 I want to, of course, remind everybody that because of the coronavirus, we have been meeting through connectivity technology, and really, we have been afforded great opportunity to do so through the order that the governor issued at the very beginning of our closure so that we could comply fully with the expectations under the open meeting law. Today was, just because we've only had a couple of challenges, we've been really fortunate to be able to meet regularly and comfortably through a remote means, so we appreciate the opportunity, and thank everyone for today, today just a little bit more patience. And I'm calling to order now, public meeting, it is public meeting 311, and it is July 2nd, our start time is now 1040. And we'll go to our first matter, which would be the approval of minutes, Commissioner Stevens, you've shifted on my screen. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair and my colleagues. In your packet, you have the meeting minutes from the June 11th meeting, which all of us can recall was rather lengthy. It was a good discussion with our licensees of guidelines. So my compliments to Shar for her great work pulling these together. She shared them with all of you because obviously there were a lot of discussion points. We wanted to make sure that we accurately reflected everybody's key points that they wanted to make. So those are in front of you in this packet, I would move their approval subject to any corrections for typographical errors or any other non-material matters. Before we move on to seconding it, I did post edit. It's page eight, the entry at 231 p.m. I don't think that's entirely accurate in terms of what the conversation was the context of the conversation at that time was looking at option a which was based on a percentage of occupancy and the discussion, whether or not it would be part of that percentage. And then we hypothetically taught that a 50% capacity but there was no consent about 50%. It was a consensus that any percentage under option a would include employees. So my proposed edit would be the commission reached a consensus that a percentage occupancy level requirement would also include employees that that's what the entry should read at that point. And that was at that the stage of that meeting. And, and I think that it is verified in our later work where we, we indicate we hadn't had a consensus on overall occupancy level. Right. So thank you. Thanks. That's in that time frame at that meeting. Does that make sense to, you know, and to be fair to Sharra, it was a very fluid conversation at the time and probably difficult to follow. I think it's like twice to have to look at the time period again to sort of figure out how to say it concisely. Right. So thank you. Did we hear that edit. Okay. Do we want. Sharra, did you get the. Yep. Excellent. Thank you. That's helpful. Anything further. Again, very, very dense conversation. Want to make sure it's as accurate as you remember it to be. I also had an edit. Okay. On the entry, I don't know the page number, but it's the entry of 1122 AM. Okay, pages up. Eight five. Okay. Thanks. In the second paragraph where it says that I raised a concern regarding the temperature checks. At the gaming establishments. It is correct that I, my preference was for enforcement for a focus on, at the beginning. To mitigate the requirements later. So I would delete the knot. At the end, at the beginning of the last sentence. I think it was really just about other measures. Because it is actually doing so. Other measures. That's right. Later on, I also. I mean, I recall and I am currently still. In agreement that of the requirement of face masks. I think it was really just about other measures once. I was making the point. I think it was really just about other measures. And I think that the factor at the beginning would, would alleviate the necessary for being strict later on. But, but I wasn't necessarily. Singling out the requirement of face masks. So. Would you like to state it without the face mask being referenced precisely. Yes. So my proposed that it is that the last sentence in that second sentence. I would like to state it without the face mask being referenced. So I would like to state it without the face mask being referenced. For other measures. I feel that that reflects what I believe commissioners and a gut did communicate to us at the time. So I'm, I'm very comfortable with that. Thank you. Again. Blue discussion. Any other edits. Commissioner. Okay. All right. Do I have a motion? Oh, I have a motion. I have a second. Okay. Any further discussion? Again, thank you to Sharra. Commissioner Cameron. I just seconded. I am sorry. You're polling now. I. Okay. There's a lot going on. Yes. Now the votes. An eye from commissioner Cameron commissioner. Brian. Hi. Commissioner Zuniga. Hi. And commissioner Stevens. Hi. Yes. Five zero. Thank you with those edits. Moving on now to our. Our agenda. Item. Number three. Our administrative update from. Interim executive director Wells. Good morning, madam chair and members of the commission. As I expect, everyone is aware. The earliest opening date for the phase. Three opening of Massachusetts has been deemed by the governor to be Monday, July 6th. We are still aware of that. As the governor has stated previously on many occasions, that determination is going to be data driven based on health metrics. So we. At the commission are ready to go to take on our regulatory responsibilities. Once the governor. And then the licensees deemed it's appropriate to reopen. So we are ready to go. We stand by. I am going to turn it over for item three. A to Dr. Lightbound to just to give you a little bit of a briefing and. Some information on simulcasting. And E. W. For your information, just for. Interest as far as the racing side of the house goes. Because we have a lot of interesting things going on with racing right now. Before we move on to three. In terms of being ready to go. There may be some questions from. Oh, good. On that. When you say ready to go, were there any formal actions or sign-offs that. That are still that you need to take. Interim executive director Wells. We will be the fact that the commission passed the, or voted on the guidelines last week tremendously helpful. So we. Now have a framework for the licensees and for the commission. And if we, as we've talked about in public meetings as well, we also have our own internal guidelines. For the safety of our own employees. So actually we're finalizing a document for employees. So they can look through it all themselves. And we'll hopefully be getting that out today to our employees. Just so people understand what the protocol is. The procedures are so people understand what's going to be happening once there is a limited amount of our staff that will be onsite at the casinos. Yeah, that was actually one of my questions. I'm going to just jump in because I do want to take the time, Karen. You know, July 6th allows for an opening. And, and, and our licensees decide to proceed. And we'll hopefully be getting that out today to our employees. Just so people understand what the protocols are. The procedures are. And our licensees decide to proceed. One of the items that I've mentioned in the past, and I think it's even noted in today's minutes is to make sure that our, our employees. Who will be. At the property are really trained. You know, in terms of how to wear their masks, how to, and I just want to be assured that. If Monday is a go for our employees that they're all set. And I'm hearing you say it's we're a little bit in limbo. Let's be great. Right. And I know that tomorrow is a holiday. So I just, I am. Reinforcing really a comment I made in the past is that it's really important to have that cross training. Right. Yeah. Another point that we should be aware of is that we have also been notified the licensees training that they are giving their employees to, for their safety protocols, our employees have been taking that as well. So that's. Here. Okay. Yeah. And this, this applies to both our gaming agents and our, our racing employees that they're all ready to go on the six. And I, we also have our state police, the gaming enforcement unit and the local police that are part of that unit. They have been working all along, but they're obviously with an opening, there will be more activity. So everybody is, is in the loop as far as what these protocols are. Thank you for verifying that. Any commissioners. Yeah, Karen. I, I just remember, um, you know, a couple of conversations from the prior meetings that the licensees themselves would, would need. Um, you know, a couple of weeks in some cases to, um, To open based on a number of things. Um, you know, including in the, including the guidelines. Um, so assuming that the governor were to, um, To give a go ahead on the phase three, uh, do we know that, um, All or any of the licensees would be in a position to then open up or they still need. There may be some time that there may be some time that they need. And that's why they're sort of the governor's piece. And then the licensees have to make their own decisions about Opening safely with the protocols in place so that, uh, It's not rushed and there aren't mistakes made. So the licensees will also be making their own determination. So it may not be everything opens up that first day. They will be making their own determinations. We've had some preliminary discussions where those dates are. I don't really want, uh, to speak for them in case they, they make some changes. I don't want to make an announcement on their behalf. Uh, but that may, it may be somewhat of a staggered approach. Uh, as far as opening the casinos, the licensees have to make some business decisions and also safety for their own employees and what makes sense. And onboarding. Uh, because I think we've all. Been through a lot, you know, we've been a lockdown since middle of March. And reopening these is a big deal. Uh, and it's what we've done in Massachusetts has been amazing. And you look at what's going on in the other parts of the country. And we've done a good job as far as reducing the numbers. I think everyone is thinking about that, that we want to do this the right way. And the licensees are also thinking that way as well. Other questions for Karen on this point. I know we can circle back to the important discussion too. If you think of something as we go through today's agenda. Any further questions for Karen, just on that. Right now. All right, then what? Then we'll go ahead with an item. But again, we may think of something as the meeting proceeds. Okay. Thank you. So. Yeah. Turn over to. To Dr. Leipam. Good morning, Alex. Good morning, everybody. So, um, the, um, I'll give you a couple of questions. I'll give you a little bit of background on the account. Wager and a little bit of the history in 1978. Interstate horse racing act. Authorized interstate simulcasting, which meant that you could be in a race track. In Massachusetts and bed on races in New York. In 2000, it was amended to include. Advanced deposit wagering, basically telephone and other electronic forms of wagering. Um, in states where that type of betting would be legal. So that was in 2000 and in 2001, Massachusetts actually passed laws and regulations. So that it was legal in Massachusetts. Then. Um, Suffolk partnered with. TVG to offer it. And that was online. And then the other licensees at the time, um, Rainham, Fox, Gro and Wonderland, um, introduced, uh, telephone betting. So, um, they all had, uh, different versions of account wagering, um, advanced deposit wagering. Um, now, um, Rainham still has the, um, phone betting there. Um, it's called dial to bet. Um, obviously we've moved on from, uh, Foxboro to Plain Ridge and Plain Ridge had their own, um, in house, uh, account wagering. And then when Penn came in, um, now they use the Hollywood races, um, platform for their account wagering. And that's, um, online. Um, Suffolk has partnered with, um, several different groups. Um, TVG, which now includes, um, FanDuel to give them a wider, um, audience base. Um, they also, uh, contract with Twin Spires and Ira Betts, um, an express bet. Um, so, you know, we've had, um, online wagering in Massachusetts for, uh, quite a while since 2001. And, um, it's been, you know, regulated really without any, um, things like geofencing, defining the boundaries, um, or geolocation where you can actually determine where a better is placing their bets. Um, allows for, um, different takeouts, um, depending on where the person is so that it may be, um, more advantageous, um, to, uh, somebody, um, who's actually betting in the, um, building, so to say, at one of our tracks versus, um, maybe in their house. So it's very, um, it can be very specific. That's, that's the thing. Um, we do have obviously, um, regulations that cover that. Um, it comes under 205 CMR. Um, six, starting with 620 general account wagering. Um, that's under our paramutrials. Um, and it's specified for, um, how, how the money can be deposited and goes through a number of different, um, steps that regulate it. Um, I'll turn it over to, um, CAD now and our financial analyst, and he can describe a little bit about, um, reconciling that he does to, um, regulate the money that comes in. And, uh, before I do that, um, just to step back a minute. Um, with the shutdown due to the COVID, uh, we were fortunate with this account wagering, um, that this was able to, um, continue. Um, we had to stop simulcasting because that involved people actually going into our buildings in Massachusetts. And, um, you know, so we couldn't do that. And also we had to delay, um, our live racing, but with the, um, online, um, wagering, we were fortunate enough that that could continue to, um, proceed. So we have had some revenue coming in from that. And, uh, now I'll turn it over to Ted. Thank you, Alex. Good morning. Manager. Commission and everyone on the call. Um, so as Alex mentioned, although the race tracks and simulcasting sites have been closed, there have been some, um, I am still working with the licensees and our internal colleagues, um, to provide reconciliation and billing. So I am happy to report that the process. And very smooth. So thank you very much. Um, so as Alex mentioned, although the race tracks and simulcasting sites have been closed to the patrons, wagering on racing has continued through our ABW providers. Um, I am still working with the licensees and our internal colleagues on the call. Um, so as Alex mentioned, I am still working with the licensees and simulcasting sites. Um, so I'm very, very smooth. So thank you very much to our licensees and the colleagues that I, I work with. Um, so I'm just going to kind of go into some of the numbers here to date. And, um, So when we do look at them, um, starting pre pandemic, I guess, the word. Um, January and February, uh, we did a combined handle of 32 and that was versus 30 million, um, last year. So there was actually an increase than the first two months. And then, um, So basically, uh, March was, uh, where we did see, um, a small downtick in the handle. Uh, that was down 2 million. And so that was 16. So all in all, uh, for the first quarter, um, it was basically flat. Um, we, um, We did 25, um, and then when we look at May, um, that's where we saw an increase and we went from 25 million. Um, which was about. 10 million more than what we did in 2019. Um, and then in terms of the actual commission that we received from that. Um, so, so far a year to date, we, um, have a build out for commissions on the wagers, 343,000. And that is versus, um, 341,000, um, of the same period last year. So, um, really only. Only $2,000 less than where we were on track from last year. Um, so the attribution for that is basically even though the library saying and simulcasting at the tracks, um, were halted in the middle of March. Um, we saw, um, the ADW way during increase by over 50%. Um, and so in total, um, so far a year to date, the handle is at 91 million. Um, versus last year, um, where it was, um, that right around 90, 90 million. So, um, I think where we saw the big difference again is, is with the ADW wagering. And so the six providers actually provided 75 million or about 80%. Um, of, of the total handle so far a year. Uh, this year, whereas last year it was split 50, 50 between live racing, simulcast and the ADW providers. Um, and then in terms of, uh, the, uh, cap and promo funds right now, the, uh, the plain rage cap fund is at 550,000. Uh, the Suffolk capital improvement fund is at, uh, 3 million. The plain rage promotional fund is at 140,000. And the Suffolk promotional fund is at 150,000. Um, and then just kind of a quick note also on, on sports betting. Um, so the same trend is actually happening. Um, they're also, um, it's about 20%. Um, of the wagers that are coming from the brick and mortar sports book, uh, versus online and mobile ADW providers similar to racing that provide 80% of, um, the sporting events. And as Alex mentioned, fan dual did team up with, uh, TBG. So we, we have started to see a little, um, uptick in TBG's numbers because it's, um, and, uh, that's, that's all I have. Thank you. That's really helpful. And I like that you made the, uh, connection to the sports betting world. Of course, in Massachusetts, we don't have legalized sports betting, but the trend is showing that where there are options to be online during this pandemic, they, um, even with reduced sports. Opportunities. The online is active. Of course, some of the sports books have now returned in the last month or so. Other jurisdictions. But the mobile, the mobile option is active. I have a question, um, for, for Alex or Chad. Uh, thank you for that update. A question and perhaps a comment after that. Um, so, um, is there a way to know, and, um, just in general, not, not, not anywhere precisely, whether some of these activity, um, of ADW is from new accounts, people who decided were usually going to the track. And then decided to get an account, a new account on ADW. Um, in order to replace their activity at the track and now from home, or he seed existing accounts that, um, that now have a higher level of activity because people are at home. Yeah. So, um, I think, um, to, for the most part, I, I do think that it's, um, increased. Accounts, uh, that were set up, um, one of them, uh, coming over from, uh, some of the, the, the, um, people that were signed into Fandle are now able to race through TVG's, um, portal. So I think that's part of it. Um, and I would also assume that, um, uh, you know, those, those folks that do like to, to wager, um, and they did some of it on the track, although they still may have had an account. Um, there was only one way to do that. And that's through the account. Mr. Tuttle, I see that you came on board. Was that purposeful to, um, to make a comment? I just wanted to make sure you didn't want to add in or. Uh, no, it was only, um, in, in, uh, potential of being called upon. Um, Thank you. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure. Um, yeah, thank you. I, you know, let me follow up on that because, um, uh, I think what's, what's, what's really alluded to here is, um, The notion that we effectively we had when it came only to course racing. An online, um, you know, since, you know, option really, uh, for a few years now, um, I also would like to point out that it's a cashless wagering effectively, something that is now being or should be considered in light of all of these current context as maybe being, uh, necessary to consider for, for casinos and other forms of gaming. Um, it can be done in the same, in a very similar way in which the account is pre-funded. Nobody uses credit. Um, and just like the 80 W's. And, uh, and it minimizes for the high touch nature that now becomes a concern. Ironically, uh, in this, in this pandemic. So, um, I know it's not something that casinos are currently, uh, allowed to do, um, you know, um, in, in certainly Massachusetts and in very, in the majority of other states. But I wonder if this would be, um, a trend that or a model that could be replicated. For other forms of gaming. Thank you. Commissioner. That's, uh, Really important observation. One of the reasons why I had asked, uh, Alex for this update. Is I don't believe that, um, it's widely known that there's mobile betting going on in Massachusetts from our, the comfort of our couch on our cell phones. And I like that Alex, you pointed out that there's phone betting, but mobile online betting is occurring and has been occurring since 2001. Or horse racing. And horse racing was, you know, And it's, and it's been able to be done in the, in a careful way with respect to geo fencing and knowing your client. And then of course, um, a chat is pointing out just during this snapshot. Uh, During the pandemic, helpful statistics in terms of where, uh, whether the play was impacted, uh, where there wasn't, uh, Brick and mortar opportunities. So I really, I, I truly appreciate that update and look forward to hearing more details. Commissioners, any other comments for Alex and chat on this update? Just a high level update, but one that we really needed to be informed and to keep track of at this time. All right. Thanks. Moving on to the next slide. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Moving ahead. Uh, as for, uh, item three B madam chair, I wanted to give the commissioners just an update on, uh, some regulatory action with respect to the casinos. That commission has carved out, uh, special authority for the executive director, uh, to be able to approve the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the goals that the request of the licensees, uh, deemed appropriate. That authority is, uh, at 205 CMR 138. So we did receive some requests. Uh, and I wanted to update you on determinations, uh, by, uh, the team and approved by me, the, um, If there's a denial of any request, uh, I'm going to have a, uh, assistant director band chime in on, on a few of these, just because he has the gaming expertise and there is some interest in some of this, how the, you know, how the casinos work. Uh, the first one has to do with pit bosses. Um, and I'll let, uh, Assistant director band in a minute, just give you an explanation what the pit boss role is. But bottom line is that there was a request that instead of, uh, having a maximum supervision load of 24 tables, that that be increased to 30 tables so that a pit boss, uh, can in fact during this time period, supervised 30 tables, uh, given that, um, the present facts and circumstances and what's going on, particularly where the tables now are going to have fewer people at the tables. And that there is a supervisor responsibility by the fourth person as well, uh, as the dealer, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, request is deemed appropriate and did not impact the, uh, controls over the casino. So I'll just turn it over to Mr. Band to just give you a little bit of, uh, flavor of what the pit boss does and how that, uh, works at the casino. There. You need to just, um, Bruce, you just need to unmute. Can you. I had to unmute myself. Uh, the pit boss is the, uh, uh, head supervisor in the pit, in charge of all the four people, uh, we felt that, uh, uh, by letting him supervise more tables, it didn't lessen the supervision over the table games as the four people or the direct supervisors over the tables. And, uh, uh, this pit boss itself makes the decisions that, uh, the four people themselves, uh, couldn't make and that, uh, by doing this, we, we didn't lessen that, that supervise you. Okay. Do you want to take questions in between Karen? How? I think that, I think that makes sense. Yeah. Any questions on that? Okay. Hearing none. Uh, the next issue with, with respect to surveillance and security staffing, uh, Plain Ridge. Parkasina had requested a variance, uh, with respect to minimum staffing numbers. Uh, that was, uh, uh, uh, approved in part and denied in part. I won't go into too much detail on that for obvious reasons, but the, um, the bottom line is that we can only, uh, approve a change if it doesn't lessen the applicable administrative or physical control of the property. So there are administrative, uh, rules with respect to that. And we made a determination on that. So, um, I don't know if there's any questions on that with respect to the staffing, but in casinos, there are minimum requirements for security and surveillance, uh, personnel to make sure that everything is handled properly at the casinos and the casino submit internal controls as to their minimum staffing. Is there any, uh, are there any questions from the commissioners on that? And I would just add that we have the benefit of, uh, uh, some briefing from you on that. So exactly. Um, Exactly. Uh, the third issue, uh, maybe of interest, uh, to the public is respect to progressive jackpots and some variances. They requested based on the pandemic conditions and the closing and then the opening of the casino. So I'm going to have, uh, Mr. Bann just start out with just a, an explanation of a progressive jackpot and what it means and, and how it's, uh, and how it's funded and the special rules and the, um, the variances that were requested. Progressive jackpots are, are slot machines that the, uh, the jackpot on the slot machine grows, uh, higher and higher as play accumulates. Uh, it's funded initially by putting, uh, the casino puts what's called a seed amount on there. And that's usually to make the jackpot a little more enticing for the paper that would like $2,000 to start. Uh, and then, uh, the jackpot will grow by whatever percentage that machine is set at three to 5% as it goes. Uh, we don't allow that, that machine to leave the floor for more than 10 days. If they're redesigning a, a, uh, a slot zone or, uh, you know, for some reason they have to take it off the floor for, for work. Uh, we had two requests in, in here. The, uh, a seed amount money is actually the casinos money and the. Percentage is the patrons money essentially. That's why we don't allow the machine to leave for a length of time. We got two requests. The, uh, one of the casinos asks, uh, because if you're, you're going to remove the jackpot, you have to post that for, for, uh, 10 days saying we're going to remove the jackpot to a machine that's similar and, uh, has similar characteristics to the machine that it was on to let the patrons and public know that that's going to be transferred that's going to be transferred. Uh, one of the casinos asked to forego that 10 day posting and to transfer those jackpots to similar, uh, uh, machines. The other two asked to forego the, uh, uh, removal for 10 days thing and be able to remove those jackpots for up to 60 days before they transfer those jackpots. And that's essentially what they're doing. So, um, any questions? Commissioner Zaniga. Yes. Thank you. I was just unmuting. So, um, how is the notice on their normal circumstances when, when they're operating 24 seven, how is that notice of the move given for the public to know that, you know, the game, let's say that they let the progressive they'd like to play might not be there when they come back. It's a signage on the machine itself. So, um, it's a signage on the machine itself. So, um, I'm just going to post in saying that this jackpots going to be transferred. Uh, to another machine. And it will give a date usually. I'm, is there, is there a way to know what, what do they propose to do in terms of signage? And I understand that there's been a long period of course, of inactivity. Yes. The player who's looking for the jackpot, perhaps the, the, the progressive. Um, I believe there's going to be some signage in the casino. Uh, there are numerous, uh, progressives in each casino. Then it would almost be impossible to post it on all, all the machines in there. Uh, that would be a lot of machines to post it on. So I, I assume they would put some signage around the casino, saying those machines that aren't currently active on the four will be, uh, you know, activated at a later date. Okay. Bruce, um, can you just remind me the reasons that a licensee might, uh, pull a machine out of service that is offering a progressive slot? Uh, you sometimes for, uh, some software update or work on the machine itself or the slot zone itself is, uh, being reconfigured. Uh, you know, that whole slot zone, you know, like the, the, the, the, the corporate replacement, uh, it could be numerous, uh, things like that. Thank you. So that those, uh, those who are the requests that, uh, were granted and with the exception of, uh, the, uh, denied impart on the security and surveillance piece. So as more of these may or may not come in, I will keep the commission updated on what's going on, just so you have a sense of, uh, any significant issues going on at the casinos that they can they can be made aware of that through this venue. So any any other questions on that? No, I just come on to confirm that Encore just didn't happen to ask for that further relief. If I wanted it, it would have been extended to them, correct? That is correct. Just just a comment that I think you know the regulations as envisioned are working well. You know if you know they need to include variances for unforeseen events and clearly we have one of us what one of these events before us and that the licensees if they are not satisfied with with your initial termination can always come back and make their case in front of the five of us and we can have a discussion about that. So I'm glad that it's that it's working and that you're also applying what looks to me as very reasonable you know waiver extensions as as you see necessary. It was not essential that they report this to us because of the fact that it can be appealed but given that where we are and given the public interest we thought it was was helpful for everyone to understand fully the process and in the substance. So thank you to everyone and I know that Todd was really instrumental in comprising the thorough report. So thank you Todd. Absolutely was. Thank you. Okay so that's it for item 3b Madam Chair. Thank you. Okay so is that the end of the meeting Karen? I thought so. I put aside my agenda here we are. Moving on then to item number four now we're going to be looking at the racing division and the review of the standards. Thank you very much Alex. Oh thank you. I first of all I wanted to thank Civo Tull and Chris McElaine from Plain Ridge and Penn, Chip Tuttle from Suffolk, Sue Rodriguez and George Carney for Rainham and then Bob McHugh, Alice Tisbert and Frank Antonacci from the Harness Horseman's Association for working on these plans so that we can plan on having a safe and sustainable reopening and opening of our facilities. It was a big project and there were multiple changes. I think we have pretty good plans in place right now. Starting with the Plain Ridge one I did get a request this morning to add one change and we all agree Plain Ridge myself and the Harness Horseman that it does make sense. So if I can read it to the commissioners and perhaps we can add that to the document if the commissioners agree to it. It's on page four of the Plain Ridge plan near the bottom and it talks about no winter circle ceremony shall take place and then it talks about horses would go right back to the paddock. We'd like to add in that the photographer can take a wind picture. That procedure would be able to be done with physical distancing. We would only allow the driver who is driving the horse to be in the picture. The initial concerns when tracks were reopening was that you didn't want a big group of owners and grooms and trainers in the winter circle picture together and also they usually travel from the barn area up to the winter circle on a golf cart and you didn't want a bunch of people climbing on a golf cart together. With the way we're figuring out doing it we can give the photographer he can get back to work and the horseman can get still get a wind picture with their horses and we think we can do it in a safe way. So the wording I'd like to add is that the photographer will attempt to take a wind picture without the driver getting off the sulky there and I think that would be in in accordance with the COVID protocols. Are there any questions on that issue? Alex, it's obviously not being taken in the in the winter circle. Can you just help give me a better idea as to where the picture gets taken? They still probably will swing by the winter circle. They have to come by there anyway and that may be the best place for them to stop and do it. We'll let them figure that out but I probably will be done right there anyway. Okay, thank you. I see this is this is a reasonable request to add. I see no issue with this at all. The way the agreement was put together with following the protocols is just outline. So just to clarify I want to make sure that we're speaking about the same thing. We all, Commissioner Cameron were you just commenting on the bat change? Yes, that one change that Alex outlined it would like our... Thank you. With respect to the winning circle. Yes, correct. Okay, excellent. Can I just have one thing Madam Chair? Yes. So this came up just earlier this morning before the meeting. I really don't have a problem with the driver coming off the seat of the bike. There's still plenty of social distancing and sometimes the courses get a little rambunctious and walk backwards or sideways. I think when you were in the winter circle one time it came pretty close to you at that point in times but it would be helpful if the driver could get off at different times. So they can stay on but I wouldn't... This came up so late this morning as I was thinking about it after I spoke to Alex. I don't have a problem with the drivers getting off if she wasn't. Thank you. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I don't think it's the... Whether they remain in the cart or not it's about congregation of many people that is at issue here and just writing it to that effect would be just fine by me. The intent is to not have any owners or trainers or anybody come down and join us. Yes. We can amend that then to have it say the photographer will attempt to take a wind picture with the driver only. Does that seem reasonable or does that give adequate flexibility, Steve? Is it too precise? I just want to make sure. No, that's exactly right. Not to restrict the driver to the seat is fine and with the driver only that means no one else. Everyone's comfortable. Yes. Commissioner Zaniga said, you know, people aren't going out there congratulating each other and shaking hands because they want to race, right? There will be another time in the future where that can resume so everybody can hold in on that celebration. But I think also it's good to acknowledge the moment for the driver and the owners. So the original restriction of simply no none of that acknowledgement was also perhaps. No, exactly. This strikes the right balance and I understand other people would want to typically go in and celebrate but there'll be time for that in the future. I like the idea of having the photographer be there too. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anyone else that you would want to provide for to be in the winning circle here. We're all comfortable with it strictly. Alex, how would you like to proceed in terms of our Karen? How would you like to proceed in terms of going through the changes of the document? As far as the approval process, I mean, I think that maybe pulling up the screen. The document has as Alex pointed out that's been revised since the last time we saw it to reflect input from many and we've received red line version. So we've had the benefit of seeing the changes. I just want to before we proceed with just, you know, any kind of a vote. I want to make sure that if there are any changes that commissioners saw in the red lines that they wish to discuss anything that caught their attention today, we've had an additional change. Okay. What I'm suggesting maybe I'll go through just by heading and we go through heading and just just to make it a little easier for the commissioners to see if they have any notes on that that they would like to address before voting on the document in the entirety. The first subject is general guidelines. So that starts on page one and goes into page two. Are there any questions or concerns for Director Lightbaum on those areas? Or any any issues? Okay. The next issue is the next step heading is the access to racing areas. So that has started on page two and goes into page three. Are there any questions about that or any areas where we could clarify for the commissioners so they're comfortable? Okay. Next area is the ship ins and the barn area that starts on page three and goes on to page four. There's a number of each there's a number of requirements there. I'll just give the commissioners a minute to just check that to make sure that they don't have any concerns. Karen, this is, I mean, I didn't have any concerns, but I did communicate with Alex I had a question about how some other jurisdictions might have been controlling or making recommendations about horses coming in or people coming in across state lines. And she clarified something for me that I know Alex that this is a good time to just summarize what you explained to me. Sure. Some tracks are restricting horses to horses that are actually stable on their own grounds. They had a date by which those horses needed to be in and they may have extended it to some of the training facilities that were nearby them. Some of them restricted it to just horses that were in their state. There's different, you know, controls that way on it. For Plain Ridge, it is this year, especially with the COVID it will be a totally ship in facility. So we will be getting horses from, you know, the New England States and also New York and New Jersey. Those are frequent ones. We may get some eventually from a little further away with the governor's I'm not sure how to describe it, whether it was a recommendation on having people who came from other states quarantine for 14 days with that being lifted. That clears up some of the questions that we had, knowing that a lot of our participants would be coming from out of state. So that was nice that that coincided with this plan. And Plain Ridge may and see well tool may expand on this if he wants, but they may write races and put like a preference for Massachusetts horses in in some of the races to encourage and to allow space for those horses at Plain Ridge. So that's another way they can kind of have some restrictions on who's coming in. But again, we welcome the people that are coming in from the other states, because we definitely need to draw horse population. Any commissioners have any questions or comments on that? I do. Dr. Leipam, you just mentioned, you know, you were talking about horses coming in from other states. Um, and I did hear you say we welcome them, but I didn't quite understand the restricted racing meaning. So they'll try to have Massachusetts horses so that there's you're ensuring enough distancing. Is that what we're hearing? Is that what I'm hearing? You say well, we're we will part of the policy is that we're going to expand from just having horses in that paddock barn. Yeah, they'll be stable out in the general stable area as well to promote distancing. And so that and that'll be, you know, key with people coming from different states and everything. Okay. Thank you. Just to follow up on that on that question, but the notion of writing the races, the cards in a way that that benefit Massachusetts horses is not necessarily to mitigate the notion of a lot of travel, but really to get some of the benefits to go to Massachusetts people, right? Right, correct. Because they may not have had the opportunity due to the COVID to go to these other states, which they might have done in the past. Right. Now, just just out of curiosity, what is the typical, I don't know, nation, but back and forth, or the people coming from out of state, you know, on a regular season, and what do we now expect maybe to happen with with the with the reality of less travel all around? Maybe it's a question for Steve and I don't, you know, I know there's a there's a prediction of the future element to my question that may be hard to answer. But what what what do we see in terms of degree of travel that may be different this year, Steve? Well, I'd like to comment on two issues that came up. First, you know, writing races for Massachusetts trained or owned horses. Specifically, we're giving Massachusetts owned horses and trained horses preference, not so much writing the races exclusively for them, but just give them preference. And we've done this a lot in the past to your point to keep to generate revenue from Massachusetts people. One thing that we see here is that as we fell behind in the pandemic and New York and New Jersey were ahead of us at their spikes and then we followed them and we're behind. Those states reopened and those horses are now out there racing and in very top condition, whereas the local horses and Massachusetts horses, as Alex pointed out, have not been able to travel to the other states because the quarantine issues that are now being lifted. And so they're behind a little bit. So these horses that are going to be qualifying next week are really just having their first, you know, real test in seven months. And a lot of the races that are written are for have reflect on past earnings. So these horses that ended up in November on their past earnings are still showing those past earnings. And now we have diminished purses in the states that have reopened. And these horses have many starts under their belt. So they've earned less money. So the conditioning so the condition system would be offset to a high disadvantage to the horses that have been sitting idle here in Massachusetts. So we're very aware of that. And we're and you know, we will take care of that, you know, kind of in our own way the way that we have in the past. But one thing that my race secretary and I have discussed that length is maybe a step one or phase one of the opening where we don't take any horses from those jurisdictions where they have two or three or four or five starts. And they've been they're now in a lower category because the purses are not the same that they that they were before the pandemic all across the country. So we're very aware of that fact. That's number one on the travel issue. We have always been a high capacity shipping facility where 60 to 70% of the horses ship into the facility to race. Now that doesn't mean that they all come from out of state. But they do come from farms across Massachusetts. And we have a high volume of main people that come down because that's where the other racetracks are in the wind. I think we will see a little bit more travel to be perfectly honest, I think we will see a little bit more travel as the season progresses from Maine because they will after July 10th, there will be no racing in the near future in Maine. Scarborough Downs will be closing on the 10th. And so Bangor probably won't open for quite some time after that. And so we will have people that kind of stayed or stayed in Maine to race at at Scarborough in Bangor. And also a number of the fairs have also canceled out their racing dates. So we will see an influx a little bit more travel from the state of Maine, but not sure how much we'll see from New York or New Jersey. So sorry for the lengthy, lengthy answer, but that's that's kind of no, that's that's very insightful. I think you made me think of another another element of these. What in general, are we going to see in terms of average versus there's a decrease now in terms of racing days for obvious reasons? And you know, a first agreement of the past, how what are we likely to see that might actually contribute or diminish the possibility of attracting horses from other states? So our purse count is not in bad shape. We ended last year with almost a million dollars to carry over for a number of reasons. One of the reasons was the the diminished handle, if you will slot handle here at Plain Ridge, which affects a higher degree of the resource development fund at the 9% takeout. And then also, we were going to be doing a few more days this year. So we carried over 800 and somewhat thousand dollars. So we had a nice jump start. And then January and February were very good months. So and the lag in in the payments coming back from the resource development fund, which I think are now exhausted. So we probably won't see anything coming in until like August or so. So that will, you know, there'll be a there'll be a couple months spread there. But we're in a we're in a place where we can offer the same purses, which is different than other states, at least to start. And then we see, you know, what the capacity issues are with slot revenues and things like that. But we're hoping to keep we'd like to keep it the same. That's being optimistic, I think, I think throughout the course of the season, we might have to adjust. But as I'm looking at it right now, if the numbers come in from the other gaming, and all the and all the avenues where the purse count gains its revenues, I think we might be able to sustain a nice purse account here for the people that have been racing here right along, and limit the interaction from, you know, other trainers that want to take advantage. We don't want to say we don't want them here, but we don't want them here at the expense of our regular trainers, drivers and owners. Yeah, and I think you articulated the reason very well, I can relate I haven't been into the gym in since since before March, but that's a separate story. Being in being in shape is important for all of these outcomes, of course. The question for Mr. Atul, follow up question. You mentioned, or Commissioner Zuniga mentioned race days. Do you have a plan moving forward for race days? And my second question was, you talked about shipments. So for example, our horses are not able to go to Maine to participate, but eventually the main horses and their staff will be available to come down when you think it's appropriate. Is that what I'm hearing? Exactly. Yes. Just to follow up on the race days, though, what what is the plan moving forward? So we plan on picking up our schedule exactly where it is. For the for the days going forward. And see, see where we at, see where we're at, see where our first count is at. And, you know, I know that I know the horsemen have asked to for us to make up some of the days that were lost. Our schedule is pretty tight. As far as that is, as far as that goes, but, you know, we don't want to add days and then have our purses go down because we're adding days and races. So, you know, it looks like there's going to be a healthy supply of horses, which a month ago I didn't think so. But it looks like there's going to be a healthy supply of horses that want to race here with us. So we'll, we'll, we'll work with the horsemen and find out, you know, what the proper balance is for race days going forward. But right now the race days that we're scheduled to race, those are the days that that we intend on going forward with. Great. Thank you. And last follow up to that is you mentioned qualifiers. So if the governor's instruction comes out that the six is the day you are prepared next week for qualifiers following up the following week with actually starting the race days. Is that is that correct? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Steven and Director Lightbound, I'm looking at the the guidelines for the shipments in the Barney area. You talk about spacing of stalls to promote social distancing requirements shall be done whenever practical. It was my understanding that you had more than enough space in the barn so that that wouldn't be a problem. Is that correct or that's, that's correct. As we're preparing out there, and I've had these discussions with Alex, as we're preparing out there, it's almost too much space stalls at 10 feet apart. We're actually skipping a stall in between horses that makes 20 feet apart. One of the things that we're trying we're actually trying to get a little bit closer. Because I was out there the other day, I have two guys working out there. And I know they were in the barn area and I couldn't find them. So I want you know, we want to we want to try and be able to limit the amount of exercise or work responsibilities on Alex's staff as far as the testing is going on my staff as far as monitoring what's going on out there. Because we've made it now a very large area. So we're looking at just bringing it down a little bit. But it's going to be it's going to be about 20 feet social distancing. And so that's a that could that really expand the operation up there. And, you know, our staff is static from, or actually down a few people from before before this all happened. So we're trying to strike that balance as well. To keep it controllable, manageable, but yet serve all the purposes that we need to serve as far as the social distancing and making sure that people are doing what they need to do. Okay. Excuse me, I just want to follow up on your point, Commissioner Stephens, it's a good one, Alex, I think probably to be consistent with the other edits that were made, probably as practical can be taken out, because I do think we have to accomplish those with distance. Sure, we can do that. I think that that might yeah, that will make it all consistent. Thanks, Commissioner Stephens for that. And now you had another question. I'm sorry. No, no, I appreciate Mr. O'Toole's input. And yeah, that's great. It's a it's a good solution. I know that he'll be mindful of it. I know Director Lightbound and her team will be mindful of it. But that change is welcome. It's definitely not going to be perfect. I can tell you that just in, you know, in the time that I've been back and walking around and imaging how things are going to be working, it's definitely going to be different. It's definitely not going to be perfect. So, you know, we're definitely going to need everyone to be, you know, vigilant and and bear with us until we can get, you know, everything straightened out to work in a smooth manner. OK. Thanks, Mr. O'Toole. Just another quick question to follow up on that again. Remind us how you're sharing kind of these new directions and instructions with everybody ahead of the qualifying days, as well as leading up to the race days. I think is that coming? Is that change coming in down the road? Or did you already go by that? Alex. Sorry. I think there were new edits made on the communication plan. Here, I'll call up the doc. Yeah, I'm looking for it right now, Madam Chair. So because Commissioner Stebbins was missing. So you know, it's an important Commissioner Stebbins has made clear it's a really important part of the equation here for the sustainable success of the reopening. Is it page one? Yeah, I think it's in the general guidelines. Yeah, second paragraph. Maybe that's right through that, because I think Mr. Stebbins, you might want to see if there's any details you want to add. No, in fact, I like I like the PPC text caster system you plan to use. Again, this is a great deal of new guidelines and requirements on, you know, trainers and everybody else who's allowed in the barn area. So it's good to say that they're being educated again before they even show up on property. So do you want that to be highlighted outside of general guidelines? Commissioner Stebbins, are you OK where it's placed? I'm OK with where it's placed again. I know Mr. O'Toole and Alex will make sure that there's strong, healthy education to folks coming in to race, that, you know, they're mindful of all these new guidelines. Excellent. And I want to point out, too, that the Harness Horsemen Association has been really good about notifying all their members as well. So they're going to be getting the information from numerous sites. Great. We thank them for their help. Thanks, Alex. One thing just to add is I had a request about five minutes before the meeting today to clarify on page four under barn area about thoroughly cleaning the stalls before they leave. And with the timing, there just wasn't enough time for us all to circle back. So it's not something I think that we need to change right now. I think it's something that Steve I and the horsemen can, you know, go through later on and just add the details for the horsemen so that they're comfortable as to what exactly has been being asked for. I did want to acknowledge that that had been asked for. Is it so that they want to make sure they understand their full responsibilities? Exactly. Yes. I'm fine with that, General. And then you you you help on those details. Commissioners, you feel the same way moving forward? Yeah. Yes. OK, excellent. Do you want it now? I think we left we were moving on to race paddock. That's correct. So page four, we have the race paddock at the bottom of the page. Are there any questions for Dr. Lightbaum on that area? OK, hearing none on the page five. We also have a small section on the racing office. Any changes, questions, anything on that? OK, the next paragraph, the next subheading is the NGC. We also have the NGC offices and licensing. A couple of provisions there. And at the bottom of page five, we have racing officials and employees in the main gaming race track building that begins at the end of page five and goes through the end of the document. So that's the last section. Are there any questions, concerns or any further information required by the commissioners on that section? I have a question on page six after the bullet listings end. Paragraph opens the indoor areas, including simulcasting area with the gaming establishment shall be subject to minimum requirements, etc. So are there any anything more specific we need to do? Numbers, anything like that that need to be talked about today? Commissioner, could you just help me out? I'm just catching up. I'm sorry. Sure. Page six. Yeah. There's a there's a bullet. There's a list of bullet entries. Just after that is a paragraph that starts the indoor areas comma. So those are the minimum requirements that we adopted. Correct. Right. Have we already talked about that? Or was that I know there was some conversation about an area that maybe we needed to get more specific on? You mean in terms of the spectator space or? Yes. OK. Or the simulcasting area. There was some conversation. I know someone briefed me on numbers being able to maintain six feet. I mean, is this Karen, is this or Dr. Leibbrand, is this the point of the document or is that somewhere else that we'll be talking about that? That's taken care of right before that. Where it says at such time that spectators for outdoor viewing are permitted by the executive order. And then it gives some different bullet points. And it talks of the second bullet point is the occupancy level for the outdoor apron area to not exceed 200 people. OK, maybe I must have an outdated version. I want to hold up because that's the number I don't want in front of me. You don't. Because I think that that's just a little bit of a challenge, Alex, because I I have a red line version in front of me on my screen. And I do see that that was an additional edit that you may not have seen. Commissioner Brown, I came in late last night. So and and so again, this is this is when spectators are going to be permitted. So I'm wondering if we should be tabling that. I just wonder. So I haven't had any conversation about numbers. And I just don't know if now in this morning is the number to be actually dedicating ourselves and committing ourselves to a hard number on that till we know and have learned from what's going on in the other openings. That that would be my preference. So I or else maybe we could edit this, Commissioner Brown, to in a place that we could get comfortable with just so that we wouldn't have to revisit this should spectating be allowed sooner than later. So right now, Commissioner Bryan does not have the red line version in front of her, Alex. Isn't an email, Eileen, that I I've brought up. I'm not sure what time the packet that was forwarded to me, the last version that was forwarded to me. So it was actually in an email that I am that Alex said, I'm not sure I don't have the time in front of me, but except with the red line. But it does say at such time that spectators for outdoor viewing are permitted by executive order issued by the governor's part of the commas phase reopening plan, the following limitation shall apply. My fellow commissioners, do you all have that language in front of you? Because it's important for you to have the the final version. Those changes did come in late. And so I'm I've had the advantage of reading the red line version along the way. And then so then the additional change that I'm seeing in blue might be a newest version. And it says first bill, it says what is we have here. Spectators may now gather in groups of more than six people. And then the next one does address occupancy, the occupancy level in the outdoor apron area adjacent to the main building shall not exceed 200 people or any lesser count necessary to ensure that proper social distancing protocol can be achieved. I believe that there was some work done by staff and I don't have the details as to how that that number was achieved. And maybe if we have some insight on that, we could move forward or at least maybe the rest of the the rest of the red line that I'm seeing must have been incorporated into fully into what we have in front of us. So yeah, I do think it merits just airing that discussion publicly because it is a number that and a percentage that's being thrown in that I do think there's discussing today. I think that's right because I don't believe that that 200 was raised publicly, although it may have been correct. No, I think we deferred it the last time. That's right. So what I do think if I'm if I write if we could just take one step at a time, the simulcasting space, which is indoors, is included in the guidance from our minimum standards adopted for gaming. Is that correct that the simulcast space? Yeah, I thought I thought it was the discussed last time as, you know, the six feet between tables, people cannot go around and will not be encouraged to take their drinks with them. All of that kind of thing. That's right. And that that's all part of it. I'm losing my screen here. Secondly, my apologies. Of course, I minimize something and I'm missing everybody right now. So bear with me. OK, so the simulcast space, I think we addressed in our minimum standards. Now on the events, spectators are permitted. I think Loretta, Todd, perhaps you could, Karen and Alex, maybe you could explain the 200. Yeah, we had gotten capacity numbers from Plain Ridge and then and actual numbers. And Steve can address this as well. Normally their numbers are much less than 200, but that's kind of the, you know, capacity or whatever. So Loretta and Todd worked on, you know, that type of language so that we would have it covered for that for that. And I reported the email that I had sent yesterday with a red line version to Eileen. So OK, right. She can. It looks like everything else was added into the version in front of us now. Just that that one bullets. That's good. So the further elaboration on the on the number two hundred that came from some kind of a square footage estimation. What was the process? That as if I may, madam chair, as Dr. Leipa mentioned, that number came from Plain Ridge Park directly. And then effort to and my understanding is their initial calculation is that the number should have been higher, but that it was brought down to 200. In an effort to ensure that we didn't have to revisit that number, we included that additional language that to any lesser count that's necessary to ensure proper social distancing can be achieved. We included that to make sure that if it is some lesser number and 200 is, in fact, too high that we're not stuck with that number, which I mean, to be to be frank, I'm not sure exactly how that number was calculated. And I'm similarly I I didn't believe that there's any such number in the state building code that governs that type of area that we could point to, which is why we did rely on the number that came from Plain Ridge Park. Maybe this is already on the call, who just might be able to explain where they came up with the number that might clear everything up. Mr. Atul, perhaps so. But what I think is difficult here is that there's it's an outdoor space, as you correctly point out, chair. And so I think it's more around the notion of the congregation rather than than the capacity. I mean, there's a reason why there's not an occupancy number, because it's not it's not an occupied building. Well, I've only been there the one time. Can you access the outdoor space directly from the outside or do you have to go through the simulcasting area, right? Both. Right. So I do think there needs to be a discussion about how that flow through gets handled because I don't necessarily think it's going to be static, like shifting. I'm staying outside in the entire outdoor time that I'm here versus inside. So I just think it merits a little further discussion. Yeah. And perhaps I should just chime in first. One thing that it may not be generally understood by the public and and and all is it is clear that right now the outdoor space does not have any grandstand bleachers or seating. Is that we can all agree on that? So it is a that's correct. So, you know, that's an important fact. That's an important fact. Then so then there would be space and I've been there a few times where it can be accessed from different different locations. Is it fair to say it's all any place that any spectator would stand? And I say stand because I'm not sure if even little tables and chairs would be provided in this instance, we can go to that scenario. That is all on some kind of a paved area. Is it an area that is designated for spectating? Is that would that be fair to? It is. It is. And my recollection is that they had at least in the past put in, you know, a hot dog stand, a picnic table or two. I don't know if they have the same. So then I think that maybe we could reverse engineer. There's a certain square footage available to spectators. I also think there's another way. So there's a reverse engineering just in terms of what the square footage is, and then some kind of what's in a reasonable amount in these times to think about the numbers. And we might want to do is table this discussion when somebody does that work and come back to it. Then there's also another way of looking at it. What is our typical attendance? Do you want to use your computer? And, you know, what is the typical attendance? And I think that was my question. And if your daughter wants to help us with this question, we would welcome it. 30 seconds, I'm sure she'd say you're good, but. But in terms of maybe what is the general attendance? And if we knew what generally the attendance was, given the square footage, it would seem that maybe 200 is a logical number that could be spread out. And maybe, in fact, it's one that reflects a reality. So I think it's a very fair question that Commissioner O'Brien is raising. You know, what's the basis for 200? Does it make sense if we can't get that right now to continue our review and have somebody look at that before we move on that particular issue just so that we don't have to revisit it? That would be my preference so that they can go move forward with the opening. It's not going to repeat anything now because it's not allowed to be used right now. But they may want to also explore to your point, you know, are they going to be putting some sort of tables out there? What are the, you know, what's allowed in the simulcast area flow through what so they can appropriately manage their capacity from an enforcement perspective? So I do think it merits a little bit further conversation, but I don't think we need to do it at this moment because I don't think it's going to affect their ability to start next week, assuming that it opens next week. Yeah, I would agree with that. I we don't have the information. So it's hard to make a decision when we do not know where the number came from. So I think that we can go ahead without that and then get back to it. After we have, I think that that's just see. OK, so do I hear? I was allowed to get that resolved today. Guys, is there is there a notion of just eliminating the number and then keeping the language that that is social distancing? The social distancing. I think it's because I will go along with that. I think it's as elusive as trying to pick the occupancy in a park, for example. Right. More important is that people exercise the six feet, the masks and right, right. My fear of the number two is, I don't know, there's some. I just think you're also getting at a risk of, again, people shifting between those two spaces and you might get into just capacity issues that then PPC and or I be or dealt with that just we can read it in a way that doesn't cause that problem. I would like that very much rather than have to revisit it. If it's us, the number that's troubling us. I mean, the reality is that they can't have more than six people in a cluster and everybody has to be socially distance. And that alone can be their guidance for occupancy as if spectators are permitted. And then if we need to revisit this, all of these guidelines are dynamic, we could come back to it. But then we've given them some immediate guidance should spectators be allowed. Yeah, I feel more comfortable with that. I agree with that. By the way, it's it's only during the end of the race when there's that congregation. It's not for obvious reasons, but I think that's let's take out the number and keep it to the distance So commissioners, what I hear saying is that the second bullet point should read the occupancy level in the outdoor apron area adjacent to the main building shall ensure that proper social distancing practices can be achieved. Is that acceptable? Yeah, as long as that also includes the idea that no more than six in a group consistent with the guidance that we've been giving, I think that bullet's in there somewhere anyway. Yeah, it is. OK, it's in there. So really, there's a little bit of redundancy. Correct. And if we are, if we need to be more specific, we can revisit. OK, should we any other any other questions on the on that last section? OK, thank you. You're going to make sure to Karen that we have the designations for the pandemic safety offices for both the gaming establishments and the. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Great work. It takes a village and more. So how would you like to proceed, Alex, at this time before we move on to the simulcasting operation? Should we have the vote that you were seeking? Or should we? Does that make best sense? I think that makes sense. Well, it's fresh. Karen, you're comfortable with that? Yes. All right. Just to make sure, does anybody want to go back on any of these measures now that you've had a chance, maybe to look at the red line version two? All excellent. The red line that came in, I realize that they were just a few last night. It's just really helpful for me to go back and forth. So thank you so much, Alex, really helpful. All right. Do I have a motion? Bruce. Yeah, Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the plan submitted by Plain Ridge Park Race Course and is amended here today for use in reopening the racing and simulcasting operations when allowed, subject to any applicable orders issued by the governor as part of the Commonwealth's phased reopening plan, including any applicable sector-specific workplace safety standards and subject to any necessary adjustments based on a change in circumstances. Second. Further comments? Thank you again to Mr. O'Toole and to all those who helped Alex in finalizing these standards for our review. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Zuniga. Aye. And Commissioner Stevens. Aye. And I vote yes. Thank you so much. 5-0, Shah. Thank you. Moving on then to simulcasting operation, Alex. Okay. So the next plan that is up is the one that Suffolk Downs presented. And there were just a few little changes on that to again, to kind of bring things in line with some of the things that the commission was asked for and as far as making it come in line with the casino language as well. Does that make sense to walk through just briefly any of the highlighted changes? Yeah. If you're prepared for that, just a few changes that would have been made, I think. Yeah, let's see here. I believe that the, I had asked for increase, I think, to make sure that the restrooms were going to be aligned with what we were providing. Oh, maybe that was on PPC. That wasn't it. And then this was to make sure masks were mandated. I think if they were encouraged before that change. I have a question. The email that included that came in last night, when it comes to Suffolk, doesn't have any redlining. Do I have the right version? I sent a clean version of each of the documents and then I sent a redline version also. Oh, maybe look for it. And I'm not seeing that here. I can send that. Do you have your redline version? No, no, don't worry, don't worry. The fastest way is probably to have someone who does have the redline to just quickly walk through and tell us what it is. Yeah, that would be helpful. I just send it to NVK and I'll pull it up. So, let's see here. Part of it was, and in all the documents, was just getting the wording about masks all uniform. So it talks about wearing masks that cover the nose and mouth. So that was one of the things on Suffolk. One of the things on the first page that we changed was said, yes, it deserved a table spaced appropriately. And we changed that wording to be spaced six feet apart or otherwise in accordance with the state guidelines. So that if at some point things change, we didn't have to come back. We added in on the, again, on the food and beverages in the dining areas that Suffolk would make reasonable efforts to ensure the customers don't violate that rule. Occupancy, it had limited total occupancy to less than 50%. And they added, well, this might have been in the original document that you saw. It's got the 600, not including the apron and says that it'll be limited to 250. Again, that's Chip had mentioned that. Yes, he did. So that's what we changed back in 18. Then the language about having a pandemic safety advisor was added in. They named who they designated, David Lanzilli, to act as it. And it has the pandemic safety advisor wording in there. And then I believe Commissioner Stebbins had asked for more wording on communications and signage. They added in kind of the standard stuff about informing guests about the COVID-19 and communication plan, website, et cetera. And I think that covers the main highlights. Questions, commissioners? Since we were talking about aprons, remind me the configuration relative to a similar space. I know just in terms of size, several counts is much larger because of the larger track, but Alex or Chip, can you tell us a little bit about how people congregate around that there? Certainly, commissioner, thank you. We're only gonna be utilizing the clubhouse apron which is terraced. It's tiered down to the racetrack surface, but we are using that primarily as an outdoor dining area consistent with the state and the city of Boston's guidelines for outdoor dining. And so that area will be open so people can go in and out. We are putting markers actually sort of on the floor inside and outside the clubhouse so that when people are standing, looking up at television screens and things like that, they are do so at at least six feet apart. And we will only be offering food and beverage service in that outdoor area. There will be no inside food and beverage service. So we've got some tables set up. We're in the process of doing that as well. Some outdoor picnic tables and things like that. We are gonna limit people's occupancy at those tables consistent with the guidelines for restaurants. Thank you. And per the commissions, per our prior discussion with the commission and some additional follow-up with Dr. Lightbone, we are making it clear to patrons that food and drink can be consumed only at those tables and we're gonna take the measures to discourage them from trying to sort of go mobile with anything. I think that this is a good time for me to just chime in on that. That's gonna be probably a big challenge for our licensees and for you who are running simulcasting. It's already been mentioned. I think it was Mr. O'Toole who said it. It will take vigilance on the part of the licensees, but it will take really the good faith efforts of every patron to at this time, just be really thoughtfully aware of complying with the rules so that we can have a sustained reopening. And it really will take empathy, a collective empathy for each other and for our larger community. So that's what we wish for. So the intent of course, Chip, is so that when they're not walking around with a drink, they're not taking their mask off to drink it because that's where the risk gets highest. So it's all very, it's not punitive. It's really meaning to be intentionally protective of one another so that we can still have a good time but be safe. Thank you. Any further questions on this one? Should we have a vote on this unless there are further edits? Commissioners, any further edits? Questions? I think that this really achieves what we were looking for from last time and more. So thank you. I have a motion. Yeah, I'll jump in. I move that the commissioner approved the plan submitted by Suffolk Downs for use in reopening their simulcasting operation when allowed, subject to the applicable orders issued by the governor as part of the Commonwealth-based reopening plan, including any applicable sector-specific workplace safety standards, and subject to any necessary adjustments based on a change in circumstances. Second. Thank you. Further edits? Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Ziniga. Aye. Commissioner Stebbins. Aye. I vote yes. Five, zero, sharp. Thank you so much. Now we have our friends in random. I don't know who's joining us, but thank you for joining us, but we'll have Alex go over the document and changes, and we thank everybody involved. Okay, so again, we just we're trying to get the wording about masks to be kind of standardized between everything. So we put it, mask covering the nose and mouth under the PPE section. Scroll down here. On the food and beverage service area, we made a couple of different changes to that. Just once again, to have it be clear that when people are eating or drinking, they'll be seated and lower their masks only for eating and drinking and won't be carrying their beverages around the simulcast floor. So we did some different, made some different wording on that part. Let's see. Then we added, fleshed out the communications plan a little bit more. Again, to reflect some of the wording that was in the other plans. Talking about the communication plan website, signs and all that. And then the last item was adding the pandemic safety officer wording. Again, to have it come in line with the casinos and the other simulcast plans. Any questions for Alex on the brain hem proposal, Mr. Carney's proposals. We thank the team for joining us today. If you have any specific questions, Alex, who's available? That should be Sue Rodriguez. Yeah. I'm going to see him. George might be on with her. Mr. Carney. Good morning, Mr. Sue Rodriguez. I have Mr. Carney here with me, representing Raiden Park. Any questions or comments? Just wish you well. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the work on these guidelines. Any further edits or recommendations on the document? I see no. I see where we're all set, which is a good sign. Thank you so much. Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the plan submitted by Raiden Park Simulcast Center for use in reopening their simulcasting operations when allowed, subject to any applicable orders issued by the governor as part of the Commonwealth Space reopening plan, including any applicable sector specific work place safety standards and subject to any necessary adjustments based on the change in circumstance. Second. Thank you. Hearing no further comments or edits. The roll call, Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Zuniga. Aye. Commissioner Stevens. Aye. And I vote yes, five, zero. And a big thank you to Alex and team and to all of those who are guests today. We know all of these efforts for allowing us to move forward today. And we wish everyone well for the opening when it's permitted. I do think we did have a little bit of a late start. It is 12, 15. Would people like a short break rather than a lunch break before we proceed or do people want a lunch break of sorts before we proceed? Or should we continue through the next item? Let me suggest just a five minute break because it appears that there's a number of guests for the next item and then just sort of see where that goes. But a break at this time would be a helpful thing. Okay, we'll have a, it is now 12, we'll reconvene at 12, 25, does that make sense? 12, 16, we'll round it up 12, 25. Thank you. Sounds good, thank you. Appreciate everyone's patience. Thank you, Cheryl. We'll get started reconvening after a short break, public meeting number 311 with master's gaming commission. Thank you. While we were on break, I know the governor is having his press conference and he did publicly announce that phase three will begin on Monday. Further guidance will be coming and to the extent that I can provide real time updates, I will. So we'll stick with the matter at hand and continue now with number 4B, Massachusetts Thorough Freeders Association Request to Race Outside Massachusetts. Todd, I think you're gonna take the lead on this one. Good afternoon, attorney Gressman, thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. Thank you for turning your attention to this issue. There has been a question raised as to the gaming commission's specific role as it relates to thoroughbred horse racing outside of the Commonwealth and specifically as to the use of breeders funds for those purposes. You may recall historically, the commission has reviewed this issue and has historically approved of the use of such funds. And before we take too deep a dive, I just wanna acknowledge that attorney Kathleen Regan and Dr. Anthony Ziza from the Thoroughbred Breeders Association are on the call with us to answer any specific questions that may arise. And certainly Dr. Lightbaum is tremendously knowledgeable in this arena as well. And I'd be happy to run through the legal elements if that would be of use, but ultimately the question is whether the commission needs to approve the use of the breeders funds in out of state races. And it's my understanding that there are a number of locations outside the Commonwealth that the breeders would like to race and make use of these funds. One of them is at a location in Canada and I'm sure they can get into a little more detail, but there is some detail in the packet relative to those plans as well that you may have had an opportunity to look at. I would just mention, I'm happy to go through this in detail if that would be helpful. But just by way of broad overview, the issue here is actually governed by chapter 128 of the general laws, section 2G. And that chapter is of course in the section under the auspices of the Department of Agricultural Resources. It's not under the auspices of the Gaming Commission. This section is however the only legal authority that I'm aware of that discusses the manner in which the breeders have to spend their funds. Under chapter 23K, section 60, which of course you're familiar with, the Racehorse Development Fund says that, that section says that 16% of the funds are directed to breeding purposes, but there's no language in section 60 that talks about how the monies are supposed to be spent. And so I should acknowledge as we move forward at the outset here that section 2G of chapter 128 is holistically something less than totally clear. So we might wanna start by taking a look at some of the areas where there is some clarity and navigate our way from there. As I mentioned, yes. Yeah, I think that would be great. Maybe you were getting to that, but it's 128D, did you say? No, it's just 128. So to be more precise, of course, the Gaming Commission has oversight of 128A and 128C. And those are some of the areas we just, we're really referencing. 128C governs simulcasting in the Commonwealth. 128A governs live racing in the Commonwealth. But chapter 128 is not specific to racing at all. In fact, again, as I said, it's not even under the Gaming Commission's auspices. It's under the Department of Agricultural Resources. In section 2 in particular lays out the powers and duties of the Department of Agricultural Resources. Most of the sections in section 2 have nothing to do with horse racing or gaming or anything like that. There are really just two sections within that section that do pertain to areas that we are specifically interested in and one pertains to thoroughbred breeders and one pertains to standard bred breeders. And it's section 2G that pertains to the thoroughbred breeders and that's the section that's at issue right now. And just as a footnote, section G, and I believe it's section J, which governs the standard bred breeders, are slightly different. They're similar, but they're slightly different. And part of the reasons for the differences, and there's actually a letter in the packet from Attorney Kevin Considine on behalf of the thoroughbred breeders that runs through some of the history of these statutes which date back many, many years. There was one change in particular that is noteworthy and I'll get into that momentarily. It talks about use of the funds for purposes of racing outside the Commonwealth. That language doesn't appear in the standard bred section. So it stands to reason as he asserts that that was inserted when it became clear that thoroughbred racing in the Commonwealth would become perhaps more sparse given the situation with Suffolk Downs. So the law was amended to allow for that. And when was that, Wendy, that happened? I wanna say 2015, is that right, Dr. Leibbrandt? Yes, that's correct. And it just, that so happens to be the first year that the gaming commission looked at this issue. And I did go back and look at the commission's review of this matter and it doesn't appear that you ever really specifically took a look at the statute with this level of detail. So this is really the first time we're doing that. And if it's helpful, we can go into a little bit about what the statute says to help you navigate this decision-making process. Of course, happy to field any questions as we go along. But as I said, paragraph G mostly pertains to just I'm sorry, paragraph G pertains to the Thoroughbred Breeders Association and the promotion of breeding in the Commonwealth. It specifically says that the Department of Agricultural Resources has the power to promote, develop and encourage through the mass Thoroughbred breeding program the breeding of Thoroughbred courses in the Commonwealth by offering cash prizes to the breeders of such horses. So that's what paragraph G says that the Department of Agricultural Resources has the power and duty to do. The statute then identifies the way that this should be accomplished. And it says specifically that the mass Thoroughbred Breeders quote, shall from time to time in consultation with the chairman of the racing commission and the program manager for the department for the equine division of the Department of Agricultural set certain percentages and bonuses related to purses. So that's what the statute says. And when we are trying to determine whether the commission is required to approve of such expenditures, that is the focal point at least initially of our inquiry is that piece of the law that says essentially just that they're supposed to consult with the chair of the racing commission. So there's no place that explicitly requires commission approval at this point. There is language though as I mentioned that is most commonly pointed to as governing the use of the breeders funds at racetracks outside the Commonwealth. And that language provides that the breeders shall in consultation with the chair and the program manager set the percentage for a cash prize for the purse monies won by said Thoroughbred horse in any unrestricted or restricted paramutual running horse race held within or outside the Commonwealth to the owner of a mass bred horse. There is no definition, direction or limitation anywhere in the statute as to how that term outside the Commonwealth language should be construed. But it's our understanding that that is the language the outside the Commonwealth language that was added in 2015 to coincide with essentially the gaming commission's decision to award the license in region A as it did. So while to this point in section G there's no requirement that the gaming commission approve explicitly the use of any funds there is more to this section that needs to be looked at before any decisions can be made. And that's the first sentence of the second paragraph of 2G which does have some interesting language that's worthy of note. It says that the mass Thoroughbred Breeders Association is further authorized to pay cash purses for stakes races to be limited to Massachusetts bred Thoroughbred race horses from the Massachusetts Thoroughbred breeding program at licensed paramutual race tracks authorized by the state racing commission. So there's a couple of pieces of language in that last quote that should be looked at. And the first is the use of the word further. The second is that phrase at licensed paramutual race meanings authorized by the state racing commission. And so as you're working through this I would suggest that by the use of the word further the statute indicates that the language should be read as being in addition to the previous language meaning that it's in addition to the previous three ways that the statute says that the breeders can spend their money. And they're adding this fourth way. So that's the second paragraph the first sentence adds a fourth way in which the breeders may spend their money. And that's where that language relative to licensed paramutual race meetings authorized by the state racing commission comes in. But the question then becomes and as I said, this is all something less than 100% clear but as you're navigating it, of course it's our obligation to try to read things in a harmonious kind of way to assign meaning to all of the respective language included in the statute. But when you're considering what licensed meeting a licensed meeting authorized by the commission really means you can think about it in two ways. It could either mean that it's licensed the meeting itself is licensed in another jurisdiction but that the commission has to separately authorize it or you could read it to say that once the commission licenses the meeting that it is authorized. So you read it all together. And I would submit to you that that second approach does result in a harmonious read of the entire section and would not in that event require the commission to approve of the expenditure of funds for racing outside of the Commonwealth. And there's a couple of reasons I think that are important to keep in mind as you're weighing the appropriate way to interpret this statute. The first thing is that there's really no clear standard that we can apply to determine whether you would authorize the expenditure of funds out of state. Presumably we would apply the language at the beginning of this section that says that the intent is to promote, develop and encourage the breeding of thoroughbreds in the Commonwealth. But that is somewhat detached from this second paragraph. So there is some language we could hang our hats on if we were to do that, but it's not directly aligned. Secondly, I think it's just noteworthy and I welcome anyone to weigh in if I misspeak here but I don't believe the gaming commission approves of any other use of breeders expenditures in advance. So this would be the one area that is singled out for that purpose. And finally, there are some checks on the expenditures of breeders funds for these purposes. There are two checks in particular that are notable. The first is section G itself says that the state auditor shall audit the books of the mass thoroughbred breeders association to ensure compliance with this section as often as the state auditor determines necessary. And it's my understanding that the auditor has in the past and I can't speak to how often that is but has audited the books in the past. And secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, of course is that the gaming commission by way of the Horus Racing Committee is in charge and oversees the split of the distribution of funds from the race horse development fund. That 16% of the funds that go to breeders is looked at. Periodically, it's actually looked at annually though it's not required to be. And the commission does maintain ultimate control as to what the split of the funds will be. And certainly the manner in which the funds are expended is something that will and should be taken into consideration when determining how the funds are distributed and allocated. That is all just to say that there are certain checks on the expenditure of these funds. And so that's the issue that's before the commission at the moment is how best to interpret section 2G. And again, just to reiterate, the commission has in the past looked at these requests and has approved them under this particular section. As I look at it now though, it's not explicitly clear that the commission must approve the expenditure of these funds in advance of their use. So that's my overview of this issue. Happy to engage in any discussion now or answer any specific questions. That would be helpful. Yeah, Attorney Grossman, I had a clarification. You said that the breeders were looking at numerous tracks to hold these events. I don't, I think you use the word many. The only one that I'm familiar with is the one potential plan to race out of the country in Canada. So I don't know that that's accurate that there are multiple tracks that may host mass spread races. You know, Commissioner Cameron, if I may, it looks like maybe either Attorney Reagan or Dr. Ziezer being a better position to address that point. I may have misspoken and I apologize. No, no, no, no need to apologize. I just, I'm only, I'm making sure I have all the latest information. And my information is such that the only proposal is to race in Canada. Okay, I'll let Dr. Zizzi speak, he broke it out. Okay. So in the letter that we wrote to you and I should be in the packet, it states that we have the two options at the moment, including Fort Erie, which is an hour and a half from Finger Lakes just over the border. And then also Belterra Park, which is in Ohio and has, unfortunately it's an eight-hour ship. So there's some advantages and disadvantages of both, but Attorney Grossman is absolutely correct. We do have, we do have two at the moment and I'm not limiting it to that. If there are other... But Mr. Zizzi, do you have any plans? Do you have a plan that we could look at as to what kinds of races, when they would be held? What, you know, we just don't seem to have any information about that. Well, we do have a plan. I don't think that we need to lay out a plan of specific races. Apple to share something that the board is working on, but those races aren't going to be prepared months and months in advance. And we don't feel that's the right approach for us at the moment, given the sense of uncertainty. So I'm happy to provide, or the board is happy to provide something for you to give you. But Mr. Zizzi, so this is a change because in the past, you have submitted a plan for the commission to approve with races out of state. And we looked at that plan and we approved that plan in particular, the Finger Lakes opportunities. And we were happy to do that after kind of assuring ourselves that this was an appropriate use of the Commonwealth's money. So I'm just, I'm asking the question, why are you deviating this year from your requests in past year to have the commission approve those? Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. So the reason that there's a deviation this year is because several different reasons actually. So one is that situations on the ground are changing and uncertain. And by providing a list of races in years past, we did that out of courtesy. We came to the gaming commission out of respect and courtesy because that was the request for us. Our legal counsel has stated clearly in a letter that he wrote, has always felt that we did not need to do that, but we did it because we wanted to be good partners and we wanted to provide whatever information we could. In that time, since we've done that, there have been multiple things that have happened, including it allows, it prevents actually from some changes that may need to happen on the ground. And we need to be nimble, particularly now, where we don't have a place to race in Massachusetts either. So with this question of the authority coming up, it certainly didn't make sense to present a list of races or possible races that you would approve or not approve because we're at this point wanting to discuss the issue of whether that approval is even necessary. So I think the letter from our attorney, as well as our proposal to you says that we don't think that that's the case, but we're happy to work with Alex and all of the commission to keep you up to date and consult with you as needed and as often as needed to make sure that you're in the loop and whatever we do and whatever races that we offer. Well, this has been an issue in the past, Mr. Zezer, because all of the horsemen are not in agreement that this is a good use of the Commonwealth money. So we're trying to balance all of those interests. As you know, you've been part of these discussions and these approvals for years. So I think you're aware that those are the things we've been balancing over the years. Yeah, no, I absolutely am aware and I'm sensitive to that. I think that the information that we gathered recently showing that almost 90% of all of our money comes back to mass breeders and owners is unbelievably supportive of the fact that what we have done in the last four years has really served Massachusetts in the best way that it can. And then in addition to that, I think that it's the board's responsibility, I don't think, I know it's the board's actually, the breeder's board's responsibility to determine the direction that we go. So I don't think we'll ever get 100% agreement in anything we do, but what I love is that when we went back and looked and presented it to you as well, it really does show that we have, we basically have had over 300 payments each year to multiple different people. We have had over 90% of our money returned to Massachusetts. So I think that the facts speak for themselves and this is the way that the board wants to proceed at this point. Okay, go ahead, Commissioner Zuniga. I'm sorry, can I, I'd like to go back to the legal question, the one of authority. I thought Todd, what I think is at the core here. I, a couple of questions, but let me start with the broader one. We are the trustees of the Race Forest Development Fund. And as trustees, we are implicitly charged to make sure that the payments are done to meet a lot of the intent of the statute. That was not part of the analysis that you went through, Todd. Can you speak a little bit about that? Because I think authority may work, maybe authority is at the core of also being the trustees of the fund. It's complicated and this has come up in other contexts as well. Certainly, to the extent the commission is the trustee of the Race Forest Development Fund, you have a duty of, a fiduciary duty of care to ensure that monies are distributed from the fund in accordance with the statute. And in this case, I would submit, at least in the first instance that you do that and that your duty stems from section 60 in chapter 23K, which talks about how the money shall be distributed from the fund itself and how it has to be based upon a recommendation of the Horse Racing Committee, which of course you ensure, and what have you. So section 60 is really the core of where your fiduciary duty stems from. This is a little more complicated. I would submit because the manner in which the expenditures have to be made fall in a body of law that is not under your direct auspices and that's notable for me. And so that's why I wanted to make clear that it's not entirely clear what the right answer to this question is. I don't, you wouldn't necessarily be, you wouldn't be wrong to assert a fiduciary duty, but it's less than clear that that's connected to section 60, whereas if section 60 kind of spelled all this out, I would say absolutely, that is something that you should consider. And by the way, and I appreciate that this is highly complex because there's cross-reference of multiple statutes as you correctly outlined, as well as history in terms of what was legacy and then what changed because of circumstances like the award of the license on region A. I just want a couple more just sort of going back to your initial remarks. So, section 2G of 128 does talk about the secretary of the Department of Agricultural Resources having the power to ultimately oversee issues like this. Is that the case? Is that a fair statement or is it too general? Well, it says that the thoroughbred breeders have to consult with the chair of the racing commission and the program manager for the Equine Division of the Department of Agriculture. Well, but I seem to take away from your outline that the secretary or the department of Agricultural Resources has some kind of authority in all of these, some kind of say as to whether these breeding programs or races out of state are okay. Is that fair or not accurate? Yes, I certainly think that they do have a role. And I think perhaps a little even clearer than ours in that this is under the section of duties and responsibilities of the Department of Agricultural Resources. And one of the articulated powers and duties is to promote, develop and encourage breeding of thoroughbred horses in the Commonwealth. Okay. So, yes, I think that that is a clearer duty. Do you mean to just to add in, are you saying that they have a more than a consultation role? Do they need to sign off on this? No, I mean, that's not what it says. That's what I just, I wanted to clarify that. Thank you. We're navigating some very difficult language and I don't mean to keep repeating that, but there are no crystal clear answers to all of this, but that's why it's important that we just try to read everything holistically and harmony and I think that's what we're doing, of course. Okay, so I'll just maybe on layman's terms. It looks like the Department of Agricultural Resources has some kind of role. Have they done anything in the past on this issue? And is there anything, any indication of where they stand on this particular issue at the moment? I don't, Dr. Leipmann, do you know the answer to that? No, they haven't weighed in on this particular issue. But they're consulted, are they notified? Are they being consulted or notified or? No, they're part of the program is to register the horses and then they have certain requirements of when they have to be in Massachusetts and all that. So they verify that the horses have been in Massachusetts and do that. So their role has been more to verify what horses are considered mass fed horses. Okay, and finally just on the legal piece, part of the, and I do appreciate that it's very complicated, I've been through this and it's hard for me to keep all the moving pieces and all the history in my head. And just to be clear when you say we've been through this, Mr. Grossman did provide an extensive legal memo. Yeah, I know, and I just want to make sure that everybody understands, all of our team understands that Todd did provide a written analysis as well. Thank you. Yes, and I meant being through this since 2013 or 2014 when this issue started to come about because of, again, the award of the license to a non-track operator. There was in the original study, in the, in the session laws there was a notion of modifying a directive of modifying 128A and 128C by some date that is long past. We've submitted one to, you know, the chapter that would have replaced them because they were, they had been scheduled to sunset in 128D. Would any of all of those principles established there would have touched on this particular issue when modifying 128A and C? Well, I think the answer to your question is no. And I only say that because I just looked at that specific thing when we were looking at the fact that the racing laws were just extended for a year and that language, that bill extends, you know, 10 or 15 different areas of the law. And so one of them I looked at specifically was to see whether this was touched at all and it hasn't been, and it hasn't been included in that. But to your point, the proposed legislation we've submitted, I think I'd have to go back and look, but may give the gaming commission a little clearer authority over this, this specific matter. Well, that's my recollection and I haven't looked at it recently, but that 128D the effort was because there were so many moving pieces, notably what I remember are all the different takeouts and the different percentages and the premiums and all of that had a legacy of, you know, many, many years of modifications, that there was an effort to, in recognition of all this need for modification that there would be this broad authority, and this is where I was going, to come to the gaming commission by necessity, that we would then, you know, resolve it among the five of us on instances like this for everything that might occur at a later time. I think that's exactly right. It was an effort and is an effort to consolidate the authority and clarify the gaming commission's role to promote and enhance and oversee horse racing inside, and as we now know, outside of the Commonwealth, as the case may be. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, so we're here with... And Todd, could you just reiterate what your recommendation is for today's matter? I guess I read your, and been briefed thoroughly on the request and I don't have and don't bring to the table what was decided in 2013, nor do I see that broad authority extending on this analysis, so I would need further clarification on that to act on it, unless you're comfortable today advising with respect to the analysis you did for us on this matter and writing, because I'm hearing commissioners Zuniga, but I don't really, I haven't looked at that with that overview. And so I don't want, what I'm very concerned about is I would never want the commission to act on something, thinking we have authorization to act on something that we really don't have legal authorization to do. And I know that there's past practice and I understand that, but I also understand, I value precedent, but not to the extent that you continue to do something that might not be accurate. That's why cases in law get looked at all the time so I wanna be really careful here that we acknowledge past practice and if that's the right answer, then we could go forward. If you're suggesting that, yes, it was past practice, but upon reconsideration, you think that perhaps our voting on this would be outside of our authority, I'd like to hear that. I haven't heard yet from commissioner Stevens or commissioner O'Brien on this and then we can circle back to commissioner Cameron and commissioner Zuniga, but from my point of view, that's really, that's the critical decision from my perspective. And I do hear commissioner Cameron saying that there's the idea that how we as public servants spend the commonwealth's funds and when we have that authority to think about that, then I absolutely in agreement, but if it's outside of our authority on this precise issue, then I'm not sure that we can weigh in on it and that's really where I stand. I just wanna understand that precisely. Commissioner O'Brien or commissioner Stevens? I think just to follow up on what commissioner Zuniga pointed out and then his follow up question in terms of our role as trustee of the horse race development fund. Todd, I just wanna, again, I do not have the racing experience that you and commissioner Cameron have and Dr. Leipan, but it would seem to me we do have a fiduciary obligation under the common law as in terms of being trustees for the race horse development fund. When you look at 23K, section 60C sub II C2 and it talks about the commission determining the split. Do you see that as part of us executing the fiduciary responsibilities as trustee in terms of the question of whether we are required to give specific approval prior to the expenditures of this fund as question one. I also wanna try to understand if in reviewing the fact that they do have to show how they've submitted this in these months, going forward, if there is a determination that part of the way we satisfy our fiduciary obligation is in determining the split. Is that a way to reconcile commissioners whose dig is comment that we have a fiduciary responsibility, but maybe under your statutory analysis, there's no prerequirement that we approve expenditures in advance. I think that's exactly right. Commissioner O'Brien, ultimately is my perspective is that there doesn't seem to be clear authority to suggest that we need to pre-approve these expenditures, but that there is oversight over the expenditures. It's not as though we turn a blind eye to this. We do look at it. We just look at it after typically and on a regular basis as well. And when I was forming my opinion as to what this all meant, one of the things, and I think I mentioned, that is notable to me is that we don't, and when I say we, I mean the commission, of course, a pre-approve any other expenditures to determine whether they fit into the category of promoting or developing thoroughbred horse racing. And so this one would be singled out. And while I do think there is a fiduciary duty, and I'm not suggesting that there isn't, I think there's a different way to ensure our fidelity to that. And that is by reviewing it as part of the distribution. But we do approve, we pre-approve the process, the amount of process that go to the thoroughbred and standard breed races, the 80%. That's, but that's a different, that's from the horsemen. This is from the breeders. But it's all connected. And if I can clarify something, Mr. Grossman, the committee, and we're talking a lot about the work of the committee with the split has never looked at, first of all, when the committee was formed, there were no, there was no ability to race out of state. Okay, so there was no issue there whatsoever. All the races were here on the Commonwealth. Secondly, when the law was changed, which we were fully aware of and supportive of because we wanted to provide these opportunities, it was with the understanding that we would make sure that the monies were spent in a fashion that was in keeping with the intention. And when you say that we don't look at, we've looked at health and welfare. We have really looked at those numbers to make sure those dollars are being spent in the appropriate way. So I think there are examples where we do provide oversight to make sure that the monies are being expended in a way that the law intends. And I think what's different here as well is the fact that this law was written so long ago and it's not consolidated. So it is very hard to understand. I don't think it was ever written with the intention of racing out of the country, for example. And just to be clear, again, because it is so complicated, when you say committee, that is a different body than the race and commission. I just want Councilor Grossman could clarify that. Commission, even though it wasn't corrected in the language, the racing commission, the chair of the racing commission is actually, the racing commission is the gaming commission, correct? Correct. That's an example. One of many examples where the law is not up to date with the present, yeah, the 23K and 128K. Totality, you will be able to discern that. It's probably just, sometimes all the general laws aren't precise enough. But under 23K, when the racing committee was formed and the commission can't change that split, by the way, the commission could send it back and say, look, we're not seeing where you got your numbers. Can you take a second look? But it's not accurate that the commission, the gaming commission has the authority to change that split. Right. But that's a little bit of a different, I just am trying to, again, get my head wrapped around exactly the precise issue before us. That, we have talked about that. I know we actually were, I took no formal action on it recently, correct, Gail? But in terms of, we know that we can't vote on it affirmatively. Correct. So I guess my point is I don't, I'm not finding the logic in, we have oversight on the backend, because I don't actually see it that way. I appreciate that. That's really helpful. That's really helpful. So now, looking at the precise issue in front of us, is there, when you did your analysis, you, with respect to, is the, does the commission need to take formal action and approve this precise request to be able to go out of state, out of country? You concluded that it didn't look as though that that requirement was made, provided that there was consultation to the chair of the racing commission, which I understand is the gain in commission, but not a formal vote on it. Although past practice was that, that we did take formal vote. Now I'm just going back to commissioner O'Brien and commissioner Zuniga. Do we feel that, do we still feel that while we have fiduciary obligations, do we actually need to vote affirmatively on this precise issue? And commissioner Stevens, I haven't forgotten you. So I don't know if you want to chime in first, commissioner Stevens on overall, but it looks as though there's this, this idea about the fiduciary duty, somehow as an overlay that would prompt an authorization. And I would like to be able to, I'd like to be able to see that in statute somewhere, that it would actually require our affirmative approval, not because I don't think we necessarily have a big dispute, substantively here, but it does seem like we want to have clarification on process. I suppose it's not clear in statute and that's what brings us here in the first place. But I think there's cross purposes. But I think from my perspective, when I read attorney Grossman's analysis, I thought it was quite clear. It's introducing history that is now, and something broad that's making me think, am I missing something? So. No, I don't think you are. I think it's, let me put it this way. I think that technical analysis is solid and it does point out to the conclusion that maybe we never needed approval, even though it was so nice to get when we agreed with your approval and now that you might not, we don't need it. So the legal analysis might be such, to me, and I know this is not a legal standard, it just does not feel like the intent of the program, of what's in statute. And this goes back to history, one in which the intent has been slowly, year by year, little by little, being eroded. And this is the last erosion, the last iteration to the erosion of the original intent, now taking races outside of country, in which the benefits that were supposed to come down from monies derived by the Commonwealth, two Commonwealth citizens is ever more diluted. So I think that's what I'm struggling with. A little precedent, a technical analysis that maybe points in the direction of once you overlay all of these different statutes, we have to be either recognized that we never had authority or not, even though I am not quite sure of that conclusion, but coming from the spirit and intent of the legislation and multiple sections with this history, that is, again, one more time being eroded here. And we did, I'm sorry, just a little, I'm sorry, I can't remember. No, and we did have, this was brought before our legal team in the past, in 2015, in which there was a discussion, although not a formal written opinion that we did in fact have the authority, and it was probably wise to use it to make sure that what we're doing were, it's more than just the fiduciary responsibility. I think the industry needs to be regulated as well. And there's so many questions that in my mind cause me, give me pause to just say, hands off now, that's where I'm struggling is, yes, I've always been persuaded by the fiduciary responsibility, but secondly, the need to make sure they're fair, the races are fair, they're written in a way that doesn't exclude people. We've had all these issues we've had to deal with. And I do have pause and just saying, no, we have no role anymore in how these monies are spent. I see that we have, Ms. Reagan is interested in determining, if you could just hold for a few more minutes, Ms. Reagan, I do wanna hear from the commissioners, it's essential for them to express their opinion in this public context. Commissioner Bryan, your sharp legal mind at work. Two points that maybe people who have more historical knowledge on this can talk about. One, I just wanted to make in terms of looking at what was submitted in the packet, there was a representation or an implication in the attorney Constantine's letter, I believe, implying that because there's a statutory reference to auditing books and the part of the, and the association and the auditor that somehow that is to the exclusion of anyone else. And I just wanted to make sure I reject that analysis. I don't think that's in fact the case. No, there was an absence of direct implication of our authority in that section, but I don't think that is to the exclusion of any other basis for authority. I do, I am curious, knowing the history and knowing Commissioner Cameron's comments about the earlier analysis, am I mistaken that the position that was taken by the association in the first instance was, they felt they did need to come and get approval. I know the representation today, I think by Mr. Zezza was that it's just been a courtesy all along, I'm just curious to get some clarification on that history. Did you want that from Commissioner's? Yeah. If there's someone who has the historical knowledge, I'm just curious to know if that is in fact the case, why the change in statutory interpretation come now? From the breeder's perspective, that's not been the case. I don't know about the other parties. And to be fair, I would say that having been a lawyer most of my career, I think different guidance can come up and even if they had said that, I'm not sure I would hold them to not being able to bring forward a different analysis. I think that what the reality is that we do want to know not so much what everybody believed then. It's not a belief and maybe I'm factually incorrect, but I thought it was same counsel at the time. Well, even if it wasn't the same counsel. Now, Alex is not in yet, well, respectfully, I've been an attorney too. And if I change a position going into court, it's usually because the facts changed where the law has changed. I'm not seeing what's changed factually or legally between 15 and now that would change. Fair enough. I will probably just disagree with that, but I did hear Mr. Dr. Ziza, is that correct? Say that they interpret it as change. To answer Commissioner O'Brien's question, was there a formal request? Perhaps it wouldn't be Dr. Leipzig. I don't know if you have that history or not. Mr. Grossman, you were here. Your fellow colleague was advising the commission. Do you remember if there was affirmative requests? I'm not sure if I placed great weight on the precedent, but I of course want to hear from always a historical perspective. Well, here's, I'd be happy to try to address that. A, it was clearly the same lawyers, Kevin Considine, both times. Okay, thank you. B, and I know that because in looking back at the packet from August of 2015, there's a letter in there from him. And I believe, and I apologize, I don't have it right in front of me, but I'm fairly certain it does request approval or authorization, I'm not sure exactly which language to do this. Now, there's no analysis in there as to whether the statute requires that or doesn't require it or anything like that. But I think it's basically a one or two sentence request and it says, we request that you approve this proposal. And if I heard Dr. Caesar correctly, he was suggesting that there is a consultation. I think we all acknowledge as a consultation requirement and perhaps it was a courtesy to say request approval. Today, if I'm correct, they are saying upon further reflection of their review of the statutory provisions that are applicable, they don't see that there's an affirmative requirement from that's due from the commission today. And I think that that's our main question. And I guess we could all say they should have asked, they should have done differently or whatever. I think that we need to put all of that aside because this commission is made up of a different body even. I wasn't there when that was, I might have pointed out. It doesn't say that the approval is required only as consultation because I am saying that right now. I would like to make sure that if we act today and we are authorizing something, it's either couch that it's unclear, but of course we give a blessing to it or we come up with a decision based on a legal analysis. Now we reject what is before us and we deem ourselves obligated and authorized to make a decision. And I think we need to do all of that because we are acting in this case on rights and they would have, I believe, Todd, an ability to appeal if in fact through the correct steps and Commissioner O'Brien I'm not sure if it would be a 30A or what it would be, but in other words this is our, whether we act with proper authorization is a critical question. And so I- Can I speak to that in very concrete terms? So there's disbursements that we make out of the resource development fund, community mitigation fund of which we are trustees all the time. And our CFO always looks to when was this authorized to make the actual disbursement by the heads of the agency that would be the commission. So we've done all of those disbursements in the past under the auspices of being the trustees of the funds. Now I guess what they're presenting here is a fundamental argument that is contrary to our past practice, which is all of those prior approvals worked sort of nice in the past, but we really didn't meet them now that we are gonna be going further out of the country, not just out of the state, which again, I know this is not a legal technical argument, but it just feels to me that the erosion of the intent and the spirit of the whole thing to begin with. Okay, I'm hearing that. I still haven't heard from our fellow commissioner Stembins. I don't wanna put you on the spot, but do you have any insights to help us with respect to history? And then commissioner O'Brien, commissioner Cameron. Yeah, thank you, madam chair. Not much to offer different than what commissioner Zuniga or my colleague commissioner Cameron has pointed out in terms of precedent, but obviously certainly subscribed to the position that it's trustees of this fund and making, having some fiduciary responsibility and oversight of the fund is important. I guess I'm still curious as to this kind of pause or reflection that there needed to be some change in either the authorizations that we'd given previously or kind of this moment in time where we're being asked to prescribe a different set of rules. The different set of rules being, because it's out of the country, is that what we're getting at? Is that? Out of the country or at other tracks? Yeah, all right. Before we go on, attorney Grossman, this is I'm hearing without due respect to my commissioner, fellow commissioner Zuniga, the words legal and technical being inserted back and forth. I would like to adhere to what's legal. So, yeah, I'm looking for further insight before we take any action on this as to an affirmative obligation on our part to act on it. And of course, I'm not in any way passing on the substantive request here. I'm just asking about the, not passing judgment on the fiduciary duties that we have. I'm not passing judgment on their request. I just am wondering about the authorization. Well, I think the one thing that is clear to me is that I think everyone ultimately wants the same thing, which is to ensure that these funds are expended wisely and for the proper purpose. That is ultimately to promote and develop and encourage their breeding in the common. For that, there can be no dispute. The question is that was posed to me was whether what the legal authority or how far it extends for the commission's review of the expenditure of these funds. And under paragraph G, which I do believe is the only section that really applies to this, I don't see any clear express authorization that is required by the breeders prior to making expenditures. Now, they are certainly required to make expenditures consistent with the language of the statute. They're not allowed to just expend it any way they want. Most of it seems clear to me that only a consultation of the chair of the racing commission and now the gaming commission is required. There is that one piece of the statute that opens the door to a potential approval. And that's where the language says that the commission or that they have to be, the race has to be the licensed paramutual race meeting authorized by the state racing commission. And if that is construed to mean that the authorization has to be specific to an out of state track, that would be the one area that I think it would be certainly open under the statute for the commission to decide that it needs to express. And that clause was in the fourth paragraph where it's further. It's a little further down. It's the second paragraph. It starts with further. So you assume that that meant additionally as a separate. Well, that's the way I read it. You know, obviously different interpretations can be assigned and, but that's how I would construe the word further. And if that's the case, and by the way, I think that was presumably the interpretation though it somewhat went unsaid in the past that allowed the commission to weigh in on these decisions, which is why I've never in any way opined that past practice was in any way inappropriate or impermissible or anything like that. But if the question is, does the commission have clear authority to approve, pre-approved of these expenditures, I believe the answer is no. There is no clear authority for that. You can make the case as commissioners Zuniga and Brian and others have pointed out through a fiduciary duty that may overlay this or even an interpretation of parts of the statute. But just reading the plain language, it seems to me that there's no clear authority to pre-approve expenditures. Yeah, this is the crossover again of multiple statutes and different modifications where in, on 23 K, there is section four N, I forget exactly which one that unequivocally says that the broad and power of the commission will be interpreted as broad as necessary to carry out the intent of the law. There's nothing like that on 128, I suppose, which then has us in this place to begin with. Karen, I'm not sure if you're, I don't see your face, but I'm just wondering, do you have a suggestion procedurally where we should proceed? Because it doesn't look as though we have necessarily a consensus on a legal interpretation. I think I commend Attorney Grossman. I thought he did a very nice job on his legal analysis. He's had also grieved me along the way on this matter. I can't say that I understand all of the fully. I'm not sure if any lawyer who even specializes in first racing, and I'm looking at Ms. Reagan would say everything is clear. I've dealt with a lot of those statutes in my time and it would be dangerous to say anything is clear. But I do appreciate what the advice that we're hearing from our interim general counsel. And given that, I would not recommend that we would be able to move ahead today without further legal guidance to say that we're authorized to move ahead. And I see Commissioner O'Brien kind of nodding her head. That doesn't mean that this can't be reviewed, but two suggestions for us to think about. We could ask our interim general counsel to go back and investigate the history further. But I'm not sure what that leaves for our colleagues, Dr. Ziza and the horse racing community because I suspect that they sought consultation with us and guidance with us today. Yes, so I've got a chair, I'll go ahead. Well, let me suggest that no action here is what I would argue is what the MTBA is asking for. So the question becomes the next time that our CFO is asked to transfer funds from the Racehorse Development Fund, takes funds to such account, the Breeders' Account. Are we gonna do that just because they told us? Well, Commissioner Zinnigan, nobody does anything just because they told us. So that's what we're struggling with. I mean, I understand exactly what you're saying and I understand that that would put Mr. Lennon in a difficult situation. So we are trying to get at the heart just because, but with that said, we don't wanna ever because we're in a position of power to assume that we have that power unless it's clear. And so that's what I'm struggling with today. Well, clearly everybody is. Well, I mean, that's what I'm just saying if I speak for myself, yeah. Yeah. So I'm inclined to agree with you, Madam Chair. I'd like, you know, my two questions is we're listening to this, where the timeframe, is there the opportunity to go back? And I don't know if there's some further information or anything that can help guide that because that is the threshold question. And even with the legal guidance and Todd did a great job on that memo, that there's still that tension there on, you know, within the commission trying to figure out what to do. It's not as if the five of you are really coming to an easy conclusion. So substantively, if there is some time, I just don't know what that next piece of information would necessarily be that might change the outcome. But I'm uncomfortable with the commission not having the consensus of on their authority there. That's a tough position to be in. And it may be better to take a break and get into another discussion with some additional information. Can we just see on Dr. Weivel, how does that leave our fellow folks here on the horse racing? And I understand, I appreciate fully commissioners Zuniga saying that that's what they want. But I suspect that if they thought for an instant that it would be an interpretation from the commission that they weren't authorized to proceed because of course Mr. Lennon would not release the funds. Where does that leave them and how much time do we need to turn this around? You know, in the event that they need, they do need affirmative action from us. Yeah, obviously they'd like to run as soon as they can. But they still don't have, you know, races written or ideas on how much money they'll be spending or anything like that. We do have, you know, we had some proposed plans to run three weeks ago, which we've postponed. And now in securing a second track, we also have some proposed plans to run on the 16th and 17th of July. But, you know, we can't publicize any of these until we got this matter clear first. So to answer some of the other commissioners' questions, the reason we did this is because we wanted to come and go through the channels that was suggested and be able to address this point because we need flexibility with situations on the ground different. We do not have stuff around this year. And we need to be a bit more nimble in the ability to run races given the stuff that we have. So, you know, Alex and I have spoken and Alex and multiple members of the board have had great conversations in the last three or four months in consulting and talking about ideas and whatnot. And so that's the route we've chosen. And so what we're hoping today to be frank is simply to say looking at the, what you've done in the past, looking at where the money has come and gone and most of it is back to Massachusetts. Just because the track is an hour away from the track that we have been running at for five years does not mean that we're getting away from the spirit of the law because the same back forces and breeders are running in those races. The money is back. Okay, can I offer a solution? Could I offer a solution, Mr. Dr. Cesar, if from this perspective, I'm not sure when my fellow commissioners feel about authorizing, if assuming that we were required to authorize the race in Canada, I'm not sure. If there might be a consensus that they would be okay with it. If we were to move on it and say, but that's not in any way acknowledging an affirmative authorization from us. But if Gail, if you can help me, do you, if you were required, would you be likely to support it? I would not at this moment because I get back to the point about we don't have enough information. For example, in Canada right now, there's a two week quarantine, which means none of our trainers from our country or jockeys would be allowed to go there and race. So those are the things we haven't even gotten into yet, which give me pause. And by the way, Mr. Cesar, I checked that out in our official source yesterday that the two week quarantine is in place right now up through August. The prime minister just reauthorized that quarantine. So there's many, many issues talking about money coming to the Commonwealth. Well, there's jockeys and trainers. Just to clarify, group of races would be in Ohio. And there is no- We have a proposal in front of us from Canada, correct? No, no, my proposal states both racetracks. Yeah, but doesn't have any information about when, under what circumstances who would write the race, we just don't have information, Mr. Cesar. Because we're not asking you to approve the specifics of our program. So thank you, Dr. Cesar. So that's exactly where we're left. So Karen, help me out in terms of process. Excuse me, Commissioner Zuniga, just if we could just hear from Karen and then we'll go back to all of us. Just- I'm just hearing all of this and it's very challenging. I mean, one brief suggestion, because I know we have other agenda items, if maybe you want to move on to the other agenda items, let me speak with Alex and Todd to see if we can have some kind of suggested solve for the commission might be an option. The other option would be to bump this to another meeting and regroup with another meeting with the message that we are not making a determination or any kind of authorization. I like the first and if you will allow me to, because I do think it is now 136 and I know that that means that we could be getting some of our fellow commissioners could be getting hungry. I'd like to pause this discussion. We have a lunch break after a brief announcement that I'll make that we have a lunch break. We will return to our agenda if there can be immediate resolution or recommendation on this topic, that will be helpful. If not, we will continue on our other items allowing for further time for our team to regroup and see if we can take action on that and to everybody, I appreciate your patience. How does that, I don't want everyone to go on lunch break yet because I have one announcement. How does that seem? Does that, Commissioner O'Brien, does that work? Well, just from a logistics point of view, Attorney Grossman, I believe, unless Kerry's on the line and can pitch it for him, he has one of the agenda items that we'd be moving on to. And so if the point is to free him up to be able to. Well, that's all right. I understand that, but we're going to pause for lunch and maybe they can get some reconciliation. I understand that he will also be busy. I just didn't know if you wanted to get through that item and then break because then he'd be free to not be impeded at all. Oh, actually, yeah. I think Ms. Terry will be covering that anyway. Okay, good, good. Okay, excellent. I don't know if this was part of your announcement but one of the items for the gum later, our CFO has a hard stop of, that has advised us at two o'clock and it's a budget. I had not heard that he has a hard stop at two o'clock. I did hear about it. I meant to mention that earlier, but it's something that I can take myself. If there's any questions for that. Because it's 1.37. I actually think that a break will do us all good. I think everybody should have something to eat and something to drink. It's been already a long morning with that, but I do have some excellent news before we break. I do want to point out that the governor, I've learned during the course of this meeting that the governor has delegated the responsibility for standards on managing COVID-19 for casinos, racing and simulcasting to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. So this means that the standards that we have adopted for the course of our last several weeks of the hard work of all the team will be the standards for casino, racing and simulcasting. That means that those industries won't expect any further specific industry related standards out of the Baker-Polito administration. So that's good news that folks can proceed. And as we heard earlier, phase three was announced during our earlier break to begin on July 6th. Perhaps Karen, you'll be able to learn what our licensees might be doing now over this lunch break. And maybe we could even get an update on that, how the formal announcement around July 6th will impact our licensees. Of course, what we are hearing is that that delegation has been made to us. Of course, that means we have all talked about this, that the standards are dynamic, that they will continue to be adjusted, hopefully to give relief as public health conditions, trend in the right direction for all of us. And we will continue to meet and prove reforms to those guidelines, including the ones that we passed today. So I think that that's good news. I understand that the governor's order on this matter will be made public later this afternoon and posted accordingly. So we can look for that. It may in fact be posted by the time we reconvene from our lunch and our lunch needed break on a difficult subject matter. You know, it is a reflection of the fact that this is an older piece of legislation with lots of pieces. And so, you know, I am fully appreciative of how difficult this is. So are there any questions on that brief announcement? I don't have many more details. I just wanted to share that. Okay, we're all set then. Now, I always look for my timekeeper. Commissioner Bryan, what do you think is 140 for lunch? Two confessions, I kind of ate at the last break. So you might want to ask me if there's Zuniga. I love that. I think what he needs is what's going to matter. Commissioner Zuniga. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 30, you know. It's sufficient and okay, we reconvene it too. And I'm sorry about Mr. Lennon. I did not hear that we might have considered bringing the agenda up in a different format. All right, thank you. Well, I knew, I knew we had a number of guests for this topic and that they had been waiting. So, anyway, I think we're okay. Yeah, and I had sent that with my materials on Tuesday, the notification that I had a two o'clock hard stop. Yeah, well, things are what they are. So we'll manage and I can take any topics on budget. I send you my notes, Enrique. Yep. Thank you. Anything else anybody wants to add? All right, so we will reconvene at two o'clock. Thank you so much. Reconvening officially, meeting number 311. Thank you everyone for your patience. Been quite a productive morning with the adoption of our horse racing and simulcasting standards for COVID-19. We had a rigorous conversation about a matter before us with respect to the Thoroughbred Readers Association. Karen, I'm not sure, I know you were doing some homework on the matter where we left off. Would you advise that we go forward now on the next matter, Commissioner O'Brien pointed out that it does involve Mr. Grossman, but perhaps Carrie is going to be covering it. Yes, can you hear me, Madam Chair? Yes. Okay, I don't know if you can hear me or see if I've somehow minimized you and you're about this big right now. But yeah, we're still working on it. Probably probably good for you. Yeah, I just got off the call with Todd and Alex. We're still trying to work some things out. There's a couple of ideas. What would be helpful is if we could go forward with the agenda, when I can step out, I'll step out and see if I can help with some kind of resolution there. Okay, and in my right that if we proceed on to them, just hold on five, four, B, excuse me, move to five. And even though Mr. Grossman's name is attached, we have our very own Carrie Tresi to help us. Right, and I'm familiar with that as well. And I believe, I can't see from my screen, but I think Mr. Curtis might be on the meeting as well. He's been very helpful with this. He's here, Bill, I know you're wonderful. He's not showing his face yet, but I'm sure he'll join us. Okay, there we go. Here we go, Mr. Curtis, thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. All righty, Carrie, why don't you start? Sure. So good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. Let me just move this screen. All right, so in your packet, you have a draft amended regulation, 205CMR 134.03. This existing regulation allows the gaming licensees to temporarily bring employees from sister properties to Massachusetts to assist with the casino's pre-opening phase and for 30 days after the issuance of an operation certificate without requiring that those individuals be licensed or registered. It also allows those individuals to assist at the gaming establishment for up to 60 days. And that time period, that extension can be granted upon submission by a licensee of a written explanation as to the need and duration. So that's the existing regulation. The amendment that you have in your packet would add language to include the same allowance following a period of suspension of operations. So it would allow the licensees to temporarily bring their employees from sister properties to Massachusetts currently to assist with the reopening here without requiring that they be licensed. And that would be for a period of up to 60 days. And again, it would allow for that extension if there's a submission explaining the need. So it essentially acts as a temporary reciprocity. There was some discussion I know early on about potentially creating a variance process. But instead, it was codified this here in a regulation to future proof the issue in the event that there's any future suspension of operations that we would need to use this same function. I do want to note also, and I know you all talked about this a bit earlier, that there is currently an advisory and effect from the governor that individuals coming into Massachusetts from a number of other states are recommended to self quarantine for 14 days. That amendment was amended on Tuesday to exempt all of the New England states along with New York and New Jersey. So we're looking to promulgate this regulation by emergency to get it into effect right away. And then we would begin the standard promulgation process to formalize that over the next few months. So are there any questions on this regulation? Commissures Senator, are you leaning in? Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Just as a reminder, we had this provision when initially when anticipating the original opening of casinos, just point me or speaking general terms to, at the time we only envisioned one opening and not reopening like in this case, right? And hence the need to change the original regulation. Exactly, the regulation only speaks to the initial opening phase, the pre-opening phase or the period right after the issuance of the operations certificate. So it doesn't account for the situation that we're in right now. Yeah, no, I think it's very reasonable. When we opened the casinos, there was no expectation that they closed being a 24-7 operation, but of course this is unprecedented circumstances. Other questions for Carrie. And Carrie, you may not be the person to answer this, but I think a question that may come into people's minds is because they've already opened once and they're simply reopening, why they bring people in from sister properties rather than bring masks, employees back online. I believe I've heard some explanation for why that is, but I think that might be worth mentioning. I don't know if that's something Bill can speak to. I can speak to it, Carrie. Commissioner Ryan, they're looking for some of the folks that have a little bit more expertise in reopening. Some of the folks could be new, with a rehire in the last six months or an initial hire in the last year, and they weren't involved in the initial opening. So with MGM, they're looking for between five and eight folks, few people for the cage, a couple of people for food and beverage, and a few people in marketing as well. Plain Ridge, it's a possibility there will be SWAT people only. They do have some folks that are going to be working with the IT department, but they're never gonna come on property, they're going to remote in. So really don't have a concern with those folks because they're not actually gonna be on the property, they're only gonna be remoting in, but still they would need a license. So that's why we're looking for this adjustment on the reg because it would help them out tremendously and they're pretty lean on their IT department. So to get where they need to be, they need some folks to help out. And I assume some part of this also has to do with reconfigurations potentially based on the COVID-19 procedures we put in place? Correct, correct. So just to follow up in terms of Commissioner Browne's question, you've indicated that they're providing specific expertise. They would not in any way be replacing jobs that we would want Massachusetts residents to have, correct? Correct, you are correct. And they will supply us with a list of the individuals that they're going to be bringing on the property where they're licensed, their license number. And then there has to be an attestation from a key employee, most likely it will be from the compliance officer that will submit all that information to us and it will be recorded with that property. Mr. Cameron, do you have questions for Carrie? Did she freeze? I just tried to unmute. I do not have questions. I think this was explained very well and makes a lot of sense to me. And I did get a chance to ask Commissioner Browne's question in a briefing that what about, why are these folks coming in and are they displacing anyone? And I was assured of the same thing that Mr. Curtis just responded to. Commissioner Stebbins, any questions for Carrie? Yeah, just a quick question. I'm assuming from Director Curtis's response that this likely won't apply to Encore Boston Harbor because of his attorney, Teresa, who pointed out there'd be the quarantine time since those folks would be coming in from outside of New England. Commissioner Stebbins, I did touch base with the folks at Encore Boston Harbor and they had no desire to bring in folks from another property, they said they said that their folks could handle what they need to do to reopen. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. So the states are New England, New York and New Jersey, correct? Yes. Thank you. Any further questions? Commissioner Stebbins, you're all set. Okay, so we need to take action on this today for emergency regulation process. Oh, go ahead. Oh, go ahead, Commissioner. Go ahead. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement for 205 CMR 134.03 gaming service employees as included in the commission packet. Second that. For the questions. Okay, commissioner Cameron, that was a silent read, but I could read those lips. Sorry, I. Commissioner Bryan. I. Commissioner Ziniga. I. And commissioner Cameron. That's Stebbins, sorry. I. And I vote yes. Sharon. Thank you. Further. And Chair, I further move the commission adopt the version of 205 CMR 134.03 gaming service employees as included in the commissioners packet by emergency and authorize staff to take all steps necessary to begin the regulation promulgation process. Second. Thank you, commissioner. Any further questions on the substance? Okay. Commissioner Cameron. I. Commissioner Ziniga. I. Commissioner Stebbins. I. And commissioner Brian. I. Out of order. Thank you. Making sure. I vote yes. My order is always how we sat in physically. When we're in our big room. Five zero. Thank you, Sharon. And good work, Carrie. And, and, and thank Todd. I know that he's being productive on the other. And, but we thank you for that work and Sharon too, of course. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and bill. Bill too. Thank you, Bill. Thanks so much. Alrighty. All right. Well, I feel bad that I didn't note a request to move around our agenda, but commissioner Ziniga, if you're comfortable, we're moving on now to item number six, finance and accounting division. I know the last we left, we were waiting for some, any public comments that we would have and I'll have you move forward. The team is typically Derek Lennon, CFAO. I see Agnes, Doug, and, and you commissioner Ziniga, if you want to leave this. I'd be happy to madam chair. And as you mentioned, there are questions that I cannot answer which is entirely possible. Doug, or Donald, or I'll miss Pauli, or Mike, are available to, is that the case? So we are essentially here to revisit the budget that we presented for fiscal year 21, back in June 18. We had initially recommended a collective budget of 39.7 million dollars, comprised of the following items. 32.25 million dollars for the regulatory and statutorily required costs of the gaming control fund. 2.68 million for the racing and oversight and development fund, racing oversight and development fund, I'm sorry. We had recommended for the first time and I'll speak to a particular change in this area, 170,000 dollars in funding coming from the community mitigation fund. This was the first time we recommended this spending administrative funds from this fund. And 4.62 million dollars for the public health trust funds for the offices of research and responsible game. This, the overall recommendation funded 93 FTEs and six contract positions across all the different programs, gaming, racing, et cetera. At that meeting, the meeting in June, we committed as we usually do to posting the budget for public comment, having a meeting to discuss the merits of charging some administrative costs to the community mitigation fund and identifying a proposal for the slot fee and the annual assessment for the gaming control fund, given the current extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19. The staff put up the budget for a public comment. They report that we received no comments other than the usual back and forth in consultation with licensees. We also had a meeting and that staff on the community mitigation fund based on that meeting. There was a lot of robust discussion and they are no longer recommending funding 170,000 from that fund come to pay for administrative costs of the commission at this time. Instead, staff plans on taking the next six to nine months to go through developing and working with the commission to adopt regulations for the community mitigation fund. We think or they think this is a better process, one that would allow more robust public input, input from the local community mitigation fund groups as well as having a transparent process for the reasoning and explanation of how and why to charge of grants, grant administration costs to this fund. I should note that the administration of this fund is taking more and more of staff time and it's a good discussion to have in this fashion. Further, staff contacted licensees in the three gaming sites and asked for their anticipated opening slot machine counts given these requirements in terms of guidance about social distancing, as well as the gaming position counts for slots and table keys. We have not yet voted to approve anything on this topic in terms of number of gaming positions. We are still under guidance about reopening and occupancy and things like that. So we might need to make some adjustment in this topic relative to gaming positions because after all, that is how our total costs are then prorated among the three different licensees. However, we do need funding to begin the fiscal year in a proportional way. So we have asked for staff has asked for the best estimates even count of gaming positions with information that they have currently available. So we plan on updating those figures as the facilities begin to reopen. So there's a table on page nine of the memorandum including the packet that breaks out accounts by operator. Appendix A uses the slot machine counts projected for opening and prorates the costs for 51 weeks which is the currently projected opening date for phase three. Again, we'll modify it necessary. Staff is also recommending that we bill licenses, licensees rather for the first quarter of the slot fee in the assessment right away and ask for payment to be expedited and then bill monthly beginning in August. This would allow us to cash to continue our meeting or commitments. We're recommending that the first quarterly installment to work with also our partners at the Attorney General's office and the ABCC and allow for them to have funding or in other words, a quarter of funding for the operations as well. So just to summarize some of the staff work, there was a two week discussion that resulted in still the recommendation of 39.7 million as a collective budget. The same funding of 93 FTEs plus six contract positions. The composition of that that is the 170,000 that was proposed to be funded from the community mitigation fund is now shifted back to the gaming control fund and that brings the assessment fee here from 32.25 million to 32.42 million. Racing and the public health trust fund funding remain the same and the slot fees for facilities being an approximate of two million and an assessment of 20 that leaves with an assessment of 29.67 million for the gaming control fund. So given the updates and the additional time to review the budget recommendations, I can pause now and see if any commissioners have any questions or comments. Mr. Stephens, were you leaning in? I was, thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanna speak to the point and I wanna take an opportunity to thank our legal staff as well as our finance team and our CFAO with respect to the community mitigation fund allocation toward this year's budget. As Commissioner Zuniga said, it was very robust conversation and discussion. Some of the concerns that I had were the fact that there will be certainly less funds available next year for the community mitigation fund knowing that it's based on the previous calendar year and obviously missed out on some months as well as are likely gonna reopen with diminished capacity of our gaming licensees. So it was helpful for me to get an update on the status of the fund. We talked about how we can engage our stakeholders, the local community mitigation advisory committees, the subcommittee to get their input and this recommendation of going through a regulatory process, I think will help meet all of those goals of engaging everybody who's involved in the process. We know the fund is as lots, several years of grants now out. I agree with Commissioner Zuniga. I think it's a fine time to look at adequate staffing for the program and making sure that we're staying on top of awards that we've made and how those awards have been spent. So I think it's a, it is a good time to have a conversation after going through this process as to adequate staffing to adequately monitor the program. And I would also add that related to this, we have a good policy discussion heading into the fall and the guidelines for next year that we've give some consideration to taking some previously approved awards back if they have not been drawn down yet and having a chance to maybe set some guidelines for that as part of the regulations as well as make some final determinations on reserve grants that have been awarded. These were awarded several years ago to give hosts and surrounding communities a chance to kind of study some impacts. Some of those monies haven't been used yet. And again, as we look ahead to next year, which might be really tight, I think it's worthy of us to have a policy discussion as to whether we give some of those communities one more time to use those funds or consider again, pulling them back to address and meet other needs. But again, just to thank staff and CFAO Lennon who I think drove the idea of coming up with a regulatory process so that we can iron out all the details for using the CMF funding for administrative costs. Other comments, questions? Substantive questions. I know that we feel that, this is nearing an end of a discussion but we have this a big decision and a big discussion. I have one question that I'll add in now but that doesn't mean it needs to be the last question. I'm pleased with the resolution on the community mitigation fund. I too probably would have been uncomfortable given perhaps the impact that would have been on our communities to go forward. I think the solution of the regulatory scheme is an excellent one. So I'm really very pleased with that. I had raised a question for Mr. Lennon about funding available to take care of some salary needs that are likely to have come about because we have had a couple of key interim positions. We also had turnover. And I am wondering how that's being managed. I know that it says cut funding, exposure of cut funding of backfills for 10 FPEs. And I'm wondering if we have reserved some flexibility to address some of those needs. I just don't know what our balance is to address that. Well, we retain the flexibility at any time. In the aggregate, the budget makes assumption as to how long it's gonna take us to backfill some of those positions. If one slides further, earlier and another one later, we may end up in a similar situation. And remember that we come back quarterly, but of course more frequently if necessary to approve any kind of budget reduction, sorry, revision if necessary. I think this is, you know, in the situation that we were and we are, this is an overall good recommendation. And we can make modifications as we need to as a year needs to come to fruition. One, along those lines, by the way, there is one of the most immediate things to relook at this might be just that duration of costs across the three different licensees. They, this is only based on, this is the only thing that we can base it on, their best estimate at the time that they were consulted on a week ago of gaming positions. You remember perhaps that we look at the duration of those gaming positions twice a year in practice before, because there was not a lot of change in gaming positions, but it is possible that there will be a very different dynamic this year as the properties begin to reopen and those position numbers change, you know, in a way that is not just rounding error. So we'll likely come back and adjust those numbers, you know, among the, and have a discussion in a public meeting if necessary. And that is what I was alluding to in my remarks about looking at page nine of that memorandum and breaking those counts by the different operator. This is a very, this is a slightly different proration than before, because you can see in that table what they had before and what they are in terms of gaming positions and what they are now at least estimating will be at least initially. Actually, this table doesn't show the existing gaming positions, but you might remember that Penn is, you know, has the 1250 cap and core, you know, has north of the 2000 machines and well over 100 tables that are multiple positions. That's not the case now. Of course, an MGM has a lot more machines that what they are now estimating to be operational at the beginning of the opening, at least according to the state. I think that you answered my question. I think what I heard you say, and I'm doing this in part for even, you know, interim executive director is in a little bit of a difficult position because she is interim, but as she does her work, there may be some needs that are operationally necessary. And I just wanna make sure that I guess I wanna make sure that I haven't misunderstood. There isn't a hiring freeze per se. That's not built into the overall budget, correct? Overall budget, correct? In other words, for instance, we have a legal department that is we have an interim general counsel and then we have one down. There hasn't been a decision among all of us on a freeze, but would the executive director have some authority under the budget or would she have to come back to us as what I'm guessing is there some operational budgeting for either shifting in positions internally. So therefore a salary might increase. Is there that kind of flexibility or are you saying we would come back and that's it? I'm suggesting we would come back. This is a tight budget in that regard. I don't know if Agnes can help me out on some of the assumptions, some of the specific assumptions with certain positions, but we're not assuming that we're backfilling right away. And I think that's, and I just wanna be clear because that's just something we need to understand maybe precisely, thank you. Yeah, no, and in the aggregate, and I'll ask Agnes to chime in a minute, but in reality, there's gonna be a ramp up like in every hiring, we have, when this COVID-19 started, we paused all of those efforts and admittedly they were at different stages. So whatever ramp up happens, is partly assumed here. The other thing is, people have to go through background checks and whatnot and that also takes a little bit of time. And we're effectively estimating that some of these positions come back, but not for the full year. Now in the aggregate, we might be okay, depending on if we end up rehiring one person first, then another position and that may balance out, et cetera. But maybe I should just turn it over to Agnes and see what she can tell us that will be more specific than this. Thank you, Commissioner Zuniga. One of the assumptions that we made was that it was gonna be on a six month basis where most of these backfills would not occur for six months. So that was a majority of the savings. We will then, as Commissioner Zuniga said, it would be an issue of timing, of going through the background checks and all of those savings, given how long this pandemic is going forward, whether or not various positions come back at all. Some of them may, but many of them will, some may not. And then that was what the savings were based on. And this would be six months from what date, Agnes, please? From July 1st. Oh, well, that's a long period. Right, but with many of the positions, it's a matter of posting and timing and getting the applicants in, getting the interviews done, them going through the background checks and all of that. So it can take up to that period of time for many of these things. And that may be a long time for a couple of positions. It's not necessarily in the aggregate, and that's been my point for others, given that we are now, as Agnes says, we should look at some of those vacancies all together and think about holding up for a period that is longer than six months. In the, on the average, I think we come okay. And if we don't, we can come back and adjust. Also mid-year, you would also be reviewing the number of positions that are available to assess against. So that may be an offset to any positions you filled prior to the six month period, the estimate on those, on the savings. So if we wanted to build in some padding there, Commissioner Zuniga, so we wouldn't have to come back. Is there any flexibility that we have to say that, six, to assume six months from August, from July one through the end of the calendar years too long to accommodate the needs of certain departments. Currently right now, Chair, is that the licensees have requested that, and they have done this in the past and it's not anything new this year. They have requested that we not go on the higher side of things, if we need to go back and increase their assessments, they're more willing to do that as opposed to having that built-in upfront. And especially this year, where things were so tight with everyone, that was the agreed-upon strategy, was that we would go back to them at a later date if we needed to increase the assessment. Yeah, and I think that's a good, that's a reasonable practice to be responsive to. Again, we can always come back at any meeting in the future and inside. I'm wondering if we can do it right now. I guess you're saying we have to go to the licensees first with a proposal about... No, I think this is all balancing, the prior discussions that we've had about recognizing that this is a difficult time in terms of cash flow for licensees and building what we believe is absolutely necessary without having to make cuts in existing costs. Sort of like the easiest in my view, and I shouldn't say this, put it in those terms. So can I ask also the question, one thing that we did discuss this earlier, where we have an interims and we have needs that have been some, all of us, and I don't say for the commissioners, I'm talking about all of us, the executive team and all of the staff and the whole team, not the commissioners, have stepped up to the plate because there have been either resignations or there's been interims. And so everybody has had to pull a lot of weight and in addition to all the complications that COVID-19 raised. I kind of liken it to, you all have done your 100% of your job that we would do on a daily basis without missing a beat. And then on top of it, COVID-19 introduced a lot of more work, particularly around reopening and also the safety of our own employees. So we had talked about how do you manage that in terms of salaries and positions, et cetera. And what I'm hearing, and I just want to make sure I'm hearing accurately that right now there isn't any little squash fund or anywhere that addresses that issue has not been addressed in the current proposal. And we would have to go back to the licensees with something more specific and to get their buy-in and then we'd come back to a commission vote. Let me clarify a couple of things. We never have a contingency or a slush fund in the budgets. And we make the best assumptions that we think are reasonable for the necessary costs and we bill them and they are required to pay it. We do the consultation process once a year and we've done it this year as well. And in anticipation of the fiscal year, we go through this process and we have done that for several years. In which we... And I presume all the directors have been informed of this and all the... Absolutely. And Karen and all right. Absolutely. And I just want everybody to understand the implications of this, what it means for us in terms of staffing. Yeah. No, the trade-off is that we continue to operate without making painful cuts to existing... Oh, I know. Yeah, I know we don't want any painful cuts. I just am trying to also make sure that we have legal staff that's down to lawyers. And so what I'm hearing is right now, there's not an opportunity to perhaps address that need if Todd were to go forward with respect to a third. I want everybody to understand that. And so, and I'm sure there are other needs in that, but this so in fact, it really is kind of a freeze for at least the next six months. On average, but not across the board, I guess. Can I just ask one question just for my own edification and regate? But does that assume that everything stays status quo? So just as far as the executive director's discretion, there could be some other staff changes if someone resigns or there are always changes, not just in staffing, but in projects or costs with a vendor, things like that. So I think my experience is to Kathy's point, there may be some flexibility depending on what happens over the course of the next six months. So as long as I'm within the parameters of the budget and the FTE count, my understanding is there is some flexibility there. And I would, but it just depends on where the money, where the pockets of money are, is that right? Absolutely, absolutely. And those zero budget revisions, if you will, don't necessarily come to the commission for approval. No, not even, only the big ones for the treasurer. I can speak about history here. So on average, we can certainly prioritize the first backfill and I agree, maybe the legal department should be there because they're down to people in important positions. But on average, we'll be able to manage not just on positions, but other costs. Right, so hypothetically, if there was say a savings with a vendor or something like that, could we translate that to a position if there was that flexibility or are we, because I remember there's a whole issue of the FTE count. I just wanna make sure I'm clear in my direction if there's an opportunity, would I have the authority to do that? Yeah, yeah, I think it's always been there. And I don't think, and this is a good topic for discussion, there is not a directive of a hiring freeze that carries quite a bit of a connotation in other state agencies, which there's nothing here. We're making assumptions to make the first assessment, which is where we find ourselves. We're making those assumptions a little tight to be reasonable and not create unnecessary cash that's just gonna be sitting on the commission. Whereas we know that the licensees are also managing their cash flow at this time, very closely. Now, having said that, in a $32 million budget, and 39 ones, we put it all together, there's a lot of costs that fluctuate as a matter of, and I'll continue to do that. Perhaps that's really the slush fund I was referring to. Right, exactly. Because I wanted to make sure that you don't have like line, you're treating it like line items. Exactly. I can't, that funds can't go over to funding an FTE. I wanna make sure we have that flexibility where you do achieve the savings. If in fact we're going to have no extra fund that would accommodate these kind of employment needs, I just wanna make sure that we're not tied to a line item analysis. Yeah, no, no, it's fair. I don't believe we ever were tied like that. And I don't know we are by doing this. We are just coming up, and this is perhaps diminishing it to a very concrete term incrementally today. But we are just coming up with the best estimate for the first assessment, which has to happen at the end of July. As I mentioned earlier, the slot fee and the balance of it to the licensees. We'll continue to make, by the way, another important part of this discussion is that when COVID-19 first forced the casino closures, one of the things that licensees requested and we agreed and we came to a commission meeting to ask for that and agreed at a commission level that we would begin assessing on a monthly basis. And this was purely as a way to help them manage cash flow. Which we were happy to do. It's not a big change. It's not a big lift for us to send three bills in three months rather than one or quarter. And so, but that allowed them to again, continue to make these kinds of, again, needing cash flow constraints. That, hopefully, and even the announcement that you just read before we went to lunch break chair, changes perhaps very soon once the casinos begin to reopen. And it's again, something that we can continue to come back and discuss if we think it's necessary or just give Karen the flexibility to operate that we have done in the past with the flexibility of moving line items across it. Yeah, I'm just hoping we don't put Karen in a position of making some costs cuts that she wouldn't normally have made in order to achieve some really vital operational function. And so, I know it's a lean budget and I appreciate that. I appreciate where we are in terms of the licensees needs. And I understand that it's very difficult to project what their revenues are. But I also just didn't want to put us in a position where we can't operate in a way that we need to operate in order to ensure our mission because we've kind of made ourselves too tight. No, that's... Well, yes, that's critical. And I don't think we're there, we're at that juncture. I think a little bit of that is gonna be a judgment call on a case-by-case basis. I think so far, so good. But we now have to gear up to reopen the casinos, how they're gonna look like is gonna be different from before and what that means in terms of demands for all kinds of things, gaming agents, state police. Over time, we make some assumptions but a lot of that is gonna sort of manifest itself as we go along and we'll continue to be flexible and ask for the necessary budget adjustments in the future. Yeah. Well, thank you, we don't need to belabor my point, you answered it. Others have any questions on the budget? Extensive process, appreciate the entire finance teams work and Commissioner Zuniga's leadership. Oh, thank you. As usual, the balance is the difficult part. I think we strike it here, at least for the time being, we can come back and revise it. And big thanks to the staff, Derek, Agnes and Doug and everybody in finance and the directors who spent quite a bit of time on Karen, thinking about what is really necessary, how can we make the best assumptions for the future short term of the first part of the fiscal year and hence, and licensees who are always very thoughtful in their feedback of all of these costs. I think, are there any more questions or comments on this topic? I think we wanna take formal action today. Yes, we'd be seeking a vote to approve the budget as presented, as well as the recommendations for the billing. I'm sorry, as well as the recommendations for the... For billing, you know, the slot fee and the proration as I articulated in those remarks, I mean, as he's articulated in the memo in the package. Madam Chair, I'd move the commission approved the finance and accounting division's proposed budget for FY 2021 and related recommendations as included in the commissioner's bracket and as discussed here today. Second. Thank you, Commissioner Cameron. You seconded it. Seeing you presented it, Commissioner Zemeagal, yield to the colonel, the tenant colonel. Alrighty. No further questions? Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Commissioner Zemeagal. Aye. Commissioner Steffins. Aye. I vote yes. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Now we get to go back to earlier. Thank you, Commissioner Zemeagal. Great work. I have to, we have to go back to our earlier topic. I don't know if you've had a chance to enlighten us, Mr. Grossman. We turn to our horse racing. Well, I'm hoping what I'm gonna say will be enlightening, but... And just for people to follow us back to 4B, item 4B, sorry. So we have obviously had a chance to step back and think about how to advance the matter forward today. One of the ways we've come up with would be, and to remain squarely within the confines of the statute, would be to review the breeder's proposal to fund racing outside the Commonwealth, substantively today, but do so in a consultative capacity as the statute talks about. And as a reminder, the statute says that the breeder is shall from time to time in consultation with the chair of the racing commission and the manager of the equine division set a number of percentages for the payment of purchase and what have you. So there can be no dispute that the commission via the chair has the ability to consult on this matter. And if you were to do so in a substantive capacity, the commission could in theory make its position to the breeder's very clear one way or the other as to its views on this particular proposal. If you were to pursue that avenue, any directive that came out would not be binding. It would be a consultative opinion. In that event, we could then go back the staff and have an even closer look at the legal authority and the historical positioning of this particular matter and see if there's anything else to be said about it. But that's certainly one approach to handling this matter. If that makes sense at the moment. Mr. Grossman, I guess I get back to my original point which is we don't have a lot of information to go on. Right. You have certainly the information that's been provided and I haven't spoken to Ms. Reagan or Mr. Dr. Ziza, but I'm sorry, my son is making snow cones in the background. But hold on. I think that's the first time you've ever referenced the noises on the background and I applaud you for that, Todd. I think Commissioner O'Brien and I've always noticed how you just go right through it. Snow cone. Snatching outside all day playing so nicely and then all of a sudden. A snow cone, that's great. I don't know if we can hear that. I apologize, but we can talk about that some other time with the great little machine for the summer. But anyway, so that's, I'm sorry, I got sidetracked and I lost my train of thought. And I didn't help, and my apologies. Well, I was actually gonna respond, perhaps you were getting to this, to Commissioner Cameron's point. I think, you know, if we came out of this discussion, saying something to the effect of, you know, we've been consulted and here's where we stand, even if it's in a divided manner, Commissioner Cameron, that we have not seen the details to our satisfaction, that that's the feedback in terms of consultation. However unanimous or divided we are. I did wanna bring up something that we also touched on, and before he had to go, Derek and I were had a chance to discuss over the break. And that is when we make these kinds, but really any payment out of the funds that we are trustees of, and the racehorse development fund is one of them. The finance division always looks to who authorized, what was the particular authorization? And that is not necessarily something that is before us now, but whatever we make in terms of this determination, the finance team will look for the same thing, the same authorization when it came time, time to pay those purses. And they'd have to also, we just have to decide collectively. I don't, I suppose I'm suggesting they shouldn't be the ones to decide. They only need to document the authorization. And if it is that we are authorizing that payment once, maybe not prospectively, but once it's requested or whatever, then that would have to be decided, that would have to be documented. Because what they present in my mind is so fundamental relative to the issue of having authorization or not, relative to plans prospectively, I think we're still left with the disbursement or the authorization of the payment, which to me is why I've been advocating for the notion of being the trustees, that we'd be having a hook when it came to these disbursements. So we would have to make a document either way whenever it came to actually making the payment. In that case, Commissioner Zunigan, that's an excellent point. I think, at least temporarily, the finding would essentially have to be that the statute itself, 128, Section 2G, authorizes those payments. And that may be a finding. That's if we agree with your legal analysis, Mr. Grossman. Absolutely, everything is always contingent on that. So yeah, I mean, so one way, there's a number of ways to do it. One way to just be to act in your consultative capacity today. Another would be to discuss your fiduciary capacity and take action pursuant to that authority. Or we could step back all together and have a closer look at the whole thing. Well, I think in terms of, let's just talk about the adequacy of consultation. Todd, why don't you help? And I see Ms. Reagan is here. We have Dr. Lightbound, who we rely on all the time to convey for the interests of the different horse associations. Dr. Lightbound, I'll start with you. What forgetting, putting aside, never forgetting, putting aside the issue of authorization, the thoroughbred breeders have come to you and they have said that they had a plan. Have they mentioned to you what they were seeking? I know there was a today, both the Ohio was mentioned and the Canada was mentioned. Now, from my perspective, when the statute says consultation, I really do see it as consultation and I don't see it being that there'd be some kind of a weight on terms of agreement. But I do think that they could today tell us what their plan is, but I don't think that consultation means that we would have to agree. And then of course there's the question around the ultimate authority, which is what we're circling around notwithstanding Todd's opinion. So did they give you any guidance on the Ohio proposal? They just sent me some races for Ohio so I can share those with you. I just received them during the break. Commissioner, can I ask if this were the Finger Lakes? Let's just pretend it was still at the Finger Lakes. Yeah. And they came and asked for consultation, would you be all right with that as we've done in the past? Because we had so much information, we knew when they intended to race, we knew who was going to write the races, what the plan was as far as monies being dispersed and we had so much more information that gave me comfort. I was very in favor of, by the way, and have been every single year of allowing the thoroughbred to find a place to race and do it safely. I think they're... And so I'm glad to hear that because I'm wondering if there's a shift on that position. Well, it's just this lack of information. We don't know where. We don't know. It looks like Ohio may have just lifted their quarantine but they strongly advise that those coming in to Ohio. So there's so many things in light of COVID that even gives us more ability to take a look at a plan and make sure we're comfortable. So can we presume that the plan that, if they were consulting with us, we would say to the thoroughbred association, we of course would highly recommend that you comply with all of the applicable COVID-19 guidelines and obligations and rules because in some way that might impact the proper use of the funds because you're doing something outside of the law. Not our authorization, but in any way, what I don't see right now in front of us is something that says we get to tell them they can't do this. I don't see that. And that's what if we leave today saying, I just, I'm not sure where we can say to them, you can't proceed. And I hear commissioner Zuniga say, well, then Derek will be put in a position of not having a proper authorization. I mean, we can get an A and K opinion. I mean, we can ask for a legal opinion from A and K if we're not going, and that's in Todd, that is not in any way. I've been there, where you go to an outside council to support your opinion. Would we want to engage in that activity, but it doesn't seem to be very helpful in terms of timing. So we are in a place where I don't see, I am trying to weigh the impact of telling another group of citizens that they can't do something when I'm not sure we even have a say in it. I understand we have an interest in it. And I understand there's been a past precedent that we believe we had authorization. And today it's being raised whether or not we actually ever had it. Right, and I think there's a difference of opinion among the five of us on that. Right, and I understand that, but so does that mean that you would want to vote that they would want to take action saying they may not? Or do you want to take action saying you had advised not? Well, since 2015, when we first started this, I believed we had the authorization. It was never an issue. They requested us to approve. They gave us all the information. We need to be comfortable and we wholeheartedly supported it and approved it. So I guess I am just struggling with the changes now. I understand there's a different legal opinion, but I don't think it's all that clear that we don't have the authority. Can I touch on what Commissioner Cameron is saying relative to some of those details? They're not just for our benefit and our comfort level. They are meant to also give assurances to the whole membership, which is part of the big purpose here, to be able to compete and access for those purposes. If there's people that, you know- And Commissioner, but I guess I'm wondering, where is that written? Where is it that this particular ask is tied to that? And I really am looking for anything precise to help us out on this decision. Well, I don't think you are gonna find any sentence in the confluence of all these statutes that clearly does that. I think everything that we've been arguing here is maybe arguing is not the right word. What we've been discussing is different interpretations of- No, I agree with you on that. I didn't even hear the word, but I appreciate your correction. No, no, it gets a little, what's the word? What's the word? It gets complicated with departing from presidents. And I understand why there is this, the most of unusual circumstances here, to try to take advantage of existing money for some purpose, and that helps some people. But there's also fundamental questions being raised that I think we shouldn't just- Well, I'm not comfortable just saying, okay, well, maybe we never had it. And now we're just gonna rely on the statute by itself. Which is, by the way, it's not uncommon. Let me mention one more thing. Before he had to leave, Derek did mention one thing on the topic, general topic of authorization for these kinds of payments, compared perhaps to other statutes. If we here are basically determining that the Race, Horse Development Fund payment for breeders is a subsidy, then it is perhaps the case that we don't have oversight. But he sees a payment now and since before that is under a contract or a grant, and granted this also is not necessarily exactly with those confines. Then we have a requirement of oversight of the money and approval of the conditions that they're meeting the conditions as the statute directed. And so perhaps we're a little bit in the middle, in my view, because there is a directive as to the purpose, it tends to be a little bit more on the side of this being a bit of something akin to a grant in which it requires some oversight from our side. I think Mr. Grossman did also advise, and I think this is something where legal would have to work with finance, that he did advise that the authorization for the payment would be under the precise statute that he's interpreted. So that would give the, that should be sufficient for Mr. Lennon, I would think, but I might be missing something in terms of it being now a subsidy versus a payment. I'm not sure if I follow all that, it's very complicated to understand without further detail, but I do think that, and of course I'm hearing Commissioner Cameron say that she doesn't necessarily agree with the interpretation, but the statute alone can be sufficient authorization. I know we're hearing different interpretations of the statute. Judge, may I interject, please? I think you just called me judge. I think you got a promotion, man. Oh, I don't know if it's a promotion. Yeah, that's a good point. Madam Chair, I'm so sorry. No, thank you, and I just chuckled because there would be a good panel of judges here right now. There would be all five of us and some appellate were. Thank you so much. No problem. What I do want to clarify is that the breeders don't want to do anything that you all don't know about, that you're not involved in, that we don't, we would come to you every day and say, hey, this is what we're thinking. And so I just want to make sure that you all understand that. We have a proposed agenda. We have a proposed list. I can give that to you tonight and you guys can review it and we can consult and we can say this is the plan. It's absolutely not a problem. And the other thing that I want to make sure that everyone understands is what we're trying to do is to avoid this pre-approval sort of process that delays so much. We could have had our horses running three or four weeks ago. We've already delayed it initially. Now we have a plan to start in a couple of weeks. That could potentially be delayed again. And if we have to come back with each tweak and change in the program, it really, in an official meeting, it really is detrimental to the breeders and our ability to get the purses and the money out to those participating in the program. So, and the other last point I wanted to make was Commissioner Cameron brought up some really valid points with COVID and with the border. And we've worked all of that out. We already have a plan in place so that the funds will not go to Canada. They'll be able to be paid directly to the breeders. We've shared all this with Alex and she has the information. We've been able to get Fort Erie as well as Ohio to agree to have a team of people waiting for our horses. We've been able to arrange transportation. We have everything set up. But that's not, that's something that it's our responsibility to do that. But I, and I'm happy to share all of the details with everybody, but it's just, there has to be some trust. And there's a sense here that for some reason that we've operated for 30 years without really doing anything that is inappropriate. But I feel like there's some cloud hanging over us. And I wanna make sure that we're as transparent and as open as we can be with all of you. And I'm happy that the whole board is happy to work with you in any way. But we have 40 horses, 35 to 40 horses ready to run. And they need a place to run. And they need to run. And their breeders need to, and their owners and their stallion owners, they need, we need to get this help to them. And that's the issue right now. And Mr. Aziza, I thank you for those comments. Other than if we had had this plan a long time ago, we could have dealt with it a long time ago. We didn't have a plan. We had heard bits and pieces of information about where you wanted to run, but we didn't have an actual document explaining to us. I think this could have gone much easier if in fact we had had that and we have some comfort. It's not about trust. These are whole new circumstances. I mean, this is nerve-wracking opening racing in the Commonwealth. Nevermind going elsewhere to do it. So it's really not about trust. It's about new circumstances. And let me say, every year you've come to us with a plan, it's been very thorough, very well thought out, and gave us comfort in approving such a plan. So I think several things have changed and it really isn't a matter of trust. Well, we're happy to provide that plan to you in as much detail as you'd like. In the letter that we proposed, we laid out the foundation, which was about 500,000 in prices. Races combined with two different tracks, with multiple conditions. It's laid out there, but just not as detailed with the dates and other things because it depends on horses are obviously living, breathing animals and it depends on who's available, who's ready, what the racing secretaries at the track want to do, what's beneficial to them. There are so many things that need to be at play. And that's the key. And that's what we tried to do in that letter is really set out a foundation of sort of the history, why we are where we are, and then give you a basic sort of basic figures and numbers of what our plan is. And then happy to provide details as they come about. Every time a particular race is planned by the racing secretary along with the breeder's board, we would send that to you, absolutely. Not to approve, but simply to say, hey, this is what we're going to do. This is the plan. I mean, it's certainly happy to have you be as involved as you'd like from that perspective. Thank you very much. Commissioner O'Brien. Not to throw a wrench in any of this, but I'm wondering if a solution may not have presented itself in the governor's order this afternoon in terms of saying that he was sort of saying we had control over racing, et cetera, et cetera. Does that in any way provide sort of a... No, that's over just our minimum standards on horse racing here. So that's just on our minimum standards. Okay, that's probably more on opening rather than... And overseeing on just what, yeah, no further. Those were just to say that there'll be no further industry standards other than the guidelines, minimum standards that we adopted for the gaming establishment. And then of course today, the PPC standards. This isn't even, it's not relevant because thoroughbreds don't raise that PPC. All right, I should know what the exact wording was. No, no, that's, but thank you, thank you. You're always thinking creatively. And I appreciate that. I'm just wondering if you have any other thoughts. And no, I mean, I really, I come down on, you know, if the question, and I also look at what our agenda is, which is the agenda was really, you know, I believe did we have the authority expressly allowed that would mandate them coming to get approval from us. So in terms of that, I don't feel like there is explicit statutory authority that would mandate them coming to us. Doesn't mean I still don't have concerns about past practice, why there seemed to be a consensus early on that they nonetheless should come. I do think Commissioner Zuniga's comments about our fiduciary obligations as trustee bear further discussion internally in terms of what that means prospectively. I do think that there was some level of reporting to us in terms of communicating with us in a way that allows us to prospect and we make decisions about the split and things like that that would, you know, help us comply with our fiduciary obligations. But I don't think, and I concur with Commissioner Cameron's frustrations that I wish there had been more detail on what was provided. I know that in part that may have been the agenda topic that because it wasn't up here where that vote, it was simply a question of law. But that's sort of where I am coming down on the pure legal question today in front of us. That would be if the vote were to go forward on that matter, that's where I'm coming down. And if the vote were to go forward on the legal matter around our authorization, but then you would say? I would say there's no clear legal obligation on their part to come to us, to seek the approval in advance of what they're doing. Now, that doesn't mean I don't have concerns about reporting, what consultation means, how we execute our fiduciary responsibility going forward in terms of past conduct then dictating the split, et cetera, et cetera. But I think on that narrow question, again, I'm still concerned that for years there would appear to be a consensus that they needed to. But when you peel back the statutes, I do think that there are some holes when it was piece mailed and amended over the years. So I don't see the mandate on the statute as I said earlier. So I'd want to be respectful. We have Commissioner Reagan and I mean Councilor Reagan and I'd like to have, you know, you give your input. Again, this is not the court. So we don't need the full, every argument. But if you have, want to give some insight, I think that that's fair. But you are muted, Catherine. Am I unmuted? Yes, now you're good, we can hear you. Just some historical perspective and also maybe an answer to some of Gail Cameron's, Commissioner Cameron's concerns and Commissioner Zaniga's concerns that I've witnessed personally and an answer as to why this issue has come up now, hard and fast, I guess is a good way to put it. In times past where the board raced at Suffolk and where there was a Finger Lakes program that was, that there was some certainty and finality that we could dictate, it was easier to put together a program and as you all recall, George Brown was the president and that gentleman would only ever have operated on an approval basis. He just, that's just the way he was. So it wasn't a legal thing, it was just the way George operated and why the issue has come now to the fore is because the pre-approval process is an inflexibility that is not a part of the actual industry and so the pre-approval is defeating the goals of the program. So Attorney Grossman listed the goals of the program. The racing secretaries of the external tracks have to write the card, they have to base it on their client populations which include mass breeders. So they will write the races that suit the population that's available at that time. If half go down from a virus, they're gonna write it for the other half and so by only allowing the races that have been pre-approved, it was chilling, it was really chilling the program and Commissioner Cameron, you caught some of that, you referenced it earlier, how people were unhappy and I know for a fact that some of that was due to the fact that the racing secretary on the ground had to change the card at the last minute to accommodate the population. So we've now sort of painted ourselves in a corner which is unfortunate and I'm sorry that everybody's, it really is a weighty legal issue and I'm glad you guys put the, everyone put the legal effort and thought into really looking at this issue because everybody has the same goal in mind which is to allow the program to grow and to support the program. So from that point alone, operating it in the manner suggested by Attorney Grossman, I think fulfills both the statutory obligations and also the fiduciary obligations. Thank you, Kathleen. Any questions for Kathleen, Ms. Reagan, Attorney Reagan? Thank you. So, Karen, I look to you for guidance. I just wanted to assure the commission that Todd had my support as far as his legal analysis because he had gone through this in a very, very detailed manner and drafted it and been reviewed and it is a sound judgment on his part. A lot of work and effort was put into that so I just wanna make sure that the commission so this was not some kind of off-handed, oh, I think you maybe should do this, that he really did a good job in putting this together with some really sound legal reasoning so I'm gonna make sure that that's communicated that the process in coming to that recommendation to the commission was substantiated with a lot of support and legal analysis there so I just wanted to make sure that was out there for your consideration when you're figuring this issue because it ultimately does come down to right now, do you have to make this decision? Is there a mandate for you to do that and your general counsel did give you an opinion on that? You know, I'm persuaded by the last set of comments especially from Commissioner O'Brien to look at this narrow and that is only on the notion of the authorization of the pre-approval. I see for the reasons that I've talked about already relative to being the trustees of the funds that we do have authority over making sure that the funds go to the purposes that the statute intended and that it is unclear enough that that authority needs to be exercised with anticipation or in a pre-approval basis to move on from today. But I still believe that we has simply as for reasons of past practice but also being the trustees of the fund and a lot of other authority that I see in very relevant adjoining chapters that we do have the obligation not just the authority to ensure that the funds are being spent the way the statute intended. And by the way, Ms. Reagan and Mr. Cesar, I don't suggest by any of these that it was gonna be misspent or that there was some kind of dubious motives here. I was just rejecting the fundamental notion that we have no authority. If it is just very narrow relative to the pre-approval, there's enough question as has been articulated here today for me to go along with that. Commissioner Zuniga, if I suggest to do- Thank you, sir. Yeah, thank you. I just wanna interrupt in terms of the authority. I wanna make sure I understand what you're saying because I think from the start I talked about just the authority on the narrow grounds. And so are we saying what Commissioner O'Brien said in terms of this statute as Mr. Grossman interpreted it, you're now saying that you're convinced that we don't have the authority with respect to the narrow question before us? That there was, yeah. And I wanna make sure I'm clear. Yeah, cause I wanna make sure I'm hearing- I was confounding the notion that we have no authority. I believe we do have authority. When it comes to the pre-approval of their plan, there's enough question, enough undetermined notion for all the reasons that have been articulated here for me to go along with that. I did not relinquish the notion that we have authority at all. Of course not. Your oversight of this. I'm wondering if it's a question of semantics in terms of phrasing the question. So rather than a question of do we have authority, it is, does the Breeders Association, are they statutorily obligated to come get pre-approval? And I think we phrase it that way. I don't know that there's unanimity, but I do think there might be a majority conclusion based on the discussion. Commissioner O'Brien, are you suggesting that we implement this regulatory oversight at other junctures in the process? Yes. Meaning if we find there's something, whatever that may be. I don't want to use a hypothetical because I don't want to presume that the Breeders would in fact attempt to do anything that we didn't think was proper because I don't believe that's the case. But I just, so you're saying we should monitor the, first of all, we should look at a plan and make sure, I mean, Dr. Leipam is the expert. She's been doing this for longer than any of us, obviously. I guess I'd like to hear from Dr. Leipam what she thinks she would need in order to feel comfortable moving forward in this direction. Let you all know that we did ask them, the Breeders group for a request. It was brought up at our meeting with Kevin Considine and Anthony Zezza and Todd and I. And it was the idea was that it would probably be a meeting where there would be a question of two items. One, sort of the authority question and then two, what they were actually asking for. And as you know, we got kind of a broad description of what they're asking for. And getting back to what some of the frustration with some of the horsemen in the past has been is that they didn't know what the races were going to be. And so, you know, you can't have it both ways that we need to race tomorrow, but we can't tell you what our races are gonna be. Yeah, you know, so in the past, they were able to, as the commissioners were here before, no, they would actually give us, you know, three or four races with, and it wasn't always an exact purse. Sometimes it was given as a, you know, a range of what the purses might be. And again, we just asked for the races that were gonna be in the spring. Obviously they raced at Suffolk in the summer and then what was in the fall. So we weren't asking for something before the entire year, because obviously something might change in six months, you know, there were some changes made along the way, depending on, you know, what the horse populations were and all, and that was ever really an issue. Right now, I have the document that they sent during the break about Belterra, but I have not looked into that race track at all. So I don't have any information about, you know, safety records or anything like that. The Canada thing, you know, it's in the packet that a letter from their racing that even though they aren't part of the NTR approval, they do have a good safety record. I was just concerned that at the time they were talking about Canada, that was the only place they were talking about. And also it raised some questions in my mind that if the only place the mass spreads could find to race was out of the country, but how that reflected on the program. So I had some concerns about that. And again, as commissioner Cameron knows, we met with the mass breeders way back in January and expressed our support. We said we want the program to be successful and we wanna, you know, kind of put our thinking caps on and think of ways that might encourage breeding. Right now there's not a lot of breeding going on. And we had talked about, you know, maybe putting some of the money aside and saying that that was going to guarantee that that purse money would be available next year and maybe next year. Because as the breeders have expressed to us with the uncertainty and having to wait several years before you actually get that horse that you're breeding at their fold to the races, there is uncertainty. So we're trying to figure out ways around that too to help the program. Right, that's really a good reminder. In fact, it reminded me that that actually it was at that point that Todd started to look carefully at the underlying law and the statute. With that said, you have the background that was a reminder. Of course, in January, we're in a very different world right now. Commissioner O'Brien started to reframe the issue and what I thought was very helpful, perhaps we could go back to that. Because maybe Commissioner Zuniga, when you heard me say our authority or authorization, maybe you heard it meant broadly. I never meant that question to be broadly. It was really with respect to the question before us that Mr. Grossman addressed, but maybe it needs to be reframed in a way that like the next question would be after a few, Eileen, if you could say what you thought initially, and then I just would like to interject one other question. Keep us moving forward. I'm just trying to pull up the agenda. Just say it was. The agenda says. It all says it's Massachusetts Thurberty's Association request to race outside of Massachusetts. And then it got into our discussion about authority in terms of that, that was the potential vote listed. If the vote is whether we are determining or ruling as a body right now, where we're gonna vote on whether we think the Massachusetts Thurberty Regist Association is statutorily obligated to seek pre-approval before racing outside Massachusetts. Is that an accurate summary of what the vote is really about today? Right, does it have to seek pre-approval? Then I heard Commissioner Cameron say, well, then they'll present a plan. I think the threshold question is, do they, maybe we say, do they have to present a plan and get approval? I mean, I guess I'm wondering, I think I'm hearing from the association that they don't feel that they have an obligation to come to us other than consultation and get approval. And so I think I'm hearing from Gail say, well, the consultation hasn't been addressed because they didn't come with a plan today. Am I getting close? Are we getting close? I would argue that there's a lot of consultation that has already happened here. I think, you know, perhaps more than before. They're not commissioners, everybody, thank you. I'm sorry, Commissioner Zuniga. Yeah, I know there's quite a bit of consultation. I mean, what Commissioner Cameron says about the details, what Alex says about, the balance between being nimble in this set of circumstances and giving people as many people as possible, even enough notice so that they can make plans and have a shot at those versus is critical and is what is being conveyed at this point. So again, Commissioner O'Brien, if you just want to reframe what you said, I'm wondering if we can take action if we're not in a place to take action. If this were a motion, the language would be maybe reframed to say, and I'll write it down this time. It would be as a matter of statutory interpretation. And I'm doing this as a question, not a motion. No, no, this is just a, yeah. Just a matter of statutory interpretation is the commission finds that the Massachusetts Red Readers Association must seek approval from the commission before everything outside Massachusetts. Oh, by just a lot of your audio a bit. Must seek commission approval prior to racing outside the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Does that help frame the question? And then if we frame it as a question, if everyone's comfortable, Todd, your answer to that question, if I'm guessing right, would be? No. No. And I think that's important. I agree wholeheartedly with the way the motion is framed. I have never meant to suggest, and I tried to be very careful not to suggest that the commission has no authority over this subject matter. It was solely whether there is a requirement that the breeders come for approval prior to expanding these funds outside the Commonwealth. And that's what the motion is, as I understand. Okay. And that's not to say that our definition, maybe a mutual understanding of consultation is probably it sounds like a work in progress. Well, don't we want to come away? Yeah, I just wanna make sure we're coming away with something that makes sense to all of us and we're comfortable with from the standpoint that we regulate racing. And I'm not sure I'm hearing that yet. If we answer that one narrow question, I understand. Fine, but then what are we talking about as far as moving forward? I do believe, you know, Dr. Ziza when he says that he's happy to give us as much information as we like. I guess the fact that we didn't have that and I heard why to some extent, but not really, why we haven't received more. For example, it would have been nice to see something from Ohio, a letter from their race secretary or someone in charge of the track, time to really make sure what Ohio does is in keeping with how we want forces to be treated and just a little comfort level here that we don't have because we didn't have a thorough package to take a look at. So Alex just gave me a little bit more about what she'd be comfortable with. So I just wanna have an understanding of what we're talking about here moving forward. Well, maybe in my mind, and I believe this addresses your concern, if we all agree that the thoroughbred readers did not need pre-approval for the conducting races outside of the Commonwealth, that in my mind what follows, which would be predicated on getting that comfort level that you speak about, commissioner, would be the authorization of the actual disbursement whenever it comes down to that. There's enough time between now and whenever we need to disburse those monies. For us to get updates or the more specific plans or whatever it may be, for us to effectuate that payment, which I would argue, we do have authority over the disbursement of the payments. So before a payment is made, Dr. Lightbaum would have to assure us that everything has been followed according to the right procedures. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, that there would be the details that we normally get prior to the season that we get some comfort level that people were advised with enough time as possible because again, these are the most of unusual circumstances. And that the program reached as many readers as possible. Dr. Lightbaum, are you comfortable with moving ahead in their fashion? Well, I'm not saying that there would be something that I wouldn't disagree with, but I'm wondering if the way this is set up is that they may have already, if we're not doing any pre-approval, then the races would have already been raced and people would have gotten their purse money and then we're going to say, I guess I'm not sure how that works. So Commissioner Zuniga, if you could explain, I think that the purse money would already be available and they would have gotten it, correct? But I think, so in other words, there are going to be additional steps that need to be taken in order for them to actually obtain the purse money in timely fashion so they could run a race. Yeah, I'm sorry to say that I don't know the exact details of the timing, the precise timing. I know that because I sign off on these payments that we make a number of disbursements on a regular basis to the horse racing industry, the thoroughbreds, whether they actually float the money first and then they get reimbursed or whether they submit their request and we fund the money so that they can pay the purses. Maybe Agnes can help me on this, but I'm not entirely sure of that. Just a second, so can I just refrain the question? If we, in the past, we approved at the Finger Lakes because we assumed that our approval was needed. Today, that has come up in question. Now, do you remember, did we then say to them but that approval requires you to approve A, B, C, D, E, F, G and then the disbursement? It did not require that. No, no, no. Commissioner Zuniga just was running on payment. There were no additional requirements to release the money and then it'll go to Commissioner Cameron. He was shaking and said, no, no, okay. Well, there's always, you know, they're both the consultation with Finance and Dr. Lightbaum that, you know, we got the pre-approval, that's great. How is it going? It's functioning as planned, make the payment. I see. Thank you for the help of Commissioner Cameron. You know, just the fact that we did have all the information, we had the comfort level that yes, this is something we should approve because, you know, of the following reasons and they, you know, we really, Dr. Lightbaum advised the commission. Yes, this is, you know, a track that has a, you know, a safety record where they're being accredited. All of the things that we used, it was a pretty detailed plan, as I remember from the last several years and it wasn't about the dates, by the way. If you ran on a Thursday or a Friday, if you ran on the 17th or the 21st, it was really about the plan that we got to look at and had a comfort level that we are utilizing the state's monies in a way that makes sense and promotes the aspects of the legislation. It's trying to do the things in accomplishment in a fair way that protected the horses, that protected the employees. So we saw all that. Dr. Lightbaum, you may wanna just add. I also wanna honor, I know this is out of order but I do wanna let Ms. Rivendell that I see her phrase. I wanna go to commissioner Lightbaum. Normally in our public meetings, we don't have, you know, the public just be able to participate because of the nature of the rules, so for the open meeting law. I wanna make sure everyone is heard today. So Ms. Reardon, I do see you. I'm gonna have Dr. Lightbaum speak. I'm gonna have my fellow commissioners chime in to her remarks and then I'll have you speak. Thank you very much. Okay, Alex. So I guess I'm wondering if this means that we would be, there would be some type of approval process after the races had already been raised. That's my concern. And I guess I wonder the follow-up question would be, and where is the authority for that process, you know, approval of what the races are to look from, except from, I guess, what I'm hearing can say, well, we're the regulator. So therefore, you know, typically we do look to something. We don't just say, well, we regulate everything and we have our regulations, we have our guidelines, we have statutory authority and I'm just looking to see what would be the process that would follow because again, you know, Derek would also have to have that. We can't impose conditions unfairly. Do you ever have? No, no, no, I don't mean, I'm not a judgment on us, Commissioner Cameron. That's not a judgment on us. Unfairly meaning without authority. You know, just, and I guess I wanna make sure the construct that we're imagining now as, you know, as Alex says, is where would we be, what would be the genesis of that, you know, our ability, the legal ability for us to impose conditions or authorizations. So I'm just. Well, maybe I'm just stating the obvious here, but, you know, to get a comfort level that the monies are going or went for the purposes of the program. And I know that's too broad. No, no, that might be something. It's really, you know, this is where the fiduciary notion of being the trustees would lie. So for instance, if they went ahead to Ohio and they ran their races and we didn't hear that they used the funds abusively for something else, I mean, but they had to have the funds to begin with. That's the thing, right? Alex, that's the, they'll already have gotten the funds. But of course, if they, we found out that they abused it, there would be repercussions because then we would have released them. I would be more comfortable if we, you know, I'm believing Ms. Attorney Reardon and I'm sorry, Regan and Dr. Zeeza that they don't have any problem consulting with Alex about their plans. So I would love to see that work done in advance of any racing and for Dr. Leipam to come back to us and say the plans look sound and you know, they're going to race here. I would just love to see that, which we've always had by the way, since we took over racing, we've always had those conversations and come to a consensus. And now we're getting into the strict authority and I think that's taking us away from where we wanna be here, which is just a comfort level that in these unique circumstances, we wanna be helpful as the regulator, but we wanna make sure things are being done properly. That's all, that's why if there's an agreement that the breeders don't have a problem and doing that ahead of time, I would have a level of comfort moving in this direction. May I answer that? We would be happy to do that. We've been talking with Alex for the last four months on multiple plans, not details on races specifically. That's the one piece we did not get into, but we got all of the safety data, we got all of the requests that Alex wanted and that was for Fort Erie, we'll get it for Belterra as well, but we've been in communicating for the past four months actually, very, very intently. So be happy to circle back with Alex's ASAP as soon as she's available. We'll get all the information that we need as well from Belterra and our plan moving forward and get that to you ASAP. Thank you, because that's really was my pleasure. There would be no reason for us to have to reconvene for any kind of a vote. Well, I forgive me to be overly precise here, but at some point in the future, whenever it comes time to making the disbursement, whether that's happening right before or right after the race, the races, I would suggest that we, whether it's Alex or Derek, will come before the commission to seek that authorization because I think that's an authority that we do have as trustees. Could be as early as the next meeting of the commission. And I would even add to that, I think to the point Dr. Zeeza raises about providing us information in a timely fashion, I think this commission can be just as nimble. We can post a meeting in 48 hours and take the necessary steps, so not to hold them back. I just want to make sure that both the MTBA and us, we have each other's backs through this process. I appreciate that. I just want to be responsible for the money. Absolutely, much appreciated. Mr. McBride, do you have any comments? Just a little flummox, because I feel like there may have been sort of a practical consensus agreement, but in terms of what we actually were on for the agenda and the question before us, I like the fact that there's consensus and that there's cooperation. I just don't know that it answers a question that was on the agenda. Other than I think a lot of what's being asked for that I want as well seems to fall into possibly the definition of consultation with the chair and or that the consequences- Could you just repeat, because I couldn't quite hear that part. Whether some of the consultation with us is really statutorily obligated in terms of consultation with you as chair, your role, the racing commission that statutory obligated, they have an obligation to do and is the consequence to failing to comply prospective in terms of they don't need to come seek pre-approval, but of course, the more they do it, the clearer they do it, the more definitively they do it and cooperate, the less likely there is to be a consensus in the future in terms of the decision of the split and the disbursement of money. That's kind of where I was thinking of it and I think it gets everybody's goal the same. Now the conundrum here is there seems to be a level of disappointment being expressed by commissioner Cameron and Dr. Lightbound in terms of the level of detail, which to me sits more in terms of consultation perhaps and sharing information with us when you are due diligence at a fiduciary capacity. It doesn't answer the legal question and so if we're pulling that off the agenda, it sounds like we have reached a solution in the short term. Yeah, I am with commissioner Brian on that assessment. What I don't want is this solution to be a precedent. This is not, from my perspective, does not resolve the legal question that came to us in good faith, the requesting parties. And I think we always must really think about are we operating according to the law? And just because we're a regulator, it doesn't mean that we can regulate outside of our powers. We have an obligation to be fair and operate within the construct of the law statute. And today I heard from our general counsel that said very clear analysis, not everybody agreed. And I think what we had is, there was very communications going on. And I see that very, very practically, there was a solution from the Thoroughbred Association because they want to erase. I don't want it to be a precedent that we always have done this. I don't agree with the process today. I felt that they came, they consulted, they met the burden of the statute. And I agreed with our general counsel's analysis. And I know that I didn't necessarily have everybody's support on that analysis, but I do, Todd, you have my support on it. And I know it's an agreement with the legal analysis out of the other side, but it did not resolve the matter that was before us. And when it comes to the next time that they want to erase outside of Massachusetts, I really would hope that we have resolved this so that it's not like, well, they've always come and given us the guidance because I don't think they have an affirmative obligation to do that. And again, unless somebody can point out to me something outside of the statutory analysis before us because it is complicated law. And if there was something as outlier that says, other than, of course, I'm hearing commissioners in again. We do have fiduciary duties on how we dispense with it. We don't have discretion though. It's not like how we judge it, it's by law. So even, you know, I just think we have to be careful how we assert our authority. And that's my opinion and my vote would have been today to let them go forward if we had been asked, but it looks like there's a practical solution. And I just don't want it to be a binding. I don't want it, this is not binding practice. Well, it clearly hasn't. I mean, we've authorized them before and if we don't now it's not the president doesn't carry over. No, I mean that this is not the practice of us having to review their plans and that's becoming an interpretation of what consultation is and approve the plans. I know that I have others on my fellow commissioners who don't agree with me on that or may agree and may not, I don't know. But I just know that I don't interpret the guidance that we've been given that Mr. Gressman's given and also my own reading of the statute, might be the consultation that Todd gave me. I just don't see, I wouldn't, I just don't, it's not my nature to impose authority unfairly. And I think if we say, well, you have to, so that consultation means we have to approve the plan. I think that is outside of what the statute demands of that. That's how, and to get together. I think there's a clear, there's an emerging consensus of that. I'm still a little hung up on who approves the payment. No, no, no, I'm not hung up, I don't know. Maybe we could have a vote that they could proceed right now and they could be assured of the purse money. I don't, you know, I'm not hung up on the purse money. I didn't have any problems with it because I think the statute would make it a completely valid, a valid address. So then why would we have a vote then? Well, that was my point. We're not gonna come back and Mr. Stevens, Commissioner Stevens just said, well, we'll come back, we're nimble, we can come back in 48 hours. And I just don't think we need to do, take any further action. I think it's, I'm suggesting that Alex is gonna hear from them. But what if Alex doesn't like what she hears, in other words? So I do like the idea of. That's where we're disagreeing. Yes, we are, we are. That's exactly the point. And to be honest, that's why we're here in the first place is because this is the first time that I didn't necessarily agree with what they had brought forward. Right, you would express concern about Canada and then that's how the question. That's how the question about whether or not we actually could. Right. And there are still many unanswered questions about Canada. So I, listen, I would be, again, I'll say it again. I'm not, I think it's important that we have a consensus on how to move forward. And if it's not an exact approval, then it is, it is a consultation with Director Lightbaum. She's comfortable that we're, you know, we are providing monies for something that is safe and we still have those regulatory responsibilities even though they're out of state to make sure that the money is being spent in accordance with the law. So I am not comfortable just saying, okay, we don't have the authority, go do what you want. I'm just not. It's not exactly what we're saying now. It's more like you don't need to come get pre-approval, but the reality is, if it is not compliant, there is a consequence on the other end in the terms of our producer review as trustee. Now, we may have to rethink what that means and how that gets effectuated, but I do think that them understanding that, and I think they do, means that there is a compliance. It's just that it's probably gonna look a little different and it's looked up to this point. I think this is sort of a time-sensitive and heated topic because of the manner in which it arrived and it's changing practice. I share the concerns, but I don't know how you, you know, send your horse up to Canada and just remotely hire someone to be a trainer and a jockey and cross your fingers and help for the best. I don't personally feel comfortable with that, but I'm also looking at the statutory framework and I think it needs to be cleaned up because we do have this obligation and yet restrictions on our authority that don't exist in the other areas of our statutory. Well, I think we're all in agreement that we wanna make sure it's done safely and expended consistent with the statute, but when you parse out how we do that, I think there was, you know, a gentle person's agreement up to this point to do it in a certain way that when we get to a point about, well, it's like you just said, we're not really in agreement, the devil's in the details. And so now is where do you go from here to make sure everyone is going with safely and in compliance with the statute? Great. And I guess I would hope that that happens before there are races. There's a consensus rather than after the fact. Right, right. In an ideal world, yes, I agree with you. Oh, I say no problem. I say no problem with that. We will work diligently to get all of that information to you. We would like to let our members know what the plan is, particularly for those first two races. So because everyone is very, they have horses that are ready and we want them to know that they'll have the opportunity, but we'll get all that information to you before then. Thank you. Madam Sheriff, if the question is narrowed even further to the extent that, and now it may be you and Commissioner Cameron are not ready to vote effectively on this, but if the question in terms of that request that was just raised is narrowly phrased in such a way that the commission feels that they have allied with their statutory obligations in front of the commission, any prerequisites that may exist, then they could go forward with those two races. It does not vote on expending funds. It does not speak to the statutory authority. It simply confirms that we are agreeing that they've complied with what they need to to this point. You're talking about approving that today. Is that right? That they've complied with what they need to? I'm talking about what the vote is on today because the vote's either going to be, is there statutory authority or not? And if the answer is no by a majority, then there is this agreement that they will continue to talk with you and Alex in terms of what this looks like, but consequences really would come in sort of the next wave of review in terms of the split, the split, the dispersions that would come in the future. So in other words, to give them assurance to move forward without having to come back, but I understand in good faith, they're going to consult further with Alex on guidelines. Right. Sometimes that. Yeah, I know that Alex doesn't, to this point does not have any information on Ohio. There is some limited information with Canada, but nothing with Ohio. So that would be important to me to receive that information and for Dr. Leipholm to be able to take a look at that and come to a consensus that that's appropriate. You have our word. We will do it. Yeah, it looks like you wanted to say something else, Gail. No, I'm fine. I think I just froze for a second. Let's screw it up. Oh, okay. Mr. O'Brien, do you want to make a motion and we'll see who's doing it. Did we want to hear from Ms. Reardon or no? Ms. Reardon. No, it's Ms. Reardon. Sorry, Ms. Reardon. Sorry. How do I get though? Yeah, we can hear you now, Ms. Reardon. Yes. I'd like to just make a comment as an owner of a mass spread. First of all, they've known about going to Canada for months and months. I even sent a temporary book, condition book into the gaming commission when they were scheduling two races. And then the permanent book I sent in and that was done, I think the temporary was figured over two months ago when the permanent was a month ago. So they've known about these a long time ago even though the board long time ago said do not schedule any races without the sanction of the gaming commission. Also, I will not hand my horse over to anybody on the Canadian border. I have a two-year-old which they have not had two-year-old races for years now. And I wanna see it come back to an area where there's more people that can race in these. Two thirds of the mass spreads are owned by board members. The other third have other horses as I do from other states. And we don't have, we aren't going to go further and further away to race these horses even though Delaware last year said they'd have races and they didn't, they wouldn't let them show up. Mountaineers expressed interest in having a mass spread races this year. And I think the board needs to look into that also. I'm also concerned about giving up any oversight by this board. They've been very, very astute and cautious about what goes on with this money. And it needs to remain that way. They do not need to come under any criticism from the legislature saying that they just handed money out and it was up to them, somebody else to manage it. When this board has not even put one article out on their Facebook or their webpage about the intentions. They've known for months and months that Finger Lakes do not want them to race there anymore. And no consensus has been made with the membership. Nobody has talked to the membership and there aren't many of us left. So I think we need to do is have this board, this commission, maintain as they always have a fairness. And if you give the money out or give it right to them, they talk about giving Alex details. Well, what is the going to be the consequences if they go ahead and do anything that they wanna do whether it's ship horses over Canadian border or not? Why have the races further and further away from one third of the people that own mass spreads? It needs to be evaluated plus this position you're taking right now and wanna vote on, that was not on the agenda. It was racing outside of Massachusetts. There was nothing mentioned about who should be controlling the money. That needs to be posted and comments must be put in. I can tell you from the people I know that our mass spread owners that aren't on the board that we don't want to relinquish the oversight of the mass gaming commission. We're very happy with things that they've done. A lot of things have not been resolved and the commissioners know that but at least it's been brought to the attention. So now I would like to not have this vote taken at all. It needs to be discussed and comments made. And as far as the a rock and a hard place getting races going, that was not the commission's fault. That should not be put in a position that they assume responsibility if they don't take that vote today. It's something that they've, the mass breeders have known for months. And I don't know why I would as like this commission to put on a group to call the different race tracks on the Eastern Seaboard to see if any of them are interested into it. Where's the letters of rejection from all these other tracks? And if they go into Ohio, why do they need to go to Canada? There's a lot of unanswered questions here. And to rush this would be a travesty. We're on very, very as all the commissioners know, fragile ground with the breeding program because the way it's been run. We cannot afford to have anything go through the cracks right now. And as I've talked to my legislators, they're waiting to see what this happens with the Canadian thing. They're not far this at all. So let's take some time and see exactly what's going on there because there's been months this could have been brought out, discussed and moved forward. And that's what I have to say. Thank you, Ms. Reardon. I appreciate your time. Appreciate it. Okay, further comments on this matter. Question before us, let's make sure Ms. Reardon didn't make a point that's different. I wanna make sure that I understood of the matter on the agenda, Todd. It says, Thurba Breeder Association request to race outside of Massachusetts. That's it. That's right. And so the question was, then the question rose as to whether or not we have an affirmative obligation to vote on it. Right, I think it's related. Is there any question around the finance piece there? Well, only Ms. Reardon brought it up and this is what I've been saying. I think our position of being the trustees of the fund give us the authority and oversight over the funds. I think what we are reaching, what I thought we were reaching some kind of consensus was whether the question of pre-approval was narrow enough to allow us to essentially straddle both. No, you've complied with whatever consultation is required prior to, which is the last that Commissioner Ryan was mentioning, but we still have the authority and obligation to make sure that the funds are expended in the manner that the statute intended. We're not advocating that role. I don't think we've ever advocated that or was on the table. And I think Ms. Reardon's comments, she suggested that we were doing that with this motion, but I don't think that's what we're doing. No. Okay. She made her comments, may have also come to answer some of the questions as to why historically it's functioned the way that it has. If the Board, Third British Association Board made an internal procedural determination to come to us first, where they then went and raced, that may explain some of the historic nature of why they were before us, but it doesn't bear on the legal statutory question of whether they were obligated as a matter of law to do that. So there's two options I think. We could not take a formal vote because we could say they may proceed without any formal vote, but I believe it might warrant some clarity with respect to the whether or not we, whether or not they have an affirmative obligation for preapproval. So given the amount of time that was invested in this discussion and it might warrant some clarity through a motion, we understand that I don't know what the vote will be, but we understand that the association is going to be working in consultation with Dr. Lightdown, which I fully appreciate. Would we like to memorialize this through a proper vote? Well, let me suggest that again, because there's so much discussion that we do memorialize it with a vote because it may appear that there's not 100% consensus. I think that there's enough discussion around the topic and the agenda that I think we're complying with the notice, especially if we take the narrow question that has been brought up as of late. Well, I think it's fair then. If somebody would like to make a motion, we can entertain it and go forward with the process of additional comments. If there's no motion made, that will answer that question. No motion? All right, let me reset, Commissioner? As best I can summarize it, and it may be that we don't, it's in the left stain, I don't know, but based on the agenda item, Chair, I move that the commission find that under General Law Chapter 128, Section 2D, the Massachusetts Thurbet Breeders Association is not statutorily required to seek pre-approval related to scheduling, racing outside the Commonwealth. I second that. I don't know, Scott, if you wanna think about that and tell me whether I've aired it all and summarizing that. No, well, I think just to be clear, that if we're talking about just scheduling that leaves open the idea that the payment is not directly being authorized, but I certainly think it's consistent with the public meeting notice, if there's any question about that. But I think that, you know, the motion captures the discussion. So, Anne, Anne, your opinion, correct, Todd? I think that's what really she was addressing. Can I make a friendly, and I know I don't normally move, but this is a comment, but you may wanna make a friendly amendment. Would we like to add a comma and say subject to the statutory consultation, you know, and include that and an encouragement, encourage guidance from the racing director, something like that, prior, would we like to do that? Even if it's not statutorily mandated, encourage it. Would you like something to add the comfort level? Particularly, I'm thinking of commissioners, members and commissioners Devons. You could say, find that general on chapter 128, section 2D. G. G. The Massachusetts third degree of association is not statutorily obligated to seek free approval from the MGC subject to compliance with other statutory obligations. And the commission encourages further consultation with the director of racing for the MGC. So long as the original part of the motion about racing outside of Massachusetts remains, because that was what one of the pieces that makes it known. That's the narrow piece. So what that motion says is you don't necessarily, you don't, not that you don't necessarily, you don't have to have our, but we encourage consultation with the racing director. Is that what we're saying? Well, the statute requires consultation with the chair of the racing commission. So I think that that's taken care of in the middle class. But there's no statutory requirement around consultation with the racing director, but given today's discussion, I think that I'm hearing from a practical level and a desire to be cooperative that we all acknowledge that we would love to encourage that kind of interaction. I guess I'm still, well, it's okay. I'm still struggling with the... Because I don't see that statutory required, Gail, but I know it's also... I hear you. I hear you. So with those amendments, do we have a second? Yeah, I'll second as amended. Any further discussion? Okay, roll call vote. Mr. Cameron. I'm gonna vote no. Commissioner O'Brien. Oh, excuse me. Hi. My name is Commissioner Zuniga. Hi. Mr. Stephens. Hi. And I vote yes. So that's for one. Thank you. All right, that was a very enlightening exercise for me because I don't know the history. I also don't know all of the members of the community. I'm very appreciative of everyone chiming in and hanging in there today, Gail, or 15. And I know the meeting's been extraordinarily long. So to those who came from outside, thank you so much for your participation and for those who didn't participate. Thank you for listening. That does all the business of the meeting. I do have a commissioner's update, but I also wonder if any of my fellow commissioners have any updates? Commissioner Cameron, did I see? No, no updates. Thanks. Okay. Commissioner O'Brien. Not an update so much as a scheduling and agenda matter. Given the governor's ruling on phase three, it would seem that we still have an order that says that they, because, you know, the suspension will continue through at least June 1st, subject any further discussion. Now that we have finalized the rules that we wanted to put in place and the governor has, in fact, indicated a start date for that potentially, it would seem that we should be scheduling a meeting to formally amend that order from the end of May. They're planning on some, or do we have word that any are opening on Monday? I have not heard that. I did check with the licensees as far as anything that we could do. I believe that Wind Resorts, their Elm County and Boston Harbor Facility, is scheduled to open on the 12th. And I don't know if anything else is public. I see Bruce Vand. I just want to confirm, because I haven't gotten any word of anything that's public. So Bruce, just be clear. Wednesday, the 10th is the first one for PPC. The other two would be Friday. So Wednesday, the 10th is the first one for PPC. The other two would be Friday. So nothing on Monday, correct? Nothing on Monday. Wednesday is the eighth, though. Yes, Wednesday the eighth and the other two would be Friday. And Commissioner O'Brien, to your point, how about horse racing? Are they going to be doing a qualifying race on Monday? Yeah. That's fine. Just play out racing qualifiers on Monday. So we do need to move on that then. We need to move on that. Mr. Gressman. On number eight, as this serve for matters, the chair did not reasonably anticipate the time at the time of posted. The date, certain, we've always been very careful never to assume anything with respect to the governor's office and their decision around public health metrics. There was a possibility that it would be Monday. It turned out it was real last week. We thought it might be for the 29th. On horse racing, because we did confirm today that with our guidelines in place that we adopted today, they can proceed. The track will be ready and people will be properly trained to proceed with a qualifying race on Monday. Is it fair that I can say, it's not how I, it's not ideal to do our business this way because we always try to post in advance. But can I proceed under number eight with that or have us otherwise, we would have to reconvene over the weekend, which we could do. We've done that before and we would probably, we could notice it in less than 24 hours and convene to do a 24 hour notice. Maybe that's proper or 48 hour for a Sunday night. Well, tomorrow's Friday. So we could get in a 48 hour posting and do it on Sunday in advance. And then we'll be getting full notice. I just don't want to be not practical with respect to number eight. Yeah, I would say Madam Chair and commissioners, if ever there was a matter that the chair could not reasonably anticipate, this would fall into that category. There was really no way to know precisely what the order would be or when it would come out. So if the commissioners are comfortable with it, I certainly think this is the exact type of situation that you could make use of that provision of the open meeting law and the public notice provisions. The one thing I don't specifically recall, which everyone else makes exactly what the order was that we would be amending or addressing. I know, Commissioner O'Brien. I've been trying to find it. I know it was the last meeting, I think it prior to June 1st and the language was, I don't know if somebody can do a quick search. I think there was a press release with a specific verbiage on it that said that we were suspending it through at least June 1st, consistent with the governor's executive order related to the COVID-19 shutdowns. And so what we'd be doing today was putting up for a vote officially vacating our order that trapped the governor's timing. So it really is consistent with our order because it would be consistent with his and now our order says at least June 1st, we are well past that. And now really we don't even, I mean, consistent with, we couldn't, we have gotten away without even a formal, a formal vote, but I'm not comfortable with that because it would be aligned with Governor Baker's order which is now July 6th. I do think we need to vote because our order preceded anything he did. And so I think that's fair. And so we had an independent authority in basis to do it. We have been tracking him out of deference to obviously their expertise and they're calling shots in terms of timing, but I do think we need to vacate ours as well. I agree with that. How commissioners, I'll just do a quick roll call and get everybody's got check on this. Commissioner Cameron procedurally, would you prefer to have a, do you think that it falls comfortably under the authority of agenda eight? Again, we're nimble. We can reconvene as- I think it squarely falls under number eight that this is, we couldn't have anticipated this. Okay, excellent. I just am echoing exactly what Commissioner Stevens pointed out earlier. Commissioner Zunica? Yeah, I'm comfortable with that that falls under eight. I also would argue that it falls at least partially under the topic of raising, which we discussed earlier, relative to the measures and the reasons for the closures and the social distancing. So it is at least also part of that topic, one that we already approved and noted. And this is a corollary to that. Consistent with that. Bruce? Yeah, excuse me. I'm comfortable with taking it up on a number eight and just looking back, I think our meeting on May 14th might have been when we took action on that. Yeah. Do you see the language, Bruce, by chance? Just finding the agenda at this point. I'm looking for that too. What was the date, Bruce? I think it's our May 14th meeting. May 14th, okay. I'm looking it up right now. Commissioner Bryant, I really appreciate that catch. Thank you so much. And I believe there was a pressure. I believe Elaine Driscoll did do a short either. Was it a blog entry or a press release that captured the language also? I'm sure that Austin and Sarah are looking for it. When we're in our real room, we don't look at each other of our side by side. You ever all just sort of looking, waiting for some information. So here we are. Alex, good timing on getting our standards all done. Yeah. We'll have to do the Plain Ridge one also because we delayed their June 1 opening until further notice. Which one was that? The Plain Ridge, why racing? Yes, we do need to. That's right. Yeah. Because of the qualifying races. Yeah. Looks like Austin. Yeah. Austin's got the language, Madam Chair. I'm sorry. Oh, here it is. Yeah. It's too many screen. Unanimously to extend the temporary closure of the state's three casino properties until at least June 1st, given the current circumstances, impending forthcoming guidance from Governor Baker and the state's restarting It's just increasing my volume. Commissioner. Austin forwarded in the chat. It's in the chat function. Oh, thank you so much. The actual language if you want to. Oh, I see. Okay. There it is, Commissioner. Yeah. From Austin. Yeah, extending the temporary. Yeah, go right ahead, Eileen. You want to just repeat it one more time. Certainly. So this is the casinos only as to Alex's point. There was a separate vote. I think I'll leave on that as to the race track that on the May 14th, the commission voted unanimously to extend the temporary closure of the state's three casino properties until at least June 1st, given the current circumstances and pending any further guidance from Governor Baker and the state's restart advisory board. So we would be moving to vacate or amend that. And this is relevant. We had a later discussion and vote that it for racing that essentially mirror the starts and closures of the casino. So we, but it wasn't in May on May 14. We came at a later meeting. Maybe the next one. Yeah. Oh, here it is here. Yeah, yeah. We voted right before on the racing. Yeah. Yeah, until further notice until remember is the until further notice. So, right. So thank you, Alex, for reminding us of that. So can we move in one or should we probably address them separately? I think probably it would be cleanest. Do it separately. Yeah. You agree on Bruce? Yes. Sure. Thank you. Assuming everyone is comfortable moving to vacate as opposed to amend anything. I think that works. Yes. Do we have to refer to, or do we? No, I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't any. So there's been a suspension. So we're lifting the suspension rather. I was going to phrase it as vacating the order, suspending the activities. Okay, perfect. Yeah. If you can start, if you want me to start with racing. Yes, please. Madam chair, I move that the commission vacate the order from May 7th, 2020. That postponed the June 1, 2020 start date until further notice given the finalization and adoption of the horse racing protocols today and the governor's announcement of the phase 3 reopening effect of July 6th. Second. I'll turn to our council. Any questions or concerns on that first, Mr. Grossman? No concerns. If we're confident that that is the order, then that's an excellent motion. We may consider including just or any other outstanding order bearing on the issue that is hereby rescinded. And we should probably also say and subject to the COVID protocols for the racetrack that were approved today. That's right. I'm confident about that. That was the motion, don't you? Yes. That was part of the motion. So rather because I'm afraid of always some unforeseen consequence because that we've done other orders, for instance, of the adoption of today's rule. So could we repeat? I'm sorry. Certainly, Madam Chair, I move that the commission vacate the order of May 7th, 2020 postponing horse racing at Flamridge from June 1, 2020 until further notice subject to the COVID-19 protocols that were passed this date by the gaming commission. Effective July 6, 2020. Right. Effective July 6. Yes. I second that. Any further questions or comments on that? OK, Commissioner Cameron? Aye. Commissioner Zaniga? You're new. Commissioner Zaniga? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Brien, I'm sorry. Aye. Commissioner Stevens? Aye. And I vote yes, 5-0. And now we'll move again our motion with respect to our gaming establishments. Yes. Madam Chair, I move that the commission vacate the order of May 14, 2020 in which the commission unanimously voted to temporarily suspend the operations at the state's three gaming facilities subject to the protocols enacted previously by this commission for the COVID-19 protocols and effective July 6, 2020. Second. Any further comments or questions on that? All right. Commissioner Cameron? Aye. Commissioner Zaniga? Aye. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Stevens? Aye. And I vote yes, 5-0. It's a good thing this meeting lasted this late. We might have had to have a weekend meeting. So that worked out well. Now if we could just go back to commissioners update. Anything further? Thank you so much, Commissioner O'Brien. Anything further? So I just have a couple of items. First, just again a reminder for anyone who didn't hear earlier that the governor has delegated the responsibility for the standards to the gaming commission. Thank you to the good work and the thorough work of this team for casino, racing, and simulcasting. That means that our licensees may open with confidence that they need to only comply with our standards. There will be no further industry-specific standards coming from the governor's office. And I believe that if it hasn't been posted, it is going to be posted today publicly. I believe the government may have already done so. So we are very appreciative of all the work the team did. And I suspect that our colleagues out of the governor's office and the Department of Public Health appreciate the thoroughness of the guidelines that this team put together and all the work of my fellow commissioners. So thank you. Second thing I wanted to know, it's late in the day. I'm sure the media folks are long gone if they weren't joining us today at all. But we do have a member of the team who is here now that Elaine Driscoe has left to pursue her degree at Harvard. As announced last week, we have our new colleague, Sarah Magazine. She's already been working away. There was a two-week overlap, as you know. And today is now her fourth day with working directly solely with Austin. She is, of course, already recognizes how fortunate she is to have Austin as her colleague. And we appreciate all the work of that new team. I want to just mention that Sarah Magazine comes with an incredible amount of experience. We're very fortunate that it worked out that she could take this position in interim status. Most recently, for 13 years, she was with Mentor Network, a very large private organization. And her most recent title was Vice President of External Affairs. Before that, she was the Director of Communication for Barbara Lee's Family Foundation. And I have the good fortune of working with Sarah when she was the Deputy Press Secretary for Governor Swift. A lot has happened since that role. All have gotten a little older. And she has had a couple of children. And it's very exciting to have her be part of this team. We welcome her. And I know many of you have already had the chance to meet her virtually. And I appreciate everyone continuing to do that, despite the fact that we have to do this from our homes. And of course, the media will know that they can reach Sarah and Austin. The other contact information is on the media page of our website. So welcome aboard, Sarah. And then finally, today is a big day. And I want my fellow commissioners to comment too. If horse racing is going to start on Monday, and that means there's going to be a lot of people who we are now fully regulating in this context of COVID-19, it is a huge responsibility and an enormous risk. And then the three casinos will be opening. And I just ask that all of our employees take all the measures that we've really pressed on so they stay safe. And then I really wish all the luck for our licensees to resume their business and if their employees are able to get back to work and really accomplish the intent of the legislature when they allow for expanded gaming. And then I hope that the patrons are able to have a really fulfilling re-engagement at the casinos. But I really am asking, and I know my fellow commissioners chime in with me, that everybody just take full responsibility to abide by the guidelines that we adopted, wear their masks, be good to each other, be empathetic, be good to each other. These security teams and staff there will be helpful. And we just ask that you exercise the empathy that we need so badly to make sure that this is successful and safe. So I wish Alex will, as she starts off on Monday and my entire team, and I wish the racers, the drivers, will and everybody at the qualifying races to be safe and the horses too. My fellow commissioners, excuse me, would you like to chime in? Yeah, I will. I think that's well put, Chair. I think this has been one of the most unusual periods in my life, let alone the life at the commission regulating this. But I think it's good. It's incumbent to look back at the arc of all of these. And that is one of recognizing an important milestone in moving forward with a lot of care and a lot of deliberation, which I believe we have done with the help of everybody and with the help of the public. We will continue in that direction. I think there's a real consensus in states like Massachusetts that taking the most basic of precautions and overlaying them can allow us to return to what is feeling a little bit like normal, even if it's not really normal, and continue to do our jobs and try to meet all the other obligations and goals of the gaming act. I know that everybody is very thoughtful that we deal with, not just our employees, but the licensees. And we'll continue to have the conversations because we have the systems in place in terms of the ability to conduct these meetings, the staff to carry on the work. I'm confident that we will do it with care and be successful in doing that. So the only other thing that I would say is welcome to Sarah and a happy fourth to everyone. Commissioner Cameron. Yep, happy fourth as well. Sarah, I look forward to working with you. Good points, Commissioner Zuniga, and please stay safe. I agree the chair made a good point that please stay safe. And if there's anything we can do to ease those reopening, the anticipation, the whatever emotions come with that, we have a lot of faith in all of you, very thoughtful plans. And if they're followed, we're all hoping for a successful opening. So good luck, everybody. Commissioner on Brian. Yeah, sorry, I've got a little ginger background. No, it's right now. I do. I want to echo what has been said, particularly about the work that went into the standards and the protocols that we put in place for horse racing for the gaming force. I think that the expertise on our staff was incredible. And we relied on it heavily. We relied on the expertise of the governor's office and the reopening board in terms of looking at their broader guidance. I am cautiously optimistic in terms of moving into something even more close to normal, even though it's not. But I have every confidence in the licensees in our employees that they will do exactly what they want and more to make sure that this is as safe as it can be as a reopening. But it is not without risk. And there is a huge part of it that is contingent on the patron compliance and mutual empathy and respect and compliance. And I hope that everyone does keep that in mind in terms of attending and enjoying themselves at the casinos. We will, of course, be ever vigilant if there is a need for us to come back and amend. But I think that this body, the people that work here in the licensees, has done a tremendous amount of work to put us in a position when the governor's made the decision that it's safe to enter this phase that we were in the best position we can be in. And I wish everyone a good, long, 4th of July weekend. Conscious step-ins. Not much more to add, but a big thanks to our team and to my colleagues. This has certainly been a unique experience, which Commissioner Zuniga pointed out and one we don't want to go through again. But a special thanks to our MGC team. And I would say we've had a great deal of cooperation and collaboration with our licensees. And we can't thank them enough. And we know the work they have ahead of them. As Commissioner O'Brien just touched on, this isn't going to lead to a safe reopening if we don't have the collaboration and cooperation of the patrons as well. All three of us need to be cooperating, abiding by guidelines, enjoying the experience. But now we need their collaboration to make this reopening safe and successful. I think we did our work. And when I say our, I'm looking at all the names of the team, the standards that have been adopted by this body are as strong as guidance that can be given in this very difficult circumstance. And I just wish Monday that all goes smoothly. And then the following reopenings will stay tuned. Karen, I believe we have a gender setting meeting then on next week, correct? Correct, correct. And Mary Ann has already sent the notes around for that. That's right. So we'll be looking forward to seeing how each, we'll have some time to watch the reopenings and monitor progress. As I pointed out, the guidelines, we are really hopeful that the public health conditions and the virus metrics trend in the right direction. And that when we revisit these conditions, we're revisiting to give some leniency and as opposed to having to in any way reverse. So let's cross our fingers, knock on wood. And again, thank everyone, the licensees, all of our employees and of course the patrons for their full cooperation. And with that, I guess I probably need a motion. I move to adjourn. Thank you, commissioner. Second. Thank you, commissioner. Any further comments or questions? Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Barrion. Aye. You shifted, you know, and that's why I'm struggling with you. Oh. Yeah, yeah, my spot. Thank you, everybody. And commissioner Stevens. Happy 4th of July, everybody. And I can I say the same. Enjoy the long weekend to all my fellow employees and let's reflect on what the 4th of July means. So, happy 4th. I vote yes. Thank you. Bye, Sarah.