, it's been a pleasure to work with Agnes and even when we were in the other part of one on one federal street, popping up to her little domain on, I can't remember the floor we were on, but she's not only an incredible resource, just an incredible personality. There's nobody who knows procurement and bidding and RFP law, I think better than Agnes. And so she kept us all out of trouble. But, you know, hey, a toast to you with ice coffee this morning. And thanks for your great work. Thank you. Sure, Brian. I don't know you as well as the other commissioners. I haven't been here quite as long, but I have to say I had the pleasure of sitting next to Agnes in the middle of a very, very long procurement process. Not only she detail oriented, but she's got a very dry wit. So I will miss that quite a bit going forward in procurement. I know you're looking forward to it. Thank you. Well, I'll just add in briefly, because I understand we're going to have a chance to really reflect on all of your accomplishments in the future. I do appreciate the fun factor and Agnes. I did take time to at least go by your office. Just hoping I'd get a little bit of your laugh often. So thank you. But I also did get to really benefit from your extensive procurement. Expertise along with commissioner O'Brien in that extensive procurement. It was extensive, but it was done swiftly and with care. And we were so fortunate to have your, your expertise to guide us and be able to look across the table and see you shaking your head and smiling and sharing that wit. So I know that. There'll be a hole in our expertise. There's somebody out there that is getting groomed to. At some point take your place. We are very, very pleased when I say that we have no idea who the candidate is, but there's someone out there. We, and like you say, we'll find someone, but we are really glad that you are staying on with us and in that, you know, that really unique limited rule that will keep you connected and keep us connected and we'll get to have that expertise. So I understand you can take a little time. Oh, yes. And I think that's great. Enjoy that time. And we will. We'll be back and we'll hear from, from Derek and really reflect on all your accomplishments. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 37 years. We should be really proud of that. I never knew when that ceiling towel hit me on the head in the state house that this would still be here. In the state house itself. Yeah, it was, it was under renovations when I started. Yeah. Something down on you. Maybe state government was for you, right? I guess. I think it was a sign. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Agnes. It's so nice to see your face too. Thank you. So a couple items I just wanted to address before the commission is part of the administrative update. As far as the licensing division chief position that has been posted, we've been working as a team with Derek, Loretta, Jill, and I have been working together. She's been engaged in that process and we have received resumes. So we're moving forward on that. Derek has been covering the super as the supervisor of the division. And the team members have really stepped up with some added responsibilities during the search process. So I wanted to say thank you to Derek and those team members. It's always tough when a leader leaves and you have to cover until a new person fills that position. So they've been stepping up and all the reports have been getting and good. So I wanted to say thank you to that team. We are also working on a posting for an additional attorney in the legal division. So we're using that same process with the team. To look for the best and most diverse candidate pool for that position. And also, I had the opportunity last week, you know, I've mentioned to you that we are still going forward with the remote working. The, we did have the equipment distribution. We could go Friday and then the last Monday, but we do a Monday. And it really was good to see people. We can talk a little bit about how it's, it's hard working remotely because you don't have that direct connection with the team. So I wanted to say thank you to the team. And I wanted to say thank you to the team. I think it's hard working remotely because you don't have that direct connection with people. So I saw Derek and Tripp, three of us were working on the distribution. It was nice to see them. And then as people drove up in their cars and got some of their equipment, it was a great opportunity to see some people that way. So I thank you again to the team, the IT team, the HR team, finance team for putting that whole process together. So Agnes as well. And so we'll continue to move forward in that remote working environment. And it seems to be going well, but it shows that it does matter to be able to see people. So it was nice to get that opportunity while we were there. So that's all I have in the administrative update portion. And there are any questions on any of those matters? Okay. So next I wanted to turn it over to Bruce band. He'll take the lead on the casino updates. I just wanted to make sure you're aware of what's going on at the property, particularly with regard to casino clients with the COVID procedures and mandates from the commission. So I'll turn it over to Bruce band to give you an update at what's going on at the properties. Yes. Madam chair commissioners over over the weekend. It was relatively quiet as far as COVID goes. There were a few more evictions at the encore property, but nothing on the scale of the past weekends. We did have one complaint from a patron about safety at encore, which we made on core aware of. They did take action by placing additional guards in the garages and in the lobbies of the elevator. Property, which did seem to have some effect on the, on the patrons. As always, it's a slow process getting the public to comply with these kinds of things with four people in an elevator or that, but it did seem to be having a somewhat of a positive effect. They also were reminding people at the hotel desk of, you know, these COVID matters. So it is a slow process, but I think it's moving forward as we would hope it would. Any questions on that or. So I have a question in terms of the, the complaint that was launched that came to us, I believe. Yes. So I thank you for following right up and working with the licensee to, to review it and think about how they can address the, the overall complaint was that there might be reaches of sorts in terms of social distancing and mask wearing. I am particularly concerned about mask wearing. And generally is the compliance high, or are we seeing that drop off? I think it's, you know, it is high from what my staff has, has observed. Still the, you know, every once in a while you have the non-compliant individual, which security and the employees and G. You are seem to be taking care of right away. I just don't see the non-compliance. I don't see the non-compliance in that area. And we review it on camera all, all the time. Any further questions for Bruce on this? Well, I know you gave just another on Angkor, but I was wondering if you will talk about playing rich. Derby day. Yeah. Plain Ridge and MGM. We have not had any problems with to date. Kentucky Derby went fine. We had people on site for the, you know, the whole Derby. That went very smoothly. Thanks to Alex there. You know, MGM has been going very smoothly out there. So their hotel is open, but it's invited guests only. So that's a little different scenario when, you know, the hosts are inviting the people individually. So we've had no, no problems to speak of at those two properties. Right. For the questions for Bruce. Just, is there any area that you think needs more focus? Or do you feel like. The non-compliance you see is more sporadic and more client. Yeah, I think it's more sporadic and, you know, individuals, which those individuals have been dealt with. Or evicted from the property when they do become problematic. You know, there's always one in the crowd. So they say, you know, so they, they seem to be handling those on a case by case basis. Yeah. I think that's a good point. Other questions we, we thank every, everyone for vigilance, the licensee. For the gaming agents. Bruce, your entire unit. So thank you. Thank you. Excellent. So next I'd want to turn it over to Dr. Lightbound for the director of racing for just a racing update. We did have the Derby day last week. So I did want to give her an opportunity to talk about that. And the other things that are going on with racing. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Lightbound. Hi, everybody. Good morning. So the drive through at Plain Ridge went very well. It was very smooth. To wash myself. And to get to the racing building, you have to drive through their, the system they had set up. So as I drove in, I was met by the head of security. I was going. You know, whether I was. Alex, we've lost you just for a minute. I don't know if we can hear is it me? Or is it Alex? He froze up. Yeah. Let's see if. Can gain a. Gain back access. Alex, if you want to suspend the video portion, that might help you on. Streaming through the internet. Karen, I don't know. They're out there. She's. I can't even see. I'll give her just a second to see if we can reconnect. Yeah, if we can't reconnect, we could always move on and have her come back later. Yes, we definitely want to hear it. We do want to hear about. Every day. And then just also any other racing update she has. Karen, please, please let her know not to be nervous about it. And we'll have her report later when, when she becomes. Available. Okay. Okay. I'll text her right now. Thank you so much. So we could move on to item four, Madam chair. If you want to do that and I'll connect the balance. Okay. Excellent. Jill, please director of workforce, supplier and diversity development. There you are, Jill. Thank you. Good morning, chair Judd Stein commissioners. Good morning. As we have before with MGM and with clean ridge park casino. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. When our licensees complete their internal construction close out. Process. We bring them back. To present to the commission, their final diversity numbers. We are joined today by the dedicated. On core Boston Harbor and their. We have a lot of work to do. Who really took the legislature's intent about creating economic opportunity. With a particular focus on minorities, women and veterans. Without any further ado, I'd like to turn the mic over to Jackie. On core Boston Harbor, who will introduce. Our team. Thank you so much. We're so pleased to be here today to provide a final report on our accomplishments with respect to our goals for women, minority and veteran participation in the construction of our project. Both in terms of vendor spend and workforce. However, before we get into our presentation before I introduce some of the other important people who have worked on this tirelessly. I'd be remiss if I did not acknowledge the extraordinary work that was involved in achieving these goals. Our partnerships with community groups, the access and opportunity committee, the commission's continued support in particular, Jill's dedication and much needed and appreciated patients. Our host and surrounding communities. Our construction team in particular, Suffolk construction and the many subcontractors who were all held accountable. Joining me today all the way from Utah is not a stranger. It's Jenny Peterson. And I know that most of you already know Jenny, but Jenny was responsible for creating and implementing our procurement and workforce diversity strategy. The design and construction of the project. Jenny had the, an enviable job of chasing everyone. And while Jenny is now pursuing different interests today, we could not present these remarkable achievements without acknowledging co-significant role. We also have with us Emily. I didn't see Emily, but I can't see everybody. I'm here. We have Emily Earl. She was the, or is the project controls manager for Suffolk construction. And from our first interview with Suffolk construction, we stress the importance of our commitment to achieving significant diversity goals. Suffolk designed and implemented a strategy for ensuring and tracking success. Smaller bid packages, partnerships with smaller diverse subcontractors. And a badging system that allowed us to effectively track our work on a daily basis. Finally, while she unfortunately was not able to join us this morning, this team would not be complete without acknowledging Shelly Webster. Shelly is the principal at in order business development solutions. She was previously with Suffolk construction. And she was instrumental in fostering introductions, monitoring compliance and establishing the relationships with local states and community organizations throughout our construction process. So I'm going to ask. Sorry. Somebody other question. I saw a hand. Okay. Finally, I think if we can just look at the report. And then I'm going to turn it over. So as you know, we established goals for the utilization of minority woman and veteran business enterprises for both the design and construction contracts. And in addition, workforce participation. On the design contracts, we ended up paying 14.6 million to minority woman and veteran business enterprises. Our goal for minority business enterprises was 7.7% and we achieved 9%. Our goal for enterprises was 10%. We were just under at 8.6. And our goal for veteran business enterprises was 1% and we were just under 8.6. And our goal for veteran business enterprises was 1% and we were just under 8.6. And our goal for veteran business enterprises was 1% and we achieved 5.9% for a total of 23.4% versus our goal of 18.9%. On our construction contracts, we paid 257.2 million to minority woman and veteran business enterprises. Our goal for minority business enterprises was 5% and we achieved 5.9. For women business enterprises, we had a total of 5.4. And my screen just disappeared. And we blew that away. The 5.4 goal. We blew that away with 12.8%. On the veteran business enterprises, we had a goal of 11.4 and we achieved 18.2%. I'd like to take a moment now to pause and turn it over to Jenny to give you a sense of what it entailed to achieve these construction contract goals. Jenny. Thanks Jackie. And it's really wonderful to be here this morning and to see so many familiar faces. It was such a pleasure working with all of you for so many years. And as Jackie mentioned, it truly was a collaborative effort. Everybody put a part in this. In terms of the, the contracts for design and for construction. I think one of the most important parts of the effort was providing early access to minority women and veteran owned businesses to all of the opportunities that we had available. And many of you were involved in helping us reach these businesses and ensure they were aware of the opportunities, the timelines and what it took to be able to have a chance at working on the project. And I'll just highlight two things. One was we, one of the very first things we put together was a, a small meeting and an opportunity for minority women and veteran owned businesses and local businesses to come and meet with our remediation design team. And we, we worked with a number of different organizations to make sure we were reaching the MWBBs in this space and really just spent a couple of hours talking with them, making sure they understood the specs. And it was actually through a partnership with, another Acevedo who I see is on the line here and the Hispanic American Institute that we were able to connect with charter contracting who was not only our very first construction contract for minor, for, for remediation, but was our very first minority owned business. A Latino owned business who did a terrific job on remediation of the land and then of the water, which was of course a really key feature of the development altogether. And then because Emily's on the line, I've got to mention the massive fair we did at Everett High School. It felt like we had a thousand people there, but it was probably, I think we had well over 300 minority women, a veteran owned and local businesses that came to Everett High School. Suffolk brought out their entire estimating and project management team for all the different subcontracting scopes. And there was a chance for these businesses to, to meet face to face in advance of the bids with the Suffolk team. And that was incredibly impactful. Emily, I don't know if you have anything else to say about that, but you were truly instrumental in putting that together. We, we had a great turnout that round. And I know that some of the relationships that came from that meeting have continued to develop past the Encore project for Suffolk and although a lot of the enterprise businesses. So that's been kind of wonderful actually to see just the relationship development that has stemmed from this project and continues to grow in the city of Boston. It's really wonderful. One particular one that we'll highlight from that event was BroCo Oil was a veteran owned business who. Provides fuel. To subcontractors and he was, I think just had like two fuel trucks at that point. Heard about this event thought, Hey, you know, I won't be working directly for Suffolk. But there's going to be a lot of subs at this, at this place and he came and he went down the list of attendees and met everybody he could. And now he's really expanded his business and was able to partner up with a tremendous number of Suffolk subcontractors. And that was kind of what he describes as the start of it all for him. I know he's still working on a bunch of other projects for us working for us directly and working for our subcontractors. So he's grown quite exponentially as a result of this relationship. And I think that's one of the most positive stories is the ongoing impact of what we did and how it's continued to grow and develop in the greater Boston and your area. So moving on to the construction work force. We have a chair. I'm sorry. I would like to add a couple of things to your report. Okay. My name is Nadir. I'm a former banker. So I work around numbers. Jenny, you forgot to say a couple of things. One that we drank 80 pounds of coffee. We have 26 breakfasts and we reached out to over 450 small businesses. Thank you for the coffee. 80 pounds of coffee, Jenny. No, you see, you know, those breakfasts, those quarter breakfast, it was something that Jenny put together with me and with the Institute. And he developed into a lot of money and a lot of contrasts for many, many Latinos and many, many small businesses. You mentioned just one, Robert Del Homme. He went to the first breakfast and he secured a contract with you guys. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to work with all of you. I'm still around, but now this is the operation period. But I think that you did a great, great job during the construction and thank you for helping all these small businesses and especially the Latino and small businesses on the Commonwealth for Massachusetts. Thank you, Jenny. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. And I'm looking forward to more breakfasts. They're always fun. We're looking forward to in-person breakfast. Yes. That's what we did. That's how it started. I love that. I love that. It didn't find it, but we started, I think the first breakfast, it was only two people, Jenny and I, one, one commercial place, one, you were downtown, downtown. And we had coffee and we said, they have more coffee. Thank you, Jenny. Thanks, Heather. So moving on to the construction workforce, we had 1,870 minorities, 491 women and 311 veteran construction workers perform work on the project. Each of these exceeded the goals that we had set. So for minority workers, we had a goal of 15.3% and we achieved an additional 10% to bring it to 25.7%. For women, we had a goal of 6.9 and we achieved 7.2. And for veteran workers, we had a goal of 3% and we achieved 5.3. Lest you think that was easy, it was not. I recall many discussions with Jenny about where we were and what we could do. They were tears shed. And I think one of the most extraordinary outcomes of this project was the formation of the Massachusetts goals and trades, which I'll turn over to Jenny who is the co-founder to tell you more about. Sure. Thanks, Jackie. Hopefully not too many tears, tears of joy at points. So we, you know, early on we looked at the goals and what we would, what it was going to require to get there by the end of the project. And actually there were a recommendation of Liz Skidmore and a few others. Before we got started on construction, we actually went to meet with each of the union business agents and training directors. And across the board, we heard that it would likely be a challenge to find enough women for the scale of project. And we were asking why? And a lot of people told us, well, women just aren't interested in this work. And, you know, we thought, well, it pays really well. You, it's very satisfying work. You get to see what, you know, what you've built at the end of the day. Why could, you know, why is that? Or that just didn't, that didn't seem right to us. And I was actually on a tour of Minuteman high school with family member of our, of our director of facilities, Dana Ham. And, and I looked into a lot of, I saw the plumbing class, the electrical class, carpentry, and there were a lot of young women high school students in those classes engaging in the trades, learning the trades and you know, we kind of asked the question, well, what's happening to these young women? After they graduate, they've got, you know, three to four years of experience in high school. Why aren't they continuing on to the trades? And it was just, there wasn't really a great answer. But I think likely that they didn't have the information or the connections that they needed to continue in the field. So Mary Ann Ham at Minuteman and I got together and we said, let's start something. And we put together a long list of people that we could call who could help us with this. And of course, Liz was on the list and Shelly and we all, and Mary Vocal and, and many others. And we all got together at Minuteman and we said, hey, let's, let's put something together to connect the young women across the state who are working, who are, who are going to school, they're obvious, you know, they're interested in electrical, they're interested in plumbing, they're interested in carpentry and, and many, many other trades. And let's get them introduced to some, to some actual working trades women. Let's teach them what it takes to apply for the trades and, and join a building trade and pursue this career. And I think we met in, felt like maybe September, October or something. And by January, February, we'd put together this conference, the girls in trades conference and we invited all the young women from across the straight and from across the, across the state in construction related trades. They all came and we had to meet with some trades women, including T. Lawson, who at that point was an equipment operator for Lorenzo on our site. And she was fantastic. She's got a, she's a great speaker. She was so engaging. She was taking selfies with the girls and they just loved her. I think she was a terrific inspiration for them. But all these young women also got to meet with, meet with actual training directors and business agents for the trades and learn about how they could continue with what, with a passion they'd already identified in high school. We don't know the exact numbers of how many young women were in the first year. Maybe we're a sophomore or a junior or a senior that first year, we did the conference, you know, made it into the trades and, and maybe worked on the site. But we could, you know, we definitely saw the numbers improve. And hopefully that's something that again, beyond this project has a lasting impact in the state that there were, I think we had 300 young women the first year. And that was the, the event into two, a one for Eastern Mass and one for Western Mass. And then it was 500 and then 500 again the year after that. And I actually got to go back to the, the Western Massachusetts conference last fall before everything closed down. And that was really a joy to see that continuing. So that's just one aspect that definitely finding enough women was, was the, was the biggest challenge on the workforce. But there was a lot that went on in terms of also reaching people of color and veterans to work on the site as well. And I think also maintaining the number of women and veterans and minorities who are working on the project. What we started to see at the end of the project was a reduction in that. Jenny was instrumental in identifying the cause of that and managing to speak to the subcontractors to, to try to slow that essentially the most senior trades members was staying on when the numbers were being reduced. And I think we were able to slow that. Yeah. And I'll give a huge amount of credit to Emily Earl. We, every week we looked at the numbers we called them, but you know, a long spreadsheet of every single subcontractor who was on the site and their payroll hours broken down by the demographics as well. We would also compare that to the LCP tracker, which is the badging system. And Emily set up and we had a lot of tough meetings with people where we, we saw the numbers moving in the, if not the direction we wanted them to. So Emily, I don't know if you want to speak to some of what went on and some of the improvements we saw in the good things. There was a lot of, a lot of, a lot of work that went into this. We, on a daily basis tracked who was on our site who was off of it. While the badging was also for safety, we definitely used it to our advantage here to make sure that people weren't moving and shuffling their employees just so they met numbers. We wanted to make sure that their, the subcontractors had kind of a 10 year continual work group and that the women of color or the, or the veterans or whatever weren't being shuffled from job to job just to meet their requirements. We wanted them to have the training that was necessary to help them grow in their career. So that was a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, a lot of just time spent relationship development with these people to make sure that kind of, they knew we were serious about this, right? This is something that on court took extremely seriously. Suffolk took extremely seriously and we wanted to make sure that we hit the goals. They weren't goals for us. They were requirements. So I think we're really proud of the numbers that came out of this. I think Jenny, you, Shelly and I worked really well as a team to try and get this. I think the subcontractors worked really hard. And I think you can see just the lasting effects of this project and the commitment that everyone has started to really take on the projects as they go forward is pretty wonderful. So I know we've used a lot of their, the suggestions from the AOC about best practices as we've continued past this project as well. So thanks to everyone. Thanks Emily. Any questions for our team? Jill, have we recognized all of our guests today? I want to make sure we haven't missed anyone. So after their presentation is complete, I'm going to recognize. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So I did want to say when they, when Emily said. They had a daily compliance check in. They weren't kidding. When we did our internal audit of the diversity figures. We saw emails saying things like, Hey, from, from Suffolk. Hey, we noticed the X female or X person of color. Wasn't on the job today. What happened? And the subcontractor would, you know, reply back. Oh, just a doctor's appointment. She'll be right back tomorrow. So. There was really focused compliance. Really impressive. So I just want to thank you for that. And less, less, we think it's all about the numbers. We do have one of the trades women who actually worked on the encore of Boston. Harbour project, and we'll hear from savvy in a minute. First, I wanted to acknowledge actually. All the folks who worked on the access and opportunity committee. The access and opportunity committee was really the cornerstone of the commission's diversity monitoring and compliance. Strategy. This group met monthly more than 40 times. Alternating between Springfield and Boston. So. You can imagine what a tremendous commitment. This was, you know, each meeting lasted several hours. We went through detailed reports by contractor and by trade. And some of them, the early meetings weren't easy on anyone. You know, yeah, I see Nader and laughing. Yeah. A couple of those. It took some time to develop trust and realize that everyone. Was on the same team and really wanted the same results. But I'd like to acknowledge these participants now. And if they could. Turn on their video and wave when I say your name. So I'll start alphabetical Nader. From the Hispanic American Institute. This year, Antonio Amaya from lock community dad. Everett. Jody Bayer and Jessica. Yeah. Miss from the center for women in enterprise. Frank Callahan from mass building trades council. Alberto Calvo from Chelsea chamber of commerce. Maureen Carney from the mass AFL CIO. Lisa Clausen, I think is here today from the New England carpenters labor management program. Brian Doherty from the building and construction trades council. Of the Metropolitan district. Emily Earl, we heard from thank you for all your work, Emily. Mark Ehrlich from the New England regional council of carpenters. John Fitzpatrick from the Massachusetts supplier diversity program for the Commonwealth. Priscilla Flint banks from the black economic justice institute. And we have Tom Flynn and Jason grand also from the carpenters. I'm going to start with you. Fiori Grissetti. I think came to almost every meeting. He was with iron workers, local seven. Keith greenaway from the greater New England minority supplier development council. Kate Harrison. From the. From NCTE Beverly Johnson of the mass minority contractors, I'm going to start with you. I'm going to start with you. Not Lee from the mass office of business development. I see her there. Hi. Run Marlowe, who's the former chair. Yeah. Marvin Martin for action for regional equity. Bill McAvoy from the Massachusetts. I think he's also here today. I'm going to start with you. Reggie group on trades, women's issues and PGTI. Reggie Nunley. Reggie is, I believe on the phone. From the mass supplier diversity coalition. And we heard from Jenny have a row house from the mass office of access and opportunity. Liz Skidmore. We'll hear from a little bit later. I'm from the great city of New York. I'm from the city of New York. I'm from the City of New York. In addition to our city's services Joe. Trissell. Gladys Vega from the Chelsea collaborative one Vega, from the executive office of housing and economic development. Mary Bogull, from building pathways. Weasley, Walstein. From casino action network. it's Brooke Woodson from Suffolk Construction. And we had our internal team, Commissioner Sebbins, and most all of the commissioners attended several of the meetings. Crystal Howard, Joe Delaney, and of course myself. But I'd actually like, lest we think this is all about numbers, to introduce Savvy Mandority, or now Savvy Francis. Is that right? To say a few words. Yep, Savvy. This marriage name now. I want to take the time and opportunity to thank the commission for launching the Build a Life Campaign. Not only were the billboards a big hit, but it helped promote and make trades women Tuesday a big hit in success also. When I was informed that I was going to be working at one of the job sites with the most women in the United States, I believe, I was very excited at Encore Boston Harbor. I formed many friendships with the women on the job site from different trades and still speak to them. Build a Life also was a great connector with a lot of the trades women, because normally on other job sites, when I first got into the trades, the only thing a woman would say is, do you know the code to the woman's bathroom? But now that Build a Life has been launched for over a year now, more women are more comfortable to speak and win before the pandemic hit. And I was on job sites with some of the women. They would ask about their friends joining the trades as well also. I always told them about the trades women Tuesday. So it was a good conversation starter. I've had a lot of women reach out through friends and family members and also union members, brothers and sisters, that also had pamphlets in the flyers to contact me about the campaign and reach out to me also through social media. They looked me up to ask questions and I was directed them to come to a tradeswoman Tuesday to hear not only myself, but also other union sisters speak so that way if they didn't want to be a pipe bidder, they can also join a different trade. It was also, it's just like I said, it's a great connection with women from not just, with the community as well from different backgrounds because a lot of the women weren't educated on how to join a union building trade. Cause now they're educated and now I see more and more women, even some men who weren't educated as well will stop me going home from work in my construction, my construction work clothes and ask me, the question they always ask is, how do you do it during the weather climates? And I explained to them, it's not that bad as long as you dress accordingly where extra lay is even in the summer so that way you have an extra shirt to go home if you sweat. I can honestly say though, Encore was an exciting job working at, I was there for 18 months, they had women luncheons, I went to quite a few of them. Meeting Shelly Webster, Liz Skidmore was there for some of the meetings, it was an enjoyable time. I learned a lot not from only just my trade but from watching other trades work around me as well. And like I said, I still speak to the women, actually the last job I was on at Bullfinch, some of the women from Encore were there as well and we remembered each other and spoke and had that connection still, she had stories about the job. It was a great experience. Great. Before we go on, Savvy, when you came on, you had a partner with you, is there a nap involved or is he? Yeah, she actually went down for a nap, that's my daughter, Jerne, actually, she will be turning one years old, October 21st. I actually went back to Encore for a month once I found out I was pregnant to do the tempi and some punchless stuff because it was towards the end of the job and I was pregnant with her when I had her. And yeah, she's a ball of energy but she's a bundle of joy. Well, we went and we missed not to mention her because we were so delighted to see a child join us but I don't want that to take away with your tremendous report. So Jill, I don't know when we're gonna be allowed to ask questions but. Okay. Yeah, thank God, Jerne's getting her sleep in. And Jerne is beautiful, Savvy. Thank you, thank you so much. So I'd next like to introduce Liz Skidmore, who you've heard referenced quite often, she was an integral part of the access and opportunity committee and a real expert and resource regarding recruiting women into the trades. Liz. All right, thank you, Jill. And thank you commissioners and Jenny and Bruce Sevens was I think one of our most regular attendees at the access and opportunity committee meetings. It's really significant what happened here. And just for context, women had made up somewhere between three and 4% of the construction industry in the country for 40 years. In spite of a lot of efforts to raise the numbers to the fact that we hit with the 7.2% women is a really big deal, like a really, really big deal. So I wanna highlight a couple, something maybe somebody needs to mute their phone or maybe the host for that. I wanna highlight a couple sort of concrete things that came out of the committee and then some of the ongoing work that has continued even though the two casinos are done. The concept of an access and opportunity committee well done in the community on a smaller scale for a long, long time, like decades, has really made much more concrete by Governor Deval Patrick at the UMass Boston campus about 12 years ago. And we learned a ton there. And then the mass gaming commission sort of saw the success and said, all right, let's do this here. And since then this model of an access and opportunity committee hosted by the project and user the owner with contractors reporting and sometimes yelling but mostly problem solving happening in that space has since expanded to over 30 projects worth over six and a half billion dollars in Massachusetts. So other state agencies have adopted this after the mass gaming commission did and it's been a really important tool and those projects have averaged just over 7% women which again, out of this national context of three and a half percent is really a big deal. We developed best practices on the access and opportunity committee, some of which are immortalized in a terrific report the mass gaming commission did on how they did, how we did what we did there and how key lessons learned. And it's also in an ongoing document called finishing the job which is on the policy group on trades women's issues website which has now has 12 years worth of best practices on the six and a half billion dollars worth of construction with checklists for end users for general contractors for subcontractors, et cetera. So we've really worked hard to write instead of just the successes being in things like this but actually write them down so they can be shared with other entities. So three specific best practices I want to mention that got developed on the mass gaming commission AOC and have since been shared with other AOCs. One, somebody mentioned this a little bit earlier there was sort of this funny drop in hours that Jenny was noticing or we were hearing from Jenny and simultaneously we were hearing from the trades women that the trades women were not getting invited to do overtime that each foreman would invite his buddies who often the foreman was a white guy and often the buddies were white guys and that's who got to the overtime. And so we pushed and Jenny happily said let me go do the analysis and I think with Suffolk's help they figured out that Friday the numbers were great but Saturday they went back down and so they had corrective action meetings with the subcontractors and turned that around and that made a significant difference. And that again is something that we've seen through sort of anecdotally on other projects of women not getting overtime but we were able to document, quantify it and fix it through the AOC. Secondly, we really put into practice the idea what we call a hip analysis. High impact poor performers. So who are the subcontractors with a lot of hours and not to ignore the smaller subs that we have to make sure the high impact performers meet their goals and probably exceed their goals because there's gonna be someone who's not gonna meet their goals. So we did a lot of hip analysis pretty much every month who's got the most hours, how are they doing? Are they going up or are they going down from the last month? And then thirdly, the award system that Encore developed. It had a much bigger impact than I think any of us expected. So it was not an expensive solution. There were quarterly certificates, a piece of paper. I think maybe they got pizza or something for the company and then there was a drawing for the trip to the Encore in Las Vegas which is probably the more expensive component of it. But what I heard from everyone is as soon as one subcontractor got an award they all started knocking on suffix and Jenny's door saying, all right, well we wanna get an award. What do we have to do to get an award? So I think that model of offering a carrot is really significant. Just to emphasize what Savvy said, this was 491 women is the most women on any job in the history of the U.S. And I, it's 25 years since the UN conference on the status of women in Beijing and I got to go to that and lead a group for construction workers. We sort of have a little bit of an international group. I think it's very likely it's the most women on any single project in the global North and the possible exception of India where there actually are a ton of women in construction but don't get paid well. But it's a really, really big deal. And the first lunch and women's lunch that Savvy mentioned were over 100 tradesmen in the room. And I had been a carpenter for 31 years and most of the time I was in the field I was the only woman on every job I went to. Nevermind, you know, two women, nevermind a hundred. I wanna just mention that with the Build A Life campaign we actually went on ad. I wrote it down that ad clubs rose off award honoring diversity in advertising. So that's a big deal. We also won an award from the National Building Trades for our increase in numbers in Massachusetts. So a lot of concrete things have come out of this because of the success in the numbers here we've now been asked to provide consulting technical assistance work around the country. So specifically in Columbus, Ohio, Portland, Oregon, Denver, Colorado, Philadelphia PA. And then now we're international experts because we've been flown to Vancouver, Canada and we're helping some folks in Australia with doing this work. And then in terms of ongoing impact that the mass girls in trades has just continued and we're gonna have our first online conference we're figuring out how to do that this year because of COVID. We've also developed equity and trades committees on in different high schools where the girls get specific support around that being in a non-traditional job. The build a life campaign in two years we've reached just under 2000 women and have screened out or screened up the women who have met basic requirements for apprenticeship. We have 702 women who meet this basic requirements of apprenticeship. 409 of them are women of color so we've been successful at reaching women of color. 274 of them are Boston residents so it's been statewide but with a big focus on Boston. And about 170 have applied to apprenticeship and we've gotten reports back on 43 of them who are now got accepted and are actually working in construction. So this is significant and we're continuing to figure out ways to sort of push these 700 women towards apprenticeships with which because of COVID there's limited openings right now but we're staying in close communication with them and keeping them ready to go. And then the one outcome of the mass girls in trades work is the percentage of girls in the high schools has risen significantly. So when we've started it was, I don't know 12 or 13% of the students in the Vogue schools and we're now at 19.5% for the last school year also one of the highest in the country. All right and lastly because I can't, if you know me I can't not push one more, whatever the next thing might be. I wanna just both really thank the commission for supporting this work. It's a very, very big deal. And we know that renovations are a big part of casino work and to just keep having these goals and sort of the mechanisms to meet them on the ongoing renovation work. All right, thank you so much. Thank you Liz. Commissioners as you can see there's a legacy here with the work, the legacy continues. And to close up here, we have Brooke Woodson from Suffolk Construction and then we'll open it up for questions Kathy as you mentioned, Brooke. Thank you, Jill. Good morning everybody. Thank you for allowing me to speak this morning. So access and opportunity committees have been really valuable tool that we've adopted over the last 10, 15 years. I've been fortunate enough to serve on them as a public official representing a developer and now representing a GC. And I can say without a doubt in all the projects that I participated on, the averages you're seeing for residents, people of color, women are always higher when they're access and opportunity committees. I believe that's because it's really a great way of being transparent about data, holding everybody accountable too often in compliance. It's a he said, she said where a company might blame the union for not fulfilling the goals and the union said, well, they never reached out to me. When you have everybody at the table, a lot of those issues, they can't be argued that way. So it's really that sunshine on the process that's really valuable. And I started one of the first ones in Roxbury working with some elected officials because everyone kept saying, no, the city of Boston, I was working with the city of Boston. They were saying, nobody's even looking at this, nobody's even monitoring it. I'm like, you wouldn't believe the amount of data I had. So we started to share that information publicly. Liz was a big part of that process as well. I honored Presley, Mike Ross. We really shined a light on compliance and things have steadily improved. There's nowhere near where we want to see them, but when you have the success that we had at Encore, it just shows that the process does work. I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my team who worked on this, who Shelley Wapsha, everyone's mentioned. Also, Vera Addy worked on the project as well and Emily was just invaluable part of the team in making this work. Jenny was a great owner to work for, very persistent, but very nice. And everyone's talked about when the numbers dipped below the 6.9% goal. Jenny was very affirmed to make sure that she was continuing to hold the subs accountable. I believe Shelley at one point had like 30 corrective action meetings for subs who were underperforming. So when everybody works together, mass gaming, the owner, the GC, the subs, the unions, we can have success like this. So thank you all for everyone who worked on this project and made it what it was. Great, thank you so much Brooke. Chair Genstein. This has been just a really special report. And so I wanna make sure that the commissioners have the opportunity to ask questions. I think folks have stayed on. I wanna make sure that we also acknowledge our internal team, Jill, Crystal and Joe. So, and of course, commissioners Devons. So thank you. Who would like to go first? Questions there is Crystal. Good morning, Crystal. All the questions. Yeah, question Cameron. Yeah. You know, I have to say when Jill in an agenda setting meeting advised us that we would be having this on the agenda. I was smiling because this is one of the projects that we as a commission should be so proud of. And it obviously all the partners that went into this. But I remember in the early days, Jill, you mentioned quite is a kind of a passing that some of the early meetings were contentious. That's an understatement, right? I think folks really, it just wasn't enough. You know, people had been saying they wanted to do this but there wasn't enough success for people to. So there was frustration. I watched you grow as a leader, Jill. I watched you take control of those meetings and really learn to mention the key word relationships. You're getting people to talk to one another, getting those relationships. Jenny was amazing. Obviously she looks like a quiet young woman and she is, you know, was relentless in the very nicest of ways. Jackie mentioned that as well. So this project has been one of the ones that we should be proud of. The intention, the intentions were there. Everyone was intentional about this and the compliance aspects, all the community leaders have spoken here today. So I just want to thank everybody really. The most important thing I heard here today was that this is continuing. It started with this project but those relationships are there with Suffolk and now they're using this methodology and the numbers are improving to be at some of those events with the young women, right? I mean, it brought you to tears to hear their stories and the fact that they are now engaged this way and the education of the union leaders. You know, for me, working many, many years to recruit women and minorities into policing, watching this project and how successful it was was really, really uplifting for me and just so proud of our team and the entire, all the community leaders on-court without their leadership, frankly, to make sure this would happen and watch those numbers on a daily basis. Just amazing and just a big thank you to everybody. Thank you. Commissioner Sunica, Commissioner Stabbins. Commissioner, yes, Commissioner. I can follow or attempt to follow that because I have essentially the same thoughts, the same gratitude for everybody. There's a theme, a couple of themes that emerged that are clearly worth repeating and that is that it takes hard work and it is hard work. You cannot let up. It's easy to go back to inertia. Inertia settles in if people go to a meeting or achieve a goal and then as Liz says, a Saturday settles in and the overtime goes to people that is not what we envisioned at the beginning in terms of ratios and numbers. And the second theme, of course, is that it takes a village. It takes everyone, the convening aspect. The initial idea, I suppose, to take a base practice that we can take credit for but we keep getting thanks and it's really the thanks that we should keep to all of you for being involved, helping us, helping licensee, the licensee anchor in this case, achieve those numbers. Not anyone stakeholder can do any of these on their own. That is shift what is clearly an inertia, make change happens with the help of everyone. So thank you all for all your involvement. I do remember a lot of those early meetings, some of the ones that are being described here but the lessons learned are really what stays. It's great to hear that there's legacy. Liz, thank you for putting a lot of these in context with what had been happening before and what may be happening now in other places. Just a couple of thoughts from early on. I remember one contractor was no longer going to be part of a EVE when they went to, when they eliminated, they updated that definition exclude the Portuguese owned businesses and that contract, by the way, was in the millions of dollars that was also not gonna count. So the number of, the project was so large that the number, the goals were also in the many millions of dollars and many number of hours. It also came at a time that seems so far now, even the current conditions, but the economy was humming. There was a two to 3% unemployment rate in some areas which is actually what economists believe to be just the replacement rate. So the achievements here are really significant and again, the lessons learned are that it is really hard work and it takes everyone to chime in and for that, thank you. Madam Chair, I just wanna add a few comments and thanks as my colleagues have done. First of all, on the Encore construction close out numbers and I know we don't wanna just talk about numbers but those numbers happen because of a team. It happens because of our licensee, Jackie and the great people at Encore. Jenny Peterson, I remember some of those early meetings with Jenny, I think she really earned her street cred when somebody noticed her walking around Everett going in the laundromats, putting up flyers for events that they had upcoming. And as Emily mentioned, the great relationships and opportunities that have been extended to companies who may not have a tremendous business opportunity and been for the purpose for this project. So a big thank you to Suffolk Construction as well. You know, we surpassed the numbers and I think what was great was everybody being at the table and saying, these are not the ceiling. We're not just gonna hit 15%, we're gonna blow through those numbers. So those numbers became the floor, not the ceiling that we were trying to reach. And just with respect to this particular project, two numbers do stand out. And I know Liz talked about one of those, the most women to ever work on one construction project. And she expanded it perhaps internationally. I think that's kudos and testament to the great work of everybody on the team. The other number that jumped off the page for me in that presentation was over a quarter of a billion dollars spent with minority women and veteran owned businesses. I think that number is tremendous as well. And you know, walking that construction site various times as we had the chance to do, you could see that diversity on the workforce construction site. And thanks to Encore and Suffolk, you knew who the veterans were because they were all wearing red, white, and blue hard hats. As it relates to the AOC, this has been kind of fun. It's almost been a virtual family reunion of sorts. Every family squabbles, but you know, at the end of the day, every family had, every family member had the same goal in mind. And, you know, those were a lot of great meetings. A lot of great work was done. Kudos to people like Nate or Acevedo who traveled to both ends of the state for all those meetings. You know, I just want people to remember that that collaboration really helped the two largest private development projects in the history of the Commonwealth be a success. And I think that's important. And just a quick note to Jill. Jill did not start off as the chairperson of the group, but when our friend Ron Marlow moved on to a different career opportunity, Jill stepped in. She has incredible leadership and very understated leadership. I've actually learned a lot from watching Jill run those meetings. And I remind her of that periodically. But kudos to her and kudos to Crystal for the great work that they did. Two just final points I want to make. And Liz raised these, you know, the gaming statute does point to reinvestment by our gaming licensees and their properties so that these projects don't become stale, they become new, they maintain the level of investment that the expanded gaming statute envisioned. And I hope as we go forward, obviously these are relatively new properties. But when those expansion opportunities or reinvestment opportunities come, I hope we are clear that we just don't want to walk the walk once. We want the ongoing engagement and focus with respect to minority women and veteran businesses, the employees, the construction workers being part of those projects going forward. You know, Massachusetts we all know was not the first to come, the first gaming jurisdiction. We're kind of the last one around to introduce gaming. But I think we have been such a trend setter in so many different respects that we've really set, you know, we've really been a trend setter in so many ways. So that's kudos to legislators who gave us the statute, the incredible staff of the gaming commission and my colleagues who have focused on this. And like I said, we might have been last, but we've been first in so many ways. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Stephenson. Thank you for your involvement throughout the entire process. I know that Jill and the team have always appreciated that. And I know all my fellow commissioners have too. So thank you for your leadership. Commissioner O'Brien. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to say that no matter how many times I hear, women just don't want to do this kind of work as an explanation for the lack of numbers. It never ceases to shock me that in a stay in age, that's an explanation for the lack of diversity in a field. So I am very proud that this organization had something to do with helping to level the field so you get more than, you know, code to the bathroom when you step on a job site. I have been also incredibly touched when you have the opportunity to hear the personal stories that go behind the opportunities that have been created as a result of this. And I would echo everything that everyone has said already in this. And I don't want to take up a lot of time other than to say, in addition to thinking about how this could continue to play out in terms of renovations for casinos, I do think that in a broader view, the model that has been set up and the partnerships that have been set up, I think should be used to go even beyond what they're doing now. I know certain municipalities have committed to trying to use this model to increase the opportunities and the diversity. But I do think the state as a whole really should be looking at this in terms of particular public works, projects, et cetera, to really expand this and continue this beyond just renovations of the gaming establishment. So I would hope that is part of the legacy of this also and that we can continue having an impact beyond the casinos. Thank you. Thank you. I won't add much, all of my fellow commissioners have been, really have presented my thoughts, including Commissioner Cameron saying that the work brought tears to her eyes. I came on when much of this work had been completed or was certainly in its full compliance review status. And I know that it takes, as Commissioner Zuniga said, it takes a village. It took all of your efforts to keep your eyes on the ball, to keep that compliance, to hold the subcontractors and the contractors accountable. And that's what it takes to proactively make our communities more inclusive. And this is an important community that allows for a better life. And it's all the efforts that all of you taken proactively to accomplish that. We have to credit the legislature for including very high standards and expectations and how proud they should be to know that that was a trigger. But I suspect they are terribly proud of your work, knowing that not only did you meet those standards and expectations, but you surpassed them. And I was lucky enough, I would probably say it was a significant highlight in my short tenure with the Game Commission in, I guess it was June, correct? Jackie, when the opening occurred, where I, with prepared remarks, was able to say that this was the site at Angkor-Bosna Harbor, of the most tradeswomen in, at that time, we acknowledged the United States on a private construction site. There was nothing more satisfying to be able to announce as a woman myself, as a woman who was raised by working-class parents, and knowing every opportunity matters. And now, when I used to be able to drive by Angkor every day from work, I would look and think about Savvy and her colleagues working there, and knowing that it makes such a difference in everything you can offer your family and the opportunities you can give other women and minorities and veterans for the future. I like very much this is highlighting of the three lessons. We know there are many more lessons, but I like three, anyway, always. And you really emphasize that these were data-driven decisions, and data is what it's going to take to really institute change. And so we appreciate that. Those numbers mattered. They mattered to Angkor-Bosna Harbor and Suffolk construction. When they saw it in black and white, there's no way to escape that, and it motivated them. And then last, of course, the carrot that you offered. Genius. Let's hope it doesn't. It's not always required because they're going to acknowledge very soon that every project is better when Savvy and her colleagues are there. So thank you so much for today's report. It is a very joyful day. And Jill, we appreciate your leadership all along. And with respect to replication and our capital investments that the licensees must make, we will keep our eye on that ball, Jill. And I do think, going forward, based on the best practices work that was presented back in the fall, November, perhaps, that the replication throughout the state should continue. And I know with the leadership of those who are here. I know Jenny is in Utah now, but we have others, Liz. And of course, the continued leadership from Suffolk Construction. I'd be remiss not to mention John Fish and his whole team. I know that they are very, very proud of this accomplishment. So I have great hope that the replication will continue. So thank you. Jill? Can I just mention? I'm sorry to do this at the end, but I would be remiss without giving a little bit more credit to Susan Moyer. Oh, yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I'm such a strategic thinker and a driver behind all this work. And so I want to give to her. And Brian Daugherty and the Carpenters Union have each played critical roles in all the behind the scenes problem solving and figuring out. So it's been a village. And it's been really important to bring all these different stakeholders together. We've all been operating in kind of our separate silo and an access and opportunity brings the expertise across those silos. And that's, I think, a big part of the success. So thank you. I agree. Special shout out to Susan Moyer. She definitely added so much to the group. So thank you, everyone. I never thought I'd say this in the beginning, but I miss this group. Really? Really? Anyway, I want to thank everyone. Honestly, I think we'll be one of the many legacies of the casino and the commission. And it will live on in the projects to come. So thank you. Excellent. Thank you. I think, thank you. A virtual applause. Thank you so much. Then we can move on to the next slide. But before we move on to item number five, I do want to reintroduce Dr. Lightbaughn. Hoping your connectivity has improved. Savvy, good luck and good luck to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, everybody. Thank you. Thanks, Savvy. Dr. Lightbaughn, do you want to complete your report now? Thank you. Sorry, I'm not sure what happened there, but I'm glad to be back on now. So as I was saying, the walk-up and drive-through at Plainridge went very well on Derby Day. The walk-up was busy all day long. The drive-through, they closed down around 4 o'clock. But it was definitely well worth doing, especially in the light of the COVID. It kept the numbers of patrons that were in the building and on the apron to no more than 200 at a time. So that was a key aspect on a busy day of racing. Suffolk and Rainham also had increased number of patrons throughout the day. As Steve had explained for Plainridge, it was similar for them, where people came in, placed bets, and then left. Some people did stay there during the day. But it's a transient population of patrons on Derby Day, where a lot of them go home to watch the Derby at home. All three places reported that there weren't any patrons that had to be asked to leave, which was good. There was good compliance with the masks and the social distancing. And there was a state police presence at Plainridge, obviously, and also at Suffolk Downs, and both Steve O'Toole and Chip Tuttle mentioned that the state police presence was helpful in maintaining the COVID responsibilities. So that's pretty much the Derby Day rundown. I'd like to thank the members of the senior staff as well as the state police. Many of the senior staff, people, as the commissioners know, were instrumental in gathering the information needed to institute the walkabouts and check on different things. So I want to thank them all as well. Are there any questions? Alex, this is Bruce. And I appreciate the update on the Derby Day. I'm glad it went well. Glad it went smoothly. And thanks to you and the team for helping to make that happen. Just a general question about racing. Obviously, I know when things reopen, a lot of hard work done by you. Plainridge Park, Steve O'Toole and his team and the leadership of the Harness Horsemen to make sure everybody was complying with the COVID guidelines. Can you just give us an update on that, how things are working on the backside of the track and everybody's efforts to keep racing safe as we go through this crazy year? Yes, there's been an increased awareness, I believe, of people peeping their masks over their nose, realizing that it's not just having the mask covering your mouth, but it also needs to cover your nose. So that compliance has gotten much better. The track is still sending out those text caster messages a couple of times a day on race days to remind all the horsemen that it does need to be done. But my observations as well as Steve O'Toole's and the Horsemen's Association is that people are keeping their masks up better. And I think people are just getting used to having to wear the masks now. So that's been much better as far as that goes. OK, thank you. Other questions for Alex? I'm glad Derby Day went well. I wonder how many that on tis the law instead. Yeah, I'm sure there were lots of people that were sad that we're not going to have a Triple Crown winner, but it is a very different year this year. Yeah, and it was a fun race to watch. I'm not sure if the horses knew that there are no spectators. I wondered if they actually were a little bit more comfortable. So thank you, Alex. Nicely done. And thank you to Steve O'Toole and PPC. We're very, very responsive to all of our questions and needs. And we knew that it took a little bit of some quick decision making because of us it's just such a different time. So we really appreciate everyone's efforts there. Make it safe and sound and compliant. All right, moving on then to the next item, our Research and Responsible Gaming Mark. Good morning, Chair Jed Stein and commissioners. OK. Before it goes too far, just congratulations to Jill, Commissioner Stebbins and the team that was memorizing. It was such a great project. And I'm proud to be part of the commission that helped lead that. So that's great. Very, very exciting, Mark, right? And you know what? We look forward to this report, too. So thank you. Yes, I'm going to pull up. Share my screen. Can you see my screen now? Can you see this? Not now. Before we could. OK. Let me. Unless I'm seeing something different. Right now I see just a column, a portion of your presentation. How is that? Is that better? Yeah, it didn't see the same column. Yeah, no change. OK, I'm sorry about that. Mark, it's Katrina. Make sure you're sharing the screen and not just the window because they're OK. All right, there. Hold on one second. I've done this before seamlessly. And so now that's OK. We're fine. Teresa, would you mind sharing your screen please? Sure, but I actually see your screen now, Mark. It just doesn't appear to be working for me. Oh, sure. Before we get started, I just want to introduce our speakers for this part of the presentations. We're talking about Game Sense. We obviously have Teresa Fiori, who's our program manager for research responsible gaming. Marlene Warner, who's the executive director of the Maths Council on Compulsive Gambling. Hi, Marlene. And Chelsea Turner, who is the director of Responsible Gaming for the Council. And Ken Avril, who is a Game Sense advisor at Encore Boston Harbor. I will turn it over to this team just in a brief minute. Before we do, I wanted to just highlight the Game Sense Impact Report that I have here. Each of the commissioners, I hope you received your hard copy of that in the mail yesterday. As another challenge, logistical challenge of COVID is making sure that we get you the proper materials. And that was actually more difficult than I thought it would be. The Game Sense Impact Report, actually a draft of it was brought to you earlier in the summer. But this is the final copy of it. And if I could just say, I was thinking about this. The Game Sense program has been an important part of the commission work since the very first casino open, Plain Ridge Park Casino, now several more than five years ago, more than five years ago. But never in one place have we really done the work of recording not only what the work is, what Game Sense advisors are doing, and what other work is happening behind Game Sense, but also why we're doing it and what our methods are and what the research is saying as to why we're doing it. And so actually, thank you to Chair Judd Stein for kind of pointing that out to us as soon as you came on board at the commission. And I hope this meets your needs as we begin to more broadly share the Game Sense program. So with that, I will go ahead. I believe Chelsea Turner is going to take up the Game Sense update. Chelsea? Good afternoon, everyone. Hello, commissioners and other distinguished guests. We're really, really excited to have the opportunity to present to you this afternoon a little bit about Game Sense and what's happening. Theresa, next slide. Today, we're going to talk about a few things. We'll talk first and foremost about safety, just like the casinos. When we came back to work, that was at the forefront of our minds. And then we'll get into really what's happening at the Game Sense centers, what some of the data. We have Responsible Gambling Education Week around the corner starts on Sunday. Theresa will tell you a little bit about that. And we have Ken Averill, one of our Game Sense advisors here with us today to talk about some of his personal experiences as well as our 24-7 pilot at Encore. At the conclusion of that, we'll turn the mic over to Marlene Warner, the executive director of the Mass Council, who will basically give you a status report on Game Sense 2.0, things like our augmented reality project in positive play. And then she'll also share with you an exciting announcement about the Mass Council. So thank you. Next slide. As you can see, our Game Sense centers look a little bit different. This is pre-opening. But here's some nice pictures of MGM Springfield on Corbosten Harbor in PPC. If you look closely, I know it's hard to see on a small screen, but you'll see the acrylic shields up around all of the centers. You'll notice in the Encore picture, the pamphlets are way behind in the back. So you can't, there's no free-for-all to get to the pamphlets or the brochures. And even in the MGM picture, you'll see that we removed some of the furniture there to make sure that we were socially distanced. So a lot of little things that we were paying attention to, pre-opening in order to get prepared. In addition, we reviewed, of course, all of the casino safety plans, as well as the MGC guidelines. And we use those to create a safety protocol checklist for our advisors that they need to review at the start of every shift and sign off on. So we are continually reinforcing, basically, public health best practices. And that's not just for the safety of ourselves, but also obviously for the safety of the patrons and the casino staff who we still interact with, albeit from six feet away. Next slide. So what is happening at the casinos, at the Game Sense Centers inside the casinos? This is a picture of Ronda, one of our phenomenal Game Sense advisors at Encore Boston Harbor. What you'll see here, what I want just to point out, is the monitor in the back. That monitor has been up at Encore Boston Harbor, I believe, since the opening. But we now have monitors also at PPC and EVH. And I'll talk a little bit later about how we're using those monitors and technology in a different way. And then just, we're continually there. We're sort of doing the same job in many ways in that we are providing Game Sense tips to patrons about ways to keep their gambling in check and safe and healthy. And then obviously, we're also there as a link and a resource to folks who need more intensive services. So same job, but completely in some ways a very new approach. So next slide. So how are things different? Obviously things are different because we're wearing PPE, right? So we're all wearing masks. We wash our hands on the hour. We clean the casinos clean. All of that stuff is first and foremost and of course, we're six feet away. We also aren't exchanging anything. So there's no exchange of paper, even if somebody borrowed a pen to write down a phone number we wouldn't take the pen back. So there's absolutely no exchanging of anything whatsoever. And then we're using these monitors more. As you can see here in the picture, there's a picture of a Game Sense backed up. It's tough to read, but we use those to, we have both streaming messages. And then we also use them for interactive activities where we're actually using the monitors from six feet away from behind that acrylic shield there to ask RG fun quizzes, whether they're matching games or multiple choice quizzes about fun, different, evolving topics, anything to educate folks about, again, keeping their gambling safe and healthy. Additionally, we use a lot of flashcards interestingly. So my kids are back in school today for the first time and I'm sure they'll be using flashcards too, but we use them in the adult environment and actually very successfully. So we take our quizzes and we hold up questions since we are further away. Sometimes it's hard to hear in the casino environment. We'll ask the question, we'll provide the answer and then we always provide an explanation. We are either reinforcing the correct answer if the answer is, they made the right answer or we will explain why the answer is wrong. And then if we do a raffle basket or something like that, like we're planning for RGW, it will be the game sense advisors that are writing down the information and putting it into a basket. We will not have the patrons writing them. So again, minimizing contact, avoiding crowds, wherever we can, keeping socially distanced. And then also lastly, just sort of seeking new opportunities, so Teresa will talk about this later, but partnering with the casinos in creative ways like the promotions that are coming up and so forth. And I'll let Teresa talk about that later as it pertains to RGW. So next slide. So the data, so it's not surprising at all that if we look, compare sort of year over year that our numbers are gonna be down. So if you look, for example, I'll just take MGM in the middle, or any of the properties, you'll see that last August, so this is August 2019 versus August 2020, we had 576 demonstrations last year and only 172 this year. And that's because everything we do is a little bit harder. It takes a little bit more planning and effort and we need to do it safely. You'll also see the exchange information is down. Those are our conversations that involve RGW tips and techniques and dialogue. And there's a variety of reasons for this. So first, the capacity at the casinos themselves is limited. So traffic within the casinos themselves is down. So that's one reason. Another reason is that just like the casinos had burlows and layoffs, so did the game sense staff. So we have fewer staff and obviously we're covering fewer shifts and that, of course, would lead to fewer interactions. And then another reason is that the traffic flow is different. So the game sense centers were strategically designed to be at the entranceways of all of the casinos so that conversations between patrons and casino staff could organically happen. And due to the new safety protocols, understandably so, the traffic is not happening that way. In fact, at Encore and PPC were actually almost at the exit at a lot of the traffic instead of at the entrance. And that's not necessarily the time and point where people are more naturally inclined to engage with you. And at MGM, it's a little bit funny too just because of the way that security and cameras had to be. So we're making the best of that situation. And then lastly, people just in general don't want to talk in the same way that they once did. We're in a different time period. So people go to the casinos, they kind of almost have an agenda in mind a little bit more than they used to. They may sit at a machine, they're less likely to naturally turn around and want to talk. So that's a challenge. But if you look at it overall, I think these numbers are explainable, they're understandable. And I think we're doing the best of what we have and proud of that. Chelsea, if you don't mind, I just want to add to that. Game Sense, since its beginning is really about connection with the patrons to help them make healthy decisions around their gambling to assist them if they're struggling with their gambling. Since before the casinos reopened, this team has been thinking carefully about how do they carry that connection forward, but do it in a way that follows the public health guidelines. And this is a trial and error effort. And I think that they got off to a good start, though you will see that the numbers are down and we'll continue to try to figure this out as we move forward. Another piece of this that kind of highlights the needs for the furloughs and layoffs was, again, the Game Sense program is tied to the public health trust fund, which is connected to, in large part, to gaming revenue. And so there was a cut to the program, roughly 25% cut to the overall program in fiscal year 21. And so with that, where there's a cut, you'll see that there's a reduction in the services that they're able to provide. Thank you, Mark. So you just reminded me a little bit that when we're looking at these numbers, I think the exchanges are, again, really, really important and significant. And if we could just quickly turn to Ken, where he can share an example of one of the exchanges he had in the very early hours of the morning, late at night, he works the late shift now between 1 a.m. and 10 a.m. in the morning. If Ken, you could share a story with us now, we'd appreciate that. Chelsea. I want to thank everybody for giving me this opportunity to share this, and Mark, you actually gave the perfect lead-in. One of the most important things we do do as Game Sense advisors is try to make connection, make people comfortable, be a safe space for them to talk. So early on, coming back in after the opening, some of these exchanges, it's hard to approach people, people aren't caught, as we're learning this new reality, I received a call from the encore staff, a lot of player up in high limit, who was asking some questions and thought he may have an issue. So I went up and spoke to him, spoke to him for about an hour. He said since the reopening, he'd been coming in every night with around 10,000 all night. And although he's comfortable financially, that was too much. He was making multiple trips to the ATM machine, making trips to a bank offsite to cash advance credit cards, going home, getting more cards, coming back in. So we talked about some of Game Sense tips, and the big one that seemed to resonate with him was we all know about setting limits, whether it be time or money. A lot of people are very comfortable setting loss limits, but they never consider win limits. So he had mentioned, many times he'd gone up with a substantial amount of money, only to stay long enough to give it all back. So as we talked about the limits and the win limits, he seemed very much, he was very attentive, he was very thankful, he was very appreciative, and it ended there. Since then, he now, every time he comes in, he finds me, tells me how much better he's doing. He's set a loss limit of 5,000 or win limit of 15,000. He said this by effect has limited his time. And although he's spending less time in the casino, he's enjoying it more. He feels more comfortable coming back and is always very excited to see me walk by, calls me over, tell me what a great job he's doing. So even in this time where the social distancing and everything, it is still possible to make these connections and very helpful to the players. Thanks so much, Ken. Really appreciate you sharing that story. I thought that was a significant one just because of the amount of money that is being wagered. Sometimes, I think we forget that the casinos are open 24-7. I'm sure the properties don't forget that, but gambling's still happening at certain hours of the night. So to the extent that we can be a helpful resource to folks who might need it, I think it's fantastic. So thanks, Ken. Next slide, Theresa. So this is, to me, a positive thing to highlight. We currently have about 780 folks on our VSC list that's as of August 31st. And what's interesting about this data is that prior to the shutdown in the six months leading up to March, the average number of VSCs was 43.5. And if you look at the August figures under new VSC enrollments, that first sort of bolded line, you'll see that in August we had 37 VSCs. So considering that capacity's down and all of the other things that we had mentioned earlier to be almost up to where we were pre-shut down this quickly, I think, is telling. And I'm happy that our game sense team is there. Additionally, you'll see that the reinstatements are right back up to around where they were pre-shut down. You'll see in February, the last full month, they had 11 reinstatements. And in August, we had 11. So those are folks that have completed their whatever term that they signed up for a VSC and want to come off of that list. So also kind of interesting. Currently, you may be interested to know that 19% of our folks that are on the list are actually eligible for reinstatement. And for whatever reason have not chosen to go that route yet, or wherever maybe. And then I think it's important just to note that currently VSCs are only being conducted by the game sense team, as well as designated agents out in the community. And then lastly, just wanted to bring up that we've been working very well with the MGC on trying to think creatively about ways that we can offer VSCs. When the game sense centers aren't open and there's nobody there. So while we're currently doing a pilot program of 24-7 at Encore, if somebody wants to do a VSC at PPC or MGM in the middle of the night, we need to schedule another time for them to do that. And so we've been working closely with MGC, with Teresa and Mark and the legal staff there to try to come up with a way. We can do that remotely, involving secure files and secure signatures. And we're hopeful that with a little bit more time we'll be able to get there. And then should somebody need a VSC at MGM or PPC or anywhere else in the hours of the night that our game sense staff that are at Encore during those hours could help to complete that. So that's something that's in the works and we will continue to report on to you and hopefully we'll have good news at our next report. Next slide. Training, so we did a bunch of, one of the things that we did do during the shutdown to educate ourselves and others was to do a lot of research on many, many different topics on the evolving field of gambling. Everything from what are social casinos to video gaming and loot boxes to what's the house edge and how does that change across games and within individual games? And what are some RG innovations that we can be thinking about in an online world in the future? Should there be daily fantasy sports or online lottery at some point later on? We created over 20 trainings and presented 10 of them to the MGC and that was a lot of fun for us. And we were really grateful for that opportunity. Additionally, we continue to do new hire trainings. Those are down considerably. Mostly because the casinos, staff numbers are down and they're not in a hiring period. So we do those whenever we're asked and we'll continue to do those going forward. And a couple of other things you are all familiar with both the Sigma and the magic studies. And as you know that when you read at least for me sometimes research reports are dense journal articles. They can be hard to digest particularly if you're not intimately familiar with a topic. So one of the things we're doing is knowledge translation and sort of taking that data rich material and trying to translate it in a way that is applicable and relevant and useful for clinicians in the public. And so more to come on that but just wanted you to know that was something we're working on. And then additionally, we're working with a variety of stakeholders on support services for the Asian community particularly in the greater Boston slash on core area. So exciting times in that area. Next slide. And then lastly just to before we turn it over to Teresa for to talk about Responsible Gambling Education week. Ken is gonna talk to you a little bit more about our 24 seven pilot project at Encore. We have two staff at Encore Ken and David Tang who work the night shift and we're continuing to sort of measure the success and what's happening there. So Ken. So hi again everybody. As Chelsea said, I'm one of the ones working the overnight shifts. So I'm here from midnight to 10 a.m. from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. Those would be the hours that the game centers had not previously been open. Although obviously it's one of the slower times headcount wise for the casino. I think a lot of the data shows that we're still having a lot of quality interactions. The conversation I spoke to previously happened at 4 30 in the morning. So although there may not be as many people here, it is a different dynamic of people with the bars and the restaurants closed. There's no entertainment, there's nothing going on. It really is a collection of mostly just gamblers. So I think it's very important for us to be available during those hours. I've seen a lot of encouragement, especially from the staff here at Encore. They've been fantastic. They've been asking lots of questions. That's a lot of the overnight people, you know, they go through the training at the beginning and they know what game sense is, but there hadn't been anybody to speak to. So I think it's, I'm able to spread the word of the program a lot. They're doing an excellent job of referring people to me. And I think just being here is helping that. The gentleman I spoke to earlier, I received a call from an Encore staff member to go up there and they really have been excellent. I had another very good interaction that was about 5.30 in the morning. There was a phone call, person calling for his cousin. They had just left Encore. You know, it turned into an auto conversation. He took information on GA, you know, strategies to discuss with his cousin what signs to look for. And it really was, had we not been here during those hours, there would have been no one to talk to this person who was very much struggling with what he just witnessed with his cousin in casino. So I think also the, you know, the intense interactions that, you know, the 12% of them happened between 1 and 9 a.m., which doesn't sound like a big number, but it's only at one of the three programs. So only a ninth of the hours that the casinos are manned with game sense staff managed to do 12% of the interactions. I think we, I do have a few less simple interactions and some of the passing by stuff, but the quality interactions I've actually noticed and uptick here from when I had more normal GSA hours. So I'm very much enjoying doing the overnight. I think it's being very beneficial. It's something that I think is very helpful to the cameras. So I wanted to thank you guys for giving me a chance to speak to you today. I'm going to pass it off to Teresa Fiori now. Unless anybody has any questions, sorry. Mark, should we just say questions to the end? Because we can't see each other right now. So it would be perhaps once we have our PowerPoint down, we can ask questions. I think that sounds like a good idea. Because it's hard for me to see everyone. Thank you. Good morning, Teresa. Good morning, still. Chairwoman and commissioners, nice to see everyone and nice job, Ken, to highlight what Mark said before Chelsea and her team has been super, super busy being flexible in light of budget and pandemic-related changes. So Ken was originally assigned to MGM Springfield and is, of course, now at Encore Boston Harbor doing the 24-hour art fulfilling that late night shift. So we're lucky to have them there during that time. So I just wanted to give an update on Responsible Gaming Education Week, which starts this Sunday, the 13th. The theme this year is keep your gambling safe and healthy. So obviously that theme draws on the connection between keeping yourself safe and healthy within the context of the pandemic and bringing that onto the gaming floor and making sure that your gambling is kept safe and healthy as well. It is a deviation from the AGA theme this year, which I believe is have a game plan and we deviated from that theme for two reasons. The first being that we have already used that theme before, so we want to come up with something new. And the second is that the emphasis that the AGA is promoting this year through this week is on sports betting and obviously we want to focus to be on casino gaming. So that's why we chose this theme and are grateful that each of the casino operators have agreed to promote this theme as well. And so you'll see it come through in the different activities that are being offered throughout the week at each of the casino properties. So this year we scaled back the number of hours that we're offering our activities or I should say that the game plan advisors are offering activities, keeping in mind that we want to make sure that we aren't encouraging too much traffic and too much attention to these activities that it becomes unsafe. So they will always keep that in mind and if that does become a problem, or encourage to stop the activities, but we think just based on the amount of casino traffic overall, it shouldn't be a problem. And of course, we are expanding the AGA Five Day Responsible Game Education Week calendar to seven full days just because we think it's important to reach weekend players who may be very different from the players we see during the weekdays. So Chelsea included a really nice breakdown of the activities which are going to be offered at every site every day during the responsible gaming education week with a few unique deviations. So on Monday at Plain Ridge Park, casino instead of the gambling contract quiz, they're going to be offering a quiz which is specific to power mutual gaming. On Wednesday, PPC is also going to be offering a quiz which is specific to play my way, which is of course, because play my way is currently only offered at PPC. So it's something we really try to promote at that property. And we're very excited about this one. So through some of the community connections made by our Game Sense advisors, we are bringing Game Sense out into the community specifically to Cam, Mann, Supermarket, Plaza in Chelsea, Quincy, I'm sorry. It's going to be two of our Asian language, speaking Game Sense advisors, Lynn and Chris. And this is an area which is sort of epicenter of the eating community in Quincy, as well as a common pickup and drop off spot for casino buses in Massachusetts and beyond. My understanding that some of the Connecticut casinos use this as a pickup and drop off spot as well. So we think it will be a good place to get the Game Sense and responsible gaming message out before individuals get on buses to head over to the casino. They can keep some of our safe gambling tips and tricks in mind. And so this year there was thought put into ways in which we can engage players in casino visitors without physically interacting. So one idea which we came up with was offering a digital quiz instead of a hard copy of it. So what we did was we created a quiz which played on the theme of this year's responsible gaming education week. We made, we are going to advertise it in high traffic areas on the casino floor as well as the Game Sense Info Center of course, which will communicate not only a link to the quiz but also QR code. So for anyone who has their smartphone on them, you are welcome to try this code now and pull up the quiz if you'd like. But the idea is that somebody on the casino floor would see this QR code. They would hover their camera over it. The quiz would come up, they would complete it and upon completion of the quiz they will receive a thank you for participating message and will be encouraged to visit the Game Sense Info Center to receive a prize for completion. And as an example of one of the questions which we have in the quiz, which I believe this one in particular was written by Senior Game Sense Advisor Amy, the Centers for Disease Control helps to provide useful info to healthcare providers and to the public about how to stay healthy and safe. The Game Sense team inside the casino helps to provide useful information about how to keep gambling healthy and safe, which of the options below is not a Game Sense tip. A, set a time limit, spend limit and win limit before you play. B, if you lose money, keep playing and you will eventually earn it back. B, don't borrow money to gamble. D, know how the game works and what the odds are before playing. Or E, consider leaving your ATM card at home. Would anyone like to guess the answer before I advance to the next slide? None of the above. I already took the test, so I'm not gonna punch this thing. Okay, so Enrique, none of the above. Kathy says B. Oh, sorry, B, B, I didn't see. Sorry, the double negative did a job on me. Too late, too late. It's B. Those double negatives get you every time. Congratulations, it is B. If you lose money, keep playing and you will eventually earn it back. This is of course not true. We encourage players not to chase losses. And so as part of the answer page on the quiz after each question, we have the incorrect and correct answer. So as an additional educational touch point, we wanna really explain, you know, why something is correct or why something isn't correct. So I just wanna enter check right now. Of course I was the student who had to say the answer first, I was second, but more importantly, Teresa, you invited us to try to join technically the survey and I'm pleased even during a public meeting that I was able to download, is that the right term, the S survey and I see the question. So even someone who's not terribly technically savvy can do that. It looks great. The responsible gaming education week quiz. So yeah, and this will be an interesting data point for us here as well, because we'll be able to not only, you know, see the percentage of questions answered correctly and incorrectly, but also the time of day in the location as well. So it will be something we'll report on at the conclusion of the week. And Bruce, you got the question right too when you took it before. Yes, I did. Teresa asked me to do a trial in the QR code yesterday. I don't know. Well, I admit I looked at it last night, but I also chose B first. So, but it's excellent. It's excellent. Thank you, Teresa. Sure. And so just, I believe this is my final slide on responsible gaming education week. Just a thank you to each of the casino operators. We partner with them every year of course, but, you know, this year has required some additional flexibility and additional conversations to make sure everything that we're doing is putting health and safety of staff and players and participants first. So just to highlight a few of those partnerships, we worked with MGM and PPC to install monitors at each of the game sense info centers similar to what we showed previously with the photo of the monitor at Encore Box and Harbor. So instead of using those really is digital sign platforms, the game sense advisors now have the ability to project a quiz or project an activity to be used with a visitor to the game sense info center. So they're allowed to, they're able to engage with them while maintaining distance because, you know, they have that big screen right there. Yeah, we had some really great donations by Encore and Plainridge in keeping with the theme this year. So we have co-branded hand sanitizers that we'll be giving out as prizes. Encore also donated some gift cards to go into our raffle gift baskets, which this year not only has, you know, health and safety themed game sense swag, but also gift cards to local businesses in an effort to elevate those businesses may be struggling, but also to emphasize the theme that, you know, gambling isn't the only form of entertainment. You can also go out to whatever restaurant or whatever that gift card is to elevate the area more. At Encore, the game sense advisors will also be moving away from the game sense info center and setting up a table alongside Encore's promotion during those days. So they'll generate some traffic that way and we'll be able to tap into that traffic, which we're really excited about. Something that MGM has been working with us on for a while, which we were hoping to implement during responsible gaming education, but unfortunately, because they're not doing promotion that particularly, we will be able to do so, but moving forward, once they are ready to re-up their promotional giveaways, again, we had game sense stickers printed up, so they will be placed on whatever the item is that's being given away. So it's a way for us to get our message into the hands of, you know, whoever is receiving these items. Which is the first time we'll be doing that and I think makes a lot of sense. It's exactly the audience we wanna be targeting. PPC and MGM will be advertising digital signage with the Responsible Education Week theme. PPC has ordered T-shirts for all of their staff to wear during the week. So I included a mock-up of those shirts on the right-hand side and they're going to be encouraged to wear them, beyond Responsible Gaming Education Week. So they specifically didn't include dates or anything like that, so it's just a message that can continue on since it applies all year round. PPC and Back of House, they've dedicated one of their bulletin boards to Responsible Gaming Education Week content, so that's viewable by all their staff. And all casino operators have agreed to post the daily Responsible Gaming message on their social media platform. So digitally we'll be able to expand our reach during this week as well, so we're very excited about that. And as in other years, you know, we'll be reporting out on the success of this week. It's a conclusion, so I hope, you know, the next commission meeting will have a nice polished report to share out with you. So any questions about Responsible Gaming Education Week? Mark, in terms of questions, should we hold or? Yeah, I think we should share. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, sorry. That's okay, no, it's not a rule. It's just a little bit easier and I think we'll collect the thoughts together. Theresa, excellent job. Great, thank you. So I am going to hand it over to Marlene Warner who's going to speak a little bit about Game Sense 2.0. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you again for the opportunity. I think that it's really exciting to be able to come before you to talk about what has happened and what is about to happen and some things that are in progress. So I'm the in-progress point. Game Sense 2.0 is you all might remember. I think it was officially termed by commissioners in EGA, but it's something we refer to fondly now, which is kind of that next stage of where Game Sense can go and how we hone in on our craft of providing responsible gambling messages to patrons and to the staff at the casinos as well as the community, the three different groups that we are trying to target through our logic model. So the first thing you've heard a lot about this in the past, the positive play research, I'm happy to say that we have officially contracted with Gain Rez, which is a company led by Dr. Richard Wood and his colleague Dr. Naseem Tabri. And the positive play scale is a tool that was established by these two gentlemen as well as two others. And really looks at gambling from a different lens than had previously been reviewed in the past, which is why don't we focus on what's positive about gambling for people and try to steer people in that direction, right? Find out what's positive, how we keep it in that positive realm instead of always looking at the negative or the problem side of it, how do we keep people gambling in that positive arena? They do that through two things. One is through positive gambling behaviors, looking at honesty and control, how honest are people about their gambling and what's that sense of control that they feel over and is that real for them? And then what's their pre-commitment to, as we were talking about previously, Ken mentioned in his presentation, to the time and money spent, how are they setting those limits for themselves and how honest are they being about that and how are they able to control other gambling to keep within those limits? The other piece is around their positive play beliefs. And so this just goes back to their attitudes. What do they think is their responsibility in terms of their own personal play? What's their personal responsibility versus the casinos, the regulators, so on and so forth, and how are they handling that personal belief that they have some role and responsibility in that? And then around gambling literacy, just basically trying to assess, people would talk about the gambler's fallacy, assessing whether each player believes that their number's gonna come up or if they're rubbing that lucky rabbit foot that that's going to mean something, really trying to assess what their gambling literacy is. So using all these various components, Dr. Wood and colleagues are going to help us to better test to whether our players at the casino and most importantly, the people we're trying to interface with at the GameSense Information Center, whether they know, have the right tools and know what they need to know in order to stay positive. Dr. Wood and colleagues are putting out a, recruiting a panel of 1500 people and are putting out a survey that includes all these different components. But because they have recruited this panel and they have some space, they're going to do a little bit more than that. And so we asked them to assess a couple of other things. One of which is, what did people do during the COVID break from gambling? And the casinos were closed here in Massachusetts. Did they think about gambling? Did they resort to other types of games? Did they save money? Did they lose money? We just want to know a little bit more about that. In order to write those questions, we wanted to do some informal polling so that we wrote the most accurate type of question. And so with Dr. Wood's help, we have had the GameSense advisors asking some of these questions in very casual conversation with patrons. And so before you, what you see are some of the bullets that have come up. Let me just stress again, it's written there, but stress again, this is not scientific. It's not representative. It's really more anecdotal through the conversation. But we found out some interesting information that helped us better target the questions and better lead it directed to the online panel. So about 25% of patrons had concerns about returning to the casinos upon opening. So us, what that means is that the shut down was good for them. And this is probably not something the Gaming Commission wants to hear and a lot of other folks want to hear, but a lot of people were relieved by not having access to gambling. So we really are trying to harness that reality for folks and direct them to appropriate resources outside of the casino and remind them they can take their own breaks down the road. But again, that's more questions about this. But half were happy to have saved money during the shutdown. They missed the social aspect about having fun and they were interested, interestingly enough, interested in coming back for the fun, but again, had these other realities. So how do we recreate that fun and social aspects outside of the casino for them? How do we help them connect with other resources outside? 25% of them made them, said the shut down, made them reassess their gambling. That's huge, right? That a quarter of them are really saying it made me think, it made me consider whether I want to do this less, do different types of games. And I'm probably not surprising folks, while the casinos were shut down many, and I don't have a specific number on this, but many played the lottery followed by social casinos. We've talked about the lottery play in Massachusetts, certainly lottery play went down, but I think rebounded in a way that we haven't seen the casinos exactly do and people have certainly come back to playing the lottery. The social casinos is something, again, we'd like to evaluate further because I think both the casino licensees and their social casino sites, but other social casino sites out there are something people enjoyed during quarantine. Next slide. I also just want to say that that survey that is going out is going in the next couple of weeks and has been reviewed with and consulted with the RRC of the Mass Gaming Commission, the Research Review Committee. So that's good. We've gotten some really sound and important feedback on the questions. The other thing that's key there is that there's a project underway, it's been underway for several years now and I'm sure Director Van Der Linen will refer to it in the future around low risk gambling guidelines. So similar to the fact that as a woman under 40s of a certain height and weight, I know that there's a certain guidelines around how much I should drink if I choose to drink alcohol. There are guidelines like this around a number of different things. There's nothing like that currently exists for gambling, but a group has come together out of Canada to see if they could put together some low risk gambling guidelines. The interesting and very cool thing about this is that Dr. Rachel Wohlberg out of UMass and Hearst has been a really key component of that team putting that together and she's used some Massachusetts-based data. Because of the Massachusetts implications, I think it's going to be really important for the people here in the Commonwealth and the folks specifically in the casinos to make use of these guidelines and we're just testing some of the guideline components in this survey piece as well. So we hope to get some useful data out of that process. So more on that when we know more about it, it should be quite soon. We should have some really good feedback from this data set come mid to late fall. Next slide, please. So not new, but expanded is the VFC Recovery and Outreach Liaison. Most of you I think have met Jodi Neely, heard a bit of her story. If you haven't, we will certainly make that happen because she's a pretty special person to us and has been a pretty key staff member to a lot of our efforts. One of the things we know about VFC is that it's one of the most documented ways to help people, right? It's one of the most proven interventions in our field of responsible and problem gambling. The thing that we've learned though is that you have, it's only effective if you do it, right? That makes perfect sense. I think the piece that we are trying to do through Jodi is to expand the reach for folks. So what that means for us is two things. Before the VFC and post-VFC, we'd like to have a little bit more of a conversation with patrons. So Jodi will be working on helping people who are in more of the contemplation stage or maybe even in pre-contemplation and thinking with them about what do I need to do about my gambling? And if it's cutting down, the game sense advisors are there, but maybe I want to use a different resource out in the community or maybe I just want to talk about what VFC is like with somebody who's been on a VFC list. Maybe I want to talk with someone about flowing down my lottery play versus my casino play versus my simulcast racing play, whatever it is, she would be there to come outside of the casino with them and kind of be an intermediary, I think of her kind of mid-road between the game sense advisors and treatment. Lots of people aren't ready to commit to treatment. So Jodi is there to talk about the VFC process, connect them with additional resources that might help them out in the community, but also ultimately once they're on the VFC list, help them figure out how do I, now what do I do? You saw the previous slides around what people did during COVID that were forced into not gambling or not gambling at least at casinos. It's a real sense of loss for people and they no longer have that thing they do all the time. So trying to figure out what can they replace that with? How can they help themselves get connected to other resources? Jodi will be there. The interesting thing is we have a box on the VFC application and about 25% of people ask for that. One of the things that she's going to do is offer, continue to offer to call people a week after they check that box on the VFC list, but also engage them in something we've done in the past which is called telephone recovery support. Usually about 10 sessions, the person directs this for themselves. So what my goals might be on telephone recovery support would be really different from the next person and she's going to kind of hold them accountable and keep them engaged in these 10 sessions and they can happen weekly, they can happen monthly. It's really up to them. We are there to meet them where they're at. So Jodi's path with patrons is really going to be wide but I think it's going to be, again, meeting them where they're at and most of the time that will be meeting outside of the casino. Next slide. Marlene, if I could just add to that. I think this is a, I really support this effort. I think VSE is a great program and I think it provides temporary relief. It makes the individual feel good that they're taking a step forward but it's a sustained effort to make behavior change that is really important. And as Marlene said, many are not comfortable, not interested in treatment. This is an important sort of next step for a lot of folks that aren't interested in treatment and hopefully they will be down the road or not. It's a good program. To game sense 2.0, this is around the community outreach and training. I think this is a huge piece of what we really hope to do with extending the game sense program beyond where it once was. One of the things we know, I mean, we are so, I sometimes pinch myself about how incredibly lucky we are that we're here in Massachusetts because of everything that was in the statute and everything that has been delivered via the gaming commission's leadership, one of which is we have all this very rich, very telling data out of UMass Amherst both through the Sigma and the Magic Study. So we don't forget. We know who the most vulnerable people are here in Massachusetts and now we have an opportunity to make sure the game sense part, right? There's a wide swath of things that can happen. The game sense portion of that is making sure that if we know they're at risk but still being directed into the casino because of cultural reasons, familial reasons, because it's their job, whatever it is, how do we intervene before they walk into the casino, right? So how does game sense start doing its work before they walk into the casino? So with that information coupled with some other data, we have looked at about 700 organizations, human service, community-based organizations that serve populations that would be on that high risk and at-risk list determined by the Sigma data. With that, we are now prioritizing the top group to reach out to and that is folks who serve veterans, older adults and Asian and Asian-American communities in the Commonwealth. So we've reached out to about 300, as you might imagine, it's kind of an odd time to be reaching out and offering training. The good news is we're really good at doing virtual trainings, virtual conferences, virtual webinars, all those things are all happening on a day-to-day basis for the council. So we are also human services. As well as saying to them, we don't wanna be just a one-time training provider to you. We'd like to help you come in and change policies. Think about, does your frontline staff need something different in your management team and trying to offer those things? So we're kind of reaching out. Dorika is leading this effort and helping agencies to really determine what they need and how we can get that to them. This will be terrific to get that ball rolling and then also help them hand them over to the partners at the Department of Public Health and HRA so that they can then build their capacity down the road if they wanna be a treatment center or if they want to provide recovery services. So I think that's the nice thing is that we really can build that whole spectrum with these community-based agencies. We are hoping at some point we'll be able to do these trainings in person, but for right now they're gonna probably mostly be virtual. Next slide, augmented reality. So this will be your next test, Chairwoman, is when we have the AR app and we ask you to do that in the middle of a live meeting, but not yet. So if anyone's familiar with Pokemon Go, that's the picture you see in the slide there. So it's basically using an application on your phone to pull up something that is not actually in front of you and making it kind of come to life in front of you. The very cool thing about this is that we sometimes have really complicated topics that we want to explain to patrons in the casino and it's really hard to do so. I still kind of, I ask any of my senior GSAs and games and stuff, I sometimes glaze over because I don't know what they're talking about because I don't tend to gamble. So they have really complicated things. One of the things that we find most complicated is house edge, just difficult. And it's because it really changes game to day, game to game, and there's a lot of side effects, there's a lot of side effects, there's a lot of different nuances to each piece. So what we're trying to do is make an interactive application so that you could pull up in front of you, you're standing in the games and center, you have the app on your phone, you pull up in front of you a roulette table or a blackjack table, and you can move different variables to see how the house edge changes and how your play will change. So it's not meant to teach you how to play, it's not meant to teach you how to win, it's more to help you better understand how the game is set up so that you better understand your role in that as a player. The other cool thing is that as you interface with the table or the game, you will also see game sense tips come up, you're gonna see information on how you can link to treatment centers and other connections. So it's going to be very cool. It's still in its development stage, it's taken us a lot longer than we thought and I think part of that is because we are not, we're working with someone who knows AR, doesn't know gambling and we know gambling, we don't know AR and it's taking a little while to bring the two worlds together, but I think it's finally come together. I think it's gonna be pretty ideal for novice players, I'll be interested to see what it will be like for intermediate and advanced level players. So a lot of testing still to happen on that and we hope to have that to you in the future. The other cool thing is obviously in the middle of COVID, we think this is very cool because again, it decreases that need to stand next to each other and talk to one another, it allows someone to interface with their phone, but the other neat thing is we'll be able to project the AR app up on these monitors that the gaming licensees have been so good about providing to us. And so we can also that the game sensors could use their ITADs and project it up on the monitors. Next slide. And this is the really exciting news. So, wow, so I've been with the agency, I think people have been thanking me for congratulating me on my work anniversary on LinkedIn. So I guess that means my anniversary is coming down or it's close, I've almost lost track of time. I've been here just about 19 years or it's been 19 years next week or something. And so we've been the mass council uncomfortable to gambling since 1983. Tom Cummings started the council, you know, as the story goes, started the council at his kitchen table answering helpline calls because he knew there needed to be something more than 12 steps self-help groups, which he was a proud member of and helped him tremendously, but we knew that there needed to be something else. There needed to be advocacy, there needed to be trainings for providers who were starting to hear about gambling but didn't know what to do with it. And there needed to be public information. And so Tom started the council and understood that that was something he needed to do. He was really early in the field. So the Connecticut council, the mass council, the national council, we are some of the early ones, but we're certainly considered a pioneer. And thanks to the strong partnership and relationships we've had with the Department of Public Health and now the Mass Gaming Commission as well as so many other state partners, we've been very successful in that. We've really been a pioneer in bringing a lot of different things to the field. I think the time for us to be a pioneer is here now again. We have seen over the last, I don't know, let's call it five or seven years, we've seen gaming, right? Not just gambling, but gaming in its more ubiquitous term really grow and just kind of expand tremendously. One of the things the mass council has said is, we need to be responsive to that and we need to keep up with that. There is a ton of gaming and gambling. That's probably not a shocker to anyone on this call, right? You walk around the casino floor where you see slot machines that reference video games and there's a lot of that going on. There's, we've talked already in this presentation about social casinos, there's a lot happening online even if we don't have online gambling here in Massachusetts and I'm not referring to illegal gambling, I'm just saying that's the connection between gaming and gambling. But probably even more important than that, although that's quite important, even more important than that is that there's a lot of gambling happening and gaming and video gaming. And in video gaming, you've all been updated in the past about loot boxes, skins. These are terms that I had no idea what they were, probably seven or eight years ago, I'm acutely aware of what they are now. Lots of people, not just kids, although it's certainly a huge concern for adolescents, but lots of people are now gambling in their gaming and it's not regulated, but among in terms of one topic, but it's also just not fully being recognized by that industry. So it's something that we think is really important. Put all of that aside and we also know video gaming and considered a disorder and addiction and something that currently doesn't have anyone helping with that. So for all those reasons, the board of directors and I, as well as a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous effort on behalf of our entire staff have decided to change our name with a math council on gaming and health. It was important to us to include the word gaming versus gambling and using again, that more overarching term of gaming to refer to gambling and video gaming, as well as kind of everything that you could stick with an E dash or an I dash, that that's all kind of included there. But the health part is really important to us as well. Again, we've been focused on public health since 1983, something that comes through through all the work for all those years with the Department of Public Health as well as all the work that we've done with the gaming commission and all the work we hope to do, but I think that the people of the Commonwealth really deserve to have an agency focused on this issue. And although we didn't plan to do this in the midst of a pandemic, certainly, as I have three kids starting remote learning, kids are on screens more than ever before. And I'd like to tell you, my kids just do schoolwork online, but I can't stand here and tell you that that's the only thing they do either. So I think there's a lot of effort, a foot to try and wrap our brains around that. And so a lot more to happen, and I'm happy to go into more detail about some of the efforts that we're going to be doing, but that's our new name. I think I hope that the color scheme and the font looks similar. If it does, it's because that was very purposeful. Everyone refers to us as the Mass Counsel. We kept the Mass Counsel piece. We kept the colors. We want people to not feel like this was a dramatic change because it's just adding something into who we once were. And even this, we went from the swirl to our little, I don't know, I look at this as like, maybe it's like the push button, maybe it's like the remote control thing, many moons. I don't know, depends on what day and time, I think of what that means to me, but everyone loved it and that's our new logo. So I'll stop there. Do you folks have any questions and comments for myself or Ken or Chelsea or Theresa or Mark? Thank you. If I may just add before I turn it over for questions, this is kind of something old, something new. Engagement remains the core of what game sense is and will continue to be, but we need to be responsive and adaptive to changing times and keep things fresh and interesting for people. And so I think you saw that through some of the presentation, including AR, and as always, where we can integrate and really lead with research and science, we will do so. And that's positive play. And as Marlene mentioned, the lower family guidelines. So thanks for the term. Mark, if we could take the PowerPoint down, then we can turn to questions. Great, nice to see everyone again. PowerPoint was excellent. Great reports. Commissioners, where do you want to start? Commissioner Zinica? Sure, thank you. Great presentation. Thank you, everybody. I just have a couple of comments. That are relevant to the presentation. First of all, congratulations, Marlene, on the rebranding. I think this is not only the field moving away from the notion of problem, but there's a lot of research that I know. You and I have seen in conferences and a lot of other best practices that we've talked about here in our Responsible Gaming framework that go along the lines of the positive play, the focusing on more holistic that what traditionally some in the industry have done by trying to define the problem as a very narrow problem is leading and ultimately not effective because it actually turns some people off. So good luck with that. I know all the branding and rebranding takes a lot of effort going forward. Let me just also mention some of what you saw in Marlene's presentation that is collectively referred to as Game Sense 2.0, the efforts around their licensing, I'm sorry, their liaison, the VSE liaison, the augmented reality, the positive play. These were all discussions. We had ideas that they came up with when we re-procured this contract back in at the end of last year, which was very helpful in that regard. It's been now a few months since we had that re-procurement and of course, the decalporate being the pandemic and what we had to do in terms of be reactive to the new reality of decreased revenues and the ongoing discussions we had relative to continue the program, continue as much as we could and in my opinion, you really are doing it of the original procurement with what was a decrease in revenues or in decreasing resources. So thank you for your flexibility and I just wanted to note that for the record. And also just going back to some of the updates from the Game Sense program relative to the new reality at the casinos with social distancing. I know you, Marlene and Chelsea and Marc have heard me say this, but I also wanna mention it for the record. There was from the very beginning that we started this program, the evaluation, this is pre-pandemic. There was this sort of focus on the number of interactions. And of course, that's not the end all and the deal. The quality of interactions is really what matters. And it's not surprising and it's understandable that those interactions would be down. And I wanna again mention that Game Sense advisors are very good at detecting at the opening, detecting the comfort level that people may have or not have relative to those interactions because ultimately what we're all trying to achieve is to build that trust. So I don't want anybody in the Game Sense program to be artificially incentivized and I know they're not to try to meet a level of interactions compared to the reality that we had before the pandemic only for the sake of trying to make numbers or hit numbers because there's many other measures. It will continue to measure and I'm glad that we are. That has become a practice of the council to record all the interactions, to record the meaningfulness versus the simple ones. But I know that they're not being artificially incentivized to try to hit numbers because we are in an entirely new phase when you come to the comfort level that some people may have. Well, I could argue by the way that if somebody already took the steps to go to a casino their comfort level interacting with people may be higher. But again, we appreciate your slide about the comparison one year in and out but we more than anyone else understand that it's a different environment than one that we should not be taking right. So those were my remarks. Thank you for your presentation and again, congratulations on the rebranding. Commissioner Bryan, Commissioner Stevens, Commissioner Cameron. Madam Chair, I'll jump in. First of all, my congrats to Mark and Theresa and Marlene and Chelsea as well as the game sense advisors. We don't also want to thank Ken. Ken, if you were working, you got to be pretty tired. If you're working tonight, you probably need to get some sleep but thank you for your time and your great work. You know, the interesting piece of this presentation is Commissioner Zuniga was alluding to as pointed out as the kind of game sense 2.0. I got my copy of the report yesterday. I like the focused mailing that Marlene touched on. I would encourage that to be expanded. You know, we have a number of stakeholders out there who we deal with, whether it's our community mitigation fund folks. It's all the local officials that represent our hosts and its surrounding communities. Those also might be people on the front lines to one can be a promoter of the great work that we're doing or that the council is doing in our game sense team and Mark and Theresa. But also those are the people who might get approached and are looking for some sort of help or assistance for a neighbor or a family member or somebody and being able to share with them the list of resources that are available how they can help protect the level one, I think is critical. So I encourage you to kind of expand that communications plan, especially with the great report that can be something we can put in people's hands. Very encouraged by the stuff that you're doing with the augmented reality, certainly targeting not just a novice player, but a younger player is, you know, our licensees think about ways to draw younger and younger players, obviously it's still over 21 into their facility, a lot of great Massachusetts companies do AR work, they also do VR work. So we should keep our minds open to what opportunities through VR might exist for some of the initiatives and strategies that you're thinking about with respect to game sense 2.0. So great work all around, I appreciate the update in the report and I know we lost some game sense members but hopefully we can bring them back at the appropriate time. It's guessing of business ticks back up. Commissioner Brian, thank you, commissioner. No, I don't thank you for the update. It's impressive how everybody could pivot as quickly and as well as they did given the circumstances. Just echoing what commissioner seven said in terms of hopefully the new normal returns that they can really get this fully up and running and bring everybody back. But thank you everybody for the work that you're doing and it looks great. Mission Cameron. Thank you. First of all, thank you, excellent presentation. Always, what struck me from the presentation was that there's never a status quo. You're constantly the game sense team is constantly looking for new ways to reach people. New Hours is an example of that and more effective ways to get the message out and that applies to the council as well, rebranding in an effort to make sure it's all inclusive of a changing environment. So I just, the easy thing to do is frankly, you're doing well, just keep it going but that's not what this team does. This team really is constantly evaluating and looking for new best practices and incorporating them. So that's what impressed me from the presentation. So I just want to thank you and really keep up the good work. Thanks. Thank you. That's a really excellent observation. Commissioner Cameron, you know, not only have they had to be very really flexible to really be able to provide the services in this new COVID-19 environment, but just at the same time constantly thinking about the new ways to do the job. So I think that's an excellent observation. From my perspective, the entire report was so helpful. You know, thank you, Chelsea. It was very thorough reminding us of the day-to-day in this new environment and making sure that you're keeping the game sense advisor safe as well as making sure that you're keeping the patrons safe. Who knew that it would extend beyond safe play but also to their own physical health during this pandemic? So thank you. And then in terms of Teresa, we're looking forward to the next week in Responsible Gaming Education Week, the work that you've done to provide the outreach to remind the larger community of the need for continuing education in this field. And then it's just really exciting to see. And I'm glad that you reminded me that the work of the 2.0 program on Riguez was part of the procurement. I guess that that's right. And so, you know, it's good to now see those steps, the measures being taken. I love the augmented reality. I like the idea of the app being available, sure that there'll be all kinds of ways to provide a communication plan on that. But of course, the name change is particularly meaningful. The need to promote safe levels of play and reduce gambling related harm is indeed a critical vital public health issue. The fact that your name now includes health in it is keeping with the times and really the message and the work that you do. So congratulations all around, excellent presentation. And thank you to our team, Mark and Teresa, your leadership means so much. And we, I think all of the commissioners are just so proud to be linked to this program. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mark, are we all set? Yeah, I wanna thank Ken. If you worked for the overnight shift, I imagine you're barely sitting up straight. And you know, when the casino's closed and we had to think creatively about the game sense program during the closure, I think it's telling that the research that they did, taking a deep dive into the research, developing 20 trainings, reaching out to the hundreds of organizations they did. They didn't sit back and say we can't do our work because the casinos are closed. They said, how can we do our work differently? And how can we be more prepared and increase our, you know, hone our expertise when the casinos open back up and when things begin to open back up again? And I really appreciate Chelsea Turner who she basically started a couple of weeks before everything closed down and was right there and thinking about this. So thank you. Thank you, Chelsea. Thanks to Ken and the other game sense advisors. Right. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. We are going to be moving to item number six, but I do know that we plan on an odd break right now. I need to atop time with my fellow commissioners here. It is right now 10 of one. We will be inviting interim executive director Wells to join us actively in the next session, but we need a break. How much time should we have? I think we probably should have a lunch break rather than just a short break. I see commissioner Zuniga nodding his head. I'm sure Karen, you would welcome that too. It's a half hour. Sorry, that's not mine. At the office at this line. Is a half an hour sufficient? Or should we say 130 return? It's half hour for me would be fine, but it's all up to you. So it's, then we would be returning at 120. We can do it off the half hours, all right? Yep. Okay, I see nods. Excellent. So we will break right now and reconvene at 120. I want to thank again our team for the excellent presentations this morning. They were comprehensive, boy, it's, it really does show the excellent work that extends beyond the walls of the casino. And of course in the walls, the game sensor there, but takes really so much outreach. And these presentations demonstrated that. We're very, very excited to see members of the community today. So thank you. All right, we'll see you at 120. Given that we're working again remotely, commissioner Cameron. I'm here. Commissioner O'Brien. Here. Commissioner Zuniga. Here. Commissioner Stevens. I'm here. And here we are, all five of us. I think we'll resume our meeting again. Today's meeting is September 10th and it is meeting number 319. We are now returning to agenda item six. And you'll allow me, I just want to make a quick statement, reminding everyone of where we are in the process for the hiring of our executive director. On January 13th of this year, the commission approved the hiring of Karen Wells, director of the MGC's investigations and enforcement bureau as our interim executive director. This would be Karen's second time serving in that role, having done so a few years before for five and a half months. Little did we know that within less than two months, director Wells would be guiding the MGC through a pandemic, working to support an orderly temporary suspension of the operations of our three licensees and shifting the MGC functions to remote. When we named Karen the interim executive director, I asked commissioners Zuniga to assist in the search process for the next executive director. Given the fiscal constraints and realities of COVID-19, early on we decided to suspend the procurement of an outside executive search firm. And after Karen served, marked seven months in the interim position, the commission decided that an internal assessment could and should be performed to determine whether an expanded search beyond Karen's candidacy was warranted. Today we will conduct the concluding part of that assessment. I wish to thank director Wells for her service these last eight months and for her participation in today's interview, a public process that we know in and of itself can be less than comfortable. And doing so virtually is simply a bonus. Commissioner Zuniga, if you could now provide details of our process, that would be great. Thank you, madam chair. And just to pick up a little bit on some of that background, when we started the process of procuring for an executive search firm, one of the elements that we hope to ascertain with the help of an outside firm was to try to get a better understanding of updated priorities, things that we would have to consider in having maybe an updated job description, for example. Just another good opportunity for us to weigh in on these significant role as we were going through that transition. As the chair just mentioned, we decided to suspend that procurement, but we felt that it was still important to try to ascertain some of those priorities, some of what's been identified as things we need to address, et cetera. And we conducted two surveys. We did this internally with a very low-cost tool of SurveyMonkey. And we asked the staff, all the staff, to have a survey, respond to a survey that included ratings and open questions. And a second survey targeted to directors with slightly different questions, more open-ended questions that, as the responses that we saw confirmed, are testament to the closer relationship that Karen has had with those directors. We had a really good response rate. The details of those surveys were shared, first with commissioners, and most recently with director Wells. And I can provide a couple of different themes that emerge from those surveys that I think are very much relevant to the discussion that we will now begin to have. And those themes, I should start with the first and foremost notion that there is a great appreciation, an unequivocal appreciation for the work and respect, by the way, for the work that Karen is doing. There's this, how I feel personally, but it's very important to also corroborate from the staff and the directors that there's a recognition that this is a most of unusual circumstances, this pandemic. And there's managing through this period has been very difficult. And still, Karen has managed to do a terrific job, and people are giving her quite a bit of credit for that. These, of course, translates to a lot of work that others have done, but of course, Karen in her position has really guided and executed frankly on those such challenges. Another topic that emerges, and by the way, I'll let my commissioners, my fellow commissioners, or you, Chad, to expound on any of these things, but let me just mention to others if people would like to do that after that. Another topic that emerges is the desire of an appreciation for communication. Again, in the context of what is a lot more difficult given these remote collaboration technology, we're able to operate, but it's just not quite the same to do so via a screen. So people really appreciate the town hall meetings that we've had, the fact that maybe I for one, appreciate more people who generally are in the properties or elsewhere would not normally come to one of our commission meetings, but probably log in without our knowledge. And it is now really comforting in my opinion to see how much people are and appreciate the fact that we have these meetings, the fact that we have those town hall meetings, but also what I know are many, many meetings just like this with smaller groups between the finance department and other department or Karen and other staff, et cetera, et cetera. So with that context, there seems to be a suggestion that we ought to do more of that and continue doing what we're doing. I take quite a bit of, I think that falls on not just Karen, but certainly the commission, the five of us or the six of us, but it's something that in my mind is clear from the surveys and it's something that is also a shared responsibility. There's also good feedback that pertains to the work of the commission more as a policymaking body. There's comments relative to the expectation of sports betting, whether that would be coming up. There's a couple of comments relative to updating the organizational chart, something that we have talked about slightly in the past. These comes all in the context of how our roles continue to evolve. We are now entering a phase of, well, except for the pandemic, just more focus on the operations whereas not long ago, we were still on the licensing review and an opening of the signals. So some people comment around what that might look like. At a minimum, I think we need to update the org chart to reflect some of the recent changes that have occurred, some of the recent or needed tweaks to some of those job descriptions. But in there as well is the desire for people to also have a sense of how their careers can continue to evolve and to progress, evolve for the better. And this is why I'm tying it to what may be different phases for the commission being online, sports, or all I have. So I can pause there and let others, if you are interested, Chair, to talk a little bit more about those themes. Actually, I think that at this point, you've digested that, and I think Karen has received it. I'm sure it informs her comments as well, the two surveys inform her comments. So I think at this point, we can move into Karen's statement and then perhaps our questions will point back to the survey information as well, does that make sense? Absolutely. Okay, I'm seeing at least a good thumbs up from Gail. Thank you so much. So Karen, as I said on a public interview is something you may never have anticipated doing. You've been in the public a lot with respect to your role here at the gaming commission. Just this formal interview is a little different. And as I noted, the virtual makes it especially fun. I am going to put it on speaker view so it will feel almost like we're working with you in person. So thank you and Karen, Director Wells. Up you are starting on mute. There we go. There we go, all set. So first, I would like to thank the commission for the opportunity to interview for this position and for your support, not only for the last eight months who I've served as the interim executive director, but also for the support I've received from you and the former members of the commission for the last almost eight years. I would also like to give a very big thank you to the entire staff here at the gaming commission, not only for their outstanding work, but also for their perseverance during an extremely challenging time, not only in the history of the agency, but in the history of our state, the country and worldwide. Keeping focused and moving forward during a pandemic is extremely difficult. This team has done a wonderful job and I continue to be impressed. So the chair and commissioners need to have asked me to give a public opening statement this morning. So I thought I'd start with some comments about why I'm here, be going on to review my background and then give my thoughts on priorities and goals for the agency moving forward. Those of you who know me well are aware that I have spent my entire career in public service. I identify as a public servant and I'm sitting before you here today because at this particular time, I think I can be helpful to this agency in this role. I have been privileged in my career to have been mentored and trained by some remarkable people who have shown me what it means to be a true public servant, to do the right thing for the people of Massachusetts, to act with integrity, and to do your best at all times. I have been an attorney for almost 26 years. I've served as an assistant district attorney in Middlesex County, first under DA Tom Riley, and later under DA Jerry Leone. I also served as an assistant attorney general after Riley became the attorney general here in Massachusetts. I also served with the executive office of Public Safety and Security under Governor Patrick, first as the senior counsel for law enforcement and fire services, and then as the under secretary for law enforcement. At EOPS, I had oversight over four state agencies, the Department of Public Safety, the Municipal Police Training Committee, Massachusetts State Police, and the Office of Grants and Research. I learned a lot through that experience and working with the executive staff at each of those agencies. With respect to the Department of Public Safety, my experience with DPS has been and will continue to be helpful in this role because DPS is a regulatory agency, gave me exposure to regulatory functions and licensing operations. It also happened to give me the chance to work with Attorney Grossman, who was a deputy general counsel at the time. As for the Municipal Police Training Committee, experience with the governance model there gave me my first real practical experience working with an agency that had a board or committee oversight. The MPTC, the agency has an executive director hired by the secretary of public safety and security that manages operations, but is also governed by the MPTC, the committee, which has members comprised of police chiefs, representatives from the Attorney General's office and EOPS Under Secretary. So at that point, I had the dual role of serving as a member of the committee, which functions like a board and as the executive director's boss. And that gave me the opportunity to view agency functions from those different perspectives. The MGC takes that structure to a new level because here we operate with full-time commissioners that are actively engaged in an operational level. As far as the Department of State Police, a very big agency obviously, and there are many things about agency oversight in that role. But interestingly, one of the most compelling things I learned is just how critical budget management and oversight is to an agency's success. Finance and budget is often overshadowed by some of the more flashy aspects of any agency's functions, but similar to IT, it provides the backbone to operations and its value cannot be underestimated. Also spent a lot of my time overseeing the Office of Grants and Research, which has four divisions. The Homeland Security Division was handled by another Under Secretary, but it oversight over the Justice and Prevention Division and the Highway Safety Division, which did a lot of grants work and also the Research and Policy Analysis Division. And given our robust research agenda and grant programs, including the Community Mitigation Fund, that experience has been very helpful and I expect it to be even more helpful going forward. I also worked with other state and local stakeholders on a routine basis, such as the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, Major City Chiefs Association, various unions, the Massachusetts District's Attorneys Association and others. I've learned that collaboration and relationship building is critically important, not only internally at an agency, but also with external partners. Here at the commission, we not only have relationships with our licensees, but we often also have relationships with other state and local agencies and officials, as well as community stakeholders, which must be developed and maintained in order for us to be successful. I joined the MGC as the first director of the IEB in January of 2013, a time when the entire staff could fit into the conference room at our offices on State Street. Being in on the ground floor and the development of a state agency was a career opportunity that not many people get. The expression, we're building a plane while we're flying it was used a lot at the time. In my role as the IEB director, I have been statutorily responsible for administering and enforcing the provisions in the Expanded Gaming Act relative to the integrity of casino operations. I have oversight over the entire bureau, which includes the licensing division, the MSP Gaming Enforcement Unit, the Chief Enforcement Counsel's Office, the Financial Investigations Division, and the Gaming Agents Division. I had the great fortune of bringing in an incredible team to help me build the bureau and develop our licensing, investigatory and enforcement protocols. We have conducted thousands of investigations, both big and small, registered and licensed, thousands of individuals and entities, and we opened three casinos. Looking back, I am amazed at all that we have accomplished and I want to say thank you to the entire bureau. My time as the director of the IEB was not without some intense and very public work, coordinating the initial suitability investigations into the casino applicants, leading the unprecedented investigation into wind resort sexual misconduct allegations were certainly tremendous professional experience. For anyone that's interested in my work here at the agency, due to the commission's commitment to transparency, there are probably hundreds of hours of video documenting everything I've worked on, from suitability reports to enforcement actions to work on policy and regulations. I've also had the opportunity to serve as the interim executive director on two occasions, combined to over a year of experience in that role. I certainly did not expect that in this second go-around that there would be the added challenge of transitioning through a remote workforce. But although difficult at times, the entire agency came together and we have done a great job in this new environment. So I'd like to give a special thank you to our IT department for the technical support which was ready to go on day one. I recognize that the permanent position of the executive director is different from the interim role and that I will need to transition the IEB responsibilities to a new director and focus on the agency as a whole. I'm at the point in my career where I am ready to do that and I look forward to supporting the entire MGC team. As a lawyer, naturally one of the first places I look for guidance on this agency's function and directives is the law itself. In reading the enabling legislation, it is clear that this was an economic development law looking to create jobs and business opportunities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts while also mitigating potential harms. Notably overarching all of this, section one of the legislation reads, ensuring public confidence in the integrity of the gaming licensing process and in the strict oversight of all gaming establishments through a rigorous regulatory scheme is the paramount policy objective of this chapter. Public confidence in this agency must be insured. The commission recognized this in publicly creating its mission statement and core values. The commission's focus on fairness, transparency and participation, free flowing and open exchange of ideas, integrity of the regulatory process, adherence to our enhanced ethics code and state ethics laws, diversity and an inclusive culture and respectful and professional customer service all relate back to ensuring public confidence in this agency. A key priority of mine is to follow the law and maintain the integrity and credibility of this agency. Without that, everything we do is overshadow. Maintaining integrity and credibility takes work in many areas with both our internal operations and in dealing with our external stakeholders. It is critical that we be truthful at all times, diligent and professional in our work and fair to everyone with whom we come in contact. I read with great interest, the survey results as part of this process and humbled and grateful for the support, especially from the team that evaluated me directly. The survey about the agency as a whole was certainly helpful to me in identifying priorities moving forward. Due to present circumstances, I have been looking at agency needs and priorities in three buckets. The immediate, the short term and the long term. As for the immediate future, we are still in the midst of a pandemic and we have been talking, as we've been talking about over the last six months, my priority is the safety and well-being of our employees as well as the employees and public at the gaming establishments. I recognize that the situation we are all now facing is very difficult and prioritizing everyone's well-being, both physical and mental is critical. In the short term, I am looking forward to working with the commission and the entire agency to foster a positive culture in the workplace. That involves many different aspects of agency management, including communication, collaboration, excellence in operations and inclusivity. As for communication, not surprisingly this was identified in the survey results as something very important. This is understandable. As people want to know what's going on, it makes them feel valued. I'd like to continue the town hall messaging. I've received positive feedback on those and it's a great way to communicate with everyone and all levels of the agency. I am hopeful that we will be able to return to the office before too long so that I can engage in informal check-ins with people. Like many of you, I miss being in the office and being able to connect with people directly. I also want to emphasize communication through our management structure, encouraging managers to communicate with their team regularly with information they receive from their supervisors, whether it be commissioners or the mayor or other leadership, that creates a healthy engagement through the agency. The other piece I'd like to continue to work on is communication between divisions, empowering people to reach out to others in different areas, fosters good relationships and frankly makes the job more interesting. We have a lean shop here. We have no extraneous employees, none. It is a priority for me and for management here that everyone feels that they are part of the big picture and that their contribution matters. Now as to creating a collaborative environment, I'm looking to encourage and expand collaboration not only within individual teams but amongst different teams. We can all learn from each other and working across silos produces better results. I'd also like to emphasize outside of the box thinking within the agency from all levels. Remaining stagnant is the surest way to become mediocre. All of us must encourage new thoughts and ideas and be open to suggestions for improvement. As to excellence in operations, part of having a positive culture is having employees be proud of the work that they do and the place that they work. Holding ourselves to high standards builds a collective self-esteem. And finally, inclusivity. Very important, recognizing the value and diversity. Not just a check the box mentality but actually seeing that having different backgrounds and experiences contributes to our collective thought process expands our thinking and ultimately makes us better. Inclusivity overall also incorporates making people feel welcome like they're part of something. Going into the longer term, I hope to work together at creating opportunities for professional advancement for staff. That may take the, as far as opportunities there, that may take the form of training, focus on internal promotions, opportunities to do things in other parts of the agency when possible or even supporting external resume builders. I also like to focus on continual evaluation of processes and procedures. To develop a top-notch state agency, we must normally document our processes and procedures but also continue to evaluate and reassess them going forward. I have seen a lot of good work in this area and I think we are way ahead of the curve here and we should continue to do that. I also like to focus on lasting infrastructure, both our people and technology. If we're tasked in the future with additional responsibilities, I want us to be able to respond efficiently and effectively. Also in the long term, we want to focus on our internal and external compliance efforts. As a regulatory agency, this is mission critical and not only should we be following our legislative mandate for licensees, we should also be holding ourselves to the same high standards. Finally, creating a structure where we all work effectively with the commission, both as a body and as individual full-time working commissioners. It is important that we see the value in that and embrace our statutory structure. In conclusion, again, I would like to thank the commissioners for giving me the opportunity to interview with you here today and also to thank the entire staff for helping me during the last eight months as the interim executive director. As a public servant, I take this role seriously and I recognize the complexity and diverse nature of our operations and I am committed to maintaining the integrity and credibility of this agency and the people who work here. Thank you, we'll forward to your questions. Thank you, Director Wells for that opening statement. And as we had planned, this is an opportunity for us to conduct an interview, which is somewhat strange because we all know you so well. But this is a big job, a critical job and it's one of the commission's full responsibility is to hire the executive director. So this is an opportunity for us to react to Karen's opening statement, the priorities that she established so well and also to explore our goals and objectives from our perspective as well. Commissioner Cameron, would you like to begin? I would love to, thank you, Madam Chair. Director Wells, listening to your opening statement reminded me of why we hired you in the first place, frankly. You know, we were proud of that hire at the time and continue to be proud of the work that you do. So it just reminded me, you hit on a lot of key points and you just didn't talk about work and the things, the goals you'd like to achieve to move this organization forward. But you talked about your values. You talked about your commitment to transparency, your commitment to following the law and just doing things the right way. That's critical for a leader, many leaders who, you know, they know the nuts and bolts, they can give an order, but the other pieces are sometimes challenging. So I do, it was nice to hear a lot of those themes in your opening statement. I wanted to get back to opening the, rather reading the surveys, which I found informative and reassuring, frankly. Just a couple of things I'd like to mention and then ask you a question about them, okay? Yep. Just some things that jumped out at me. You know, not afraid to make a mistake, always reevaluating decisions in order to learn from them is what one of your colleagues said about you. You mentioned this in your opening statement, your commitment to the mission and the values of the MGC and to the employees and to the citizens of the Commonwealth. That's a critical piece too, right? We could get caught up in our own little world, but we are serving the public. And again, you mentioned your commitment to public service and that's how you identify. So things that I pointed out, you've gotten to in your opening statement, you are reaffirming what your colleagues are saying about you, frankly. You have resilience through challenging times, difficult situations, and you've done this with grace and sound judgment. I thought those words were really important to hear, again, from your colleagues. This isn't from us. These are comments from your colleagues. I would follow her leadership to any organization. Wow, that says a lot, Karen. That says an awful lot about your leadership and what you've provided to this team. And that you don't shy away from difficult challenges, a great problem solver. Again, critical pieces to the work we do, right? You've had a few problems over the years and you've helped us tremendously solve them. But my question to you with regard to those comments is, you know, you have been in this organization since very near the beginning and you have observed two other executive directors prior to you. And I'm certainly not asking for a comparison, but what have you learned, you know, whether it be something you learned that you say to yourself, I wouldn't quite do it that way or something you say, wow, that works really well and I'd like to continue that or expound upon that leadership trait. So what have you learned and that can help you formulate your own style and your goals and objectives moving forward? And you mentioned some of this in your opening statement, but just... Right. So I think a couple of things. I think that I've learned that people in an organization, as I've said, appreciate communication. They like to know what's going on. They like to feel part of what's going on at their workplace and also collaboration. I think people get bored in one little silo, just working on one thing. People like to engage with other people within an agency or social creatures. We like that. And I think people like to develop professionally. People want to move up. They want opportunities to get promotions, to do other things, to expand their resume. So creating an environment where people want to do that's really important. The other thing I have learned, which I think is actually really important in the awareness at EOPS as well, is that one of the most important things you can do as a leader is to actually make timely decisions. That holding off and waiting for decisions or doing things in a non-efficient manner is very frustrating. And a lot of times what individuals need, they need an answer. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is no, but they need an answer and then they can move on. So I think being a leader means being able to make critical decisions and getting the right input from other staff, being informed when you make those decisions, but having the experience and the ability to make decisions when they're necessary. Excellent. You started your answer with communications and that was a key piece here to, you mentioned in your opening statement, you mentioned it again now and responding to this question. And as you noted in the survey, that was a critical piece mentioned over and over again. But I do think you recognize the need to continue and maybe improve communication. So I won't ask you to go back to that because I think you did answer that question quite well. I have a question for Madam Chair. I was just gonna run through some more questions unless you'd rather go one than another, than another, do you want me to run through mine? And then we move on? You know, it might be helpful to maybe everyone have sort of a chance. Okay, great. I'll turn, but everyone will get to ask all of their questions. Sure, I'll pause at this point then and turn it over to one of my fellow commissioners. Okay, I think I'll go then. Commissioner O'Brien, thanks, Commissioner Cameron. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have, well, I have not worked with her in this setting as long as some of you. I have the undue advantage of having worked with three different agencies over the years. So in terms of being able to assess her professional skills as a lawyer, as a manager, as a supervisor, I have no doubt that she has the ability to do the job as she's seen, as we've seen in terms of her, you know, coming over and taking over as interim lately and dealing with what is incredibly difficult situation. In addition to how she handled the investigation, particularly how tough it was on her in terms of the investigation of when that we did last year. So I am not going to quote from the evaluation, et cetera. I just did want to throw my ass out in terms of my knowledge, not only this agency but other agencies where I've worked with her. I have a couple of questions. I'm assuming some of us will have the same one who's communication. I don't want to belabor the point. From my perspective, the question that I really have is you talk about not wanting to be stale because basically you would fall into mediocrity. Having come into this is the first, maybe the second new commissioner that came in and didn't build the airplane while you were trying to fly it. There were times I would ask questions and I would get a look like, well, you just don't understand yet. And there was that effort to gauge, well, how much of it is that I don't understand and how much of it is that you guys are sort of, you used to how to do things and we need to sort of think about whether we need to reassess this, be it internally or outward facing. So what is it that you see as options for you as the executive director in terms of making sure that that staleness, both inward facing and outward facing, doesn't sort of creep in to the organization? Right. I mean, as I mentioned in my statement part of that is documenting policies and procedures and documenting how we do things. Because sometimes you just have this sense of, well, this is how we do it and this is how we always do it. But when you engage in the exercise of either writing it down and you have to go through step by step, that is in and of itself an educational experience. And then also reviewing those policies and procedures and asking yourselves as a team. And I do believe in getting input from various sources because you're always gonna get a better result that way. And then asking yourself, okay, well, why do we do it this way and why do we do it that way? And we saw that with the, even through the licensing process, a popular Paul Connolly, when he came in as the licensing director, he did a good job with that. He would ask himself, he had this consultant kind of mentality, oh, wait a minute, Karen, why are we doing it that way? And we'd say, actually, well, we did it for this reason and then it's okay to ask probing questions, I think is the response. And then creating that culture where people don't have to feel that they're being criticized if someone just asks a question about why you do it that way. That's not a bad thing. That's just us learning from each other. And that I think also translates into that sense that we want to have excellence in the organization because people do like working for the best of the best in the state agency. There's a pride there. And the only way you can do that is to test each other and make each other better. And the part that's also how you do it, as far as being nice about asking questions and going through that. And I hope that I have those skills and I try to be nice when asking about things because I think that's really important. It's not that hard to be nice and when you ask things, but if you do it in that way and that we're all part of the team, it's not a, I'm criticizing you because I'm asking about something. I think that can be helpful. And then people are not defensive if they wanna talk about why they do it. Cause maybe they're right about how they do a certain procedure in their department, but it's okay to ask. Is that helpful? Yeah, thank you. Commissioner Stebbins, do you have a question? I do. Thanks, Madam Chair. First of all, I've had the chance to work with Karen and she joined the team eight years ago. I have to say though, I've never been more excited and impressed with the leadership that she has offered and exhibited while serving in this interim role and certainly this pandemic. She might be the only employee on the MGC team who has taken more personal hits and shots across the bow besides the five commissioners. So I appreciate her fortitude for all of that. And I also appreciate the fact that for comments about, you know, essentially the phrase, well that's the way we've always done it as a, it's really a curse to any organization. So I appreciate her thoughts on that. Just a quick question, one question. And it relates to the ED's relationship with our licensees. Oftentimes you are their first call. And understanding also that our licensees are finding themselves in a very competitive landscape right now, even before the pandemic, it's a very competitive market in the Northeast. One, how do you, during those calls, how do you expect or how have you not only been a good listener but conveyed what the commission itself expects from our licensees? And two, how do you think you can help them continue to compete but obviously make sure that the commission does everything it's supposed to do to comply with the requirements of the law and our regulations? Okay, so as to the first part of your question about communication with the licensees, there is a regulator licensee relationship between us and each of the properties. And I think that the way I've approached it is that we can be friendly but also most importantly be professional and that speak to them in a professional manner, give them the information they need and also listen. Sometimes in that there is authority of being a regulator and I think not only is it always dictating but it's also listening so that you can make informed decisions and give information to the commission that they need to make the big decisions and communicating that back and forth. Again, we go back to that theme of communication and good communication. I also think that telling the truth, showing integrity with our licensees gives our agency credibility. If we are always truthful, we always tell them what's going on, we are transparent with them. It helps in that relationship and they know when I call them and I tell them something, I'm telling them the truth, I'm telling them what's going on. So I think that's really important. As far as helping them during these times, I think I would tie that into that same theme of listening and also going back to that thinking outside the box, like being open to suggestions of doing things a different way. There may be some suggestions of a different way they could do some kind of operation at the casino that might be a little more efficient for them and that just because we did it one way doesn't mean we shouldn't be open to listening and hearing about an option for another way which might be actually more flexible. So we have to maintain the integrity of the operations but that doesn't mean we can't have some outside of the box thinking and just communicating that up to the commission for making those ultimate decisions. Thank you. Commissioner Stendika. Hi, thank you. Like Bruce and Gail, I was there from the very beginning of Karen's tenure. My question, I'm gonna get to my question in a minute. It's about balance but let me mention two things relative to balance that I have seen in Karen try to always do and in my opinion, very successful. You mentioned in your remarks the responsibility to be balanced about budget and I don't know that, I don't mean that in a balanced budget kind of way but in our environment, they need to be judicious with the resources that we get to build on our licensees with the business case and the resources necessary to run the agency. I have seen you from early on evolve into what I think is a really important aspect of trying to achieve that balance when it comes to trying to strike what's the necessary costs. And for that, I think it's really worth mentioning. Similarly, you mentioned in your remarks the notion of these, the gaming act really being a jobs bill, one that generates economic development for people and at the same time being very high in the notion of licensing and regulation towards the integrity of the operation. By definition, there are instances in which those pull in different direction and again, trying to achieve that balance is something that I've seen you done, do and do very well and in my opinion, will of course continue. But finally, on a personal level, my question is about work-life balance for you. And that's the theme that I'm trying to get to here. In the executive director position, you have now seen for a few months that you are in a unique and perhaps uniquely demanding position. You have five people that you effectively report to in these types of meetings, but also in between meetings where you update and et cetera. And you have a whole structure underneath you for the administrative purposes of this agency. And because I get the occasional call from you at seven or eight at night, I know that you've been working long hours by the time I happen to be perhaps alphabetically, I get to be the last one. Perhaps there's still others. But my point is what I think is an important one in this new position, how do you hope to achieve balance for you personally with the demands that you know are there, you know that you've experienced now firsthand. And the service are also an indication of, there's always more that I could be doing. What can you tell us about work-life balance? Yeah, and that is a bit of a challenge for me because I do like working. And I do always feel that responsibility that I have, you know in some ways I have to be perfect. I have to get things right. I have to respond to every call. I have to get everything done, am I to do it? So I do acknowledge that. I think that going forward to be offered this position, one of the changes is going to be that we would identify a new director of the IEV so that I would need to let go of the management of that part of the office to someone else and then serve in that executive director role. So that is actually a significant change and will change a little bit of the job function and allow me to do a little more of a deep dive into the other agency operations and free up some of my time. I think that I need to rely on our executive and senior staff who are phenomenal. I mean, we have some really top notch people in those positions and I need to be able to delegate and say to someone, I'm gonna trust you to handle that because we do have people here that you can trust. And I think that's one of the real accomplishments of this agency over the past eight or nine years is in their staffing decisions because we have a very high functioning staff. So I think that is gonna be how I'm gonna need to operate. It is tough. I've come from the law enforcement world where I am on call 24 seven. So I'm kind of used to sleeping with my phone and having that, breaking away from that. Not so sure I'm gonna be able to do that entirely but I recognize what you're saying because in order for any person in any job to do a good job, they need to be happy and they need to have some balance and they need to get a little rest. And I've been encouraging team members to get rest and take a little time for themselves and they realize what you're saying and it applies to me as well. So I appreciate that. I'll just jump in a little bit tying my question to Henri Gaze. I have to say that I was fortunate enough when I came on that after relatively short period of time after the when hearing, the reporting structure was resumed and I got to work directly with you at your role as IAB director reporting to the chair. You noted a desire to make sure that the culture here is one of welcoming and you did that for me Karen in a very unique way. I learned about the work of the IAB directly through you and the reporting was thorough, very efficient and I learned very short meetings with you so much about the agency. So I have full confidence in you being able to ensure that the culture of the gaming commission is one that is welcoming, it is nice and that it is one that allows for unity and cohesiveness, communication and really the internal growth that you mentioned too so that everyone feels that their piece, their contribution is critical and that there's opportunity to continue to grow in the agency. I feel that even in my short time working with you before the pandemic I could sense that piece of the culture. Now with respect to the 24-7 commissioners Zuniga we are in a pandemic and Karen really had to lead in a way that required almost that 24-7 oversight and that wasn't lost on me certainly. I know that Karen has been tremendously available to me at any time when I had any question you are so responsive that it gives me great confidence in you taking on the role of executive director because it is a big job. Karen's heard me say that it is a complex agency with critical intersections of public and private interests and so your ability to juggle to manage and to take on that big responsibility during this time it's really the reason why we're here today and we didn't expand beyond your candidacy because we've really been able to observe your leadership skills during this crisis. With that said, I am terribly sensitive to commissioners Zuniga's point that it has to be a sustainable workload. Now we have talked about the org chart it is something that does need to be updated that is no secret but it really as I understand it I think most of my fellow commissioners share is that that would really fall on the executive director one responsibility that it would probably not have been appropriate for the interim executive director. So I'm wondering if you've been able to give that structure some thought even though I know you with great humility you would say only in the event that you were promoted how do you imagine your chart? You've been functioning a little bit differently than the prior executive directors oversight and I just wondered if you could give us some highlights we will not hold you to it. Okay, okay. I think that just some general oversight and I have been speaking to other staff members about this so this would not come as any surprise I'm not going to say anything that I haven't discussed with other people. I think we had a structure where we had the Ombudsman's office responsible gaming and diversity and workforce development report to the general council to sort of put that on hold during the interim period I would continue the current structure where those functions report to the executive director just from a structural standpoint and I think it's very important that the executive director have some direct oversight over those functions because they are very critical. So I think that we're going to be looking at and tweaking exactly what the functions are and what people should be doing within those buckets. I think we had the departure of the Ombudsman and we need to reassess that the nomenclature even just for that office and what that means going forward. And as we've talked about the numerous occasions we are in a different phase and we had the phase of the gaming commission where we were licensing the actual rebate casinos. That was a really important phase. Then we had the phase where we were opening the casinos and as Bruce Band and Burke Kane and his team will tell you that was a ton of work and that was a lot to get those up and running. That's been accomplished a lot to be proud of here. Now granted we're in a pandemic and we're in this weird situation now with the plexiglass and the extra rules and all that but we will come out of this with the pandemic will end. We will all be going back to normal at some point and we're going to be transitioning to that. I'm not going to adhere to the term steady state because I think it's a jinx and every time we say that it's something happens. So I think that but understanding we are going to be a regulatory body of the casinos that are open in Massachusetts. So what matches with that function? The piece of that is compliance. We have within our office we've got several compliance functions. We've got sort of that casino compliance function which is the gaming agents team and what they do. They are on site 24 seven doing regulatory compliance on internal controls and the processes and the procedure ensuring the integrity of those gaming operations. We also have external compliance in terms of license conditions and conditions regarding this host community and surrounding community agreements and other state and local requirements by law. So we've got that piece and then we also need to take a look at our own internal compliance and what we're doing to make sure that we are doing the right thing. So our own internal compliance. So putting together a plan I think is part of that and identifying individuals in our office who are going to be working in those functions is really important because that is the crux of what we do is compliance. And we have IT and finance and legal they're all supporting that. So aside from a policy division we've got our backbone operations and then our operational pieces. So having those all work together I think it's going to be important. So those are some of the thoughts I have in the org chat but I will be talking to people I want people to have input. I want to ask about what people want to be doing and what makes sense and get some clarity on exactly what the office needs to be doing into these areas and sort of make good matches and figure out what we're doing. With the caveat that we are in a pandemic the casinos are really their revenues are really way down. And as commissioners need to point out we have to act with integrity with respect to our stewardship of our finances. So it's a tricky time to make wholesale changes. We may have to make incremental changes in accordance with the financial situation of the casinos and we find ourselves in right now. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. Just going to unmute myself here. Thank you. Director Wells to something I have always thought that you don't work all that effectively if you work in a vacuum any organization. Having said that I know you earlier this year you were elected to the board of trustees for the International Association for Gaming Regulators. Frankly that's a prestigious position for us as a commission to have you as a serving elected official with the organization. As you know I've been active in that organization and I have to tell you that I've heard in planning for the conference that we'll be hosting next year because of the pandemic. I've heard from many of the board members that they're thrilled to have you. You've added substance, you've worked hard, you volunteered, I'll use that word in quotes to serve as the treasurer for the organization. And I just wanted to hear from you a little bit since it is important to learn from others and to share information in the year that you've served a little less than a year with the organization as a leader. What has your experience been and what are some of the things that may be important that you could bring back to our organization because your board members are from what? Five different continents. I mean it's a very, very diverse board and lots of information sharing goes on. So could you just give us a little bit about that experience and how that can be helpful for the organization? Yes, yeah, that actually was quite an honor to be on that board. As you indicated there's memberships all over the world from different continents. It's interesting, I've been in the room on one occasion with the board, but a lot of the meetings we've been doing virtually similar to what we've been doing now for the last eight months. There's some very smart people on that board. What's interesting that I've found they've been sort of looking at, one is as you would expect, it's sharing of information. So best practices, what are people doing? Are there any resources? For example, there was a remarkable interest in responsible gaming across the world and it's really nice that our office here at the MGC is a real leader in that respect. My compliments to the legislature for creating a funding mechanism for that is what I've seen from the other international jurisdictions is that's unusual. So to have that for us has been really good. So there's an interest in that. What's interesting right now just on a sort of the most recent level is that a lot of people, we've been talking about sort of this educational component for different regulatory agencies. And then how does Niagara make itself relevant? Because there's a lot of information coming out and how do you identify what is the best of the best? And because people, they're finding right now, they're getting a lot of online things because nobody's traveling right now. So it's kind of interesting that people are getting a little bit of screen overload. So how do you differentiate between what you want to see and what is just another thing that's just gonna take up an hour or so much of your time? So I think that board is looking at what do we do going forward? Because this pandemic is worldwide and it has been impacting customers all over the world. And so they're seeing, I think agencies are seeing decreases in funding and there may be some decreases in travel opportunities. So this focus on the digital world and what are we gonna do in the digital world and what makes sense in the digital world and how do you make yourselves relevant as an association? And then also for the jurisdictions that they represent, what's the best thing for them? So that's been a really interesting point of conversation with the group. And the hope is that the pandemic is over and they're scheduled for next fall to have their international conference here in Boston, which I'm really looking forward to and should be spectacular. But it's interesting being flexible with the times and identifying what you can do virtually has been a big topic of conversation. Thank you. Thank you. I'll stay in the same order. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. Do you have another question? Just somewhat of a follow-up to the last question I had, which is in some of the evaluations and the feedback that Commissioner Cameron mentioned earlier, there was some question as to the fact that you had such a tie to IEV and your children both jobs that transitioning into sort of letting go of that and stepping into the role of ED, while people expressed faith that you could do this, there was some question as to how you would make sure that there was parity amongst all the divisions in terms of your time and attention versus sort of maybe an over-attentioned IEV. So if you could address that, that would be helpful. Yes, I mean, I think anytime, especially within an agency, that you transition into a new leadership role, you really have to understand that particular role and the scope of your responsibilities. And this job as the executive director is responsible for administrative oversight over the entire agency. So my intent is to do that professionally across the board. I mean, I think ultimately, my actions will speak for themselves in that area. I think in some ways, so one advantage is that I do know IEV so well, that I don't need to familiarize myself and spend a lot of time identifying all the areas and who the people are and all that. So I have in some ways the ability to trust that that operation is under control and know what's going on there. And I have more time then to focus on the rest of the agency. So in some ways that can be in the damage. But ultimately, I think I just need to be professional and I need to do my job as the executive director, not as the hybrid and not as the interim, I mean, not as the director of the IEV. It's a different job and I need to be an adult and recognize that that's my job right now. Thank you. Commissioner Stebbins. Sure, thanks, Madam Chair. To build off Eileen's question a little bit in the reference I was made to in the survey because you've been in the interim position now for a number of months and you've had a chance to work with some of the other departments. What are the things that you've witnessed working with some of your colleagues and things that you may not have expected in having that close working relationship now with people outside the IEV? Right, I mean, I think that the first thing I'll mention is the opportunity to work with the IT department. For those who don't have a normal in regular interaction with IT, those folks are doing a phenomenal job, not only because of the pandemic and they had to do all these extra things with respect to the remote working but also the transition to the cloud, they're involved in big projects. And what I've seen particularly Katrina lead that team with is I've been impressed with a real focus on just the organizational skills, performance metrics. Every time we meet she has a whole outline of everything that the office with the division is doing. And it's really impressive. And I've learned in this role coming out of the IEV and sort of looking at the whole agency, that's really important. I mean, I've seen those kinds of metrics and things like that, you know, when I've worked with finance and other areas before, but that to me is just one example of where being that ED role sort of expands your thinking of what really makes a great agency and especially moving forward. If we've got other things that the legislature may task us with, that's gonna be a critical function. So I want to emphasize that that's very modern, having a lot of focus on our IT development. I look at the, from the IEV perspective, the LMS system, that was a game changer. The efficiency by which we could move along all those licensing investigations compared to when we did it by paper when the open PPCs was astronomical. So looking at other areas in the office where we can progress and modernize, I think is really helpful. So that was one area that I just, you don't always think of IT because it's so much in the background, but it really is helpful. Okay, thank you. Yeah. My question's coming up. Well, what I have prepared, it's almost always already been touched on, but let me just pick up on the notion that you did mention earlier, Karin, and that was we are all social animals, if you will, or social creatures, I believe was the right term. And the need for social connections, we have now been remotely for a few months. So of course, since March, we have the prospect of a few more months, depending on how things go. This is just fine to see each other through screen, but again, a theme that I mentioned and it comes across really loudly in the surveys is the notion of that. It's term communications, but I think deeper down is the notion of social connection. You mentioned already the town halls and that was mentioned in the surveys. Are there, do you see something new, some people coming back into the office or going out for outside socially distant after work event or something like that that could also complement our current environment? Yeah, it's interesting because when Tripti and Derek and I were at the offices giving out the equipment, so was a week and a half ago, whatever day it was. It was interesting because the three of us did have that same reaction that, oh, it's just so nice to talk to somebody in person. It really is different. So I've been giving it some thought. We have HR is helping me and HR and finance are helping me with that sort of, if you need to be in the office, sort of that return schedule so we can make sure we know where people are and there are no clusters. I mean, I think we always have to look at the data, look at with the governor's office is recommending but it's interesting from the survey results. I agree with you, people are really craving that and I got some feedback from one of the senior team members that when we sent the notice out about the working home extending till December of 2020, there were some people that were disappointed and a little surprised, which I found very interesting because it didn't come as a surprise to me at all just because we were all working on the COVID situation so it made sense because it paralleled the governor's orders and putting, that we're waiting for phase four and if you can work remotely, you should. But it was interesting when we were back there, I am somewhat open to the idea if there is a way to do this safely, maybe creating some situations where people can do that because I think people are asking for that but we would have to be looking at the guys from DPH, look at the numbers, look at the data to make sure people are safe. Because as I indicated, my priority is the safety and wellbeing of our employees that has to be number one. But I recognize, as I said, there's also the mental health component to that, that we have to recognize that. So I think that internal working group and working with Bruce Debbins and Gail Cameron, we're working on that. We can explore those ideas, particularly the feedback is from the employees that really are craving that and that would be helpful to their mental health. And someone's saying to me, it's something, there was an issue about the mail and you have to check the mail periodically and getting commissioners their mail and someone raised their hand like, I'll drive the mail around. I'll do anything to get out of my house. So it's not lost. I mean, that is something that we have to discuss. Absolutely. There's just something that's very different from making eye contact through a screen that making it in real time. It really is. Just to follow up on that, Karen made a home delivery to me. I had no idea it was maybe because she was doing anything to get out of her home. And even though I was greeting her at my home with a mask on and she had her mask on, I almost, I did forget that we had not seen each other for, it was months, five months in person. It felt as though it was just an extension of a conversation like this. So to the extent that we have been able to work so well remotely, it's a huge credit, of course, to Karen's leadership and the IT team, but everybody's willing to do this. It makes a big difference to see each other visually. A lot of state agencies, a lot of private companies haven't been able to have this kind of remote connectivity. So I take great pride in saying that we've had it since day one to Karen because it's been so meaningful to me. That said, of course, the social piece is missing. I'm gonna quote the governor, he was right on on this. He noted recently, and I'm sure you saw that, yeah, he misses it too. That everyone, we're all kind of over this. And his words were, it stinks. And so I would borrow that, it does, it stinks. But again, just if we wanna resist that, thinking as much as possible until it truly is safe, and just remember that in this paradigm, to do it as much as we can, and to the extent we can add something, that's more physical, yes, but we can continue to just enhance the virtual. That will go a long way through the calendar year. So in terms of my question, Karen, just to finish up, there was one or a couple of observations from the surveys that said, it is hard to manage a team of about, how many, 160 state police, 110, the numbers vary. You asked the five full-time commissioners, you did say it's a unique paradigm. That can be a challenge. I just wanna know how you think you will, how you feel the experience has been the last eight months, and how you would either change the experience or enhance the experience. How would you address that particular concern that was raised? You know, it's interesting because we are working in this remote time, so it's a little different than you would manage in regular time. You know, I, let's prescribe it to some of the other day, things, you know, we have meetings, and you know, there's scheduled meetings, and you set up an hour, you set up a half an hour, you don't sort of check in with people. It's almost like, you know, when we were, like I don't have as a kid, you went out and played with your neighbors, in which you sort of unstructured play, and it's just hanging out, as opposed to kids these days, which have their structured play dates. So, you know, I think it's interesting that way, and that, you know, I find that sort of analogy relevant, because right now, you know, I look at my calendar, and it's like block, block, block, block, block, and what I've found is interesting is that I do like the occasional, you know, just a random phone call, or just a check-in, and things like that, and breaking it up a little bit, I think in the short term is actually pretty helpful. You know, I got just a call from Joe Delaney the other day, and we talked about, you know, absolutely licensing, and that, it was great, you know, because it wasn't, you know, oh, here's my schedule, and it can feel a little overwhelming. So I think breaking things up a little bit like that, I mean, as far as dealing with a lot of touch points, so I recognize, you know, my current role as the interim, I think it was, you know, 12 direct reports, and then five commissioners, that's a lot of touch points. So I definitely felt a little bit, you know, wanted to, I wasn't getting to everybody as much as I would have liked, just because of the volume. So Mike, I think there's a change in structure in the ED, and then the IEB is taken over by someone else that will help with that. But, you know, my nature is I do like to talk to people and check in, because you get great feedback that way. I think we could use potentially these, you know, the silent briefings of the commissioners a little bit more that we've been doing just to get some information up to the commissioners, and those are pretty efficient, and then you can all hear the same thing. And also what I'm trying to do is when we have certain issues come up, instead of having, you know, well, I'll talk to one person, and I'll talk to the next person, then I'll talk to the next person, just get everybody in the room and we'll all talk all at once, instead of doing so that sequence with the staff members. And that way everybody gets to hear some other perspective, because it's not just, you know, Karen knows everything, not everybody is hearing the information, but I'm trying to do some more topic-related meetings instead of just individual one-on-one meetings. And I think that that'll help a little bit with the time management and with the touch forms. So I don't know if that answers your question, but... Yeah, I think that's really helpful. And I like the idea of the topic meetings, because then you're getting that cross-departmental input. I guess one of my questions is in terms of the construct of the commission. How do you see the executive director's relationship with the five full-time commissioners? How do you manage that? How do you think about it? What do you think about the role of this commission you mentioned in your statement that you were familiar with, the less-than-full-time commission paradigm? Yeah, and that is, it's interesting because it is very different. Sometimes you think of a board structure and they have their months-in-month meeting and you come in and you give them a briefing and they make their decisions. But the gaming commission by statute is very different because all the five commissioners are identified as working full-time and being participatory in the operations. The commission as a body, it has the policy oversight over the agency. So there is that different role. The ED is sort of the administrative lead for the agency, but the commission as a body really owns the policy and the direction of the agency. So I think what the executive director needs to do is have the relationship with the commission as a body and with the individual commissioners to be able to listen and understand what the direction is because at the end of the day, it's the commission out there in public on the big decisions and what's going on. Staff is there to support the commission on what they're doing. So really getting the commissioners the information they need in order to do their jobs is my job. And coordinating that with the other staff members and making sure that you can do what you need to do. And that goes back to that role of the public servant that I'm here to serve and provide information and implement policy directors. And that's how I see the role. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. I just have one last question. And that would be, I was happy to hear Director Wells, your comments on your commitment to diversity. As we know, it has to be an intentional, kind of continuous process. And I just wanted to hear if you had one or two ideas that may be helpful in demonstrating this commitment. So a couple of things we're already starting to implement that I'd like to move forward on this sort of or change concept to is not, we've done, Jill's done a tremendous job with the external diversity and workforce development. I mean, you look at the presentation that you've got today on the Encore Build and how they did on that. I think that transitioning some of those great ideas and some of that leadership and initiative to our internal operations is where we need to go going forward. So for example, I think I mentioned in my admin update just briefly, we have a couple of hires coming up and getting Jill in the mix to expand our diversity outreach for applicants for positions is the way to get a better applicant pool and hopefully get some additional diversity within the agency. Also, we're using our resources and looking at ourselves as far as our diversity spend within the office is something I'm looking to move forward on in the near future. Because, as I said, you can't hold our licensees to these standards and then not hold yourselves to those standards. Because again, my theme of the integrity and credibility of the agency, how are they looking at us if we're not holding ourselves to those same high standards? So I think putting resources towards that is going to be important. Great, thank you. I'm sure Brian. I don't have any other additional questions at this point. Thanks. Thank you. Commissioner Steffens. Sure, sorry about that. Yeah, just one last question, Karen, and it really is about your impressive resume. Can you just, as somebody not really familiar with EOPS and some of the other positions you've been in, can you just give me a sense, and this is probably for the public's benefit as well, in terms of you were managing a number or had oversight of a number of different agencies. Can you talk about what those numbers were in terms of people reporting up to you and how it mirrors the relationship at the MGC? So in EOPS, I had different managerial responsibilities as an ADA, but at EOPS, EOPS is really an agency oversight. A lot of what they do, they also do policy initiatives, but a lot of what they do is agency oversight. So I had oversight over four state agencies. MPTC, smaller agency, and it was a training agency, smaller budget, but then they also did some charging for recruit training. So that numbers, maybe a hundred employees that I'd have to do, it's been eight years, so I don't know the exact number, but a smaller agency. DPS was a little bit bigger, that's a regulatory agency. It is interesting because DPS did have some part of their budget was a funding mechanism where they would charge for the elevator inspection. So they're budget-wise, it was a little bit similar, and it's not just an appropriation. And then MSP is obviously a monster agency. It was 2,300 troopers, large command staff team, the colonel reported to me that that was a big responsibility. And then Office of Grants and Research, a smaller shock. So they had four divisions and they had maybe a handful, say there would be four to 10 people within each division. So it sort of ran the gambit. So the oversight of an undersecretary, and I had some role in this capacity as a senior council, is really to work with the agency leadership, and the bigger picture items of policy development, their budget, what was going on. And we had, I was at EOPS when the crash hit in 2008, we had nine C cuts, you have to deal with that, any significant issues at the agency. So occasionally there'd be some HR issues that would come up with PICUS, and they were particularly significant, but generally it was just working with these agency heads. So it's actually kind of interesting because in some ways, more similar to a commissioner role where I had oversight over the executive director. So it sort of helps me understand the position you are in that in a little bit of a way, see your perspective and that it is hard to be at sort of the policy level and then oversee an agency and that's what you're doing. So I have a little experience in that area as well. Okay, thanks Karen for that, I appreciate it. Thanks Madam Chair. Thank you. Krishna Seneca, any more questions? No, thank you very much. No more questions. Okay, and I am all set too. I just wanna double check. Anyone have any additional questions? I'm seeing no. So we've had a chance to review assessments from the entire organization as well as your direct reports, Karen, had an opportunity to hear your statement and your priorities for the future, both short-term, long-term and of course, during this pandemic. And then we've had the opportunity to ask questions in a more formal interview style, covering really the broad range of your responsibilities and your talents and your background. But that said, however, I do wanna offer to my fellow commissioners a chance if you would like to postpone any decision making today to be able to reflect on today's discussions or to do further due diligence. We can suspend any action on this matter and move to a next meeting or in the event that you are satisfied with the internal assessment that we decided to do, we could move on offering Ms. Wells, Director Wells, the executive director position with an understanding that it's an offer that we would today discuss compensation in deep hill again in the public arena. So I wanna present the first, is there any, the first option, is there any desire to suspend today or do we feel comfortable with the information that we've received and no need to do any further homework? I feel comfortable. I think I'm ready to make a decision today. Thank you. I am as well, no additional information needed. Thank you, and Commissioner Zunica, the same? Yep, that's, yep, same here. Excellent, so we have reserved the opportunity to vote today. If we wanted to have a motion, do I have someone who's comfortable moving? I'll be happy to be that person, Madam Chair. I wanna pick up on something from the discussion. I'm a big believer of promoting from within, giving people our opportunity to advance in the agency and doing so in offering Karen the executive director position who would be perhaps doing our highest profile example of that principle. So I will enthusiastically move that we offer Karen the job of executive director. And I will enthusiastically second that motion. Comments, discussions before we take a roll call vote. Commissioner Stoutens. Also. Commissioner O'Brien. Also. Okay, Commissioner Zunica, you've moved. Commissioner Cameron, any other additional comments? No. I had noted down here that I would say if asked to move myself, I would have said with enthusiasm and gratitude. So it's not surprising that we're thinking alike commissioners. All right. So we have a motion and seconded. I will do a roll call vote. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Zunica. Aye. Commissioner Stevens. Enthusiastic, aye. And with gratitude and congratulations. Five, zero, Cheryl. Thank you. Karen. Thank you very much. Karen, that's only an offer. And for a moment, for a moment I'm just gonna say that she's saying thank you, but you have the opportunity to still say no. So we do need to discuss again. Again, always compensation of being an advocate here. Always remember that pay is associated with the job. So we, and again, we do it publicly. I've asked commissioners Zunica to look into the past history and to examine compensation options for us. And again, commissioners, if we needed to do more homework, we could suspend on this discussion as well, but at least Karen knows there is an offer for her. And we are excited about that. And our fingers are crossed that it will be a very enthusiastic yes. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So a little background on the figures just for the recollection of commissioners. Karen's most recent salary as the executive director of the, I'm sorry, the deputy director of the IEB was 158,445 dollars. This was effective back on July of 2019. Karen's current salary in her prior position of interim executive director was or is 182,000 dollars, 212. Throughout his tenure before departing, Ed Bedrosian had an annual salary of 185,000 dollars. And you might remember that for the last few years, since, certainly since 2019, but as far as 2016, when was the last, those were the last two periods in which we increased salaries in the agency. The executive director position had, as well as other senior members, had received effectively some payment of that 2% at times. So, and that's why the salary of the executive director of Bedrosian was 185,000 throughout Easton. In other words, just to clarify, you're saying that 2% was like a bonus as opposed to a bump in the salary. Correct. Okay, excellent, thank you. So, and by the way, that was something that we decided to do as a way to continue to manage our top heavy salaries, but continue to offer the compensation that he thought was commensurate to the job as well as the marketplace. So, I can ask, I can take questions if there are any, or I am prepared to make a recommendation. The chair will see. Yes, so I did ask Commissioner Zuniga to make a recommendation for us to chew on. Is that a good framework to start with his recommendation? Thank you, why don't we go ahead with that and then we'll get comments and questions and maybe there'll be some alternatives. Right, so there was also a discussion between the chair and I relative to being disciplined about a performance evaluation that we, it's been a little while since we did our last of the executive director. In that context and with the desire to do one at the end of each calendar year, I recommend that we offer Karen the same salary that the prior executive director had, that is $185,000. With the understanding that at the end of this calendar year, which is only a few months ahead of us, we would conduct a performance evaluation and have a performance evaluation related compensation discussion at the time if we felt it was necessary. So my recommendation is to continue with that level unless others want to discuss otherwise. Hands. Thoughts, commissioner Cameron, commissioner Ryan, commissioner Stevens. Well, I think in light of the pandemic we are being fiscally responsible. I will note that director Wells has more experience in gaming than our prior executive director did when he was hired. But I understand the recommendation and in realize that there will be a performance evaluation within the next couple of months. Commissioner Brian. No, I was thinking the same thing that commissioner Cameron just said and then also looking at sort of the statutory structure for us, the commissioners. It seems to me that that would be the appropriate salary for her this time. Okay, commissioner Stepans. I'm certainly comfortable with the recommendation. So I also agree with commissioner Cameron's observation and I also appreciate that director Wells noted that this is a difficult time right now as we address fiscal constraints given really what our licensees are dealing with in terms of their revenues and their furloughs. My inclination if things were normal would be to address what commissioner Cameron said at this time. But I would follow the recommendation and with full appreciation that we'll have an evaluation that will be for the full year. Karen's, it will be an extension of really what we evaluated today with the next four months included. And we can look at where we are at that time. So with that, if there are no other comments I would, I guess that we should formalize the recommendation with a vote. In that case, madam chair, I move that the commission offer Karen the annual compensation of $185,000 going forward with the understanding that we will conduct a performance evaluation for the full calendar year of 2020 shortly after its conclusion. Second. Okay, any further discussion? Okay, just again, my gratitude Karen for your presentation today and your willingness to be, to take on this role. We hope that you'll accept an offer and again, recognition that this is difficult to do in public youth and state. So thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Karen. Go ahead, Karen. No, that's okay. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say I gratefully accept the offer. I don't think there's any need for any further discussion on my end. I am privileged to work here. I appreciate the support from the staff and the commission. And I look forward to serving all of you going forward. Okay, well, let's find out what you're going to get paid. Commissioner Zuniga, commissioner Stevens and I vote yes. Karen, you will be paid. And thank you for accepting the offer. Five, zero on that, Sarah. And if we were in person, there would be highs. Thank you. Great job, Karen. Thanks. Really, really nicely done. Commissioners, it is three o'clock. I will at our next meeting, I will have Jamie tally up the work that has been done by all of you, the four of you, my colleagues in terms of the numbers of public meetings that we've had. Remote is hard, but boy, it's been effective. And when we think about where we were on March 14th and where we are today, then you should each be very, very proud. I know every team member that's on, what do we have right now? 45 members have stayed to see Karen through this process. They are your team, Karen. We claim them too, but they are your team. Yeah. You know, we're very, very fortunate to have this community. And let's just keep on doing it strong. And we know that we will do so at the home. Thank you. Commissioners, do I have them? I think that, oh, is there any updates? Any updates? Any updates? I don't have anything. Okay, none. All right. Can I move to adjourn, Madam Chair? There we go. Second. There we go. Okay. Again, a big thank you. And we will have our roll call vote and say goodbye. Commissioner Cameron. Bye. Commissioner O'Brien. Bye. Commissioner Zuniga. Hi, thank you, Karen. Great job. Thank you. Commissioner Stephens. Bye. Great job. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye, everyone. Bye.