 Okay. We are calling to order a public meeting 250 of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission on Tuesday, October 14th, 10 o'clock at our offices at 101 Federal Street. The first item on the agenda, as always, is the minutes. Mr. Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Enclosing your packet of the meeting minutes from July 26th, 2018, I move that the Commission adopt the meeting minutes subject to any immaterial corrections or grammatical changes. Second. Any comments? I had one that was pretty small, but on page three, it's talking about the – we had the conversation about whether and what to do for Region C. And in the paragraph that starts out to summarize – this is where Executive Director sort of summarized his take away from that conversation. It says over the next 30 to 45 days, it asks staff to focus on a response to the MG&E letter. And what it's written here is, and then think about the broader issues to consider. It was more specific than that. It was really to prepare topics that will follow in the broader discussion. And then he went on to list – I don't think you need to list them, but he mentioned such things as the market study, expressions of interest, public comments, and so forth. So I don't want us to wake up this time next month and be right in the same place. There's some prep work that's meant to be going on. So something like prepare the topic for topics that will follow in the broader discussion. Anybody else? With that amendment, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it unanimously. Next up is our administrative update from Executive Director Bedrosian. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. As you can imagine, we are just about 10 days out from MGM's opening. Staff is very focused on that, but there are one or two other issues I want to update you on, one being the pending review of wind resource suitability. So the Investigations Enforcement Bureau has reported to me that they are entering their final stage of their investigation. And as many of you have likely seen from recent media reports, wind resorts has announced the completion of their independent review by the board's special committee. We have repeatedly stated from the beginning that one of the four primary elements of the IB's review centers on an assessment of wind resorts and the board's response to the findings of its independent review. Investigators will now review and evaluate this additional information and expect to conclude their work by the end of this month. Once the IB's investigation is complete, we'll turn to our attention to commissioners' preparation and finalize the format and logistics required for the public presentation of the findings. So that's an update on the one thing beyond MGM. Great. I just want to, through you, Commissioner Director, to thank the IEB. I don't think anybody, I don't see anybody. Well, maybe some people here from the IEB, but we put a huge, complicated, nuanced, important task on them, even as we had a huge, complicated task of opening the MGM Resort, staffing up dozens of people and so on and so forth, and that they've been able to do this. I trust with their standard professionalism and to do it on schedule, even as we're on schedule and ready to open MGM. I just wanted to thank them and point that out through you. I believe, I don't think you said this explicitly, but I think the plan is that we will hope to have our public meeting where we will present and discuss the investigation in next month, right, sometime in September. I would say that's what our goal is with all the caveats, is the commissioners would know about investigations, but yeah, I think that's our goal. Okay. Great. All right. So, well, now we can turn to the task that's most directly in front of us, which is MGM, before I turn it over on an issue regarding the iconic sign, just an update of, you know, what's happened in the next 10 days. MGM has their own internal test days afternoon. That's for their own internal consumption. They'll have their employees on the gaming floor and they'll be evaluating themselves. We will have people there to observe. More importantly, the 16th and 20th are two formal evaluation times where we will have people, they'll be invited guests and we'll have people there and we will do formal evaluations of how things are going on the floor and have meetings with MGM afterwards and discussions. If there are any issues that need to be corrected. Assuming and commissioner Stevens will have the pleasure of some late nights. I think assuming everything goes well and we do assume that there would be a temporary certificate of operations issued sometime between the 20th and 23rd with, as you know, a press conference on the 23rd in a VIP evening and then opening official opening on the 24th. So it's hard to believe, but that's the next 10 days. I think we'll have a not given everybody a strong number of staff out there working. They haven't working. So there gonna be some there'll be some long nights, long days for staff. And just as our IEB doing the wind review, we've had a lot of folks have kept their eye on the ball on this. So I would want to thank them because they've worked incredibly hard. And so far, and I'm knocking on fake wood here, we've been relatively smooth. So I do want to thank them for that. Having said that, it these things don't go without some issues. One of the issues that has sort of popped up is some of the signage, which of that I'll turn it over to on Budman's Yemba. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. So today's issue relates to the iconic sign that MGM is operating on its garage. As you're aware, the Commission on numerous occasions has reviewed plans for the signs and has expressed that certain times, some concerns relative to the operation of that sign. As we all know, that there has been an ongoing concern with distracted driving throughout the United States and most recently, specifically with with the growth of the use of phones for texting and others, it has become a substantial concern. But today's issue relates to the use of advertising alongside I 91. Here, I wanted to just provide the general context of the regulations that apply or don't apply in this instance to the sign that faces I 91. MGM will provide a little bit more detail about what they're proposing for the use of that sign. And they have some video showing their their use. And they also have some videos showing what that sign looks like from various vantage points on I 91. But let me just first give you a little bit of the background regarding how these signs are regulated, both at the federal level, state level, and also at the local level. By agreements with the federal government through the federal highway administration, states have agreements to regulate signs that promote that promote advertising adjacent to national highways. And let me just give you a little background as as it was provided in a summary through a federal highway memorandum in 2007. It relates the relates to the Highway Beautification Act, which was passed way back when in 90 in the early 60s, I think. And what what this summary says that the HPA HPA requires states to maintain effective control of outdoor advertising adjacent to certain controlled routes, the reasonable, orderly and effective display of outdoor advertising is permitted and zones or unzoned commercial or industrial areas, sides displays and devices whose size, lighting and spacing are consistent with customary use determined by agreement between the several states and the secretary may be erected and maintained in these areas. Most of these agreements between the states and the secretary that determine the size, lighting and spacing of conforming signs were signed in the late 60s and early 70s. So after many of these agreements were formed, the US government tried to rationalize how all of these electronic signs were being regulated among the various states. And in 2007, they issued some guidance to the states, providing some recommendations on how those should be regulated by the states, noting that it is up the states to do the effective control of that advertising. In that report, they did recommend an eight second minimum change time between images that appear on electronic signs. And there were also recommendations included in that in that guidance against moving images or movies on the sides of highways. Now, there is a difference what we've included in your packet, we included most of these materials in your in your packet. But what I'm referring to now is is offsite advertising. There's a difference between offsite advertising and on site advertising offsite advertising is basically what you can imagine it is. You have a billboard that promotes businesses or organizations that are not necessarily on the premises of the particular sign. And they're really meant as true advertising. And so the federal guidance relates to those offsite advertising signs. And that's what generally the states regulate. So if you take a look at all of the states, they generally have some pretty standardized rules, similar to that eight second, no moving image rules that apply to all of those sort of outdoor advertising devices. On top of that, there is also local regulation, local regulations through their zoning codes can apply different standards to those to those signs. And indeed, Springfield did include some measures that regulate the use of the MGM sign. What Springfield did a little while ago, I think it was back in 2016, they included two different provisions. And one, they required a report from a licensed professional to comment and opine on the use of the sign. And secondly, they called for the ability to study the sign after it is operational. And then the city council retained the ability to provide additional conditions on that sign on a number of different categories, including moving images, the report. John, can I just get this straight because I wasn't sure on this. So in the Springfield government has said it would be okay with them to open up with moving images after you've had a study done. And after it's been running for a while, we would then reconsider whether we'll let you continue to run moving images. That's exactly right. So they have essentially approved moving images subject to a subsequent analysis. That's exactly right. That is exactly right. That's where we stand today. Okay. So after the initial requirements are passed by the city of Springfield, MGM did conduct that study that studies included in your book. And in contrast to a study that was directly related to the particular sign, the study was more of a compendium of studies. And in essence, the major findings of the study that is included is that from a statistical vantage point that they couldn't demonstrate safety impacts as a result of electronic signs. But I will relate one thing included in that report that relates directly to moving images. So if you pull up the VHV memorandum, which is the second year. Yeah. Page number? Page number two. Highlight it. I let it at the bottom with the green marker. That study said during the literature review, VHV conducted a literature review as of the time of the report. And they said during the literature review is also noted that the offsite billboard industry has voluntarily chosen to adopt practices that minimize driver distraction. For example, most offsite billboards display static images and retain the same image for at least eight seconds. This serves two purposes. First, the driver needs to only take a brief glance to be able to absorb the information as opposed to a video image that would invite a lengthy look from a driver. Second, the driver will eventually become accustomed to the message being displayed for eight seconds or more on electronic billboards and will understand that there is no need to attempt to read the billboard during a complex driving maneuver, e.g. lane change out of fear that the message will be missed. Instead, the driver can plan a glance based on the traffic conditions knowing the message will be displayed for a reasonable amount of time. John, you mentioned the offsite. Are there different guidance for on-site, which appears to me this is what we have here. So this appears to be on-site. We have a memorandum from MGM Springfields Outside Council that notes that this is an on-site premise sign, because it is not effectively advertising for other businesses. They do note some exceptions in their memorandum. So, indeed, so this would not necessarily fall within the rubric of the state regulation for offsite premises signs. The state regulation does call for a 10-second minimum threshold for changeable signs, but arguably based on that memorandum, this is outside of that state rubric. So we would fall within the Springfield regulation unless the commission wants to consider other actions based on potential distraction that may be caused. One thing I will mention is that the standard that is utilized in the industry for driver distraction is two seconds, that you don't want to have anything that causes more than two seconds worth of distraction or else it could pose a danger on the highway. So are there no on-site rubrics, as you say? No, that is correct. To the best of our knowledge, there is no state regulation regarding on-site advertising that is applicable here. That would be solely related to the Springfield jurisdiction. Okay. So one thing I will mention is that there were a couple of examples that were mentioned in the report. First of all, the report does summarize a number of different outside studies that show that there is an impact from electronic advertising in general that it does pose safety concern. It also noted in numerous other studies that it said that there should be no real concern from electronic billboards. But there were two examples in here of Massachusetts-based signs that provide an example. There is one in Springfield at the Basketball Hall of Fame and then there is one which is the WGBH building. I drive past that almost every single day and when it was first authorized that there was an agreement between the local residents, the Boston Redevelopment Authority and I believe the Turnpike Authority based on public reports that limited the use of that sign and restricted moving images on that sign. I will note that I have seen at least once or twice over the last year or so that the sign has moved. Indeed, today it was moving quite a bit. But I just mentioned that it's the context that there was some careful deliberations at the time between all of these various entities to try to promote safety of that sign. And that was an example of one of the signs that is demonstrative of safety in the VHB report. But they also referenced that there really has not been any significant assemblage of accidents that resulted from that sign but partially that could relate to the fact that it has not really been a dynamic sign for the most part over that period of years. So there was an agreement. It is under regulation by those three groups. Is that right? So I believe that it is guided by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. They're basically their local zoning. I took a look at their 2004 report and that referenced a side agreement between the Boston Redevelopment Authority and WGBH. And as of yet, I have not been able to get that memorandum which spells out the specific details. But what was publicly reported at the time is that it had some very, very concrete requirements in it. In one report that I read, it says the WGBH mural displays at most three still images and sequences over a 30 second timeframe. We wanted, according to the station director at the time, they wanted it to be slow from the beginning. The images do not contain wording or phone numbers to keep driver distractions to a minimum given that there's half a million vehicles that pass by it weekly. So a 30 second timeframe? Yeah. So basically that's consistent with the national standards. If you multiply eight by three, that's the 30 second timeframe. But again, I do want to have seen that move. They now do have moving video. As of today was the most visible moving video that I've seen in six years. But I have seen, I think I saw a flower grow once. As you've seen those sort of slow motion flowers grow, I think I saw that once maybe about a year ago. I know that's anecdotal. But it's an example because of the same reasons that it's also promoting of onsite. It's on site of the, it's promoting the business of the of the building. It's not promoting any other things, is it? That's correct. As well as the basketball hall of fame, it promotes the basketball hall of fame, not any other advertising. That's correct. So it all falls under the same rubric, as you say, the agreement with the local jurisdiction. Yes. And the basketball hall of fame, I've seen the sign, it started again. It's very small. Right. It's not the large sign that we're talking about here. Does that have moving stuff? It has some limited, my understanding is it has some, and we've been talking this, trying to do our research. It has some movement. But again, it's, it's narrow and the size is what maybe? Maybe at most one quarter of the size of the MGM sign, potentially. You also mentioned that the study, which we have seen before, was commissioned by the city, or by MGM, required by the city. It was required by the city, commissioned by. Commissioned by MGM. And you characterized it as, I think, appropriately as a compendium of studies. Was that the scope of the study in the, in the eyes of the city? Well, I believe the city was satisfied with the scope of the study, but that I'll just read specifically from the language of the, of the memorandum. If you take a look at the city of Springfield site plan review, it said that the petitioner shall provide a report to the Office of Planning and Economic Development from a transportation professional experienced and this is on page. Yeah, the last page. Yeah. In the field of traffic study impacts per article 8 section 8.575C, the report shall set forth an opinion as to whether or not the operation of the sign would meet safety standards and include the basis for such opinion, specifically reviewing any adverse effects of highway traffic flow and safety with regard to distraction from animation brightness or the size of the signs. This report shall be submitted to the OPED and reviewed prior to the issuance of the sign permit. So does the report issue that opinion? Well, I'll leave it to the MGM Springfield folks to detail that but it certainly does talk about animation in one section and it talks about more of the general compendium of studies, which go, as I mentioned, go back and forth. But I think what they, what the consultant that issued the report, issued that final finding that based on statistics that there was no way to march to believe, demonstrate the safety effects as a result of the statistical finding, perhaps rather than the specific sign itself. Well, it was that question then to the MGM people. Do you feel that the report expresses the opinion that was required here as part of the site plan review? Commissioner, as we do, I mean, it's the language in the site plan review. I was involved in retaining the expert and had several discussions with BHP on this. The language that was used around an opinion on, it was hard in a vacuum without the sign being constructed, without the programming, without being able to witness the sign itself and see the impact to formulate a specific opinion about the safety of that sign in particular. So in advance in order to get a sign permit so we could build it, the only thing that the expert was left with was, well, what's out there? Literature review, what are statistics, what to understand is proposed and compare it. So I think they provided the best opinion they could at the time when the information available. And I think one important point in that same site plan review, we're talking about the sign pre-permit, but there's also language in that approval on paragraph D4 that says that, and I'm reading straight from the site plan, the signage approval by the city of the same document that we're referencing the language in, it also requires a review of the proposed signs solely as to materials, lighting, moving images, portability and impacts to a butters and or any public ways shall be completed after the approved signs have been installed and are operational to determine if any additional conditions are required. And so I think that the approval contemplated that we're going to look at it in advance to get some information to allow the permit to issue. And then once it's operational, we have an obligation to look at it and perform some review and be able to do that specific review using information available at the time. And we have, I don't believe it's in the packet, but we've been working with the city of Springfield and the city solicitor to come up with a proposed study to look at the sign as soon as we turn it on. And then once traffic normalizes three months out in a year out to look at crash data and look at the operation of the sign to do that analysis. So I think it's a two part analysis. Is it, does the literature show that it's, that it's a problem to prevent issuance of the permit? The answer is no, the city was comfortable issuing the permit and then we look at the actual sign and perform some analysis once it's operational. Is what I believe was contemplated and what we've, what we're prepared to do. So in other words, there will be an update to the study if, if, well, it's a separate to actually have a, I've been working with TEC who's our traffic consultant and we have a proposal that they just provided an outline. We haven't engaged them yet, but we have a proposal of that study, which we're prepared to move as soon as we turn the sign on before we open in the next week to get some baseline information and then look at it once we have, so that the time period that they propose is suggest that time periods for data evaluation, post-MGM opening, post-MGM opening, a six month period from roughly 12-1, 2018 to 5-31, 2019 that allows for the grand opening traffic volumes to normalize, a pre-MGM opening analysis, a seven day period from 8.15 to 8.22 to evaluate operations following illumination of the sign. And then they're going to look at pre-Viaduct reconstruction. They can look at historic crash data, a six month window from 12-1, 2014 to May 31, 2015 that coincides with the same seasonal time period evaluated above. So they'll have three snapshots to look at crash data and evaluate whether there's any impact resulting from the site. So we have that process underway to engage in that study. So I'm sorry for asking a fundamental question, but then why would we have jurisdiction over this? We contemplated a vote here, but what would we be voting on if, according to some of these arguments, I guess, it fell under the jurisdiction of the city and they, and it appears that they will study it afterwards like the Site Mind Review Contemplate. If all of that logic falls. No, I think that's correct. I think there are many items that we've talked about in the past where both the commission and the city have jurisdiction over those items for potentially different reasons. You, as the person who approves the final design and the final opening, could weigh in on the sign. If you felt that was something you wanted to do, I think what we're trying to do is present to you where that, where that discussion stands now so that you can determine if you want to take action on it. But as the, as the person who issues the final certificate to open, you do have a say in something like the sign. But our say could be, we'll leave it up to the city. We don't have to take a yes or a no. Yeah, that's correct. I just, were you finished? Well, unless you, somebody wants to jump in. I'm going to hold till after the presentation. Yeah. And then hold my questions till then. So Bruce, did you want to? Yeah, let me just have a quick question before we move to the presentations. The, the VHB memo that's included in the packet on page one under the city of Springfield zoning code. The last sentence in the last paragraph says the provisions of the zoning code aim to allow outdoor advertising signs that can be used in a way that communicates important information about MGM Springfield and its special events while not needlessly drawing a driver's attention away from the critical driving task is, is that kind of is what VHB saying reflective of what you feel the agreement is for the city and the city council and the permits? Yes. I, sorry, answers. Yes. And I think when you see the presentation of the video, which Michael walk us through, you'll see that there's no, there's certainly ways we could utilize animation and video in a way that would be probably call more attention to our project and be more distracting. I think you'll find that it's, I think some of you saw it on the front side of the property when you're out there. I think you'll find that it's tasteful, not highly distracting, but, but is a way in this modern area to where people are used to moving images all the time to, to entertain folks and get their, their attention. I mean, the point, the point we're conflicting goals here, the point of a sign is to get some of the attention and look at the information on the side, but we want to do it in a way that's balanced and doesn't needlessly distract and I think we've struck that balance and as you'll see in the video that we present in a moment. I'm sorry, did you just say you wanted to entertain folks? Did you I'm sorry, I don't know if I heard the first part of your comment. Yes. Yeah. I mean, part of you want to entertain folks while they're driving. We want, we're an entertainment company. We want to reflect that, that there is entertainment at the property and an entertaining sign. It's all about entertainment. Now you can be entertained, I believe, and not be distracted there. And that's what goes to the balance. Actually never heard anyone talk about being entertained while they drive. But I hear what you're saying. Commissioner, as I can just add, and I think going through the the simulation will be helpful. I think you saw it all live out at the out of the resort is I would I would suggest to you that there is static signs that could be very distracting and that there is video dynamic signage that could be less distracting. So I think the actual content is important. I know you don't want to be the police of our content. I don't think that's workable. So some of this is as we've discussed in prior hearings, a little bit of trust in us as operators that have done this in many different venues across the world on our judgment to safeguard and to strike that right balance. Seth is right. The point of a sign is to get someone's attention, but not so much so that they that they have an accident that doesn't help us to have I 91 clogged up with accidents beyond what we might do to our customers, our employees, our community residents. So I came down here because this is a really important issue for us and we can talk about it at the conclusion. But I respect but it's been Xiemba's concern around this. I know it comes from a sincere concern about public safety. But everything about our project is wow. And I just wanted to make sure that consistent with that, that we were making a case for what we think is an appropriate sign, but also reflects the standards of our resort and the best in class uses of signage as part of the experience. We finished John to go to the presentation. Yeah, I think that's useful. Okay, so you're passing the ball to Mike. Yeah, and I'll just really briefly set it up. We've talked about a lot of this already, but back in March, we our March update, we walked through this issue and we had, we explained to you where it's done then and what our status and next steps were. And so we talked about this sign being exempt generally from mass that jurisdiction within the jurisdiction of the city, the city council approval conditioned on the submission of the report, which we discussed here today. We submitted that report, the sign permit was issued. So at the time in March, you know, when we talked about the status and next steps, we talked about completion of the sign infrastructure that is now complete. We talked about the issuance of the city sign permit that has been issued. We discussed that the digital sign would be in place by July of 2018. The digital sign is in place. And that the programming was to be determined. We will show you in a moment the programming and that it's subject to further city review once the sign is operational to determine whether additional conditions are required. We've been working collaboratively with the city. We've kept Mr. Siemba, Mr. Delaney in the loop on what that review looks like, the scope of the study, the information we would gather. And that's what I discussed here today with engaging TEC to look at data once it's operational, look at historic data, and look at future data, and do that analysis to determine whether additional conditions are required. So I think we've followed those next steps as we discussed several months ago here. And with that, I'll turn over to Mike to review with you the programming and how we see this sign operating and benefiting the project. Thanks, Seth. Mike, can you wish to play? So this is a view direct on of our iconic sign. It is a combination of dynamic video animation as well as stills. So I think when you saw it at the resort on the plaza side, you had a sense of how the content would mix. It would be a combination of statics that I think follow the eight second rule mixed in with occasional video dynamic. And as you look at the shot, I want to follow it up with a video of what it actually feels like to drive up 91 because you don't really have this direct view. This is just for your ability to look at the content head on. But that is not the view that you have driving, which I think is impactful. Is there in your programming is that thing, is there a limit for the length of the moving video? These little clips here are quite short. Is there a limit? None that we've imposed intentionally, but that's just part of our creative process to do short video clips. So if that piece of it is important, we can certainly discuss it and maybe codify that. I hadn't really thought about it until just watching this, but these video clips at least that I've seen so far are so short. This one's actually a little slightly longer. Yeah, I think that motorcycle one is the longest. It's it actually it doesn't take much longer than it does to just look at a big billboard. It was just so maybe it would be a lot more of me. I've been wrestling with this thing all along and I still am, but it would be a lot more challenging if the video went on while you drove all the way by and went past, you know. So from my standpoint, if we decide to either don't take a position or to do something in favor, limiting it to these short little things is material just as I watch it now. We're happy to voluntarily commit to program it consistent with these durations if that gives you some comfort. That's what we would do practically anyway. But if you're looking for a commitment to that, we're happy to do that. If I can, I just want to show you the actual drive up. In some ways, this is even less dramatic than the WGBH sign we've been talking about because that sign, as you know, is perfectly perpendicular and you see that sign all the way up the pike. This one, as you approach our resort, is running parallel to the drive. In fact, you almost miss it, which is a little bit of the reason we want some interesting content on it to the right there. May have to replay because you may have missed it. That's... But isn't that part of the issue is it will be something that someone will turn their head to look at because it is really inviting and something that isn't common here. I realize it's common in Las Vegas, but it's just not common to drivers here. I almost have more concern because of this. Yeah. I'm not a traffic expert, as I know none of us are on this. There's a few different ways to look at it. I would suggest to you, if you had video staring at you for the whole drive up, that could potentially take your gaze away for more than the two seconds we talked about. Going 60, 70 miles an hour and making that turn that you just described wouldn't last more than two seconds by its very nature. We would hope. We would hope. But this is not precedent setting, as we've talked about in the past. We do this on the Las Vegas Strip. I know that's not conclusive. We do it on the I-15 Highway on the back of the Strip. And it's not even precedent setting within the Commonwealth. As I said this morning, we came up the Pike, Seth, and I, and WGBH sign had crashing waves against a shoreline that was staring at us all the way up. The most distracting part of it was us feverishly trying to grab a video clip to show the commission. But after many, many years of having the sign there that people are accustomed to that sign now, I think, is part of the issue here. Well, they started somewhere. WGBH, right? But without any very static. The agreement was to have static when that sign opened. And how many years? Many years, John. We talked about that. What do you have on I-15? We have dynamic signage on the back of the Manila Bay and some of our other resorts. For example, I think there's a shark tank. We have the shark tank, which is a world-famous aquarium. And it's got the shark swimming through the water, for example. So I tasked my folks in Clark County that work with Clark County on the development side. We have extremely dynamic signage on the Las Vegas Boulevard, including one of the neatest signs I've ever saw was from one of our competitors, Wynn. And I know Bob's here that can talk about this, that has a moving bar that actually goes up and down mechanically and reveals video as it moves. But that's on the Las Vegas Strip. And I wanted to make sure that from a highway perspective, which I know is a little bit different because you're moving faster, we also have the same thing on I-15, which sees millions and millions of cars each year as busy as I-91. And we have video on the back of those ginormous, very large screens as well. So there's precedent in our industry and they continue to approve them in Clark County. And there's also precedent now in the Commonwealth. So I was with 10 days left where I was really judicious about our time and the kinds of things that we want to talk to you about. But I was walking the property I think three days ago and a construction worker stopped me and said, Mr. Mathis, I just got to let you know because they were working in the plaza and seeing the signage that you saw that there's something wrong with your loop. The highway doesn't have any of that, any of this material that we're seeing in the plaza and the public to see it is great. It just looks like a billboard out there. And that's what really concerns me is anybody that feels like anything is just at our property. We've got really creative folks that provided I think really interesting content that highlights all the non, as you saw there's bowling highlighted there Indian motorcycle. It's all the great non gaming retail that we've always bragged about and want to get people excited about. And it's not just gaming. So we have the highest standards in everything we do and that includes signage and marketing. And I think this package that we presented to you is reflective of that. And I want to fight for it. Mike, are you aware of what signage you might be have in GM employees in Detroit? I mean, I always kind of closely relate the Springfield project to your project in Detroit. Do you happen to have an idea of what signage is? Yeah, you know, we didn't look at that. I mean, I think part of the distinction of Detroit is it's on the surface streets and not directly on the highway. So that's why I try to draw analogies to I-15 in Las Vegas. And then again, the WGBH, I thought that would be more relevant. I didn't look at that jurisdiction plus that jurisdiction is a city by city standard. So again, that's why I thought the highway one was more relevant. I did check with New Jersey because as you come into Atlantic City all the billboards they are required to utilize state standards there because they are actual billboards coming into Atlantic City and they're total advertisements for the casinos. But they do adhere to state standards. You mean the eight second steel image standards? Correct, ours is 10, New Jersey, I don't know if they use the federal eight standard or if they have a different standard but they are required to use state standards. If I could add one more point because it came up in the discussion with the city and TEC, one of the opportunities that we miss by not turning this on now is the ability to look at data when the sign is on dynamic prior to our increased traffic that our project generates. And that is a, whether that's relevant but that's certainly a data point that the city solicitor put cool if that would be important to collect and request that when we outline our study we look at that. And in the proposal I have from TEC they would certainly look at that to see because we do expect to increase traffic flows on 91. And so it is a, we'll forever lose the opportunity to get pre-opening impact, if any, and see if, and that will be a relevant data point to determine whether in fact there is impact from the sign with lower traffic flows versus higher traffic flows. And so that's one of the reasons we wanna, say, flip the switch now and then be able to look at that data in the next two weeks. But what about that argument the commissioner Cameron makes about the custom, the factor of getting people used to something that's not all new, which appears to be the case on the WGBH example, that they turn it more dynamic after there's enough familiarity with the property. I mean, that is a, we understand that point. We think that the combination of static with the, as I think when we watch the video showing the sign it was tasteful, I don't, I mean, I'm advocating for the company. So my view, I don't find it distracting. I think that if we may wanna have more wow down the road, I think we struck a balance of saying, let's early on make it very, very limited to ensure in abundance and caution that there is, it's not distracting. And so it's a fair point, but we're confident that the way it is now as we're proposing it is strikes that balance. I just have a couple of concerns. One being, and the chairman brought this up, he really said we don't have any standards. And now I just heard we want more wow down the road. So I do have, I do have a real concern that there are no standards here. You can do as much video as you want. And you really can assure us that there's anything built in to keep it safe. I know it's hard to do that, but when I'm really concerned the first three months or when there are so many people coming, so many people excited, and we also are invested in you having a great opening and a couple of major crashes will not help. So I guess I just really struggle and I typically don't like to step on the toes of the city, but I do have real concerns here about this from a public safety standpoint. And I think a lot of work has been done by federal and state agencies who really understand this business and they have standards for a reason. And I understand this isn't quite an offsite, but even in your own literature, as John pointed out, most have done this voluntarily because they don't want to distract drivers. I actually think if you popped every eight seconds, it would be very attracting without having that distraction of a video. I just, it's not something we're accustomed to here and I really do have concerns about the safety in particularly the first three months. I'm concerned that, okay, we're gonna study it in three months, but if there are a couple of major crashes in those three months, that is not the good thing to open by. Are you suggesting, Commissioner, that you might be open to doing it after the crunch is over if we wouldn't say pick and date 90 days that at that point you'd be willing to reconsider? Well, I would love to see, I would love to, again, the study would be important to me, what happens for those first three months, even if it's eight seconds of a static dynamic display. I mean, those are impressive, but yeah, I really am. I think the video is eye-catching and you want to see what happens. The bowling, it goes up, but no, there are beers in there and you just want to see that. So I do have concerns and I just think to open it, to allow it and then study it is kind of the card before the horse here. But that's what the city approved. I understand, I understand that. That's one of the hardest issues for me is we've typically been very deferential to the cities and I know you respect this as well. I know you're as torn as we all are on this, but if the, yesterday I felt like I was gonna vote, if we have, I'm not even sure we should really be voting on this in a way, because the city has more expertise than we do, I don't really, but if we were to make a decision, I was gonna say that I thought, hey, there's on highway signage, which is not part of a company, neither the, any jurisdiction that I can find, including Nevada, I had John look up Nevada, or the outdoor advertising board itself, with the exception of entertainment districts in the outdoor advertising board, which is kind of a strange exception. None of the potential regulatory agencies, or even the industry association, suggests or permits moving signs. And so I was thinking, and okay, so why would we wanna be first here? On the other hand, there's, as everybody agrees, there's no evidence affirmatively one way or the other, or if there's mixed evidence both ways, there's no way that you can draw a conclusion as to whether this is a problem or not. And the city is probably more invested in it than we are, they're gonna, they're the ones who approved it, they're gonna take more flak than we are if there's an issue, they approved it with a study. So now I'm thinking, and honestly, for what it's worth to the extent that your own, one's own judgment makes any difference, you know, it doesn't strike me as any more distracting than some of those incredible big videos, big digital signs on Southeast expressway. So I, you know, I end up, and there is the precedent, which is worth something, you know, that the regulatory agencies around here and the communities, apparently in the BRA, don't have their hair on fire because of the evolution of the GBH thing. So I kind of lean all things considered to supporting the city, maybe strengthening it a little bit, you know. I thought of two things, one would be to permit it only during non-Rush hours, and but also to make sure that there were, but I think there are deadlines in calling for the studies, but I kind of lean towards given the complete paucity of any data one way or the other, and that we're all just using our sort of common sense and anecdotal experience that we probably ought to go with the city and let them figure it out. And, you know, I think the city has a lot of expertise, but I don't know that highway signage is one of them. I think that's the state's expertise and they have clearly weighed in. If I could just give my thoughts. For me, the question of whether this falls under the jurisdiction of outdoor advertising or not in terms of a public safety question is a distinction without a difference for me. This is sort of a loophole that's been out there in terms of regulating onsite billboard advertising. To me, I'm informed by looking at the industry standards and then looking at what are the state standards for safety. And with all due respect to the city, I do think this is more of a highway safety issue. When you look at the fact that the industry says, stay away from dynamic. And if you're going to do them in other circumstances, you're gonna roll from one static to another, stick with between eight to 10. I had a very different reaction. I did think it was distracting video, entertaining, but distracting. And a distinction between this and the GBH sign. In addition to GBH starting slowly, people getting used to it, being easier to see without having to turn. They still don't have telephone numbers. They still don't have wording, et cetera. And quite a bit of yours do in fact do that because you're trying to draw people in. And so on balance to me, I do think we have jurisdiction in terms of our oversight of the license and the premises. I think when you look at industry standards, and I think when you look at what this is doing, I think in the interest of public safety, starting slower, making sure that three, six months that even you and the city of knowledge would not be an appropriate time to test. Pushing anything over the balance to risk any sort of driver distraction to me is not a prudent choice. So to the extent that we are voting in our over jurisdiction that overlaps them up with the city, I would not be inclined to allow that sign in that location to have dynamic interest. Just to be clear, I don't disagree that we have authority. We absolutely have the right to speak to this. Whether we want to or not is a question, but we absolutely have the right, no question. I have the authority. Other people's sort of general comments? Yeah, I was somewhat concerned, obviously reviewing the material, looking at the two examples that they use. What's interesting about the two examples that you use is that I'm not familiar with the Clark County signs, but the GBH sign in the Hall of Fame side actually face the oncoming traffic. I think what you showed from the video is that you really don't have a clear view of what the message is on the sign until you're almost on top of it. I would even suspect I'd feel differently if maybe there was something along the south side of your parking garage that was something that somebody had a longer chance to view as they were driving up. Like the chairman, I'm certainly sensitive to this balance between what the city's authority is and again, what our authority is. But I do go back to what BHB talked about in reviewing the city's provisions is that they definitely want to allow MGM to provide information about special events. However, again, they say, while not needlessly drawing a driver's attention away from the critical driving task, and some of those images to me would distract me, would, and again, a moving image as I'm going by it, and it's over to my right as opposed to right in front of me. I would consider that a distraction. I certainly would feel comfortable saying start with the eight second or 10 second intervals but try not to, again, have a dynamic message that flashes something or moves something that might distract the driver as they're going by. It feels, I mean, if I were in MGM, I'd be sitting there thinking, well, let's rebuild our sign and make it horizontal. They'll be in favor of it. It seems weird to me that we would be encouraging them to put up a big horizontal sign, but again, just coming back to the examples they're sharing, if they're not something that's, what they're on any other examples, that's the problem. There's no, there's very little data out there. Maybe there's a reason for that, though. Yeah. When you're talking about driving at high speeds in vehicles, I mean, that might not be the best spot for it. Mr. Zuniga, do you have a? Yeah, no, I tend to see the other, the other aspect. I think some of the moving images, I mean, if a wheel is rotating, it's, sure it's moving, but it's not necessarily, I don't know, creating something that really distracts. I mean, you can get a glance at a moving wheel or a bowling ball that's gonna get to the end of a bowling table that happens to have peers and you can kinda expect what's happening. So I do get the point about, if all we're talking about is the moving image being what puts us over the edge, I can see why the content which is hard to get into from our perspective is just a slippery slope and I'd rather, in that case, defer to the city. I do see and you make very compelling arguments towards safety and the notion of at least perhaps initially to have some real adherence to the standard, to the extent that we can program and try to strike that, you can try to strike that balance between drawing people in and complying with the standard. And as data begins to accumulate or at least the drivers get accustomed to it, maybe the issue about being to the side or not is consequential or not consequential and we can then have data to go with. So perhaps in the interest of consensus, I'll go along with that. I was initially thinking like you, Mr. Chairman, that if the city approved these and people are comfortable with it, I would go along. But apparently there seems to be a majority emerging already and I would rather then encourage MGM to think about whatever they can do to comply with the standard as it is and begin to accumulate data to continue the requirements in the site plan review. It feels to me like that most of us are fairly close, whichever side of the issue we're on. Would it be acceptable to, if we said, let's not permit it for either 90 days or whenever DOT tells us traffic is back to its pre-opening norms. I'm sure they have traffic counts and they know when we've gotten through whatever the mass increase. So 90 days or later if whenever the traffic's back to a norm and at that point we would reconsider this and with no predetermined outcome but at least a commitment that say we will take another look at this once we're through the crunch period. Commissioner, can I just add one data point and I feel compelled because I just got this message from Councilor Pakua who's a representative obviously of Springfield and I will just say exactly what it says. I am sending a letter of approval for the plan. It is being typed now. Our office of plan economic development is the approving authority at Pakua City Solicitor. It was sent to me at 10.59 so two minutes ago. I'm not, I'm just a data point, that's all. If I could, as we were listening to this discussion, I certainly, as Mike said, we fully respect the concerns. We understand that this is a tricky issue and I've been trying to figure out why the Gaming Commission and the city seem to be on different pages on this issue. And I think the other factor about this sign that we haven't talked about in one of the benefits to it is is the revitalization of Springfield and what we're doing in Springfield and the desire of the city to bring people to the area and have people drive by and feel like there's a vibe, there's something exciting going on in Springfield. And I think that's part of what this sign represents and is doing is somewhat of a beacon to people that come to Springfield, come experience not only MGM, but what's going on in Springfield. And I think that's really why the city and the folks in the city are supportive of giving us the opportunity to do this because they wanna see those folks come drive by not necessarily read the message on the sign, but say, wow, there's something, this is, we don't see this anywhere else. We see it in Boston, the WGGB sign, and now we see one in Springfield and there's something going on here. And I think that is why and why I would suggest deferring to the jurisdiction of the city to allow us to do that makes sense and why there's probably some, and I know you all want us to be successful, but I think it represents not just us, but the residents and the community being excited about bringing people and feeling like there's something new and exciting in Springfield. So I just, that's my opinion why there's somewhat of a difference between the city and the commission on this issue, but I think it's an important factor. You know, I, as I said, I'm very reluctant to override the city, but I see it, but think at this point, it looks like if we have probably three people who are prepared to vote against doing this, would one or more of you be acceptable to the idea of committing that we will rethink this, come either 90 days or whenever traffic has hit post-opening norms with no promises? Simply saying, that's the worst concern is that period of time we will look at this again in some period of time. I think we certainly can look at it again. I'm just not sure that three months is enough time to have enough data. I'm just- Data on? On the roadway and crashes and anything else that may be going on out there. So I just, I'm just a little concerned about the time, time. Not that I don't wanna revisit, but just I'm just not sure. I think the three months only came from the city. I just don't know. I would defer to our traffic experts what the appropriate amount of time is to study something like this to have enough data to be worthwhile. Well, I don't know what that would be, but I think that an important marker that was indicated by MGM itself was December 1st identified. Okay. It was a date by which they thought that most of the traffic would subside what would be necessary after that date would certainly be an important consideration. But if the commission were amenable to doing that, we could certainly consider something. At about that time, if there's not enough data, then we could postpone whatever review we wanted to do if the commission chooses to go in that direction. That would be appropriate. So we have a presumption of three months, but not an absolute commitment. Are you okay with that commission? Yeah, I would totally, I'm sorry. Mr. O'Brien, would you be okay with that? That's fine. Somebody wanna put that into a motion? Motion isn't it? Well, I was gonna move it. I was gonna vote against it, so I'd rather not. Oh, you're gonna vote against posing it with the commitment to the thinking. Oh, okay. Well, I was gonna go on with everybody to be buddy here. So anybody wanna frame, I'm gonna vote in favor of this. Does anybody wanna frame that? I'm articulate. You wanna do it? We're taking this as dangerous and saying there's a vote on our quest to go dynamic at present or we define. What I was suggesting, and we can do whatever we want, what I was suggesting is that we vote to not permit the motion sign, but also commit to reconsidering that in 90 days unless for some reason we decide not to. If we break those votes, I'll vote for the second one. Well, it looks like if I vote for it, we'll win if it's, it'll pass if it's won, but we might have a consensus if it's, I don't care. I'll move and you can tell me whether I'm summarizing what you're looking for. Mr. Chair, I would move that the commission deny any request to have static movement in the sign identified and discussed earlier by the representatives of MGM currently present without prejudice such that in 90 days we can revisit the issue of whether, there would be dynamic images allowed on the sign referenced. That's what I was looking for. Second. Thank you. We wanna make that 90 days from post open. 90 days post open. So I had a second for the discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. I went along. Opposed is nobody. So that vote has passed unanimously. And just to clarify, that was no dynamic movement. No dynamic. Right. We know it's still static. Yes, exactly. Right, I just buy it for the record. Okay, was that? And then I guess so the intent of the commission then is that they would follow current standards as they should follow outdoor advertising highway standards. Which is the eight seconds? Yes. Which is what the video followed. That was changing every eight seconds. Okay. And whatever the research, this is just casual but whatever research of usage now, usage during that 90 day period, whatever research you think that might be constructive to help us make decisions. Please go, I know you've been talking to TDC about doing something, but maybe they can rethink a methodology that will help give us some kind of data that makes us, that we can use in our next round. Okay. Anything else on this topic or your update? No, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'm gonna have a quick adjournment. We'll be back. We'll be back in a little bit. Yes, we're ready to reconvene public meeting 250 and we are at item number four, the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau. Loretta Lilios. Hi, good morning. The IEB is here to ask you to consider a request made by our Licensee Plainville Gaming and Redevelopment and its parent company, Penn National Gaming. Specifically, they have asked the commission to grant interim authorization to allow it to close on October 1st of this year on a planned real estate transaction. The real estate involved is the real estate located at the Plain Ridge Park Casino, the gaming facility in Plainville, and you have a report in your packet as well as a chart, chart A that details the transaction. There are representatives from the two parties to the planned transaction that are here today. Attorney Albano sitting at the table today represents both parties. We have Frank Donahue, Justin Sebastiano, and Stephen O'Toole from Penn and Brandon Moore from the other party gaming and leisure properties incorporated, and I would like to just say from the outset that all of the parties and these individuals have been extremely helpful to the IEB over the past couple of months and their responsiveness and forthcomingness have really assisted us in understanding the transaction that's describing your report and that I'll touch on this morning. So as detailed in the report, PGR, our Licensee has entered into a purchase and sale agreement with gaming and leisure properties incorporated whereby GLPI will acquire the real estate associated with PPC, the casino for $250 million, and PGR, our Licensee, would then sub lease the property at PPC through subsidiaries as shown on chart A in your report and the subsidiaries are Pinnacle, MLS on the Penn side and Gold Merger sub on the GLPI side. The rent payable under the lease would be a $25 million flat rate annually in the lease with all of its renewal options exercised would run to April of 2051. Under this arrangement, PGR would remain an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Penn. PGR would continue to hold the category two gaming license and PGR would continue to be the operator of PPC. Our gaming law requires that this real estate transaction be approved by the commission and our regulations state that there are two stages to this approval process, interim authorization, and then final approval before you now on the interim authorization piece. The IEB conducted an initial investigation in accordance with the regulations as a first step in this process, we scoped out the transaction and identified six entities and six individuals to go through the qualification process. That is outlined on pages two and three of the report. Two of the companies that we identified and five of the six individuals previously went through the qualification process with the commission and were found suitable before and this investigation refreshed those background reviews. A little background on GLPI which would be the landlord and purchaser of the real estate at PPC. GLPI is a publicly traded company known as a real estate investment trust or a REIT. GLPI was spun off from Penn National and incorporated in February of 2013. It has elected to be taxed as a REIT and as such it's required to adhere to a number of internal revenue code rules and treasury department rules and some of the features of REITs and some of those essential rules are also outlined in the report. GLPI is in the business of acquiring, financing and owning real estate property that is then leased back to gaming operators and the leases require that the operators remain responsible for all operating expenses, real estate taxes and capital expenditures. The agreement between GLPI and Penn to sell PPC's real estate to GLPI is one in a series of planned and interrelated transactions that are scheduled to take place immediately before, simultaneously whether immediately after the transaction involving PPC. The most significant of the transactions is Penn's planned acquisition of Pinnacle Entertainment. Pinnacle is another regional operator and the result of the transaction will be that in the aggregate, Penn will acquire the gaming operations of 12 facilities across the United States and sell the real estate for PPC and GLPI will acquire the property assets of PPC and one other casino in Ohio. Trooper Tom Roger and Financial Investigation Supervisor Monica Chang worked on this investigation and I did want to draw to your attention that despite a heavy workload at the moment, there was knowledge that there's a planned closing date in the fall for this transaction and they made it happen without sacrificing the quality or scope of the investigation. I would like to ask Monica to comment on some of the anticipated impacts of the series of transactions on Penn. Thank you for any commissioners. So as explained by Penn and together with Pinnacle through their joint press release, the impact of the planned transactions is expected to be favorable. So operationally the combined companies will increase in scale through addition of the Pinnacle properties to Penn's portfolio which allows them to have greater economies of scale and also increase purchasing power. The geographically diverse but complementary properties will allow Penn to expand its footprint both regionally, but also to new states. The combined customer base of the two companies which is estimated to be around five million in active players that will give rise to promotional and also marketing opportunities for Penn. Financially, the diversification of the added properties will translate to financial stability, also increasing free cash flow and also generation of cost synergies. The accretion of the free cash flow will be used to have Penn service their long-term debt as part of this acquisition and concurrently the cost synergies of the expected 100 million a year that will be generated at both the corporate level and the operational level of the properties either through the reduction or elimination of corporate redundancies but also improving operational efficiencies at the property levels. So after the announcement and the press release of this planned transaction, the stock of both companies went up so that just suggests market confidence in the overall transaction. So one of the components of this planned transaction specifically the scope of our interim authorization is the PPC real estate asset sale leaseback to GLPI. That can be seen as a source of financing for Penn but also a long-term investment for GLPI. So the proposed long-term lease obligation, so that establishes a fixed 25 million in annual rental claimant from PPC but that 25 million translates to a stable inflow of cash in the form of rental income for GLPI. So as we've seen through this interim review, GLPI's financial results have been improving since their spin-off in 2013 so the addition of the PPC real estate sale leaseback will just supplement that growth. So overall the impact of the transactions have been well-received by both Penn and Penn and co-share holders but also through the public. I just wanna reiterate that as part of this interim authorization and review, the investigators, we focused on this PPC sale leaseback transaction and the related qualifiers are resculpted in. As a continuation of this suitability investigation that will allow us to the opportunity to verify, further evaluate and then conclude on the general impact that I talked about today. But more importantly to really affirm the transaction details once everything finalizes and approves and signed off which later this year. So also as part of, thank you Monica, as part of this initial investigation, the IEP as I mentioned had ongoing communications with the parties. We reviewed the submissions from each of the qualifiers. We conducted criminal record checks in accordance with our usual protocol. We verified licensing and suitability status of GLPI in the various licensed, various jurisdictions where it has undergone that kind of review. We reviewed the lease terms for the PPC re-transaction considered the litigation status of each entity qualifier, performed research through a number of law enforcement and public databases, performed initial financial reviews for each qualifier. We evaluated the qualifiers and the transaction based upon the standards set forth in 205CMR 116.105 and which provide that the commission may approve interim authorization allowing the real estate transaction to close if it finds that eight criteria have been met. And those eight criteria are discussed on pages 22 to 24 of the report. First of all, the qualifiers did submit completed forms, licensing division verified the submissions and the IEP also confirmed the completed submissions were made from each qualifier. A copy of the trust which is required by the regulation was submitted to the commission. The commission approved the Plain Ridge nominee trust on June 21st. That trust as you may recall provides that if there is a suitability issue that arises after interim authorization is allowed then the commission may order that the PPC property return to back into the trust or to PGR and if there is a suitability issue at the final determination stage the property goes back to PGR. So essentially there is a provision that could unwind the whole transaction as it has to do with our licensee in the event of a suitability issue. The regulations also require a background review for the trustee of the trust. Mr. Timothy Wilmot who's the chief executive officer and a director at Penn is the trustee. He went through suitability already in the initial stages of the license that was issued back in 2013, 2014. A report on his background appears as exhibiting your package. Mr. Wilmot has a long history in gaming, started out in Harris, joined Penn in 2013 and he's licensed in many jurisdictions and the IEP recommends a suitability finding on him that he's established suitability by clear and convincing evidence. Another factor has to do with our initial review of suitability for all of the qualifiers and I can state that after the review that we performed that we uncovered no information that undermines a suitability finding but of course as we move to the final stage we will do supplemental review, supplemental information will be reviewed and we'll do a full suitability invest. In addition, the invest that we've conducted indicates that the transaction involving PPC will result only in the transfer of the real property. The licensee will remain the same and GLPI by all the terms of the lease and all of the federal rules that it has to comply with by all indications will remain a passive landlord in the situation. Another regulatory requirement that has been met is that each of the qualifiers certified in writing under the pains and penalties of perjury that they're unaware of any derogatory information that could undermine suitability and ultimately the IEP's information is that allowing the transaction to close now would be in the best interest of the commonwealth in terms of allowing an uninterrupted flow of tax revenues and continued employment of the individuals who are employees of PPC at the moment. Also by all of the information that we have reviewed there's no change in control at the facility now again operator remains the same. Should the commission approve interim authorization for the sale of the real estate now the closing may take place and the IEP would continue with its final investigation which under the regulations must be completed within a year. There is a raising component to this that I believe tracks the analysis that we've given you and given in the report. Catherine may wish to speak to that in more detail. So commissioners in your packet you have a letter that meets the qualifications of 128A section 11C it is a similar process to that which we used when subject downs transferred its property. I've reviewed the letter they meet the requirements of 128A so we should be okay with transferring the racing part of this property as part of this overall transfer. If the commissioners have any questions and certainly the parties are here directly to address anything that you may have. I note that we're the 11th jurisdiction to look at this matter to review the matter without any issues elsewhere very well prepared report. Certainly no issues. I did my one question was a separate letter to Dr. Lightbaum requesting approval from the racing division and I see the Penn racing folks are here. So I'm sure that's to assure us that there would be no disruption of racing operations or integrity with this sale. So I just obviously we have authority over the racing division so that's within our jurisdiction. But yeah other than that really clean and see no reason why we wouldn't approve this. Yeah, no I thank you for those that summary and the report it's really thoughtful and well written. I am familiar with these transactions I think as you pointed out director they're very economical they make sense and it's in the benefit of both Penn and GLPI and as a consequence of PPC. I do have a couple of questions I suspect the answer might be the same for those questions of the Penn folks perhaps Mr. Albano or others. Are there any provisions in the lease or remedies if say Penn or PPC in this case is not awarded a license after the end of these license towards that payment. I know Penn guarantees the payment to GLPI going forward regardless of what happens. But are there any provisions that allow Penn to renegotiate a lease for example with GLPI? May I defer to Mr. Moore? Sure. Lucky straw. So Brandon Moore I'm general counsel on gaming and leisure properties and so the question with respect to the lease if I understand it correctly is if Penn national gaming the affiliated Penn national gaming were to not be re-licensed what would happen under the lease. The way the lease is structured is there it's a unitary lease so you're right in the sense that there's no individual rent property by property however there is a provision in the lease it's in section eight and then in 14.6 14.6 will provide that if Penn were to lose a license for something that's a reason outside of the control so for instance in Iowa shortly after the lease was put in effect the Iowa property in Sioux City was the license was ended and it went to a new party the provision in the lease provides that if a license is lost in that situation there is a reduction in rent so we will reduce their rent by a prescribed formula in the event of a loss of a license and that's in the lease as it stands today in both the Penn lease and the Pinnacle lease which is what this property will be a part of. Okay. Now what happens you mentioned that the rent is not conceived to us as property by property but there's a rent number associated with PPC in this case of 25 million is there what happens if the property cannot quote unquote afford the rent payment going forward? So under the master lease which this will be a part of Penn would still have to pay the rent so we have decided between us and Penn that the contribution to the base rent under that Pinnacle lease would be 25 million for our acquisition of the land and building associated with the Plain Ridge property but if for some reason say there was a snow storm or a flood or I don't know what it might be there I don't know what the geography is that would cause some sort of cessation of the operations that rent would still be due so that's the way those leases are structured and presumably the support from all the other facilities that go into that lease would support that payment of rent so unless there was a situation where the lease was terminated the doors were closed the lights were shut off there would be no interruption in the rent stream. Now there could be at the end of the rent term it gets a little hairy when we get into the lease dynamics and this property is a flat contribution of rent the other properties have a percentage rent component so if there is a deterioration in the operations there because of competition or something else they would conceivably get a rent adjustment downward every two years under that Pinnacle lease and it's designed to just make sure that the operator stays healthy. Tell me more about that I didn't quite realize that was the case. So when we structure the master lease there are a number of properties in that lease there are three basic components to the rent under all of our master leases which is a base rent that never changes a building based rent, a land based rent that's set up front that doesn't change and then there's a percentage rent component that you do a look back under the Pinnacle master lease it's every five years under the Pinnacle master lease that this would be a part of it's every two years and you look at the net revenues over that two year period and the rent can go up or down based on the success of the facilities during that period. When we looked at the plain rich property because there are new properties coming into the state and other factors both we and Penn agreed that we wouldn't have a percentage rent piece to this we'll pick a number we'll put it in as a flat based rent and we've also excluded it from some of the other calculations under the lease so that it doesn't go into those calculations. So that's just a function of the negotiation between the parties of saying let's just pick a number, put it in and we'll keep it aside and so in the lease when you see it in the lease you won't see plain rich 25 million you'll see in addition to the base rent under that Pinnacle lease of 25 million that reflects our acquisition of the plain rich property in its addition to our portfolio. So the increase or decreasing revenues component is one that the parties look at in the aggregate? In the aggregate, that's right and every two years this plain rich won't be part of that but it doesn't apply to plain rich it doesn't because it's exempt from that feature. It's exempt from that feature that's exactly right. I hadn't thought about this before but when in the event that the license for Penn National at Plainville was not renewed and was awarded to somebody else what how would the transaction between GLPI and the somebody else work? So the way that it's structured in the lease and we haven't encountered this so I can't tell you in the Iowa example I gave that license was actually awarded to somebody else that built a brand new facility that wasn't on our property so we had no part of that. In the situation that I think you're suggesting where if Penn were to lose the lease but you recognize that that facility which is designed and built for gaming and somebody else could step in and run those machines on day one so you don't have a two year period to build a new facility or something like that and we were to enter into a new lease what the lease provides is that what we would do was enter into a new lease with the new tenant whoever that was going to be under substantially similar terms to the lease we have now. Now there is a rub here where and gets into the business negotiation between the parties if the problem is that the rent was too high then the whole lease is in jeopardy and I think we find ourselves at gaming and leisure properties faced with the notion of if the rent construct is too high then we're probably going to be forced to renegotiate rental payments and those sorts of things but again we haven't encountered that today. But the case I'm thinking more just for the record this is an utterly hypothetical okay but it's not an it is hypothetical that I think it's worth thinking about if we were not satisfied with the performance of Penn National and we decided to rebid and give opportunity to somebody else to come in and bid and somebody else came in and bid and I'm asking this actually I'm asking this a few but I'd like to have you think about this as well and Loretta wherever you went are we compromised or is the commission compromised in its ability to make an objective decision based on the leverage that GLPI has on a new license holder? I mean if you make life miserable for the new license holder in terms of how you'll rent to them does that put us at a disadvantage in being able to be objective in assessing whether or not Penn National is indeed the best operator? So from our perspective at GLPI we don't think so we believe that we're kind of at your mercy so obviously you control ultimately whether or not gaming happens at that location that property there is no better use presently at that property the highest and best use is undoubtedly gaming so we are a little bit at your mercy in the sense that you have to license a tenant that tenant has to choose that facility that we own to conduct their gaming in and if they don't then we have a very expensive facility that the next best use the rent that will be derived I can only surmise will be substantially lower than the rent we'll generate today and I will say we also view ourselves as a bit of a partner to the state in the sense that our interest as a triple net landlord is for the lights to be on and the machines to be running at all time to the extent that that doesn't happen whether or not there's a master lease supporting it eventually the house that starts to crumble and so our interest is always to have a tenant there and we don't get our rent until you get your tax dollars and so we believe we are aligned with you in the sense that if Penn's doing a terrible job at running this facility that's bad for us as well so we're gonna want a new tenant in there as well that will reinvest in the property and put money back in, refresh machines, do things that presumably in this case Penn is not doing so we believe we're aligned with the state with the commonwealth in that regard and in that I mean we are from a financial standpoint we're financially sound because of our structure not because we do it better we're more financially sound than most of the gaming operators out there because most of our cash flows go to our shareholders so our business is very simple we take in rent we pay out 90% of that net income and dividends to our shareholders we keep ourselves levered at a point where we believe is prudent which we've said is about five and a half times levered and as of today Fitch ratings came out with a rating on our debt today hadn't previously rated us we'd only been rated by Moody's and S&P Fitch has rated us investment grade so we have two of the three agencies have investment grade ratings on our debt and so we believe we bring a stability to gaming that we bring a partner that we're after the same things you are make sure there's a tenant in there that's doing a good job and paying the rent and keeping the machines running Do you or Enrique, do you have any different sense of that? And I don't think you're required for some reason, Penn again, hypothetically somehow really tanked and lost license it's a category two license there's no obligation you put someone in that facility you could put it back out the bit now again I think to the GLPI's point they'd be incentivized to make sure there's someone in that facility so it would be awful hard it strikes me as the economic model might be hard for someone to go build something as opposed to occupy something that's already there Right Yeah That's well said Anybody else? Yeah, that's it I mean there's a number of scenarios that you can think of but it ultimately goes down to you know a question we asked of the parties earlier and said when it comes to licensing that's really or re-licensing that's really a risk they're willing to take they understand that that's their highest and best use and they'll make a case to continue running it for as long as they can I have a question of Penn there's in the the terms some of the disclosure thank you Mr. Moore some of the prior disclosures and some of the remarks that Ms. Chang made there's a notion that there will be about a hundred million dollars in annual savings as part of this transaction going forward can you tell us a little bit about that and what happens if those how is that going and what happens if those don't really come to fruition Sure Justin Spastiano, VP of Finance and Treasurer at Penn National so you mentioned the hundred million dollars of cost savings these are the synergies we announced at the when we announced the deal back in December of 17 and so it's actually been going extremely well during the the Arduke diligence we came up with that number after we made the announcement and we're able to really dig in more with help from the Pinnacle corporate teams and property teams we have more faith in that number now and it's basically 50-50 between corporate the corporate structure savings and what's out in the properties we think that probably happens over a 24 month period post-close and probably split roughly 50-50 maybe a little bit we'll get in Q4 this year we've announced on our last conference call that we expect to close the transaction very early fourth quarter so day one obviously there's the corporate redundancies the C-suite the duplicative costs of being a public company you don't need those costs now that there's only going to be one public company so those sorts of costs will come day one but the real bulk of it will probably happen over you know the 24 month period after that and so within the corporate redundancies happen much sooner and some of the property savings that we will have will be through predominantly through the cost of good sold and procurement and just getting those that purchasing power in that economy is a scale that you would get becoming a much larger company while we haven't quantified publicly how we're going to do that we haven't laid out per se the blueprint obviously for competitive reasons but while we were very comfortable with that number now we are extremely confident in that hundred million I would also say that there's likely revenue synergies on top of that and so we feel very very comfortable with the number and we really can't wait to start operating this company as one larger company revenue synergies can you help me understand that? Sure that might be sure and that's when we were talking about the five million player database just getting more of those customers in from from the pinnacle properties pinnacle does not have a Las Vegas strip asset we can now cater to those pinnacle database players and have them come to the Las Vegas strip where we have a property in Tropicana Las Vegas and the M resort in the local market Great Thank you Anybody else? Questions or comments? Do I think we have a vote? Is that next? Sure, you know let me make the motion noting that as I noted before that this is a fundamentally economic transaction something that results in real benefits to the parties simply because of the structure there will be better cost of capital that was mentioned before you know in terms of the capacity of GLPI to borrow so I will move that the commission approved the proposed transaction of the interim authorization for the sale of Plain Ridge Park Casino to GLPI as described here today for the discussion All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have unanimously Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Albano looks like he wants to say something. If I may could we I just want to never speak after you win no forget I want to make sure I have Is racing is the racing approval subsumed within the interim authorization that the commission has voted on? General Council Blu is nodding yes. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thanks again. All right. We were asking Umbudsman Siemba to return. Mr. Chairman and commissioners we're joined by Plain Ridge Park for their quarterly report for the second quarter of this year we're joined here by Reuben Warren vice president of finance Michelle Collins vice president of marketing marketing Kim Dixon vice president of human resources Jason Gittle information technology director Lance George general manager and Lisa McKinney compliance manager will also are also here to answer any questions you may have and with that I turn it over to Reuben Good morning. Good morning Reuben. Good morning. No more hypotheticals so second our second quarter presentation in the state's fourth quarter revenue grew in our second quarter so forty four million dollars in net slot revenues that's three point three percent better than the prior year that is with disruption in our slot floor we built a high-limit facility with the VIP component and Michelle will get into the details of what that looks like her total state revenue seventeen point six million horse race revenues of just under four million in total taxes of twenty one point six million in the quarter for a lottery uh... continue to be a great story for us uh... just under a million dollars for the second quarter nine hundred and thirty two thousand was the number uh... that's just under eleven percent growth so great partnership and i think our customers you know love the convenience of you know the terminals being on property for life to date lottery has made about eight million dollars on on our property through the terminals and that's what you know partnering with our host communities not really affecting uh... the host communities we've actually grown those as well uh... that's what you know people come into the area so i think it's a great partnership for both uh... lottery and our host communities as well for the state uh... for the qualified spend one point five uh... million dollars for the total for the quarter uh... with eighty nine percent or one point three million uh... being in the state of mass that number is slightly elevated due to some of the construction projects that we had on properties the normal average for mass is about seventy five percent on this quarter is slightly above because of those reasons was that the high-limit area that you read it recently for example so we did the uh... on the horse racing side we did the barn roofs in the in that quarter uh... in payments came in for that and then partial payments for the high-limit room as well you'll see most of those payments in the for the high-limit room in the next quarter uh... for our host and and surrounding communities uh... two hundred forty three thousand was a total spend that's about fifteen point five percent of our uh... total qualified spent in the quarter uh... and then a rent them vendor benefited from you know the construction on the property i.e. the sixty four percent here for that jurisdiction for that community diversity uh... continues to be a good story overall so we uh... exceeded the goal and our second quarter twenty four uh... percent uh... compared to the twenty one percent goal for the women business enterprise fourteen percent compared to the twelve percent goal minority owners right at the six percent goal in the veteran business uh... at five percent and so through these uh... through some of these uh... spectrums uh... our top three vendors for women bender business enterprises uh... printing and signage seafood and teetal tickets for the slot machines for the minority owned businesses it will be technology printing uh... and marketing promotional gifts and for the veteran business it's marketing promotional gifts uh... food and beverage uh... equipment repair food and beverage disposable items uh... and through the partnership with derrick and jill the state uh... and very cloud we have identified you know a few more vendors to shore up some of the areas that we're having issues with historically uh... and uh... through the corporate uh... procurement uh... partnership uh... they brought in a veteran owned business i.e. the uh... elevation in the percentage for the uh... second quarter and so things are continuing to uh... improve uh... for the areas that we had some issues with prior year compliance uh... good story for the second quarter uh... just under six hundred fifty thousand people to the doors and our security check right under twenty right at twenty one thousand folks that's about three point three percent of all visitors to the property uh... and the major components of that uh... that we turned away uh... two hundred ninety one total folks were either invalid IDs uh... or no ID uh... and just over a hundred you know folks that's either underage or minors that attempted to get on the floor that were turned turned away with that i'm going to turn it over to uh... kim so that she can go over our uh... employment update good morning as of the end of the second quarter our employment was up by twelve people uh... four hundred and seventy seven full-time represents three hundred and five which is sixty three point nine percent of the workforce and part time is hundred and seventy two with which represents thirty six point one percent of the workforce in terms of our breakdown of our employees our numbers remain significantly the same diversity went up slightly to twenty six veterans have remained the same at five percent massachusetts uh... has gone down slightly one point at to sixty four percent and our local hiring is at thirty four percent our male and female breakdown is fifty three percent male and forty seven percent female we continue to focus on our in-state and local hiring we are attending uh... the recruit military job fair coming up in two weeks during the second quarter we attended the bbc job fair and we also held an onsite job fair we are enhancing our social media recruitment as well with our talent acquisition team focusing on member-only job boards south shore jobs on facebook etc kim just uh... court point and uh... and director griffin is in here this morning because she's at uh... one of our access and opportunity committee meetings uh... i know you're in the process of kind of reshaping the workforce development plan for yes or ppc you know i was just on your website this morning you still have anywhere between thirty five and forty openings you consider those kind of ongoing openings to be still experiencing some turnover some of those new positions are kind of what's the mix a little bit of all so uh... we do have some recurring positions that continue to continual turnover our turnover is actually lower than it's ever been so year to date we're at about nineteen point four percent and annualized uh... we are much less than we were in two thousand seventeen were down like twenty percentage points from two thousand seventeen annualized number uh... we do continue to focus on on the in-state hiring as well working with the career fairs we have all our positions posted uh... we're looking at setting up something onsite soon uh... adjusted with talking with some folks from the governor's skills cabinet more focused on you know they were looking for updates for progress with mgm but they said you know we should circle back go down to visit plainridge you know bring in the career center folks and and see how again we might be able to work with you especially at this time we are kind of redoing the workforce development plan absolutely happy to work with you on that next to uh... to continue our update on our women leading at pen initiative so our next topic that will be discussing in the month of july is gender bias we also want to give you an update on our women's expo so we again we are thrilled to have gale as our keynote speaker uh... our advertisements have been posted we will be able to hold about two hundred and twenty five uh... attendees and about twenty six uh... vendors so we've had significant interest with the chamber uh... selling tickets as we speak and uh... i just want to mention to some of the additional speakers that are going to be there jennifer weissman is a new addition she is our chief marketing officer from penn national she's one of the founding women with the women leading at pen initiative and jennifer's going to talk to the group about the initiative and you know the plans for pen going forward so excited to have jennifer on the panel as well uh... the rest of the speakers jenn is going to jenn as a jinsky i said that wrong uh... she's going to talk about authenticity and social media being authentic uh... jenn and uh... the rest of the group are all local so they're all from massachusetts so excited that they all came here uh... ashley parry she owns own your work and she's going to discuss negotiation skills shelly berman rubeira she's going to discuss about women succeeding in business of small business owners and then dr mary materials is going to focus on women in health care so those will make up the breakout sessions for the women's expo all right so for local community we continue to support the local charities on a quarterly basis in some of these you'll see uh... quarter over quarter but some highlights include we sponsored restaurant night for lino's pantry at slacks uh... at the property we also participated in the pen initiative for relay for life so every year what they do is they have all of the properties participate to see how much money we can each trades it's a competition really and this year we came in seventh out of twenty properties where we raised over twenty five thousand dollars for reload relay for life uh... on a whole pen actually raised four hundred twenty seven thousand dollars this year where does that money go really for life is that an organ there's an organization called relay for life yes so that we work specifically for the north adabero uh... chapter but yeah it's it's cancer okay yeah all all kinds of cancers not specific to one in addition to that we have uh... been working with a local artist his name is theater author chair he is uh... raised in north adabero at his grandparents farm and he went to the artist institute of boston he graduated nineteen seventy two and he is well known for many of his paintings he's been uh... recognized for over a hundred nationally so what we've done with him is we've taken some of his artwork and if you walked down from slacks to the racing area we've just uh... displayed his artwork along those walls which is a nice area to put it in work we're allowing our customers who if they ought to choose to spend a comp cash on a piece of art they can do so so this is just very new we um... i think put them up about three weeks ago so it's exciting and uh... he's also going to be writing in the starter car taking photographs of live racing and then he's going to print uh... draw the pictures and we're going to do a uh... promotion for our guests where they'll receive the print of the picture in addition to that we continued our sponsorship with nesting in red socks uh... with winning wednesdays so as the red socks continue to have their lucky streak uh... we're at twelve wins for wednesdays which puts us at nearly ten thousand dollars already towards our two thousand nineteen goal for relay for life so that's very exciting we also continue to our fenway concert series sponsorship this allows us to do activation to reach out to people and increase our awareness but it also allows us to host our vip guests in our suite so we can do kind of uh... uh... an experience with our hosts and the players so that they can enjoy something that we don't offer at the property and then we partnered with these media group doing an xfinity concert series where what they do is they have concert winners they bring a bus of twenty five people to fluties beforehand so they they get to experience the restaurant and then there's transportation to and from the concert venue for marketing highlights we just had our three year anniversary uh... as ruben mentioned we also uh... finished the new high-limit area as well as the vip lounge uh... in this area it's a more private area for our customers to play uh... the high-limit games which is something that they were asking for and we increase the count from thirty eight to forty five in that area so so far it's been a great success and and they're really enjoying the privacy of it you should remind me what is the high-limit threshold what do you call high-limit it's any of the higher games so we have a hundred dollar twenty five dollar ten dollar dollar and then uh... in addition to that we are bringing back marvie's boxing for their final boxing match in september so we had done a four year uh... four time deal with them so september will be the last one that we do for this year we're also adding what's unlikely to be something you renew does that work it does it's a it's a totally different demographic than what we would normally get so it's nice to be able to use the racing side for that and still have the excitement on the gaming side so essentially it's not much crossover but it's still something that is exciting to offer uh... we've started to work on the outdoor apron a bit and i don't know if you've been there recently but what we've done is we've taking the shack that was out there and we added a bar to it so now when we do outdoor events it allows us to offer hot dogs and cocktails and uh... we actually just had our our banquet banquet manager rent that space out for a company to do their company party outdoors which was really nice and again something different so we're just working with our existing footprint to create new items that we can offer to uh... the community and to our guests in addition to that we're adding a what we're calling a grab and gain which is essentially just kind of a snack bar for customers to grab a quick salad to grab a quick sandwich and uh... that way they don't have to wait in a restaurant and it's just something quick and easy for them to to grab that will be putting in the food court tell me where that outdoor bar was again is that so uh... on the apron off to if you're facing the racing area up to the right it was that white brick building oh i see yeah so we kind of refinished it added a granite bar and some stools oh great i'll have to take a look yeah i know it looks great uh... and also we will be uh... launching our win-loss our monthly win-loss statements so uh... jason gittle will be walking through you that process with you but what it is going to do is allow our customers to go on to market rewards online and actually get their uh... statement each month versus yearly which is the current standard with them so they'll be able to see their win-loss statements print them out and access them whenever they want to so he'll walk you through that right now i would say just at a high altitude description of the project uh... roughly five or six months ago we were approached by members of your staff we needed to develop and offer our patrons a monthly win-loss statement typically we've issued a pen national is issued at all of its properties an annual statement sometime around february first is when that occurred so from a high altitude this project came in a time technology-wise for pen where i'm not certain if you're aware we're changing our data warehouse for our corporation the term kuma if you've heard of it made its way to puma too so one of the challenges in developing something of this nature that pulls information from our old data warehouse otherwise known as puma is to make sure that it's forward compatible with what the pen and plain ridge park will be using sometime in the january february time frame uh... the puma too engine has been rolled out that uh... two or three properties thus far successfully anticipate any failures on on their approach to plain ridge property what you're seeing here is won't be impacted by that change that's coming as you know uh... just a couple of quick thank yous one is Todd here dot grossman who has kind of served as uh... uh... guiding point as as to the law and what we need to provide folks and has uh... we had several conversations of the last four or five months weeks and things along those lines to what you're about to see also uh... elena jacks of the mgm i t deployment uh... had several conversations would be uh... good thing to mention her as well to make sure what we're providing from pen perspective is similar to what they'll be providing shortly and we think you'll see similarities uh... finally lisa uh... mccanney and michelle collins from a compliance and marketing perspective locally uh... help steer us in the right direction as well which arrives you to this point in in your package uh... plan b was to provide you some still shots but uh... late in the game we decided maybe plan a would be better and that's to show you a live demonstration without further ado uh... the web player profile is located within a larger web engine or larger website referred to as marky rewards month w w w dot marky rewards dot com allows the public to go in and take a look at all things pen national all things promotional pen national and it has a secure element to it that it links this website this public website securely to all of our patrons we refer to that secure piece as the web player profile so you're at you if you're a patron at any one of our properties it is a place to log into and see things like promotional offers uh... tracking of their loyalty points and tear points and what that means in their evolution as a customer of the log in thanks mic for setting this up uh... we've created around the email addresses that are given to our baseline gaming system as well as most of the major social engine credential so it's important to know we don't need to have your email address to for you for you to log in and see the web player profile you can use facebook twitter yahoo correct all also social brief moment we're picking on one of our hosts as i had mentioned we are logging in securely with a user name which is typically email address and password that you're able to select within the website this brings you into a secure area where you're able to won't save this for you guys where you're able to view things like i told you before your offers your tier info and you're also able to find uh... information on local and pent-up uh... and entertainment local entertainment entertainment across the pet enterprise there is count this is a different layout web this is uh... a lay out for uh... signed also to work with phones and tablets so there is a my account section that allows you to log in and see different things across the enterprise and here's where what we've done typically is an annual pdf that you can see as as i hold my cursor over this is the typical functionality where if you were to select the year you're able to see and download a pdf that chose their win-loss on an annual basis one number folks one number screen has been added uh... with a dynamic check so that the customers are able to see their play in each month that there is an active rating at the plane range facility so uh... you don't see months where there are no active ratings and that's a discussion that uh... time i have been going back and forth on and it's still under discussion whether we want to present presenting no rating versus presenting a zero rating are two entirely different things here so right now where we're just were excluding anything we're not including months that do not have trips i'm sorry on it is there a reason there why uh... two thousand sixteen doesn't work it's just uh... dummy data over sir this is a test account and we didn't mess around with it in two thousand sixteen so uh... as we as we dynamically take a look at the the play on this account we we were testing obviously in two thousand fifteen you can see the equation of going in minus going out plus jackpots equals the total that gives you a total not a total number for the month of win-loss green being red being lost and and again you can up around it dynamically uh... this is the same math you'll see from the uh... the licensee opening in ten days and then finally uh... just open up four or three again open up that oh certainly number so that means that the the better hundred and sixty three dollars five fifty six so one of the things we took from mister grossman is that we're potentially going to one of the ads of the revisions that you'll see in the we're going to add definition of what these that are more lame in nature coin in coin out is obscure to a lot of folks we talked about the coin in number it does not mean that the person took a hundred sixty three dollars out of their wall put it into the machine right the total they bet going up and down well this this is a topic i've had with some folks in that that was completely obscure to people i think i mean people think that you go in with a hundred dollars and if you lose it you've lost a hundred dollars but your system says if you started out winning a hundred and then you lose everything you've lost two hundred it right as a consumer thinks they lost a hundred in the machine thinks they've lost two hundred so explaining that to people and maybe i'm but i've talked to a lot of people about it people intuitively think it means how much cash out of my pocket did i lose and in fact it means something different because it counts the money theoretically had when you had wins not theoretically i mean you did have it if you chose to cash out at that point but you know but that's that's really confusing to be yes sir we got the same feedback for mister grossman we're going to be adding well as we said right here in this white section next to point and point out jack we're going to give a better description of what it means i'm interest to know whether in any of you has any is there any feedback from customers about whether they under your your like your marky roars players where they understand this distinction so anyway that it probably doesn't come up very often but uh... it does come up but if their uh... experience gambler they typically do understand what it is but somebody just walking in and signing up for a card it is very confusing we try to just explain to them is it it's literally every time they hit that button that's what the coin in is it has nothing to do with what they physically put in the machine but again when they want offers and they're trying to figure out what they should be getting versus what they are getting it's it is confusing which is why we've talked about adding words like estimated in here because the total is not necessarily the pure total money that you actually won or lost that there's a number of different factors so using words like estimated kind of get you closer to what that number actually reflects except it's not estimated it for giving the definition it is an estimated it is real and that's the number that we report you know to uh... to the state and that's what we tax against and so forth so or that we could we include when we report uh... when you know what was the what was the win or what was the drop was the payout you know it's based on that that algorithm so it's not really estimated that might not be the best word well the tax is different tax is based on ggr right but when we were i'm sorry i misspoke when we report ggr and tax we also report coin in that they do report that out that that's right and so yeah the word estimated might not be ideal but as mister gittle mentioned there will work on some explanation for here so people understand what these numbers you know it's important to lay out that the law speaks in different terms not going in and going out it speaks in terms of the total that's right total amount once so i think it would be a useful exercise to tie these things into what the law states and and and it might be more understandable perhaps i've been looking at these two two for a while but i think it's pretty straightforward when you make the addition you know to come up with the total working on them can add one thing so estimated could be our customers don't always understand you have to have the card in and sometimes they think the cards in the bedding and so i think that estimated is really uh... saying that if you insert the card appropriately it's gonna track your play and if you don't there's going to be this you know estimation really what you want what you lost so it's really on the customers it doesn't count what you sneak over to the other machine and don't use your card catch well and by the way this term is going to be that point is going to be a lot more important with the tables because that talk about rate play uh... that really becomes you know as as good as an estimate anybody can do but it's still an estimate yes sir giving you testimony for another licensee you'll find that their their presentation of the data is very similar to what we're proposing here with one additional break out base they break out slots for the table so the uh... the just that the close the presentation if we were to run uh... uh... pdf of annual win-loss this is what the patron would see and as i said earlier we're pretty we're just this is what we have been doing today this is a presentation of one number verses here verses what we're proposing in the same time period on a monthly basis the statement is also available but you'll see some some similarities to the dynamic screen presented here with uh... a monthly break out of their win-loss that annual statement was set up as a letter did you mail that out or do you mail that out we've not typically mailed them out only if they've requested it we we typically make them available via this web player profile we discussed that said that was okay but it's always interesting that you're sets up like the letter well it's good for tax purposes by the way i would think patrons would appreciate this change because every other financial transaction we make we're notified monthly what that is so we're very accustomed to being notified monthly of whatever that is and that lingo that you just mentioned was a base part of how we reformed this took a look at things like credit card statements and how we're presenting how they present data so we've arrived at this technically we're ready to launch there are some uh... compliance hurdles and some things that we're signing off internally we've picked the date of september first uh... and we can be ready technically thank you mr george to fear oversight here we will switch over to uh... when thank you everybody really good numbers you can see the effort is there so uh... appreciate it look forward to the event in in september but we are still with on butzman's the impact thank you mr chairman so next up we have the quarterly report for the second quarter for on core boston harbour we're joined by robert sabio president on core boston harbour jackie crumb senior vice president general counsel in peter campbell director construction turn it over to bob thank you john and good afternoon commissioners and you know uh... very pleased to report there's been significant progress on the site since our last quarterly update and uh... while i know the entire team is dedicated to uh... getting the mgm up and running i would suggest after the opening and when you can catch your breath uh... please call to arrange some tours uh... because i think you'd be very impressed that progress uh... since our last quarterly update and it's going it's going really quickly on site uh... i want to just before i turn it over to peter said thank you i just highlighted janice to uh... to do some just some chores maybe in the fall would be great that'd be great uh... and before i turn it over to peter to jump right into the construction update peter thank you for you and the team and john fish at suffolk for uh... really moving this thing forward so with that i'm going to turn it over to peter campbell uh... good morning morning afternoon yes uh... i'd like to point out that we're going to put up the first uh... letter of the sign in the north side of the building tonight and it's static thank you uh... we're on schedule we have three hundred fourteen days to go i'd like to point out before you go too much farther that the team is just uh... working with a great bunch of people the construction manager suffocates doing a great job that we've got about a hundred and fifty people in the office there the design team everybody's pulling together and really making it happen the uh... all of the trade partners have been doing a fantastic job and the entire work force has just been outstanding and they're all excited about the job and the quality has been excellent we're averaging about sixteen hundred workers a day on site uh... most of those are in the first shift with selected trades on the second shift we're sixty nine percent complete from a time standpoint sixty six complete from a labor standpoint just over seventy percent complete from a cash standpoint so we're tracking we're tracking really well and we're excited about that i wanted to point out that uh... in this presentation that jackie insisted i use june thirtieth photos i want permission next time to use current ones because we made a tremendous amount of progress in the last six weeks if we go to the next slide i'll show you the so in the the site work we've planted about sixty or seventy percent of all the major trees and all the walkways are being installed and you'll see on the south peninsula were on schedule to complete the south peninsula by the first of september there'll be some minor planning but that that includes the natural the uh... artificial turf on the south peninsula and then we're at the front entry on broadway we're also those plantings large trees are uh... planted and we probably have about seventy five percent of the pavement installed will continue to work work that around the entire site there's a view of the south peninsula it's much more developed today so the walkway which is just fantastic uh... the garage uh... structure we're punching out the b-4 and b-3 levels those of you ready to be turned over in october we won't be using them but we're going to complete them and get the punch list done the b-2 levels right behind that and the b-1 level is also in great shape we're using those from temporary storage we'll turn those over later essentially complete uh... this is a uh... image of the front of the casino that is all enclosed now all the stone and the emphasis installed is a little bit of green sheathing left on where the bus entry is but that's all almost complete you can see uh... on the podium you see there's an image of the tower that curtain wall is completing out of the roof uh... you mentioned that you were putting up the first letter you said on the north side are you going to have signs sounds on both north and south? north and south alright so the big one will be south south is going to be okay the on-call name is slightly smaller on the north side because the as the building swoops the e had to be smaller for that end it starts tonight oh the capital E didn't fit as much as the other well it's on the lower end on the lower side it's on the lower end so that'll be done this week and the south side will be done on the first week of September uh... the tower crane just for the record is scheduled to come down the next thirty days the first one comes down uh... starting about the twentieth and that's a big milestone for us to get those tower cranes down that allows us to finish where they penetrate the roof in the podium level so that's big milestone and the uh... temporary hoist is scheduled to come down mid-september and that allows us to enclose the remaining pieces of the tower and uh... and uh... you know finish those rooms up that we left out the podium gaming um... go to the next image the light fixtures are actually hung in this space right now and we're installing the raised flooring yet about twenty twenty five percent of the raised flooring is all from the gaming area and the gaming area is about a month ahead of schedule right now which is great because that'll allow us to move the game machines in as everybody knows that's crucial to have the time to install those uh... timely so that's continuing to develop and we're right on schedule uh... this is the center bar area uh... again those uh... those stairways are open now and we're installing the railings on those stairways as you as you go up to the upper limit gaming uh... the convention area is about a month ahead of schedule uh... the facade is more developed and you can see see now i think the next you have in the next to know that's from the end there's another view of the tower uh... in the development of that facade uh... but that's mostly enclosed now we're installing the glazing in those openings as you come around in the convention center buildings completely weathertight at this point uh... hotel tower we're installing drywall on the twenty-seven floor floors five six seven and eight are almost complete uh... we're carpeting floors five and six right now as we speak uh... tile is up to up to about the sixteenth floor that's always one of our finishes because it's a ton of stone one of our challenges making sure that we have enough people for the finishes that's proceeding just as planned if not better so we're pretty excited about that and so the whole assembly line of the towers on schedule to turn those start turning those rooms over in december and then you can see a view here of the curtain wall and up the mystic river but that current wall is complete up to the top of that structural steel on the south side there's only about maybe eighty panels left to go so the current wall will be complete a hundred percent within two weeks it's a great picture great view i was up there yesterday in the very top of the swoop three hundred eighty feet the views are spectacular really amazing and that's just a view of the skyline there's nothing behind the swoop on the roof no structural steel uh... elevated machine room uh... that type of thing we're on schedule no there's any particular questions i think i covered most of it i just had a question you mentioned artificial turf so in between all those plantings you're going to use turf uh... yes in the center area there's an artificial lawn and there's two smaller areas either side that is an artificial lawn everything else between those plantings a hundred percent planted with shrubs or flowers we started to plant the roses out there right now it's really beautiful so everything will be planted out other than some turf areas in the middle that's right so no natural grass you don't use any natural grass just turf just a comment on that event lawn that space is about it's about twenty thousand square feet and it's going to get a tremendous amount of use and if you went with regular grass you know you look great the first day then you start putting a tent up and run events on it and you put some rain on it and next you know it's just mud and so for that area similar to what we do in los vegas there's certain areas where an artificial product and especially in a high use area like that just makes all the sense in the world but everything else is you know all natural landscape and the newer terms are pretty realistic looking they're great looking and it'll give us again the flexibility to use that it has drainage components that are built into it so you know you're not worried about puddling or flooding or any of that so it's really probably the right use for us and it looks much better during the winter too what has been the uh... your experience with the labor force have you been having trouble you said you were concerned about maybe getting the uh... people for the tiles I think if you remember before one of my challenges have always been worried about getting enough high quality trades persons for the finishes to date we've had no problem at all the response has been great really terrific one other point I wanted to make is the marquee sign on broadway schedule to be erected in september so that's pretty exciting there's also a static no video screen on that one there's a note in the bigger report on page seven you it said back in April you filed a license application for phase one of the dcr harbour walk connector project can you just kind of refresh our memory as to what piece of the connector that is so we have that permit for phase one and that's the first piece that connects us over to the dcr property okay we also have permission almost there for phase two also so we expect to do phase one and phase two this fall so we'll put that walkway in for my property all the way over to dcr great thank you jackie sure it's once again what about neither of both of you where are we on the possibility of the bridge the bridge so I was actually just going to address that before we get into off-site infrastructure I know that there were questions about the pedestrian bridge so our corporate team has authorized us to go ahead with the design and permitting uh... for the bridge so we will be paying for that obviously it'll have to be done in close coordination with uh... both dcr and uh... d o t and mbta so there's a number of components to this one is the actual bridge of course but it connects over to the uh... dcr park and we were working with dcr to see how that can be redeveloped and uh... if we can get a connection into the head house which will connect us to the assembly row t station uh... you know the last thing we want is a bridge that drops off in the middle of nowhere and people don't have access and uh... it's very difficult to cross the tracks at that point so it would add a substantial amount of walking if it just dropped off into the dcr park so we're working very closely with uh... all the different agencies including uh... uh... john and uh... we hope to have more of a report as we move forward on the uh... off-site infrastructure as you know we've broken it into four different packages uh... the first one which we call a cp one which is broadway in the track route has has been our biggest challenge today uh... what we've been trying to do is coordinate with ever source to receive permission to put in a transmission line along the same route and for obvious reasons uh... both the city and ever source and we all want to coordinate that effort so we weren't rebuilding all the streets and then having ever source come in sometime you know within a month or a year later ripping out the streets and putting in the transmission line we've been in close coordination with ever source but for various reasons they're significantly delayed on their project and uh... so we're trying to work out how we can add extra shifts how they can add extra shifts and and try to get back on schedule whether we just need to go ahead uh... we do have a plan currently but it's a very tight plan it does have us open it does have all the work complete before opening but it would mean that we have to go back in the uh... spring rather than finishing up in the fall on uh... cp two this is route sixteen and as you can see we're scheduled to complete this fall on cp three this is mullin wellington and the nbta station also on schedule to complete this fall and uh... cp four is solvents square and the uh... nbta station the work that we're doing uh... in the actual station uh... has been more time-consuming than we anticipated but we are still on schedule to complete this fall uh... i noticed on this graph you have some things that start green which is work completed and then they extend the pink which is that shows the delay in so that isn't work completed sorry that is the work that should have been completed by that time but it's been delayed through the yellow they don't appear to be in the critical path no i mean if we needed to go back in the spring for any of this we could but i was to try to get it done in the fall uh... i wanted to provide an update on our uh... diversity in the project uh... the design phase not too much new there uh... our goal on the nbds was seven point nine percent and we uh... are finishing up at about eight point nine percent exceeding that goal the wb e goal which was ten percent were currently at about seven point eight and we've been over the last few quarters trying to add whatever we could on that particular goal on the veteran goal was one percent and we far exceeded that at six point six so overall uh... the goal was eighteen point nine and we came in at a at a very strong twenty three point three percent over our uh... initial goal and the design work is pretty much wrapping up at this point uh... the contracting side has been an incredible uh... story uh... on the nbd front uh... word for five percent goal word about six percent currently in that represents about seventy five million dollars worth of work uh... the wb e goal was five point four and word ten point eight percent and over a hundred thirty six million dollars and the bb e goal was one percent word about two point six percent currently hovering a little over thirty two million so in total uh... we had a goal of eleven point four percent were currently running seventeen point four percent and that re represents uh... two hundred and eighteen million dollars worth of work on uh... a total of about two hundred and thirty contracts so we're very pleased with the effort uh... that the team has put forth on trying to be as inclusive as possible on the construction uh... workforce we're doing very well there as well uh... on the minority front we had a goal of fifteen point three percent work we're currently hovering just below twenty five percent at twenty four nine our female numbers have been very impressive uh... a goal of six point nine and we're rated six point eight so we're hovering right around the goal and i'm sure you probably saw this week this was the subject of uh... really great feature that contessa brewer did with c mbc uh... they came and visited our property they spoke with the commission they spoke with m g m and that story got spun out all over the place lots of nationwide coverage on that uh... because uh... are for both our project and m g m's are far exceeding uh... what is the typical norm of a two to three percent of for females in the construction workforce and we've been far exceeding that number and it was really a great story and got lots of national attention uh... on the veteran goal we had a goal of three percent were currently over double that at six point four percent so again another great story uh... this quarter as well on the construction workforce uh... the outreach is three pages and i was looking at this and in some months it's almost in event today and so we have people all over the place covering uh... just uh... an amazing variety of local and community and diverse organizations to try to get our word out uh... it's been extremely successful uh... the jobs events have been very encouraging including one we just had recently in every uh... that we had a morning and an evening session that was terrific so i will not i'm not going to read you all these names but you can see that it's really uh... a very very wide cross-section of community groups and our teams done a wonderful job in terms of doing that outreach and so with that i want to i want to open up for questions from any of the commission bob this is an impressive list is that a combination of kind of site updates verses bending opportunities verses employment opportunities it's a little bit an equal mix or is it predominantly on the workforce side well it's going to move more towards workforce as we obviously we're going to get into that very large hiring wave after the first of the year and you can't do that in a short window so there's a lot of prep work to that hiring wave so if i i looked out the other day at what uh... jenny in the employment team were doing and it's it's doing now much more towards workforce and then right behind that we're in the process of preparing for the commission the vendor goals so it's going to move from a heavy emphasis in employment to right behind that on procurement for goods and services for after we open so we kind of tell her the events to what the current needs are but right now it's going to be a big spike in employment events but there's also a significant part of community outreach so you know last week for the week before uh... we had a whole team from our office go out and pull at the water chestnuts from the mystic river yeah it was great jill has got very positive feedback on your workforce development plan some one professional wrote in that he'd never seen a workforce development plan as impressive and as comprehensive as that in his life professional business uh... and also saw the door knockers that you are putting out in everett where where are those going they did them all throughout the community and one of the main goals was to to promote the event that we just had uh... and uh... you know the mayor was there in a lot of the city counselors and as i mentioned we did two sessions one at eight in the morning one at six in the evening and we had lines out the door and down the street we had to do crowd control at a hiring event and people were walking around saying i don't get this i thought there was low unemployment and yet we were just just jammed at there so it tells us that uh... yeah there is low employment but i think our story is really positive and if people are looking for a career and want to be with the company for a long time hopefully will be a job of choice because we were very very impressed with the results people came in they were well-dressed they had resumes uh... we brought in all of our department heads so they could literally in one room just go around and and make stops at about fifteen different tables and check in with department heads so uh... you know in the mayor he really was probably when you think about his involvement with the project his number one item was jobs for everett residents he loved the project but for him it was a lot about the employment and he couldn't have been more proud i think at that event when he saw that finally after all this time this is where the fruits of the labor really paid off and the door knockers was a great idea to just go out there and literally let people know that there was this event coming up and also to introduce our uh... web portal and uh... what's going on there's a lot of excitement about that i've used those many times in political campaigns in days gone by but i don't know that i've ever seen it in a for employment for employment or even the business it works got people out so it was great news yeah i i i thought it was a great idea and obviously your numbers uh... so all your efforts are really paying off it's just really nice to see uh... how much effort and uh... the results are there so really good work thank you thanks commissioner uh... share the same thoughts uh... can i uh... just go back a little bit to the ever source so uh... you mentioned that the effort is tight uh... of course you cannot control all of it if there's some requirements that you have to do but it's behind the ever source work can you speak a little bit about what would be the situation if they continue to have their delay on their side yes uh... so we've had numerous meetings with them and the city of ever and one of the things that we're considering is whether at some point we just go ahead with the work that we need to do unfortunately that means that they would have to come back at a certain point and rip a portion out and go back and do that but that's certainly under consideration we're also talking to our contractor to see what we can do to really expedite that work in the springtime so uh... they seem confident that if ever source does what they need to do over the course of the fall and a little bit into the winter that they can do that in time we would have liked to finish the work in the fall so yeah you remember our original schedule we had said if we could we'd love to do all that road work in this calendar year and then we just wouldn't have to worry about it next year but this one piece unfortunately uh... dragged out a little bit but that's why we left ourselves a good buffer in there for just you know you start road work you never know what's going to happen uh... so I'm glad we left a little buffer and hopefully we can catch that up and we'll make sure we're done by the spring and ever so has gone back to the city and asked for some relief in terms of the times of day that they can work and the number of crews that they can have uh... so the city's been very accommodating and getting that done obviously we're trying to balance that with significant traffic delays in uh... along the broadway area and uh... so I think the nighttime work has certainly gone a long way and remind me that work is related to the casino or not no it's completely unrelated as it's a transmission line that goes through Chelsea, Everett and other communities we were just trying to call with me well if we ever have to find ourselves in a situation where you have to do the work or compliance with 23K and and then somebody else is going to go rip that work out later on well as you can appreciate too what we don't want is to be open and then they open the streets again too and I must say EverSource has been working with us in good faith to do this they've run into delays that were frankly unanticipated uh... you know they've uh... hit utilities that they didn't that they didn't anticipate so that requires research and it is a coordinated effort to get it done anybody else? Thank you thank you very much, thank you all right item number seven, racing division six oh I'm sorry what was six? nothing personal no offence to you Mr. Chairman commissioners uh... I have before you today eleven positions uh... to consider for exemption uh... these positions are all at MGM Springfield uh... one is an MGM Springfield employee uh... in the bowling alley and the remaining are all at western mass news uh... these are all uh... in line with previous uh... exemptions that have been granted I reviewed these uh... with MGM and found them all to be suitable in terms of the criteria that the commission set for uh... earlier this year uh... and I'm recommending that they be exempted Paul quick question uh... you know the bowling alley attendant position do we know how many jobs that actually translates into like how many people they actually plan to hire for that position I do not have an exact number of the headcount for that I believe it would be a handful I think it's if you think of a typical you know haven't seen the bowling alley the number of lanes how busy it'll be a couple of shifts per day uh... so to be good you know a good number of folks uh... but certainly not a tremendous number who's western mass news attendant of the that's correct yes they're there attendant uh... in uh... right off of the outdoor plaza so in that block there they have uh... western mass news will be a tenant uh... they'll do uh... you know produce news in that uh... in that space uh... you know with kind of the floor to ceiling window so as I've heard it describes can be pretty interesting walking by you'll be able to see you know the business of news happening so to speak I think it's the old channel forty abc affiliate I agree with the recommendation I'm just uh... curious as to why we didn't accept them from from the get-go or deemed them to be questionable extension well I agree with the recommendation sure in a lot of that uh... commissioner it's a good point it's because some of these that the positions weren't really identified and until this point in time so we've been kind of taking them as they come which is why for example the bowling alley tenant as an mgm employee it's it's a newer position that they've created uh... frankly I think out of whole cloth because I as far as I'm aware I don't know if there's another bowling alley tenant mgm I could be wrong but uh... I know they have to you know they have to generate these positions at a corporate level uh... cascade them down so so there will uh... which brings up the point this won't be the last time I imagine in front of you uh... certainly not you know on court there's there's the entirety of the work really there to be done uh... plan reach that could be additional exemptions as well as mgm in terms of request that I might bring before you of the discussion mister chair i'd move that the uh... commission approved the uh... gaming service employee exemptions is provided in the packet second second any further discussion all favor aye posed as happy and sleep forgotten but not brief now item number seven doctor like good afternoon commissioners today the first item on the agenda is the suffix down to request for additional race days they've asked for september fifteenth and sixteenth to be added and uh... along with that request comes the request for one point one million in uh... resource development funds for their first money which is consistent with what they've been spending over the weekend so far uh... today at the first part of that legal counsel and just a quick hat uh... communications director from suffolk if you have any questions i know there was a concern last year because of football or whatever else happens september you didn't do quite as well with the september dates as you did with the summer dates same concern this year or i would happen i think we're early enough in the football season julian julian adam won't be playing anyway so who's going to go to the racists yeah i you know it is a way for our local folks to uh... to race and others and uh... certainly i agree with the recommendation to uh... to allow these dates and it always seems to generate enthusiasm and pretty big audience and you know hopefully tells our legislature that yes there should be a future for thorough racing so that's a positive any other comments? this is not a question for the request but how was the last weekend the one that was at the last minute or the last day in in jeopardy of not coming to fruition they did well we really didn't have uh... horses that scratched because of the legislative thing i think that it was resolved early enough that everybody still came that wanted to uh... there was a lot of rain earlier in that day so the races came off the turf except for the big race they were going to have so uh... there were horses that scratched for that reason but that could happen anytime I invite I don't know commissioners if you have had the pleasure of meeting Jessica Paquette uh... communications director but uh... Chip sends his regards and his uh... apologies for not being able to be here between the two of us we're hoping to uh... maybe make up for the gap but uh... ask her if she had anything to say about last weekend there we go that helps i thought the weekend went very well we did have like dr leibbrandt said the races came off the turf but I didn't think there were really that many scratches considering the field size really held up for the uh... for both days of the weekend and the crowds were good we had a pretty solid crowd on both days even with the rain I think some of the uncertainty leading up to it at least made people excited to come out once they realized they could I uh... had the uh... opportunity to attend sunday's races and uh... executive director bejergian did as well and we both got to attend the george brown memorial race which was a very nice tribute and uh... very good race too so anyway I just wanted to add that that it was really nice to be there and feel that energy again Mr. Chair I also support the request and doctor leibbrandt's recommendation I did have a question though is there just looking at the other item on your agenda about the uh... mass breeders requesting a race of finger laces that impact your ability to field mass spread races for the day chaff in september my my understanding is the mass breeders are planning on trying to race the norman hall stakes and that one has been able to be raised at suffolk uh... and that would be nice if it could be done at suffolk this year it's for two year olds so they're not uh... typically ready that early in the season so it needs to be run later and so on my understanding is that's going to be aimed for the uh... september dates and the mass breeders are uh... aware of the suffolk uh... request and one of the reasons why they put in their request was to uh... have races so the horses will be fit still uh... despite the six-week gap from the august date to the september on the dates uh... that i've seen for the breeders in the finger lakes that they don't have any september dates they've got august october november they were looking for two in september that's an error on my part on that uh... memo my recommendation letter on the mass breeders which are correct when i get to that they're just looking for uh... they're not looking for the september they're looking for october november on their dates it doesn't interfere with suffolk if i might since uh... you brought up the mass breeders usually taking pains to explain as you know you know we don't explain to you that the resource development fund money a portion of it is set aside for the breeders and a portion of it is is general purses and we usually explain how we uh... run on behalf of the mtba uh... races the stakes races where they use the breeders portion of the money uh... this year we've also done a few races uh... for mass breads that are not part of the breeders program there they're out of the the rest of the uh... general fund of the of the purse money we've done a few of those so far we're planning on a couple more of them uh... for the september weekend if you uh... to again increase the chance for the horseman to run it uh... thank you so mister chair i move that the commission approved the request of suffolk towns for two additional days of racing september fifteenth and sixteen two thousand eighteen uh... and that the commission approved the additional one point one million dollars for purses for these days discussion all favor i i posed guys have a namelessly thank you very much thank you sorry for the uh... delay there we have a extra person on our uh... agenda today so i wanted to make sure i had everybody right uh... we have a request before us for the massachusetts breeders association to race races at finger lakes this is something the commission has approved since the uh... legislate or changed i believe it was in two thousand fifteen uh... today we have kathleen reagan board member arlene brown board member in secretary and uh... donna perera board member if there's any questions uh... and as i stated in my uh... memo regarding this uh... stated the months wrong they've got to an august and then instead of september it should be october november and uh... they have a letter that describes uh... the different races they're planning on racing and uh... as stated they're hoping to be able to race the uh... norman hall stakes in the september itself if you have any questions anybody you know i know we uh... we uh... we had uh... one comment that was not in favor of this and uh... we've gone through this before and i think until there's a full-time racetrack massachusetts where these folks can run there is no perfect solution but it is an opportunity for uh... the breeders to make their money back it's the only way they can take that money is when they run races and win races so uh... you know i'm in favor of uh... of uh... allowing additional races yeah i was going to speak to that uh... to that comment perhaps uh... ask a couple of questions uh... the rationale i have i've gone along with but now now we become a little bit of a cumulative effect that that makes us at least me makes me wonder there's always a year provisional year that the legislation gets approved on and continues the uncertainty can i ask there has been a a breeding program through these last years what can you tell us relative to you know the incremental benefit on the most recent years with the with the money's coming to the program are you seeing any changing activity uh... you mentioned to new falls in your in your letter here it struck me as a little bit of anecdotal but what else can you tell us relative to the actual breeding program please please brown i've been in communication with someone outside of the state who represents uh... mayor owners and they were inquiring about our breeders program uh... they see that we can race in other states and uh... they wanted information on our breeders program uh... because that some of their mayor owners were interested in dropping their folds here this year so i sent them all the information and they're very interested in it which is a great uh... sign but what about actual uh... breeding at what what has taken place in the last couple years uh... i believe we have thirteen two-year-olds registered uh... which is uh... as far as yieldings we won't know until uh... you know yieldings get registered which would be next year uh... it's hard to tell until they're actually registered how many were dropped in the in the state there was a noticeable drop uh... after uh... there became a shortened thoroughbred meat there were you know usually around thirty five or so holes a year in our Lincoln comment on that further but once it happened where they were was known that there was going to be a shortened meat a drop down to about ten holes a year and then there was an uptick last year to thirteen hope to improve on and one thing we can do is this winter uh... department of agriculture uh... also shares responsibility for the breeders program as well as the gaming commission some of the regs are in one twenty eight which is the solely the agriculture regulations and then some of its also in the gaming commission rates uh... and certainly one thing we can do over the winter is is get together with the group and maybe on brainstorm ideas that might help on the breeding end of it so it's not just uh... uh... racing program where you're getting money for racing obviously that's important but it's also important to some of the other states have looked at different ways of uh... encouraging aspect and and where i was leading to thank you for that uh... is there a component here of an opportunity cost meaning are we allowing uh... these requests to go to races to go to purses uh... and and perhaps inadvertently keeping the money that would be available for actually breeding you know or is it purely a demand or as a supply question in terms of breeders just not being interested in taking advantage of the breeding program uh... because of the uncertainty and the short meet yeah i think the uncertainty plays a big part of it uh... certainly ideas like increasing breeders rewards can make a difference uh... they are there already are rewards like that in place for the uh... owners of the stallion in the mayor and that type of thing but certainly you know one thing to look at is what increasing that health uh... some of the other states uh... pay people for amount of time those horses are actually kept in the state and that encourages uh... that type of activity also so there's different things that can be looked at and i think one of those my simple understanding of the breeding program is that this is the longest sort of long-lead item in order to have let's let's just say that you know next year that that the legislature finally address these short term nation you know renewal of the of the racing uh... statutes we would still need two years or more for the breeding program to you know to come to come to fruition so if we were to assume that next year they were the legislature was going address this more with more certainty towards third-rate racing couldn't this be an opportunity for us for for everybody to start thinking about the two-year lag that it takes to breed uh... or until then will we then see uh... a reinforced breeding program if there was some type of a more long-term solution where there was a little more stability uh... it would encourage people to breed uh... and they do take the long-term uh... view they're looking down the road two or three years so they look at the racing legislation and see that it looks like there's going to be a viable uh... place for their horses to race in massachusetts maybe two or three years down the road it'll impact reading right away but obviously those horses wouldn't be in the pipeline to race for two or three years but it would increase the breeding i mean i can just tell you from my own personal observation uh... that this the last couple years with the Finger Lakes program in conjunction with Suffolk Downs has produced a reliable uh... target for breeders and owners to aim at the 10 to 13 in other words? exactly so just the interplay i mean just what you saw today with Suffolk Downs and the breeders and the horsemen all working together for their date so they don't step on each other's toes you know there's a place to go there's a reasonable way to aim your horses that has produced the interest that Arlene was talking about and uh... in the letter it referenced those two gentlemen that came to our meeting they were very excited about this program they were talking about their investors that were also interested in the program and how uh... i don't think i can adequately describe to you how much it takes to get a horsemen out of the barn and go to a breeder's meeting in Dedham on a week night for them to come and drive as far as they did and explain their enthusiasm is kind of like a tip tip of the iceberg there's there is a lot of enthusiasm and you will see more bulls in massachusetts because of it it is directly related to the regular programming of races where they can count on purses and if someone were to come to fruition that someone was going to build a racetrack and they got all the right uh... you know permits and uh... legislative changes needed with that help the people you know they just need a target to place to bring them place to so on that note if there was a sudden demand for more breeding uh... and i know this is not how we think of the race for development fund there's no parts if you will there's no uh... research or any one of these would you then be requesting or or assuming a lot more of the money that's available for uh... the breeding program would you would you be able to expand it to respond to it yes that that has been a little bit of uh... problem because it's uh... the amount of money for thoroughbreds decreases so does the amount of money for breeding decrease so we've had to cut the number of stakes races we run and we have had to cut the uh... purse money for the stakes races and that doesn't help you know courage breeding when they see us having to cut i guess that's where i was going if we if we're uh... spending the world spending the money on the races does that come at a cost a potential demand additional demand from the breeding program what did what did the prior to subject downs closing where how was the thoroughbred how was sorry how was the breeder's share spent what was it was it would spend on uh... purses for their races and um... breeder's awards uh... win a course races and their mass spread the stallion owner and the mayor owner get bonuses right so that money in addition to the purse money would come out of the uh... part of their preprocentage of the handle so it's always been used i i think of it as sort of uh... like we did in the women construction is a demand side in the supply side you know you could use money to encourage people to have or to generate to to read falls by paying incentives if you have a full you'll get some money that's the supply side the demand side is to have races with purses from this this letter we got for this adel salim he or she where this is was suggested he was suggesting the supply side of the money that the money ought to go to incentives to breed directly as opposed to racing but it's out which creates a demand for for forces it sounds like we've always the thoroughbred money has always gone amounts to purses even that back in the day when there were lots more horse racing lots more thoroughbred racing going on well but there was no race horse development fun back then all that's true and i would say about it overseeing well it was but it was for the first couple years when we had we had a full yet but uh... as opposed to a lot of these driven by the shorter meet the short of me creates these uh... constrained on the on the man who was at the supply side uh... and then inside the other demand side which then gets us to do it to these kinds of requests can we then raise elsewhere in finger lakes and whatnot you know what mrs leem says you know as far as uh... his letter it's not too far off the block problem is we're bound by a law we tried to address that we had an amendment went in and that whole law changed and they just uh... extended chapter one twenty one twenty nine so we have been trying but we're bound by that law it's only so much we can do we've been trying to make that point to the legislature as well we appreciate that because we i'm sorry is there a is there a debate within the breeder world as to the better way to spend money to some people think it's best to put it on purses or and other people think it's a it's best to put it in direct incentives like payments for foals is there is there a debate of philosophical difference there we've discussed it in like i said we had an amendment going in uh... maybe a total rewrite of chapter one twenty eight as far as we were concerned i mean that law has been an effect for i don't know how many years it's going to be updated but our our hands are tied until we can change that law went out so you can't use that you can't use the the only awards that it allows and that uh... law is thirty percent to the owner twenty five percent to the breeder and fifteen percent to a registered massachusetts stallion for that there are no other awards we can change we can even change those percent out of the breeder's share yes this is one twenty eight this is the agriculture act so that determines what they can do with their breeding money their share so i mean we we realize that there are other ways that we could encourage breeding but we're bound by that law we keep trying to uh... putting in so the person so this uh... miss mr salim apparently doesn't understand that i think he does he he's been a he's been at our board meetings i think every one of them i think you understand that i think there's more distant a disagreement on the how much money should be allocated to you that it's both of those ideas are important you need the money for the race horses for purse money and then you also need the breeder's awards and both of both of those are important for a breeding program and then it's just some people have philosophical differences on how much should be allocated to balanced approach typically works and we don't argue that this should uh... this should be other awards trying to get it done which is one year extension that creates everything you know these problems all of these problems mister chair i uh... i move that commission approved the request to the massachusetts starboard breeder's association to run six additional races for the discussion all in favor i i posed the eyes have unanimously thank you thank you good luck to you thank you and we are on to item eight commissioners updates uh... we got one from commissioner cameron already about suffolk downs any others well we wish you well commissioner stephens in your uh... do the designate commissioner with no sleep unlike right just just for the record this was the commission's two hundred fifty yeah two hundred fifty right to adjourn the two hundred fifty meeting all in favor all right we are adjourned thank you everybody