 All right, I'll set it up and we're all set. Thank you. Good morning. This is a convening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, public meeting number 513. I'm Jordan Maynard. I'm serving as interim chair of the Gaming Commission. This meeting is being held virtually using remote collaboration technology, so we will do a roll call. Good morning, Mr. O'Brien. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning. It's approximately 10.04 on April 11th. Let's start with item number 2. For that, I will ask if everyone has had time to review the minutes from July 11th, 2023. With that, I move that the commission approve the minutes from the July 11th, 2023 public meeting included in the commissioner's packet subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non-material matters. Second. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. Any discussion? Okay. I'll take the vote. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. And Commissioner Skinner. Hi. And I'm, yes, 4-0. All right. Next, we're going to kick it over to the new executive director, Dean Serpa, for an administrative update. I will note that this is ED Serpa's first full MGC public meeting, and we're excited to have you, Dean, and look forward to your tenure here. ED Serpa. Thank you, Chairman Maynard. I would say that I am excited to be here to be starting with my first meeting. I want to say that after many, many months of watching these meetings to bring myself up to speed and to make sure I was informed correctly when I got here, it's exciting to actually be in the screen and not just watching the screen. So I'm happy for that. I, of course, need to say how helpful everyone has been on my arrival and supportive of me bringing myself up to speed. And I definitely want to thank the interim executive director, Todd Grossman, who, of course, provided real leadership during the interim period, but has also been very helpful to me in bringing myself up to speed. But I guess as an administrative update, the most important thing I can say is that the new, the new executive director has been onboarded with the organization and is bringing himself up to speed. I did pull some metrics for you, Chairman. I want to report that in eight days, the executive director attended 17 one-on-one meetings, 16 issue-focused meetings, eight group meetings, one external public event, one facility tour, in one eclipse. So he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's putting the time in. There's no doubt there. And so commissioners, would you like to, to say anything to, to E.D. Serpa? I just want to respond to your, your metrics there. I had the almost, short of the eclipse, I think. I had the almost exact experience, although I wasn't a commissioner at the time, I was director of licensing. So there's that. So, but once again, welcoming you to our MGC team and looking forward to your leadership. Thank you, commissioner. All right. Anybody else? We'll move on. Thank you, E.D. Serpa. We will move to item number four. Commissioner Hill, do you have a legislative update for us? I actually do. Many of you probably already know this, but yesterday, the House of Ways and Means put out its budget for FY 25. And I just wanted to give you a very quick update or snapshot as we are still going through the budget, but we think when I'm about to report to you or the highlights of what happened in regards to the mass gaming commission. So as you remember, the governor's proposal had looked at taking funding from some of our funds that we have, the public health fund, for example, the horseman's fund, things like that. So I'm happy to report that the House of Ways and Means actually restored the cuts to the racehorse development fund, which is about $19 million because it did not look to redistribute the 9% assessment from the category two facilities to local aid as the governor's budget had done. It restored the cuts to the public health trust fund. However, it did take a deeper cut to the community mitigation funding by decreasing it from 6.5% to 0%, which is more than the governor office had recommended. This would mean a cut to the community mitigation fund of about $16.7 million compared to the FY 23 actuals. But there's also language in the budget that would make this a one-time removal of these funds as the sections in the language does not amend the MGL but says that for FY 25, it makes us transfer the following way, notwithstanding section 59 of chapter 23K of the general laws or any other general special law to the contrary, 100% of the revenues received from a category one license as defined in section two of chapter 23K. And this is the important part pursuant to subsection A of section 55 of chapter 23K in fiscal year 25, shall be transferred. And then it gives you a synopsis of where the monies will go. So that's good news that it's only for FY 25. They didn't take away the program. I'm pretty confident with the amount of money we have still in the fund that there's no problem for our current fiscal year or even moving into next year with the if these dollars are removed. So that's kind of the overview of what we saw so far. There is one amendment that's been offered so far that would add some more money, I think to the public health trust fund. But again, that will go through the legislative process. The house will take up the budget not next week, but the week after. So that's about all I got for a legislative update, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. Commissioner. If I may add one other thing, and I'm so sorry. We also know that the governor in the house ways and means had put in language for I lottery and we are just taking a, again a view of what the language is in regards to the I lottery because we wanna make sure there's not any cross pollination going on. And I wasn't here at the time, Mr. Chairman and I'm not sure Commissioner Skinner was either but there was, you know, back in 2017, there was a letter that was put out by the mass gaming commission to the legislature just letting them know that the definition of what I lottery would be was of concern at that time. So again, we're taking a look at it and seeing what the definition is and if there's anything that I think we should be concerned of, I will certainly bring that back to the full commission. And I see that my fellow commissioner, Commissioner O'Brien has her microphone off. So you might wanna add something to this. It sounds like it, Commissioner O'Brien. Yep, so that that letter and it hats off to legal for the institutional knowledge. Justin remembered the submission and was able to locate it and convert it. So Justin, I see you just took your video off. I would ask if legal can get that out to the other commissioners that haven't had the opportunity to see it because that will help inform and then also to the team that's looking at the legislative changes in the budget. Cause I think that will inform whether we would want to update, resubmit the 2017 letter or do nothing, but that's a good jumping off point. I think if everybody gets a look at the letter. Yeah, I'll make sure to separate that. I would add if I could, if we could, the other commissioners could get real time information as to what amendments are being filed. Again, not violating the open meeting law, but even just the distribution so that we can all be on the same page. I was not aware that there was amendment filed, haven't just due to traveling, haven't been keeping up with the news on that. But if we have inside information or direct information as to what's being filed at real time, I would appreciate if we could all just get information on get that information. We would be more than happy to do that. We have Grace on top of it, Tom's on top of it. I'm on top of it. So I hope it would never sneak by the three of us, but it's all public. As soon as they throw an amendment in, it comes right on the website. So we're on top of it. It's been a while since I've had to monitor that. It's been a while since my GC days. And then before we leave this topic, Chair Maynard, I would ask that we hear from our finance team and their perspective on the outlook for the proposed house changes. I'd be happy to hear from the finance team if they have something to add. Yeah, I don't have anything really to add other than the fact that this is better than what had come out of the governor's budget. If you recall, the governor's budget was looking to cut us by about 30.5 million if we were using FY23 actuals. This is a 16.7 million, just bottom line. It is a little more harmful to the community mitigation fund, but that being said, as Commissioner Hill reported, the community mitigation fund does have a balance setting in it. We'd never like to see that balance used other than for the annual funding cycles, but in the world of all the revenue constraints and all the funding cycles that the state is facing right now and the pressures, this is actually not a bad outcome. Thank you, Derek. Anybody else have anything to add? I will just say, I'll add my voice here. I know that the governor's office and the legislature have very difficult tasks. We stand at the ready to do our jobs. And I know they're doing their job and we stand at the ready to do our job. And we are going to take our mandates and run with them as we always have. So we appreciate the update and we know that there's still a lot of work to be done and we respect all the work that's being done by the governor's office and the legislature. So with that, thank you, Commissioner Hill and Grace and Derek for your work and others. We're gonna move to item number five. And for that, we have a number of updates for the sports wagering division. We'll kick it to Crystal and Andrew and I believe we're gonna start. I wanna welcome Mr. Callop, the COO of Bally's and thank you for being here in person. And it looks like you may have Bob Ross with you today. I recognize him in the room. And so with that said, I wanna kick it over to Crystal to start the conversation. Good morning. And I just wanna first thank Lily for jumping in there and assisting Brett and Vally's with a quick change to make sure they could get on the meeting. We are happy to see that you're so committed and that you're here. And I'm sorry, I am not in today to meet you in person though we met a few months ago. But I will just let it, you guys take the lead on this. I think that you're prepared. Brett, did you have a presentation? I don't think we can hear you. We have some new issues here. I think we got it. I don't have a formal presentation at this time but first and foremost, thank you for allowing myself to join this meeting and speak to all of you. I really appreciate it. We really appreciate it as a company and as a team and are looking forward to our soon to be launch in Massachusetts. You may recognize the room as I came in for this but our commitment is strong here. We're really excited to be in the state. I mean, this is a state with such a rich sports history and such a history of legendary players, legendary teams, sports is such a big part of this culture. And we as balleys think of ourselves, we're a global brand, but we really like to say we have a local personality and really getting in touch with the local community and understanding the local players is really, really important to us. And personally, I really think, I'm really excited about being here because I think there's so much that we can offer and so much we can do to create an amazing player experience because that's really where it starts and then create an amazing team experience between the state of Massachusetts, everyone on this phone and the balleys team to make the most of this, this opportunity that you've allowed us to participate in. You know, it's taken us some time to get here. We had, you know, some historically, we had technology changes, we changed platforms. That was a very big deal from us coming off our legacy platform onto the White Hat Kambi platform, White Hat being our kind of central player account management system and Kambi being our sportsbook partner. And why that was important was that was really taking us to the next stage, next evolution of our sports betting experience and having two partners in that, that are some of the best in class worldwide at what they do really is gonna allow us to accelerate the player experiences, accelerate the things that we offer and the tools and the marketing initiatives that we can provide in a way that we've never had before. And that just took time for us and we had some personnel changes. I'm new to the organization. I've been here seven months and a lot of that just is a little bit of a longer road. But, you know, I'm excited as we've been meeting with Director Vand and the team about getting us to launch and the timeline to launch. And that's right now slated for the end of June. And so, you know, we've had that target in place now for a little while. When I first met with the group late last year, you know, we were still trying to figure out exactly where that target would land. We knew it was Q2, but we weren't having a, we didn't have a specific date yet. That's always difficult to communicate to a group which is we didn't have that in place quite yet, but as soon as we did, we set up our bi-weekly calls with you guys which we now have going forward with the teams. We've started our discussions with GLI, both on carrying out our geolocation and functional testing, plus with the group that you introduced us to for our internal controls and audit review. And all of that is progressing very, very nicely. From a timeline perspective, you know, right now what we've done, where we're at is really implementing our technical specifications for your jurisdiction and our next milestone that's coming up which is actually next week is we'll start a development on our native apps and our web product which will kick off next week. We are internally scoping some of the internal controls for the GLI audit and right now we're tracking to deliver to you our RG policy house rules and T's and C's and our target's the end of April, end of this month to get that to you. You know, we have the full weight of values behind this. This is important deployment for us. It's important for us to get live and to show you guys that we're committed, all right? Because at the end of the day, commitment's about execution and we wanna show you guys on a weekly basis that we are making progress. This is a focal point. This is very important to us and that we look forward to launching and going live in partnership with you guys. Thank you, Mr. Callum. Crystal, anything to add to that before I open the floor? Don't have anything to add. We are now having our bi-weekly meetings with Ballys and Tuesday was our second one and every update you just heard is what we had heard too. So we're moving along in the right direction. Okay, so opening the floor and I see Commissioner Hill has his mic off. Commissioner Hill. Yep, for somebody who didn't have a presentation, that was a pretty good presentation. I just have a very quick question. Do you see any barriers to being able to launch at the end of June? I don't see any barriers at this time. We are working through some of your regulatory items and just making sure that we've conformed and understand all the meanings behind them. I think as we find questions, we're quick to ask and quick to get clarification. I think the communication has been really good. At this time, we don't have any barriers to launch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. Commissioner Skinner, I see your mic off. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Callup. Just following up on my fellow commissioner's question around barriers, it would be my request that as you continue preparing to launch for the end of August, should you identify any barriers that may prevent or delay even, and I'm certainly hoping that you don't. But it would be my request that you make another appearance, you personally and your team, if you would, as you have done today, to report back to this commission as to what those barriers might be and how you plan to address them. But I do wanna make sure that I get on the record that there was not a doubt that Bally's was cooperating in the process. We've gotten great reports from our sports wagering team there. And so I appreciate your cooperation, we all do. And looking forward to your launch. And I apologize that I was not able to be in the office today to greet you personally. That's okay, I'm happy to be there. And yeah, I'm happy to come back and update or do it virtually. This group on anything that we find that's holding us up, hopefully it will really be coming with, hey, we did find something, but we found the solution to it cause I'd rather present that we've solved it rather than find that barrier. So we're gonna go with, you're not gonna find anything. I like the positive attitude, that's what I'm all about. So. Okay, thank you, Commissioner Skinner. Commissioner O'Brien, anything to add? So of course I am the cynic in the room, as everybody knows. So I wanted to reiterate my thanks for you for coming in. I'm happy to hear about the timeline. I would ask sports wagering to keep reports and updates on this on a regular cadence between now and the anticipated date so that if there is something that comes up to use the former chair's words, we can be nimble enough to work with valleys to make sure that we stick to that timeline if at all possible. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. I echo Mr. Callup, I echo all of my fellow commissioners and just wanna say, the eagerness comes out of the fact that we believe that to stamp out the illegal market and get people the protections that Massachusetts provides, right? It's good to have options. And so having someone that we've started with the licensing process, a group come in and actually get going is exciting to us. So thank you for coming in in person. I hope you're able to stick around just long enough for our first break so I can say hello. But we appreciate it and I have nothing to add. All right, so if that's it, do you have anything you would like to finish with Mr. Callup? No, I look forward to coming. I'm just gonna come back every time because I really enjoy the city. So coming from Arizona it's slightly different weather but great to walk around the city last night and hope to take a few minutes before I get back on the plane. But again, we really appreciate your guys support in this endeavor. We really appreciate the partnership that we're forming and building relationships take time. And I really think we've got off to a good launch start and we're excited to get live with you guys and show you what we can do. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. I just wanted to say your timing is impeccable, right? So hopefully between now and launch date you're just gonna get better and better weather as you come back. So we'll try to be in there. I'm sure all of us feel that way to be able to say hello in person. I'm gonna need seafood recommendations though. So. I have plenty of them for you but you might have to leave Boston. Mr. Hill. Mr. Chairman, I was gonna laugh. If you got a few minutes, take a walk down the North end, go to Mike Pastries and get a cannoli before you jump on that plane. All right. There's not better. Can't get better than the North end. That's right. All right. So with that, we're gonna move on to the next item and thank you again for coming. We appreciate Bali's cooperation and collaboration. We're going to kick it over to manager Stefan for the next one. Andrew. Yep. Good morning, commissioners. The next item on the agenda is an event petition for a new volleyball league, beginning on page 20 of your packet. This petition submitted to our division on March 26th comes from DraftKings and they are requesting the Professional Volleyball Federation be added to our event catalog. Volleyball is a sport, as a sport is already approved in our event catalog. This would just be an addition of a new league to that tab similar to the new football league that was approved last month. As for the details of the league itself as it stated in your memo in the packet, way back on November 17th of 2022, it was announced that a new volleyball league would be created to provide more opportunities for women's professional volleyball in the United States. I've come to learn that many high level professional leagues are overseas. So this would be one of the first big ones in the United States. The inaugural season eventually began this past January with the debut match, setting record attendance for women's professional volleyball. The league in total has seven teams based out of cities of Atlanta, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Omaha, Orlando, San Diego and Las Vegas. Three additional teams have already been approved to join the league for the 2025 season. Those teams will play out of Dallas, Indianapolis and Kansas city. Each team will play a total of 24 matches across the 16 week season, culminating in a three game post season between the top four teams in the league. The championship matches scheduled for May 18th in Omaha, Nebraska. Founders of the league include volleyball pioneers Cecil Renaud and Olympic medalist Lori Carbelli. Members of team ownership include Cincinnati Bankers quarterback Joe Burrow, Orlando Magic chairman Dan DeVos, singer-songwriter Jason Derulo and beach volleyball gold medalist Kari Walsh Jennings. CBS Sports will be the primary broadcaster for the season, airing 10 matches as well as the playoffs. Several streaming apps will also carry matches including YouTube TV and stadium sports network to name a couple. The official rule book was provided to us as part of this petition and from our understanding of the rules of volleyball, this volleyball league aligns with rules for the other approved indoor volleyball leagues we already have. And speaking of rules, DraftKings has confirmed this league will fall under their already approved house rules for their valuable section. So no house rule updates are needed with this league today. With regards to other jurisdictions, DraftKings has confirmed this league is approved for wagering in 19 of their jurisdictions and you can see them listed there in your memo. And from our research, it does not appear that any jurisdiction has declined this league either. DraftKings also submitted an integrity policy which begins on page 27 of your packet. This policy consists of the prohibitions on match manipulation, disclosure of inside information and wagering of any kind on any of their matches. Lastly, DraftKings stated they have informed the professional volleyball federation of his intention to petition the league for wagering in their operational jurisdictions. And while the league itself does not have a players association or players union, they did establish a player advisory panel. And further, the PBF is in favor of their league being approved for wagering and in fact assisted in providing information to DraftKings in order to submit the petition across their jurisdictions. And to help answer any additional questions we are joined by Nicole Metro Corporate Council for DraftKings. So through our review of the Sports Waging Division confirms all requirements have been met, pursuant to 205 CMR 247.03 and has no reservations on approving this new league be added to our event catalog. Commissioners. Thank you, Andrew. Welcome, Nicole. Good to have you. Oh, we don't have you on audio though. Can you hear me now? Yes. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here. Good morning. Good morning. So I'm opening up to the floor. I see Commissioner O'Brien has her mic off. Commissioner O'Brien. Yep, thanks. I always love to see women's sports expanding. Hopefully they get a Boston team. I kept hoping it was gonna be in that list of coming in 25, but hopefully by 26. I don't see any reason not to. The only thing I would add, I think we did this with highlight when there was no players association. If any player wants to, you know, communicate directly with us about concerns, we always welcome it, but I don't see any issues in my view and adding it to the catalog. Thank you. Commissioner O'Brien. Commissioner Hill. No, agreed. Anything to add, Commissioner Skinner? I'm gonna say agreed. Commissioner O'Brien captured it perfectly. I also agree. So with that, this is marked up for a vote. Do we have a motion? Mr. Chairman, I move that the commission amend the official catalog of events and wages to include the Professional Volleyball Federation as included in the commissioner's bracket and discussed here today. Second. All right, we have Commissioner Hill with a motion. Commissioner O'Brien with a second. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I'm a yes. So that's four zero. Congratulations to all those that get to bet on this. This is exciting to add another women's sport to the catalog. So, and thank you, Nicole, for being here today. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right. With that, we're gonna kick it back to manager Boschman, maybe Carrie, Theresa may join, I'm not sure, for a conversation about temporary waiver requests related to 248.044 for Caesars and Fanatic Sports Books. Crystal. Thank you. Okay. So I apologize, but I do not have the packet in front of me. I'm not sure what page to guide you to. So I'll just go ahead with my comments and maybe one of the commissioners could alert everyone to what page or Carrie, do you have the packet? I have it on page 29 of mine. Always like to let you know where to look. Thank you. Yes. So as interim chair alerted us to this specific request is for Caesars and Fanatic Sports Book. It is related to a technical compliance. We're looking at temporary waivers from 248.044. We're recommending a period of 90 days to ensure there's coverage while we have further discussions on this particular process and what KYC measures they have in place and any future discussions that align with that. I can take any questions if there are any. Thank you, Crystal commissioners. Do we have any questions on this matter? Okay. So Crystal, I do think that you have this marked up for a vote. I do. And I think the recommendation would be that we put this temporary waiver in place for a period of 90 days. And while that's in place, there would be no changes to the KYC that are in any of the processes during that duration. Sounds good. All right. Commissioner, is anything else to add or do we have a motion? I can move just give me a second because I'm working with only one screen today. Oh, the inconvenience. Share that sentiment though. Okay. I move that in accordance with 205CMR 202.032, the commission issue a waiver to Caesar Sportsbook and Fanatic Sportsbook from the requirements outlined in 205CMR 248.044 until July 10th, 2024, as granting the waiver meets the requirements specified in 205CMR 102.034. It is consistent with the purposes of General Laws chapter 23N. I further move that such waiver be subject to the condition that Caesars and Fanatic Sportsbooks continue to use the KYC processes that have been reviewed by the commission's IT and sports wagering divisions and validated by GLI and that no additional changes be made to their KYC processes until their existing processes are reviewed by the commission as proposed alternate methods of authentication under 205CMR 248.044 or the identity authentication questions required by 205CMR 248.044 are implemented. Back in. Thank you. We had Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Hill second. So Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I vote yes, that's four zero. Thank you to sports wagering team for that and also for your briefing and your good work on it. We're gonna stick with you, manager Boschman for a brief presentation I believe and that should conclude this item. Yes. And now I do have to pack it up. So the next section begins on it looks like page 31 and we just wanted to give you a quick overview of this report that we were able to put together. As you know, March 10th marked a year from the launch of category three sports wagering operations and about 25 and a half months since the retail launch. So we pulled together some data numbers just to show a picture of the year in sports wagering and the Commonwealth and all of the work that the entire MGC team has done to get where we are. The report includes some data from various divisions and really shows a picture of the course of the year and the results. So I'll just pull that up. Share my screen really quick. You do have it in your packet, but is that successful? It is and I just want to mention if my fellow commissioners have any questions or comments just feel free to let it go because I can't see you right now. Just a few of the highlights here. We were able to share over 1.6 million active accounts in Massachusetts. The obvious highlights of the launch dates and all of our different operators. And of course in the first year we also saw the cessation of two of these operators. So that picture alone demonstrates the significant change and work that can happen in the industry very quickly. We were also able, I know this is always one of my favorites, some of the commissioners share the sentiment, but based on the operator's reports we pulled out the employment impacts. Mass resident, we always expected that number would be relatively low, but there are 131 residents of Massachusetts across our operators. That's actually more than I anticipated. So I like to see that number. And then of course we were able to share the women, minority and veterans who are working for these, all of the various operators as well. Significant numbers there. It's nice to see that diversity picture come together as a whole. Of course we have our financial rundown. Thank you to Derek, Doug and Jay for assisting us in getting these numbers. But the big picture here, significant revenue. Even the transfers to the sports wagering fund being at over 135.7 million. That's a really great number. And we have worked with the Department of Revenue to find out the dollar amount on the intercepts there and 204,000 at just, I think that was at the February mark. So it's really great to actually be able to pull these details together and see them in one picture. You guys had already seen our Super Bowl snapshot but we included that here because it's just a small component of one event. We're doing the same thing for March Madness. So you guys will actually see that soon as well but this is a combined picture of what happened in that short one night essentially. Always love to include our RG picture here as well. Thank you to Long for helping us to pull this together. Really 38,000 individuals are using these play management limits. I'm not sure where I thought that would actually be but it's a great picture. It's great for us to be able to see that people are turning these limits on, utilizing them and taking advantage of that particular component of the regulation. Additionally, we have other numbers at a glance and these are a little bit more process pieces but you can see our licenses and the registrants, our licensing team is doing a lot of work. Our compliance team is doing quite a bit of work. Our gaming technical compliance team has processed almost 900 change management requests. We've fielded 538 plus different patron disputes. So there's a lot going on at the commission in this sports waging one year. So we'll see what happens in the next year but just kind of a fun set of data. That was awesome to see and I appreciated you sending that along to us. Commissioners, comments or questions on that data that Crystal just presented us. A lot of work going on in the Commonwealth and a lot of money revenues being returned to the Commonwealth. So that's what I took away from that. All right, well, thank you, Crystal. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you to Ballys and everyone that joined for that item and we appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to item six and then we'll take a quick break. Dr. Lightbound, it looks like we're gonna be going to you. Perhaps I don't know if Steve O'Toole is joining us or not from PPC but looks like they have a request in and to offer a place pick in pools. So Dr. Lightbound. Thank you. Steve O'Toole is on if there's any questions once I'm done. And so today they're requesting a place pick in carryover wager for 2024. Just to set the stage are paramutrile regulations 205, CMR six include multiple different kinds of betting. And then, so they've already been approved. And then what happens is if the track is choosing to use certain ones of these, they come to the commission for approval. So that way we're not going back and having to write new regulations all the time. The only thing is they just come forward with what they're actually going to use. So they have a, what they're calling the Plain Ridge Park place pick set of pick. Let me say that again. So we've got it right. Plain Ridge Park place pick. There will be no set cap on the carryover. And then there's a 50% will be designated for distribution and 50% for the carryover depending on how the it plays out. And we have, we did something like this way back in 2017, the Wicked High Five Pence Effective. So this is something that we, you know, they do come forward with and ask. So it's something that falls in with our regulations and the procedure. So my recommendation to the commission is that they do approve it. And if you have any questions or any questions for Steve or if Steve wants to add anything open. I can wait for questions. All right. Thank you, Dr. Lightbound. Thank you, Steve. Good to see you as always. Good to see you. Commissioners, I don't see anything to add here. Well, thank you, Steve, for your letter. It was very, it explained it perfectly. And Dr. Lightbound for your memo and explanation here. It's marked up for a vote. So commissioners, do we have a motion? Yeah, yep. I move that the commission approved Plain Ridge Park Casino's request to offer a place pick and carry over wager for the 2024 racing season. In accordance with 205 CMR 6.361 and 205 CMR 6.362. A has included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Thank you. Thank you for the second Commissioner Hill. All right, Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. And I vote yes. So congratulations to PPC, Steve. And thank you, Alex. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, commissioners, I would like to take just a short break, maybe a five minute break. Is that okay? We'll plan on. Well, let's go ahead since it's 10.47. Let's say 10.55. We'll try to hop back on. So we're, all right. Thank you. All right. Let's see, I see. All right, it looks like everyone is back. Just making sure I have everyone. All right, so what we'll do is we will reconvene. This is a reconvening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. Since we are meeting virtually, I'll do a roll call, Commissioner O'Brien. I am here. Commissioner Hill. I'm here. Commissioner Skinner. I'm here. All right, thank you. So we are going to move to item number seven, Councilor Grossman. It looks like we have some regulations and a table games rules update. I'll kick it to you, Councilor Grossman. Thank you. Good morning. And as we've customarily done, I'm going to turn right over to our Deputy General Counsel and Karen Terese for item A here, the Data Privacy Privacy. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Chairman and commissioners. So the first regulation we have for you today is a draft of amendments to 205-CMR 257 related to sportsway during data privacy. You'll recall that you saw this regulation in February and the version that we'll look at today is largely unchanged since then. There are a couple of small exceptions that we'll point out as we walk through. At the February meeting, you had asked us to share this draft with the Attorney General's office and make sure that they had no concerns with these proposed changes. And we have done that and they have not expressed any concerns with these modifications here. So I will turn it right over to Mina Macarius from Anderson and Krieger and he'll walk us through each change here. And pardon me, it begins on page 40 of your packet. Thank you, Gary. Hi, Mina. Hi, good morning, everyone. Good to talk to you. So as Kerry said, this is coming back for further discussion based on the work done really between November and February as we were digesting information received from the roundtable, the operators as well as the waiver requests that were granted by the commission. And at the time when the waivers were granted, there was a thought that to the extent that there is any confusion on any remaining issues, it might make sense to at least propose clarifications to the regs and then determine if they're necessary. So these are offered in that spirit. As Kerry mentioned, what you have before you has red lines or blue or really purple line and those are all things that were proposed back in February. You will see a few things that are highlighted and I will go over those. Those are places where we might have suggested could be a change in February, but I think we already had the commission already had some discussion in February that leads us to think that no change is really necessary. So starting on page 40 in 250701 is as you'll recall, there are the first section, there's no changes, but it's the two key definitions personally identifiable information and confidential information followed by the first sort of set of standards. This one is for data use and retention. The changes that are proposed, the ones at the bottom of the paragraph are intended to clarify some unique aspects of businesses, business transactions that might require use of the data. One is for potential mergers, acquisitions, asset transfers, et cetera between companies. We would have viewed this as within the scope of legitimate business purposes, but there was some concern from operators that they did not want to be worrying about that in the middle of due diligence for a transaction and having somebody question whether they could share that data or not if needed. The other change at the bottom, yes. Sorry for the interruption. Would you be able to share your screen as you're walking through the amendments just for ease? Sure, let me just do that correctly. I mean, I can share if that's easier for you. Sure, if you don't mind, Carrie. Thank you, Carrie. Of course. Thank you. So just to recap, the changes I'm speaking about, Commissioner Skinner, are the ones at the bottom of this paragraph here shown in blue and in purple. The change in purple is a small one to make it clear that legitimate business purposes, of course, include retaining information where you reasonably anticipate legal claims in either direction. So that took away a concern that some operators had. The change we're not proposing to make or recommend again is the addition of the word reasonably in the second line of this paragraph. The discussion on February 1st, I think led us to the conclusion that legitimate business purposes necessary to operate or advertise a sports wagering area, facility or platform, and then all of the other sort of purposes was broad enough and that the commission's discussion of the issue made it clear that the intent here is not to penalize or catch folks who are using things in the normal course of their business, that there is some discretion. We understand different businesses and different operators operate differently and may have different needs for the data. So that the word reasonably introduced an unnecessary ambiguity beyond that that was not favored based on that discussion. So before you go away from that definition, Kerry, I just want folks to keep that definition or this section in mind. You'll see other places where we in the reg where we've tried to align definitions as much as possible so avoid any confusion about the differences between how data is used and retained and for what purposes versus when it's shared, et cetera. So Kerry, sorry, now you can go on. The change in number two is actually more of a formatting change. We moved the note that consent for use of data or retention from a patron can be categorical as opposed to in every single instance that had been in D, it's now in A because it struck a lot of folks as sort of the key point in a lot of this. In 3A, this is one where we had suggested a potential change based on the February discussion and further discussions with sports wagering. The sports wagering division, we don't think a change is necessary. So the key thing to remember about subsection three the prohibition is on using patrons, personally identifiable information or confidential information or any information derived from it to promote or encourage specific wagers of promotional offers based on the following set of categories. The first one is a period of dormancy or non-use of a sports wagering platform. Initially, when this came up for discussions last summer there were hypothetical examples being thrown out of, well, what if I am an operator or a vendor to an operator and I noticed that, you know, John Doe bets on football but doesn't seem to care about other sports, et cetera. So can I send a notice back in the fall? We would not have viewed that as an algorithm based on dormancy. It's really, you know, and I think there's sort of interpretive issues and certainly enforcement discretion all around that but that's what we're really after here is issues like an algorithm that is targeted to say, you know, this person accessed and not suggesting anyone's doing this but what we're making clear as prohibited is this person accessed responsible gaming health and then shut down their account or used, you know, play, you know, a limit on their account to make it clear that they aren't going to play more than once a month. And that sort of fact is used by an operator to then target and add to them that entices them to come back and sort of undo that restriction. That's really what this is after. I think that became clear during the discussions and frankly, there was more confusion, we think, caused by trying to have, I apologize, we have window washers today. So, yeah, some folks walking behind my screen. There's more confusion caused by the attempt to take out this particular example than was helped by it. And so we think of a more reasonable approach is to leave it as is. I think the other thing we've heard from sports wagering is based on some of the other conversations and clarifications about this reg, they're hearing less of this concern over the past few months. So I can keep going unless there are questions. Thank you. Continue. On the next page, there are the first change in that subsection E is just a clarifier that one of the prohibitions is on the use of algorithms, automated decision-making, AI, et cetera, that's known or reasonably expected to make a gaming platform more addictive. Again, I think operators thinking about not just what the commission's enforcement powers might be, but what a third party might accuse them of fairly or unfairly did not think it was fair to be held responsible for something that might be an unknown flaw in the use of particular computerized system or algorithm that makes something more addictive. So however, we did keep the reasonably expected to know because we, I think it was pretty clear from the commission, you want them to be thinking about these issues and not bearing their heads in the sand if they have reason to know that product they're using from a vendor, for instance, is leading to increased addiction to a platform. On the other hand, if someone publishes a research paper somewhere, it doesn't cause a creative lawyer somewhere to say, aha, you are therefore in trouble for using that algorithm. So that's that. The deletion of number four goes to what I mentioned earlier. This is sort of, this was the same thing as that first paragraph we discussed, but had a separate category for retention. We've kept those combined to use and retain, avoid any confusion or any room for daylight there. Subsection four, what's now subsection four at the bottom were requests that actually came from the responsible gaming team at the commission. We discussed this on February 1st. I think these are probably the most, some sense, I wouldn't say most urgent, but if there are any that we would recommend the most, it was probably these changes because they do come from that team. They had a concern that the language here might suggest to operators that they shouldn't retain individualized data that they can then use to figure out methods to address responsible gaming issues. That was not the intent. So we took out the words and aggregate after shall collect at the top and instead added what we think is a clearer explanation at the bottom that says instead that the point is that they, when they give you that information, when operators share that information with the commission, they need to be careful not to inadvertently give you personal and identifiable information unless you're expecting it. And so that way it doesn't end up in public records, requests, et cetera. So I understand that the waiver for this particular reporting is, I believe through June might be a little bit sooner and that sports wagering and responsible gaming are thinking through what exactly the reporting might look like here. So we wanted to get this one done at least before that. Data sharing. Again, these changes all in one, two and three really are intended to track that initial change we talked about. So there's no sort of new issues there, but they're all intended to keep everything consistent. In this Roman numerate four, you see a change from any to potentially civil and criminal penalties. This section has to do with the kind of information to be included in data security programs. And with those shared with, it's a sort of a business-associate type relationship that an operator might have. And the idea there, in a change from any to potentially was again, a concern I think from sort of an HR perspective of sort of gotcha by a vendor to say, ah, you didn't tell me about every single way that I could get in trouble if I don't keep this stuff private. And that's the, and also the concern about sort of the lawyers often have of giving legal advice to folks who are not their clients. So this is at the request of operators we think gets at the same meeting. The last change I think is on this page, on this page is that it has to do with hashing and protecting of information, this kind of information by operators. This was probably the one that operators have asked about the most, because it impacts the way that they're setting up their systems. The idea was that there should be a way to come to the commission and explain that there might be a better system out there. Our technology is appalled so that what we might think of as the best way to do things is not, it has been sort of improved upon. So we put that language right in the right. It says that request comes to the commission. So that does mean that the commission, unless it delegates that authority elsewhere would be making the decision of course, relying on staff consultants at center is what we'd expect, but it does rest with the commission ultimately to approve that. The next set of changes actually now start appearing and almost the rest of the document as the primary change up. There was one of the sort of technical points of feedback that came up during the round table and in the comments made before it is that sometimes erasing data is not the best way to protect it. And in fact, sometimes making an anonymous is a better way. The sort of technical argument that I will do my best as a non-IP lawyer to explain is that it may be better to know that the data is available somewhere, but I'm kind of de-identified and removed from where one could figure out whose data it is and setting it up that way or setting it up to be capable of decoupling those two things from the beginning often is for some companies maybe preferable and more of a safeguard to implement than trying to ensure it's been deleted from every single location it might be. So offering those two options was the key. So this has to do with when a patron requests their data is deleted, we wanted to leave that as an option. I think the key part of this obviously is that it does not limit in any way the burden on the operator to make sure that whether it's erasing or making anonymous that they're doing it in full compliance with these regs so that if it's anonymous, for instance, the key to put it more colloquially, the key can't be right next to the lock. There has to be some safeguards in place to make sure that it is truly anonymous. It can't be de-anonymized so quickly or easily. So that's a kind of burden that would be left on the operator, but it does leave at least an option to do that. Even if a racer is chosen just to be clear, this is not a change, but the regs do in fact encourage the keeping of essentially an offline backup of a lot of information because it may be needed for investigative purposes, it might be needed for safety, security of patrons, players, everybody. So that's one of the reasons that that hasn't changed. The bottom again is another change mirroring the first page. And then as you'll see on the next page, this idea of erasing or making anonymous shows up just over and over as it kind of follows through into the reg. There is a small change at the top here that just makes clear that the individual, so we talked about the data security programs for when sharing data, what the operator should ensure that Bender has for their own data security program, the operator must also secure storage acts, transportation of information. Clearly that's in their possession cost of your control, what they can actually do something about. Then the last part, this kind of goes without saying, but again, this was to avoid a complaint from someone that might be misguided. Sports regional operators are required to explain or to post their privacy policies online on their website, et cetera. However, just to be clear and maybe state the obvious, they should not be putting their things that undermine the policy. And so that's in some ways goes without saying, but this we hope helps avoid a member of the public suggesting that they're entitled to see something that they may not be entitled to see as a result of this requirement. So that's it for these changes. I'm happy to take questions on the changes, the overall project here or anything else. And as Kerry mentioned, we did talk to Attorney General's Office or data privacy folks at least and they understand the clarifications and like C.B. says, clarifications not changes to what's required for the most part, except where they explicitly are. Thank you, Mina. Commissioners, I believe we all have the opportunity to sit with Mina and Kerry for a while and two by twos, but that being said, this is the opportunity for us to discuss this. Any discussion on this, Ray? All right, it is marked up for a vote. I just wanted to say thank you. I know that this is a deep slog getting into the details of it, but it's a reg we all care a lot about. So I just wanted to thank the legal team for going through it because it's necessary to get the clarification out there so we can keep moving forward with compliance on it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this and took a long time, but it was worth the time for sure. Thank you, Commission. Happy to move unless there's more comments. I agree with you. And the anonymization conversation, Mina took a long time with Mr. Skinner and I at least and helped explain it. So we appreciate it. My pleasure. Happy to move. We're ready for that. Ready to take a motion. All right. I moved that the Commission approved the Small Business Impact Statement in the draft of 205CMR 257, as included in the Commissioner's packet and discussed here today, and further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the Secretary of the Commonwealth to begin the regulation promulgation process. Second. All right. Commissioner O'Brien made the motion. Second, Commissioner Hill. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I'm a yes for zero. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, Mina. Thank you, Carrie, and thank you for your hard work. We're going to move on to subsection B, which deals with judges. So it looks like Councillor Stempic and Dr. Lightbound are going to be joining us for that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. Good morning. We have several different sections of Racing Regulations before you today, as you noted, starting with 205CMR 3.12, subsections 7 and 20. These two changes are different, but maybe they both fall under the subsection with respect to the judge's authority in the Racing Division. 205CMR 3.12, subsection 7, the proposed changes to that section would extend the amount of time that horses have to show a satisfactory racing line from 30 to 45 days. Notably, the Commission has been routinely approving this request for PPC since 2018, and the Division of Racing has no objection to making the change. The satisfactory racing line is a non-venting event that allows a horse to be evaluated by the track veterinarian before it may race. So that's a change being made to 3.12, subsection 7, largely reflect what we've been doing for the past five or six years. The proposed change to 205CMR 3.12, subsection 20. This would be made to align with the range of penalties that are set forth in the Association of Racing Commissioners International, or RCI, the Uniform Classification Guidelines for foreign substances. That's mostly for medication penalties. Existing language in 3.29 already refers to this document for guidance on penalties, and those are typically adopted when there's a medication violation. This change is being made because the RCI guidelines often have recommendations that exceed the authority of the judges in the current leg. So this change to a 5CMR 3.12, subsection 20 would better align with the recommendations in the RCI guidelines themselves, thus providing the judges with additional discretion to impose violations commensurate with industry standards. So that would currently, the current reg limits their authority to suspensions of 180 days and fines of up to $3,000. The guidelines in the RCI medication threshold document have, depending upon the severity of the particular medication that was found, could increase financial penalties to a percentage of purse. And as we have increased purses, that amount could exceed $3,000, and also depending upon the severity of the classification of the drug that's found in the animal system, that the recommendations in our RCI could exceed 180 days. So this change would align our reg basically allowing the judges to create discretion to match what the RCI guidelines are. So that is the change. And I welcome any questions, or if you have any questions for Dr. Lightbound, we're both here at your disposal today. Thank you, Justin. Mr. Nairse. Mr. Chairman. Yes. Thank you, Justin, for outlining that for us. It was pretty simple, but at the same time, not so simple. I just have a quick question on the process. So this is the start of the promulgation regulation, correct? So it goes through the hearing process, goes to Secretary of State, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? Yes. So this would be the start of the process. So it would be to initiate the promulgation process. So we would then open it to public comment. We'd have the public hearing, given that this is a racing regulation. It has a slightly different process that it takes a little bit longer than our other regulations. So this is simply to kick it off. So we would then open it up. We would take public comment from anyone who wants to give it, and we'll come back before the commission to vote on final promulgation. And what's the timing difference, if you don't mind? I believe it's, I think it has to sit with the, up at the State House for 60 days. Is that correct, Judy? Judy Snager, head, thanks. Yep, all right, yep, that's correct. So after the public hearing, it would go up to the State House for approval with the Senate clerk for 60 days. Just wanted everybody to know the clarification that it's a slight different process. No. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. I'm actually ready to move unless one of my fellow commissioners has a comment, Mr. Chairman. I'm seeing nods of no. So, Commissioner Hill, ready for a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft of 205 CMR 3.12, as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further that the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth to begin the regulation promulgation process. Second, I'm sorry, I'm trying to time it so Mango isn't screeching and everybody is saying something. We will count Mango as part of that second from Commissioner O'Brien. Thank you, Commissioner Hill and O'Brien. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. It's funny, Mango got it in anyway. Aye. And aye. Yes, we're going to say 4-0 though. We'll say 4 and a feline and 0. All right, and so we'll move on. I believe we're sticking with Justin for 205 CMR 3.29. Yeah, that's correct, Mr. Chair and Commissioner. So this regulation change would clarify the discretion of the racing judges in crafted penalties for multiple medication violations. These are the type of violations that occur before the official notice of violation is provided to a trainer. So just to better understand how that would happen. Given that some trainers can be racing multiple times and be picked for testing of their animal and we may not get the test results back before they've raced subsequent to that. So we could get a testing result and they can have raced several times. This, there's a delay in sometimes receiving those drug testing results so there's a possibility that a trainer could be found positive multiple times for the same medication without an opportunity to respond and to investigate or change their practices if there's an unintentional exposure to a medication or substance. So this would allow the judges or the stewards to consolidate these violations into a single violation if the circumstances weren't. Judges have previously utilized their inherent discretion to make this determination but this change will memorialize that practice in our regulations so it's just clearer that they are explicitly permitted to do this. Additionally, in the event that a single post-race sample resulted in multiple different medication positives, this change would permit the judges or the stewards to penalize the trainer for each medication positive and not simply as one violation. So it's clarifying that if a horse was found to have multiple different substances in that case the judges could treat those separately. So it's again clarifying some of our traditional practice as well as giving the judges some additional discretion on how to handle these unique events which just because of timing issues with respect to our lab and testing do occasionally come up. I'll shoot up one, sorry, one other note. There's a minor change also being made down in subsection 2AD of this same reg which is only to add in in reference to relying on not only the official ARCI record but also the USTA record which is generally the record of horsemen's infractions across the nation. So we just added that language as well. Thank you, Justin. Anything to add, Dr. Leibbrand? Oh, no, thank you, Justin. It's been a great job of explaining this to everybody. All right, commissioners, any questions? All right, we'll take a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement in the draft of 205-CMR3.29 as included in the commissioners packing and discussed here today and further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the Secretary of the Commonwealth to begin the regulation promulgation process. Thank you. Second. Second from Commissioner Skinner. All right, roll call. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. And I'm a yes, so four zero. All right, I think we're going to stick with you, Justin. We've got one more for you. So this is a change to Racing Regulation 205-CMR6.24. So this change would correct the regulation to accurately reflect the statutory language with respect to the permissible deposit mechanisms for an ADW account. Under the Racing Regulation, the Racing Statute rather, 128A Section 5C does permit the use of credit and debit cards to fund ADW accounts that has historically been in place for quite some time. Our regulation prohibited the funding of those accounts with credit cards. So it was not an accurate representation with respect to the statutory language. So this change would have the regulation better near the statutory language and just make it clear that those funding mechanisms are permissible with respect to ADW accounts alone. Oh, thank you, Justin. Sorry about that. I have my mute on. Anything to add, Dr. Liebaum? No. Again, Justin's explained it very well. Thank you. Hello, Commissioners. Questions, comments? All right. Ready for a motion? I move that the Commission approve the Small Business Impact Statement in the draft of 205-CMR6.24, as included in the Commissioners' Packet I discussed here today, and further that SAP be authorized to take the necessary steps to file a required documentation with the Secretary to come off and begin the regulation promodation process. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. We have a second. Second. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. For the second, Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I vote yes. That's 4-0. Thank you so much. I think we're done with you, Justin and Alex, for now. So thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. And we're going on to one of my favorite items of the agenda today, and that's a table games rules update concerning Baccarat and Mini-Baccarat. And we're going to kick it to Judy Young and Burke, Kane, to discuss this issue. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman. Good morning, Commissioners. Before you today, we have three updated sets of Baccarat, Mini-Baccarat, and Mini-Baccarat rules. The rules are being updated to include mention and definition of free hands, which is kind of a demonstrated hand with no wagers at a Baccarat Mini-Baccarat or Mini-Baccarat table. These modifications would neither impact or alter the physical layouts of the tables. So we're bringing just the rules before you today and not seeking a regulation change, just mentioned within 205 CMR 146. And for more technical questions, I am joined, of course, by Burke Kane, Chief of the Gaming Agents Division here, if you have any other questions for us. Oh, I should note, if I haven't, the rules are included on pages 77 of your packet, going all the way through to, goodness gracious, I think about page 107. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Burke. Anything to add? No, I think we covered a lot of it, fortunately in our two by twos. It's just a little bit of a cleanup. I was out recently in Las Vegas at a Games Protection Conference. And when I came back, we in the group of Gaming Agents Management, we wanted to look at our game of Baccarat a little more closely. And the free hand discussion came up and we thought we would just formalize it by putting it into our regulations. Oh, right. I was happy to learn in our two by two that it is standard practice to have a free hand every now and then. So always happy to clean up commissioners. Yeah, and I just, I think we asked this question in the two by two that there, Burke, just reiterate that there's no reason for us to put a max on this, that just the nature of how this works, you wouldn't really get into a situation where this just keeps going out into an item. That's right, commissioner. And as we discussed this, the language even says that the discretion of the casino. So logically, it doesn't make sense that a casino would do a whole shoe full of free hand. So a simple discussion with the patron would be had also, they would understand that. Great. Thanks. All right. Thank you, commissioner O'Brien, for reminding me that that did come up in our two by two. Commissioner Hill, commissioner Skinner. I'm all set and ready to move if you all are. Looks like we're ready. I move that the commission approve the amended rules of the game of Baccarat, Midi Baccarat, and many, excuse me, I'm going to start over. I move that the commission approve the amended rules of the game of Baccarat, Midi Baccarat. And Midi Baccarat as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Thank you. Second. Thank you for your second. Commissioner O'Brien. All right. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I'm, yes, four zero. Thank you, commissioners. We'll make sure that these rules are updated to our website and will be in effect immediately after this vote. Great. Thank you very much. We appreciate it, Judy. We appreciate it, Burke. Always happy to learn, for me at least, learn some new rules. Thank you so much. All right. So we actually have a lunch marked up. Commissioners, it's up to you whether or not we're about an hour ahead of the predicted schedule, whether we break for lunch or do we continue on with legal and IEB's conversation? Go ahead. I'd like to see us continue on unless there's an objection by anyone else. I'm happy to accommodate. Commissioner Hill. Well said. All right. We will continue on. All right. So we're going to pick up with item number eight and we're going to turn to legal and IEB, Councillor Stempic and Director Monaghan. Good morning again, Mr. Chair and commissioners. Legal and IEB are here to discuss the role of IEB in regulatory hearing approaches just to sort of set the stage as to how this came before you. This issue first arose back in February, specifically on February 15th. We had a public meeting in which the IEB was presenting certain sportswear during non-compliant events to the commission. And there was a discussion during that here, during that particular public hearing about the IEB function as a party versus as a witness, which in the recent past IEB has been primarily a witness in these matters presenting a report. Subsequent to that particular public meeting on the 21st, we had an agenda setting meeting where former chair, Jen Stein, requested that legal and IEB put together a memorandum to go over the different options about IEB functioning as a witness or as a party and the procedural legal implications of that as well as solicit any sort of input we would like to get from our licensees. It was then again referenced on a number of other sort of public meetings and agenda setting meetings from that point forward as the expanse of this particular memo did get a little bit broader as we heard from our licensees. And we have attached to the agenda today is part of the packet starting at page 116, the memorandum that was put together by legal IEB setting forth various statutory grounds and tools that the commission has at its disposal for approaching non-compliance events as well as the procedures that could be implemented and the legal basis for taking those as well as our position when it comes to the contemplation of the IEB functioning as a party and sort of evaluating sort of assessing what that could mean and what that would look like in the event that we choose to go forward with this. This is not a up for a vote today. It's really to simply lay out what we have researched and delivered for you and to allow you the opportunity to discuss. I'm happy to sort of walk through the memorandum at a high level and in direct amount of hand can also then get into sort of practically speaking how this will move around. So just we're now going into it. So the stat the sports waiter in statute itself provides variety of different tools for the commission to utilize in a non-compliance event and they are set forth in several different sections of the statute including sections 9, 16 and 21 primarily. Those various tools can include suspension or revocation of licenses, conditioning of licenses. They also include the assessment of civil administrative penalties, the assessment of fines or the assessment of civil penalties. Notably each one of those is a separate and unique tool in the toolbox of the commission that can be utilized in a given situation. The only specifically outlined process in 23N with respect to any of these penalties comes with the civil administrative penalties and it's laid out in section 16. That does not mean that the other tools can't be used. We certainly have used those in the past and we use those in conjunction with the statutory requirements under General Laws 30A, 801CMR, the informal and formal hearing process and our own 205CMR-101 hearing regulations that we have done that in passage due to current hearings. So we have a process where we make sure that anybody that we are bringing before us for non-compliance event gets a full benefit due process. They're providing notice, they have the opportunity to submit evidence, they can present witnesses, the whole nine years when it comes to being covered at a hearing. And traditionally we've done that, you've seen it yourselves in a number of these judiciary hearings that have taken place in the recent past. So that's sort of the baseline for the various options at the commission's disposal in a non-compliance event. When it comes to the decision about whether the IEB can function as a party in one of these particular issues, the legal analysis that we conducted is yes, the IEB can function as a party. The IEB does function as a party and has historically function as a party. They function as a party with respect to things that come before our hearing officers at the lower level before they get appealed to the commission when these are gaming-related appeals traditionally. And that has historically always been the case. The IEB has also at the discretion of the commission function as a party in other judiciary hearings in the past. Notably the win non-compliance event from 2019. The IEB was a party they cross-examined and direct examined witnesses before the commission sat in judgment at that particular hearing. And at the end of the presentation of evidence, the commission then deliberated and ultimately rendered judgment themselves. So sort of have the commission functioning more as a judicial body while designating the IEB to function as essentially the prosecuting attorney. So I should also point out that Massachusetts case law is sound on this particular issue that an administrative agency can designate counsel within their own agency to function as counsel before them. That has been approved by the SJC. So we're under legal footing if the IEB were to be a party in any of these matters, or if the commission were to designate it. Notably, I should also mention that choosing for the IEB to function as a party in any particular non-compliance event is not an edict. That's the way it'll always be going forward. This could be a one-by-one decision by the commission where you consider the particular merits of any given issue. And then you decide, well, if you think it will prove us to have the IEB functions party in this instance, so it's not as if we are moving forward and can't go back. This is a case-by-case determination that the commission may make to take me into account particular facets of any given non-compliance event that comes before you. So that is essentially the legal background. So the analysis is that, yes, the IEB could be a party if the commission chooses from the IEB to be a party. I think there are, practically speaking, there could be certain advantages to that. The disadvantage when it comes to sort of the efficiency in the packaging and the presentation of the particular matter before you. And just having a moving party who's intimately familiar with the actual background of a particular case. And Director Monaghan can speak in greater detail about that. Practically speaking, there could be some additional sort of legal apparatus that could come up. If the IEB was a party and you had two sort of active sides of litigators in a given case, whereby the pre-hearing conference that legal runs in traditionally in these matters could involve additional evidentiary issues potentially or motion practice, that will be something we'll have to sort of wait and see what we get as we move forward if we choose to go forward with this. So, yeah, at this point, I think I'm happy to turn it over to Monaghan to talk about practically speaking how this will look like for her team and then welcome any questions or additional comments by the board here. Thank you, Justin. Commissioners, I assume we're okay with Director Monaghan. Commissioner Skinner. So I just want to, I guess, set the stage a little bit or at least clarify a misunderstanding that I was under when we talked about this, I think beginning, as was said, February 15th. So I think I was confusing party versus witness, the party versus witness issue with the adjudicatory bias question that we had discussed on February 15th. And I've since been able to get some clarity around that those are two separate issues, and I appreciate the time that Justin, Kathleen, and Caitlin spent with me so that I can sort of adjust my way of thinking. I want to confirm that this question of whether IEB appears in these adjudicatory proceedings as a party or witness, it doesn't require that that be that it will. So let's stick with party. If IEB appears as a party in these adjudicatory proceedings, that doesn't require the IEB to step out of the investigation process, right? And so the commissioners could continue to receive a fulsome or we haven't yet, but we could receive as requested in the prior meetings a more fulsome investigation by the IEB without IEB stepping into that proceeding as a party, right? I just want to make sure that I'm clear on that going into this conversation. And I know you're going to get to the logistics of how that would work. But I think that I confused, in fact, I know I did, the two issues in that I thought that in order for the commissioners to receive a more fulsome investigation, IEB had to proceed as part of the proceeding as a party. I'm going to take that just in there. Yeah, go ahead. So what I would do here is break it down into two different issues. So the adjudicatory bias issue that we've talked about in the past relates to situations when basically the commission is not in an adjudicatory hearing. So the concern was that if the IEB was bringing these very long sort of fulsome investigatory reports to the commission just in a public hearing and going through them, taking questions, answering questions, we were potentially waiting too far into the facts of the case without being in an adjudicatory hearing and without the operator or the other party having the opportunity to be there and respond. Which is why we sort of have paired back those initial presentations so that we're not crossing any lines potentially into the commission basically hearing too much about the case outside of an adjudicatory hearing. So that's one piece. What would happen here if the IEB were to be a party, frankly, either way, is when a non-compliance matter comes forward to the commission and the commission decides we want to take this up as an adjudicatory hearing, it then directs the IEB, continue with your investigation, perhaps do a more fulsome investigation depending on the facts of the case. And all that work that the IEB then does, if the IEB is a party, that work still comes to you, it just comes to you in the context of the adjudicatory hearing. So you're going to get that investigatory report basically as a pre-hearing brief that will come into you before the hearing. You'll have the pre-hearing brief, you'll have the exhibits, you'll have all the same materials. It's just now in the appropriate format where you're in an adjudicatory hearing, the commission is sitting as an adjudicatory body and all the due process requirements are met. So two separate issues of when we're in a public meeting versus when we're in adjudicatory hearing. Did that into your question, Patricia? It did, but I think just could you add clarity that that could happen whether the IEB is a party or a witness? Absolutely, yes. So I should have been clear on that point, whether or not in any individual situation the commission wants the IEB to be a party or a witness, the IEB will still create that investigatory report, the form in which it comes to you might just change a little. If the IEB is a witness, I think you'd probably still be getting the same type of report you've been getting, right? And the IEB would be at that adjudicatory hearing as a witness walking through the report for you and that would be an exhibit. If the IEB is a party, I'm contemplating that the report would be more like a pre-hearing brief and so you get the pre-hearing brief, this is laying out the evidence. Based on the investigation, the IEB believes that there is evidence to conclude that XYZ has been violated and that's how you're getting it to the brief, but it's all the same information depending on whether the IEB is a party or a witness. Yeah. So could I clarify something though, Caitlin? And I go back to the Wayne matter, which was one of the first ones that we dove into when I got here, when IEB is the party, they have the capacity to do far more than we do in terms of the investigation. So when they're a witness, that report is not going to be as fulsome. You are not going to have necessarily the depth of the interviews, the depth of the subpoena to choose take them. You're not going to necessarily have that and end up with the report like we got in wind. It's not going to be as deep because we as the commission don't really have the capacity to do that or just the functional reality of how we work as a body of five far too cumbersome to us to be able to do that and then also be able to have, as you pointed out, not be barred by a due-dictatory bias. So we have to delegate this over to IEB. That delegation is far clearer in 23K than it is in 23N, but if we want these deep dives, it's got to be done in a way where IEB is a party and not a witness or else we're going to have to keep kicking it back to them to do more work as opposed to if we want a deep dive, the most efficient way to do it is say you're a party. Go ahead and do it and come back to us with the report. We still have the ability at the due-dictory hearing to follow up any questions that we want, demand more materials. Like we don't lose any of that ability, but what we do get up front is a far more detailed comprehensive investigation when we sit to try to adjudicate. And as a party, excuse me, if IEB participates as a witness, we wouldn't get that comprehensive report. I think that's what I misunderstand. Yes, that's correct. No, that's exactly it. Is that's the big difference in whether they come in witness versus party? Because if we were to receive that in-depth report from IEB when they are proceeding as a witness, that would potentially introduce the due-dictory bias. They also just don't, they don't have the directive and the statutory basis for doing the deep dive witness versus party. I don't know if you guys want to adjust or Caitlin want to follow up. I think that's right. I think when the IEB is a party, it means that you're moving closer to it being like a court case. Right? So the IEB then has the opportunity to go and do interviews of witnesses which would be akin to depositions. It would have the opportunity to do document discovery or and which is, you know, same thing, same word akin to discovery and in litigation. So in that rule, we can request materials, we can do interviews and that all gets bundled into the report and the exhibits. So the report would sort of again be the brief setting out the facts of the case as the IEB sees them. And then all that information that's collected would be the exhibits which is what the evidence that the commission would rely on in addition to any director cross examination at the hearing. So it just, it puts in place, if it's going to be a bigger case, a more complicated case, it puts in place procedures and guardrails that allow the IEB to do that in depth with investigation while maintaining due process for all, you know, all parties. So it's the statutory vehicle that controls here, right? In terms of the amount of information that IEB is able to get there in advance. It's not by statute, but it's just by I think it's really just buttoning up the procedures if we're going to get that in depth and make sure sort of all the bases are covered that no one can question, well, why are you seeking documents? Why are you doing these interviews? You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And if I can add here too, in contrast, if the IEB is a witness commissioner skinner, then the commission is funk is wearing two hats. The commission is functioning as both the prosecutor as well as the sitting in judgment. So it's up to the commission to assemble the record, to determine all the witnesses, and then to move forward. You have the benefit of the IEB as a witness telling you what's in their report, but it would be incumbent upon the four or five of you to then sort of steer the direction of the entire hearing, which can be complicated by, you know, practical considerations like the open meeting law, where the four or five of you can't sit together and talk about trial strategy or a judiciary hearing strategy because of open meeting law. So there'd be some practical implications that would make this difficult in certain cases and may make certain instances more appropriate for the IEB to handle, given the relative complexity of what comes before you. If it's something straightforward, you know, hey, we have to hear from two or three witnesses and it's a they've already acknowledged and everyone's in agreement on the facts here, then maybe that's one that sticks with the commission and you totally can make that decision at that time. So this can be a case-by-case analysis, given the fact pattern of any particular non-compliance that comes before you. So it's that issue and in all of those implications, you just mentioned that I would still like a full briefing on. I don't think that we've really dug into that. And so that's where that's the information that's missing for me. That's the piece that's missing here in all of this discussion. And I don't know how we tie it all together because I think I'm hearing just like a third issue on top of a judiciary bias and the party versus witness issue. I don't know. I think I need more clarity at the end of this discussion and I'm sorry. No, no, no. I might have to use myself a little bit here. Could I offer a suggestion maybe and it's an offline or a two-by-two which is using the windmatter as an example to walk through. We were a party. Therefore, we went and did this versus how that would have looked if they were just going to be a witness and we were going to be driving the bus. So that might help clarify maybe what you still are looking for, Commissioner Skinner. I think that Commissioner O'Marie, this is a great idea. I'm also prepared to walk through what we would envision the process being if the IAB was a party. So it might be helpful if the Commissioner would agree for me to walk through that and maybe some additional questions will come out of that or we can see where that goes. So I'll just start with that. So the way that we would envision this is if the IAB is a party, the IAB would go as we just discussed and conduct its investigation. It would collect documents, it would conduct interviews and it would put together the evidence and decide, do we believe there's a violation of a statutory reg here and if so, what's the evidence supporting that? The IAB as a party would then have the opportunity to submit a list of witnesses and exhibits for the hearing. Both parties would have that right. So both parties would have the opportunity to submit a witness list and exhibits. The clerk's office would act as the entities are collecting that information and preparing it for the Commission. And in advance of the hearing, the clerk's office would set a schedule for all that coming into you. So there'd be a schedule for you getting the witness list, the exhibits, and pre-hearing briefs. And again, that pre-hearing brief would look a lot like the reports that you've seen. It would set out, here are the statutes of the rights that we think are violated and here's the evidence that we believe proves that. We would then go when you actually have the day of the adjudicatory hearing, you would have opening statements by both parties, again, sort of setting out each side of the case. The IAB believes this was violated and here's why the other party maybe agrees, maybe doesn't agree and sort of sets out the case. Depending on how contentious it is, the IAB may decide to call witnesses or may not decide to call witnesses. If it's not particularly contentious, if it's a self-report and it just happens to be a new issue, the IAB could say, you've heard our opening statements, the evidence is in the record, we rest, we're not going to call any witnesses. If it's a more contentious matter, that would be the opportunity for the IAB to call witnesses. It maybe didn't have the opportunity to interview someone because they wouldn't present themselves or something along those lines. It can call the witnesses that it believes is necessary to call for the commission to hear. One of the, I think, really helpful points of having the IAB be a witness comes to cross-examination. If the other party, of course, would have the opportunity to call witnesses, let's say they put a witness up on the stand and that witness says, on Monday I had toast for breakfast and for some reason that is a really, really important fact for the case. Well, the IAB is a party, they might know, they would know because they did the investigation, they did the interviews. Hey, that's not what he said in the interview. He said that on Monday he had eggs for breakfast and so he can get up there, we can get up there at the IAB and do that cross-examination, pull out that important fact because we have the knowledge from doing the investigation to be able to do that and to assist the commission in hearing all the facts. So I think cross-examination is actually a really big part of this. Otherwise, if the IAB is a witness, you're sort of sitting back saying, it's not what he said in the interview, but I hope someone catches them. And again, that's why cross-examination is a part of the Judicatory Hearing and part of due process. And then again, at the end of the hearing, the IAB and the operator would have the opportunity to give closing statements and have that information. None of this stops the commission from requesting additional information, requesting additional witnesses, asking its own questions. That's all still in play. The IAB would just have the opportunity to help really package the information and use its skills and use what it learned in its investigation to assist the commission in having all the information it needs to be the ultimate arbiter to make the final decision of was there a violation and if so, what's the penalty? IAB doesn't have to weigh in on that whatsoever. That's completely in the commission's realm if the commission does not want a recommendation and that's completely fine. So that's what I envision the process to be. Again, I think it gives enough flexibility for cases that I'll say are easier, maybe more straightforward, maybe less contentious. And it allows you to expand out a little bit more to more process when there is a contentious larger issue. So that's how I envision it at this point in time, but happy to take any questions. So if I could also, so my experience doing investigations and trial work is the other advantage to IAB being at the lead of this is not only the cross-examination matter, but before you even get there, their ability, when you're doing an investigation and you get a document, you get a witness interview, you immediately determine this is a dead end or, you know, I'm going to circle back and now I have to bring in three other people because of this interview. Their ability to do that quickly and efficiently far surpasses what this commission is capable of doing. So we can't do that live in any way even remotely as efficiently as IAB. So in addition to sort of the cross-examination, and this happened in win, right? We got dumped all the transcripts and all the documents and we had to go through, pick which ones you had and go through and do your tabs, do your highlights as if you were the prosecutor, right? And you're going through and you're asking all of those questions. It is incredibly difficult to do that as a body of five in any way that is efficient other than like Caitlin just described, sort of those more straightforward matters, right? Where you maybe have a couple of witnesses, maybe there's, you know, stipulated facts that are going in front of us. So it's really de minimis questioning or investigation that has to go on. But anything other than that, the efficiency factor also goes into the IAB column being a party. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. Commissioner Hill, do you have anything to add? And then I'll have a comment. All right, thank you, Commissioner Hill. I thought a lot about this, Commissioner Skinner. I hear what you're saying. We, the way I came down on it is we have an entire bureau filled with really smart and talented attorneys, right? And they have a history of doing this work. And I couldn't help but to think to Commissioner O'Brien's point if we had to meet in public every time or even, you know, under executive session, every time we wanted to ask another question or delve into a witness, it would be really, really cumbersome. Now, there's a relief valve and Justin and Caitlin both mentioned it. And that's that if there's a particular case where we want to put that kind of effort in and we want to meet every day, we can still do it, right? And so that made me comfortable. It was that relief valve piece. And the fact that, you know, any one of us commissioners, I think would be a good, would be a decent prosecutor on our own, but it's when you have to put the four potentially five of us soon together and make those decisions, it becomes sort of unwieldy, really. The other pieces, and Caitlin highlighted this, director, rather, is, you know, my natural reaction was, well, what if the IB goes and questions somebody that I wouldn't have questioned, right? And so now we're sitting here thinking about like, I don't know if this is going the way I wanted it to go, or it is, we can always have them go back. We can also weigh the evidence, right? So I can say, well, they questioned this and they really went down the field on this toast versus egg thing. I really don't think the toast versus egg thing has anything to do with any of this. And we can weigh that as a body, right? And so my thought process was, okay, we still have the ability to act as a judge would, right? And say, we need more evidence or we need you to explain this to us better or we want to see more out of this. And so for those reasons, I am comfortable with what's outlined in the memo. We are in receipt of Jed Nozzle's letter from Wumblebottom Dickinson. I appreciated his perspective, but that's kind of where I am. But I also do not want any commissioner to make a decision, which I know we don't have it marked up for a vote, unless they're completely comfortable and understand and feel like they are where they are with it. So that's my two cents. And with that, I'll kick it back to my fellow commissioners or to Caitlin and Justin. So I'll jump in. So I'm not uncomfortable with IDB acting as a party in these adjudicatory hearings. For me, I think it's more of a matter of getting clarity on why we are proposing this shift, because it's not what we have. It's not how we have been operating thus far. IDB in these sports waging non-compliance matters has been serving as a witness. So it's as important as it is to understand how we decide to move these matters along going forward. It's also just as important to me to understand the why behind any differences that we choose to impart. So I hear you, Commissioner O'Brien, you're raising the wind matter, which I think only one of the four of us was involved in at this point. And I guess I just didn't see these sports wagering matters, or at least the ones we've heard thus far, rising anywhere near the level as the wind matter. So that's what's in part a little bit hard for me to understand. Is the nature of these matters that we have, the DraftKings matter that we put on hold to sort of sort all of this out. I guess why wasn't the initial approach good enough? Why is there this need to shift things at this point? And more importantly, why do we need to make a decision each time as to how we want to review these? So we could make a decision that going forward, we want it to look more akin to 23K. The clear direction to do that is missing from 23N. And so that would have to be a consensus that we as the body of now four or five, depending on the constitution of this commission, wanted to do. And I always envisioned that this isn't, in my view, really a shift away from how we agreed to do sports wagering matters. From the beginning, we said we wanted to set the tone on types. So for me, I always thought we were going to be going to the 23K model. It is more efficient. And they are the ones experienced in investigating these matters. This is their area of expertise. And in my view, there was no reason to take 23N and not take advantage of what has been an established structure and process in 23K. So doing it each time we could or we could have a broader discussion about in general, we want it to go to IB unless we decide to pull it back or could be consistent with what we talked about before where we categorized them and said, look, I don't see any reason for us to be involved if it falls below this threshold. And if it is, we want to talk about it first before it goes over to IB to do the traditional 23K route where they're the party. So that could be a conversation, right? Where we draw the line and say over this dollar value, over this type of bets, whatever that is. Or we could simply say, they're going to come back every single time. To me, that's cumbersome for us to do it every single time. And I feel more comfortable saying it should in most circumstances go over to the IB as a party like we do with 23K, maybe carving out certain circumstances if we say unless it's a stipulated facts. Maybe if it's stipulated facts, there's no reason to go to IB it comes to us. But even getting to whether or not those facts are stipulated may require some level of investigation. But to your question, is why is it a shift? I don't see it as a shift. I see it as the natural evolution of what we envisioned to talk about when sports wadering launched about a year ago. Well, it's interesting because Commissioner Hill had to, had to, you know, bear the brunt of my confusion during our two by two with Justin and Kathleen. A lot of it was really trying to get an answer to the question, what was the impetus of this discussion, party versus witness in the first place? And that's where the confusion came in around adjudicatory bias on my part. So, you know, I guess, you know, there's, for me, there's still a lot of discussion that needs to be had, you know, behind the scenes. And I'm happy to do that with the legal team and IEB. But I want to say again, I'm not opposed to IEB proceeding as a party. I just want to, I just want to really understand it. And, you know, that's all. So is it fair to say that we could do something like Commissioner O'Brien and Caitlyn recommended and kind of do a case study two by two, essentially, and look at the wind matter and maybe pull another matter that's towed off, right, and look at how that went. And then we'll put a pin in this or as Chair Judd Stein would say, put it in the parking lot and then we'll bring it back back to another meeting. Does that work? Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Hill? Well, Chair, I'm going to say I don't want to further delay a determination, a decision on this question by the Commission. I know that we started this conversation two months ago. We've had two by twos already. I don't know what the natural decision point is, Caitlyn, that you envision this body to make. But I do think that should proceed in the normal course because we do have a long list now of non-compliance matters that we need to get reviewed if we are going to choose, you know, and we have selected a Judicatory hearings, but we do need to make a decision as to whether we'd like IEB to proceed as a party or a witness. So I'm not interested in delaying that any further. So I think by the time IEB is ready or legal, is ready to come back to us to make the decision. In the meantime, what is being proposed in terms of the case study I think would be just fine. So I just I want to make sure that I want the timing to proceed as normal in terms of what Caitlyn was envisioning. I think I can absolutely do that. You know, what I had envisioned coming out of this meeting is at either the next full public meeting or the meeting thereafter, we would bring back the three matters that we've basically held in advance pending this conversation. The commission has already decided to move the Judicatory hearings. The question is now, just will the IEB be a part of your witness? And so either at the next meeting or the meeting thereafter, depending on how quickly we can do these case studies and two by two's, we'll, you know, again, quickly present the facts, remind the commission of the history, and ask now, given all these conversations, given this history, would you like the IEB to be a part of your witness and move forward from there? And again, we can also see how it goes. You know, if the commission determines, you know, we'll have them as a party. We can see how it goes and the commission can always change course, but that's how I would propose moving forward. That sounds good to me. Great. The Affairs Commissioners. All right. I think you have some direction. Great. Thank you. We appreciate the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for bringing it to our attention. We appreciate all your hard work on that. Commissioners, we are now at 12.14. Would we like to move on to community affairs or would we like to have a lunch before we do that? Could we take like a 15-minute lunch if that's okay and then dive into CMF? Commissioner Skinner, are you okay with 15 minutes? Me, yep. Commissioner Hill. All right. We'll take 15 minutes. We'll get back to 12.30. Great. Dave, we can take the screen down just so I can see. See here. Let's see. Commissioner Skinner. Commissioner O'Brien. Commissioner Hill, a second. So Commissioner Hill is ready to go. Let's say we have Lily. We have Joe and Mary. I see Mary. All right. What we will do is, I came back for my 15-minute break. It's being held virtually, so we'll have to do a roll call. Commissioner O'Brien. I am here. Commissioner Hill. I'm here. And Commissioner Skinner. I'm here. All right. So we're going to kick it over to the community affairs division. Joe Delaney, who's chief of community affairs, Mary Thurlow and Lily Wallace, are going to present some community mitigation fund applications. Joe. Great. Thank you, chair and commissioners. So today is the first day of our fiscal year 2025 community mitigation fund application reviews. So today we're bringing forward six applications. Three of them are the municipal block grants and three of them are regional workforce grants. And just before we get started on those, I just wanted to give a sort of a quick update or refresher on the updates that we've done to the program in the last year. So of course, last fall we did a major revamp of the program creating this kind of a two tiered system where we have municipal block grants and then regional agency grants. So under the municipal block grants program proposed grant amounts were voted by the commission back in the fall based on the grant distribution formula that we developed. And part of the reason of this was to give some certainty to the communities on how much money they would have available to them should they come in with an application that passes muster. So the other major change that we had was to the recognized impacts of the casinos. So staff did a deep dive on all of the impacts that were identified in our own research, as well as research that was done in other jurisdictions and jurisdictions across the country and in fact across the world. And those recognized impacts that we compiled out of those sources were included in our guidelines, which significantly reduced the burden on our applicants to identify and quantify the casino related impacts. So you will see in the memo many instances of impacts that were directly identified in the guidelines. And of course as always proposed projects must be designed to address those identified impacts. So by process applications were received on January 31st and our review team has been working on those reviews since then. And our review team consists of Mary Thurlow, Lily Wallace, Carrie, Teresa, Judy Young, Zach Mercer, and Bonnie Andrews. And also we do have commissioners Hill and Maynard have been sitting in on our meetings in reviewing these applications. So with that we'll move forward with our presentation on each application. So I will be presenting the three municipal applications and then I'm going to turn it over to Lily, who's going to be presenting the workforce applications. And just as a matter of housekeeping, we do have each one of these scheduled for a boat. And I guess I would ask the commission how you wanted to proceed with that. Would you like to have all the presentations first with questions and then do the votes at the end or we could do each one as they count? Ministers. Mr. Chairman, I would like to do each one by itself and then take a vote at the end of each presentation. Everyone good with that? Mr. Skinner or Brian? All right, that's what we'll take. Okay, very good. So the first application in front of you is for the city of Lynn. Their grant allocation that was voted by the commission in the fall was $200,000. They are requesting just south of $200,000. We're proposing to just round that up to the even $200,000 that we are recommending. And this project is for the installation of 30 closed circuit television cameras to be installed strategically around the city in high incident areas to help streamline investigations, improve traffic safety and reduce impaired driving. So the city did identify three different impacts that were identified in our guidelines, which include increases in interactions between public safety personnel and casino patrons and employees, that casinos attracting certain types of crime to the area, and the presence of casinos having been demonstrated to cause an increase in cases of operating under the influence. So again, those are all identified in our guidelines. And we do agree that this project will help identify those impacts. The use of cameras is recognized in the public safety industry as an effective method to assist police in identifying and apprehending suspects doing accident investigations, monitoring traffic flow and things of that nature. So since this project identified impacts, this proposes to address them, and we agree that this type of project would address those impacts, we are recommending full funding for this grant. So be happy to answer any questions that you've had on this one. Thank you, Joe. Questions from the commissioners on this particular grant application. All right. Well, given, for sure, Hill's layout of this, do we have a motion? Brad, I was waiting for you to make the first move. I'll do it. I felt like I was fogging them all during the first part of our meeting, so I stepped back. I moved that the commission approve the application for funding from the Community Mitigation Fund from the City of Lynn in the amount of $200,000 for the purposes described in the application and the materials that were included in the commissioner's packet, and for the reasons described therein and further discussed here today, and further that commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument that commemorates the award in accordance with 205CMR 153.04. Second. All right. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I'm, yes, four zero. Okay. So the next application is the Town of Long Meadow, and their allocation was $324,800, and they requested that full amount, and we are recommending that full amount to be awarded. So there are three discrete projects within the application, and I'll describe those briefly here. So the first one is a raised crosswalk on Williams Street in the amount of $104,955. So this project is for the installation of an ADA-compliant raised crosswalk on Williams Street, and the impact that was identified in this was that increased traffic associated with the casino causes an increase in vehicular bicycle and pedestrian conflicts, which is one of the impacts identified in the guidelines, and the review team does agree that this project will help address that identified impact. In this case, with traffic impacts, we do look at what the expected flow of traffic is from the casinos, and while Williams Street itself, the studies that were done initially on the casino didn't highlight that street in particular, Williams Street does intersect with Route 5, which was identified as carrying about 3% of the casino-related traffic. And we do recognize that Williams Street is a major east-west route, Route 5 is a major north-south route, and that a significant amount of the traffic on Route 5 does turn onto Williams Street. So we agreed that there would be a sufficient amount of casino-related traffic using Williams Street to justify this project. So we do agree that, again, this constitutes an impact of the casino and that this project would address that, and therefore we're recommending the full amount of funding for this portion of the grant. So I guess I'll stop on this here and ask if there's any particular questions about this project, and then I'll move on to the next one. Any questions about this particular application, Commissioner? All right. So the second portion of this grant is a public safety application for traffic cameras in Long Meadow in the amount of $133,333. Again, this project is for the purchase and installation of five traffic cameras and locations around Longwood. Two of those are located on Route 5, which again was identified as one of the major routes from the casino, and the other three were on those sort of major collector roads that come into Route 5. So we agree that this project will address, help address those identified impacts. And just a little bit of background, this project builds on some cameras that we awarded in previous grants to Long Meadow. There were two cameras that were previously approved, and this builds on that network, which certainly will give the public safety groups methods to assist the police department in the identification, apprehension of suspects, accident investigation, monitoring traffic flow, and things of that nature. So again, they identified casino-related impacts. They identified a solution to help those impacts, and therefore we agree that this is appropriate and recommend full funding for this project. So any questions on that one? Any additional questions? I'm seeing none. Okay. And then the third piece of this application is another public safety application, which is for increasing rescue capability for the I-91 corridor in the amount of $106,512. The town fire department is requesting some new rescue and emergency medical equipment to improve their response capabilities on the I-91 corridor, and these primarily include extraction equipment, the jaws of life and things like that, and some CPR compression device and some other smaller equipment to help them in addressing emergencies on the highway. The application identifies increases in traffic, causing increases in traffic accidents, which is one of the identified impacts. And, you know, in fact, the Long Meadow Fire Department is the primary response agency for motor vehicle accidents and medical emergencies on I-91 through Long Meadow. And so that runs between the Connecticut state line and Springfield, and they do quite a number of these each year, 60 to 90 responses. About 20% of the casino-related traffic uses I-91, so that goes to the impact that they had identified. So, again, certainly the review team agrees that they've identified a casino-related impact and that the project will help the community in addressing this impact, so we are recommending full funding for this portion of the grant. And so in total, we are recommending full funding of the grant in the amount of $324,800. And Mr. Chair, is there any questions as to Long Meadow's grants and application? Ready for a motion? Mr. Chairman, I move that the commission approve the following application for funding from the Community Mitigation Fund for the town of Long Meadow in the amount of $324,800, for the purposes described in the submitted application and materials included in the commissioner's packet, and for the reasons described therein and discussed here today. And further, that the commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument commemorating these awards in accordance with 205-CMR 153.04. So, I'm going to second. I just have a clarifying question for Joe. Are these technically three separate applications, three separate grants, or is this one all-encompassing application one grant? This is a single application. It is one grant. And so what you will see coming up, these first ones, we have some communities that have five, six, seven individual projects within the application. So, but it is a single grant. Okay. Thanks. I second the motion. Great. We have a second. Commissioner, any discussion? I should ask that. I always assume you just know that you can have discussion. But Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I vote yes. All right, Joe. Okay. So the next one is the town of Northampton. They are requesting $150,000 for restarting the valley bike share program. Now, their allocation that was voted by the commission is $75,000. So they are requesting a waiver from that amount to raise the amount to $150,000. We are not recommending the waiver, and we'll get into that in a little bit. We are recommending that the $75,000 be allowed to be used for this program. We are not recommending that the waiver be granted. And we also will be recommending this with some conditions on the funding. This one is a little bit complicated. And let me give you just a little bit of background on the valley bike share program. So this valley bike share is a regional program. It goes to nine different entities, including Northampton, including Springfield, West Springfield. There's Chickpea. We've got Holyoke. And then there are some communities at Northampton themselves. And then there are some other communities that are not part of, not eligible for community mitigation funds. Those being Eastampton, Amherst, Hadley, and then also UMass Amherst is a member of this group. Now, last year, the operator for this valley bike system went bankrupt. So the entire operation of the valley bike network stopped. And Northampton has taken it upon themselves to try to resurrect this program. And they have put out an RFP that went out for bids. And they did get an operator that is willing to operate the program for the next year, for the next several years. And in doing so, they've also done a memorandum of understanding with all of the communities that are involved with this, all of the nine entities, and they are all willing to restart the program. So we think that from a regional perspective, this is really good that the program is being restarted. However, we had some difficulty, the review team had some difficulty looking at the identified impacts and saying that this program for Northampton actually addresses those impacts. So the things that they referenced particularly were increased traffic associated with the gaming establishment, causing increased congestion on the major routes leading to and from the gaming establishment. And also that increased visitation to the gaming establishment may place a strain on public transit services. Now, with respect to the first item, there are no identified impacts, traffic related impacts on Northampton. The maps that were developed as part of the the MGM project that we that we use to assess where traffic is going, none of them show there being any significant traffic going to Northampton. So we have asked communities if those maps don't show significant traffic that they need to demonstrate that and that really was not done as part of this application. The other piece of it talks about being a strain on public transit services. And the applicant stated that the Valley Bike Network does help people sort of last mile commuting, they may take the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority to Northampton or to any of the other communities for that matter, and that might use one of these Valley Bikes to get to their final destination. The review team agreed that there might be a small number of people who do that and that could be considered an impact, but it's really a very small impact. It's not particularly significant. So with that said, I think what we need to do is we bringing this program back is a good idea and Northampton is spearheading this. So the fact that they are taking the lead on reestablishing this working out the MOUs with the other communities and restarting it, we think is good for the region, but we also think it's good for MGM Springfield and the City of Springfield being the host community. We're bringing back the Valley Bike Network in Springfield will probably have people from the casino using that or people coming to the casino using that. So we can see that there is sort of a connection to the casino for them running this program. Now, we also don't really think that that the Community Mitigation Fund should be funding this entire effort. There are several communities that are not part of the eligible for Community Mitigation Funds and the fact that the impact on Northampton itself is not terribly significant. We felt that we told the community they would have a certain amount of money available to them and that using that to help restart this program is worthwhile, but we don't think that really what they're doing warrants granting that waiver to give them additional funds towards this program. And then the last piece of this is so we are recommending the $75,000, but we are also recommending putting a condition on this grant where we would only issue this money quarterly to the community. We're suggesting the first quarter $26,500, which would be $10,000 for planning and then $16,500 for operational costs and then $16,500 for each subsequent quarter. And the reason for that is we are, obviously, the original operator went bankrupt. I think we don't want to just see our money be the first money into this project. We want it to be to contribute as the whole thing goes along. And it also gives us a little better opportunity to keep tabs on what's happening with the new operator and how that's going. So we just want to be a little bit careful about how we dole out the money and do that over time rather than, you know, say all at the very beginning of the program. So with all that said, that was, I know it's a little complicated. Any questions on that one? Ministers, no question for me. Just a statement. You couldn't have put that out for us any better than you did for an explanation. Very nice. Thank you. All right, commissioners. I believe that we have a vote that we need to take for this one. There's a motion. You want me to take this one, Brad? I move that the commission approve in part the application from the town of Northampton for $75,000 in funding from the community mitigation fund for the purposes described in the submitted application and materials included in the commissioner's packet and for the reasons further discussed here today. And further the commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument commemorating the award, particularly with the limitation set forth by director Delaney in accordance with 205CMR 153.04. Exactly. And just a quick clarification, commissioner O'Brien, we will incorporate those changes into the grant instrument itself, the condition they should set. Okay. Any other discussion? Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And I vote yes. All right, Joe. Okay. So now I'm going to turn it over to Lily to go through the regional agency grants that we have, and these are all the workforce grants. Good afternoon, commissioners. So we're now on page 129 of your packet. So as Joe noted, along with the block grants in the fall, you approved the creation of these regional applications across three categories, planning, public safety and workforce development. So today we're going to walk through the three applications that were received under the workforce development category. And just as a brief overview of some of the guidelines that were required under that, they were required to come in as a consortium application and to provide regional labor market information and evidence of employee partnerships. So we were really looking for education skills training programs that would directly be related to an impact of casino. So this fall, the commission did up the limit for the grant. So we're looking at $3 quarters of a million dollars in both region A and region B. So I'm going to start off in region B where we received one application. The application came from Holyoke Community College on behalf of themselves, Springfield Technical Community College and Springfield Public Schools. This is a continuation of the Work Ready program that we've been funding in some capacity since the 2017 round. So this additional funding will actually just be to increase capacity. The programs, I'm sure you've all heard, have been very successful. So we'd be adding cohorts for the line cook training for a total of 84 trainees, along with getting a line cook certification from Holyoke Community College. They are also eligible for serve safe foods certifications and allergen certifications, which really are able to put them ahead when they're applying for these jobs. And MGM continually lets us know that line cooks are a critical need for them. A new addition this year is for cohorts of a kind of a hotel front desk room attendant program, and they're planning to train a total of 32 trainees. So that is a new program for us this year, but both of these programs as kind of was given as commissioned feedback in the previous years will be doing a full day training directly with MGM that will kind of include a tour, as well as a mock interview and a conversation with the HR department and the staffing department at MGM. So they're really creating a very direct line to the casino. So again, they have the benefit of being an applicant that we've worked with for the past few years. So they did have done a really great job of responding to commissioner feedback. And we did see a lot of direct ties with MGM for both the more basic ESOL digital literacy courses as well as these more occupational trainings. So for that reason, we are recommending full funding of this at three quarters of a million dollars. Any questions on that? Questions. No, Mr. Chairman, but just to let you know, this program has worked so successfully out there. The public needs to know that. I mean, out of all the grants that are coming forward today, this is probably one of the best ones that we can vote on or vote affirmatively on. Yeah. And I know we had some scheduling issues this fall when we were not to Springfield, but I'm really hoping to get all of y'all out there to see the program in person because it's such doing such great work in the region where there is such a need. Yeah, maybe do it. Commissioner Hall was going to say the same thing. I've had the privilege of being out there once before and it's a fantastic program. I agree. And I will also say that Lily has been really good at articulating how well the program works and why it's a worthwhile project to the folks out there. But that said, do we have a motion? Well, this is one that we don't need to fight over for sure. I moved at the Commission to approve Holyoke Community Colleges application for funding from the Community Mitigation Fund in the amount of $750,000 for the purposes described in the sub-ended application and materials included in the commissioner's packet for the reasons described therein and discussed here today. And further that commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument commemorating the award in accordance with 205-CMR 153.04. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Second for Commissioner O'Brien. Any other discussion? Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skitter. Hi. And I vote yes or zero. All right. Are we sticking with you, Lily? Yep. Just keep going. So now we're going to switch over to Region A, though. So in Region A, we had two applications come in. In our fall guidelines, we outlined only funding one application. So I'm going to begin with the application that we are recommending funding, which is Mass Hire. So Mass Hire has existed in some capacity since 2017, I think, with us doing this workforce grant, doing this workforce work in Region A. So the way that their program works is it's a little bit more of a wraparound and working with a lot of different nonprofit partners. So this year we have nine nonprofit partners that are all previous partners that we had from the last year that have all been very successful. And they provide wraparound services where if you go into Mass Hire, you figure out what you need to get you to where you need to go. So they have a lot of basic level things from ESOL, from digital literacy, all the way up to direct line cook program trainings and different like hotel and hospitality related occupational trainings. So they're really able to meet people where they're at and because all the different nonprofit partners, they are located all over the county and across a lot of our different impacted communities. So they are proposing with this extra additional $250,000 this year that they are going to expand programming. So last year we had about they estimated about 1200 touches towards different individuals. This year, they're going to look at around 1500. And an estimated of these will be the unestimated 183 of these will be those direct occupational training, which is the clearest line into the casino. Mass Hire, again, has been a great partner for us and has been a, you know, very open to the commission feedback. They've started providing us with 30 day employment and retention data, which was something that was requested starting last year, I think, by Commissioner Skinner, actually. So they've been a great partner on that and giving us both data for directly MGM as well as data for hospitality in the region generally. So based off of, you know, their previous partnership with us, as well as their larger serve, we are proposing funding this over the other application. Just for the housekeeping piece of this, I'm happy to run through the second application that we received before you vote on these, or we can vote in between. It might make sense to go through both applications. But I leave it to you, Mr. Interim Chair. I see Commissioner Skinner and a few nods. Are we okay with going through the other application before we take a vote? All right. Okay. So the other application was from the Middlesex District Attorney's Office. So just for a little bit of background on this, the community affairs team met with all the relevant DA's offices this past summer when we were talking about the creation of this new regional public safety application. And while we did not explicitly say that DA's offices had to apply under this, we kind of thought that was what was going to happen. So this one was a little bit unexpected from our team. So we, they ended up applying for this workforce development grant. And when we met with them, we heard that the reason was because DA Ryan's office likes to prioritize community planning as well as the more traditional roles of a DA's office. So what they're asking for is the creation of positions at chambers of commerce in the host and surrounding communities that would build capacity for marketing for local businesses. So this would be in connection with the new Mass Reconnect program, which provides those over 25 with the capacity to get a degree through community colleges. And their ideas that they would market this through that program to kind of get some students in and they would be offered these internships. Some of them are part-time. Some of them are full-time working in the chambers of commerce. And I think the review team definitely understood that this could definitely be a need. This could be a place for capacity building. But we didn't necessarily agree with it under this workforce development application as there, even their rationale was actually closer to the regional planning applications. DA's offices were explicitly not allowed to apply under the regional planning. We only allowed the regional planning agencies to apply under that. And we also had quite a few questions about just the viability of this program and while we appreciated the enthusiasm that the staff very clearly had around this program, it seemed that they had reached out to six different chambers of commerce and they had only heard back from two of them. So we were just really concerned about the buy-in of the local community. And we also know that chambers of commerce are often staffed by under three employees. So creating 22 new positions might be quite a stretch for them. So for this reason and I think just the idea of how many people this is going to impact, 22 versus the 1,500 of the mass hire application, we are suggesting and recommending that you go with the mass hire application over this application. I think it is our team's intention. We met with the DA's office already on this application and it is our intention that if this program is not funded, we will still be planning to meet with the DA's office after this to kind of have a little bit of a course more on this and talk about different opportunities for next year's applications. Any questions on either of those? Or Joe, feel free to jump in if there's anything that you wanted to. No, I think that covers it pretty well. You know, it's just we did feel that the other application was a stronger application than this one and we are recommending that. But we definitely do want to reach out to the DA's office. You know, they're eligible to come in under certain programs and I think we should have those ongoing conversations with them. Professor O'Brien, once they're reaching in. So I mentioned this in the two by two just to say it out for everyone's benefit too is I don't know whether they still call it CBJ, community based justice, but I know in middle sex, they used to have that program and they had diverging programs. And so it may be a little bit of a mismatch in the application and the request, but great idea and intent on the part of the DA's office. So, you know, conversations going forward might want to think about other programs that they have in the DA's office, right? And I was thinking about the Holyoke culinary program at the time too, thinking you might have some younger offenders too, you'd want to maybe divert and give them the opportunity to use some other educational training that would help as well. So just food for thought in terms of circling back to the DA's office. Yeah, definitely commissioner. And I think that, you know, the middle sex DA hasn't historically been an annual applicant. So we really are trying to make sure that they understand that they're included and that we can all work together and moving forward. So I think that's a great piece of using the restorative justice piece in this as well. So we will definitely make sure to bring that up with them. Thank you, Mr. O'Brien and Lily. Any other comments? Mr. Skinner? Mr. Hill? I will briefly say that, you know, we appreciate that anybody that puts in for these funds, right? And putting together the application and the aims and goals of what they do. We appreciate the middle sex DA's office wanting to engage us and appreciate Joe and Lily and Mary and team going back and seeing where we can work together in the future. We also appreciate the chambers of commerce, right? And all the work that they do. Since I've been on the gaming commission, we've engaged with them multiple times and appreciate the work that they're trying to accomplish. That said, I tend to agree with Commissioner O'Brien and our team that this just isn't the best fit for the money today. And so that's just adding my voice to the chorus. And any other discussion? Have a motion? Chairman, I move that the commission approve the following application for the funding from the community mitigation fund for mass hire Metro North in the amount of $750,000 for the purposes described in the submitted application and materials included in the commissioner's packet. And for the reasons described there in and discussed here today. And further that the commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument commemorating these awards in accordance with 205 CMR 153.04. That can any other discussion? Commissioner O'Brien. I Commissioner Hill. I Commissioner Skinner. I And I vote yes. Would we like to take up the issue of the middle sex DA's office application? I'll take a bullet from my former alma mater and encourage them for next year. But I move this year that the commission denied the application from the middle sex DA's office for funding from the community mitigation fund as included in the commissioner's packet for the reasons that were described there in and further discussed here today. All right. Any discussion? Commissioner O'Brien. I Commissioner Hill. I Commissioner Skinner. I And I vote yes. Joe. Thank you. So that is all that we have for you today, just coming attractions at the next meeting. I know we may not have it on the 25th, but whatever the next meeting is, we're looking at bringing, I believe it's 11 applications to the commission for that meeting. And it looks like we did pretty well on this meeting. It looks like about 40 minutes to get through. So, you know, we will probably need more time than we took today. And some of these are longer applications. So it will be a bit more of a slog than today was, but that's what we have coming up next. And I think the following meeting after that is also another 11. And then we're hoping the last meeting will be a lighter lift. Well, thank you, Joe. We appreciate your work. Thank you, Lily and Mary. And all the work that you do behind the scenes, the entire group that reviews these as they stated, Commissioner Hill and I have been able to sit in a few and it's a lot of work and a lot of detail oriented process, as I would expect anything Joe Delaney to touch will be. So with that said, we're going down to number 10. Any commissioner updates? I don't see any any other business that we didn't anticipate today. All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Commissioner Skinner. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. And I vote yes for zero. Everyone have a great day and thank you for all the