 So Austin, I think you can go ahead with the streaming. This is a reminder that this meeting is being streamed live and so for folks who wish to put away their phone and watch, not type their phone for what will probably be a good lengthy meeting, they can go to our website, correct Austin and there'll be access directly there for streaming. We've instituted this new practice since we've gotten further permission to continue meeting this way virtually. Mechanism that's really helped everyone access our meetings easily. So we'll get started then. I wanna make sure that we have a quorum. So Commissioner Cameron. Good morning everyone, I am here. Commissioner Azunika. Good morning everyone, I'm here. Okay, and this week, Commissioner O'Brien is away with the three of us, we have our quorum so we can get busy and today is August 19th. It's just after 10 a.m., public meeting number 352 and I'll start off with the family announcement that baby George Hockenstein was born on Saturday so I am officially a grandmother. Thank you to those who are grandparents who have been cheering me on along the way, so all as well. So good morning, commissioners, with the three of us and without Commissioner O'Brien, have you had a chance to review the minutes? Yes. And are there any edits or concerns that you have with them or could we move on them today? I'm prepared to move. You are, and Commissioner Zunika? Okay, Todd, we're all set with that. That would be okay. Yes, that's right. Okay, good. Do I have a motion? I just do double check and make sure I have the right, these are the May 20th of 2021 meeting minutes. That's right, May 20th. Thank you. So Madam Chair, I will move that the commission approved the May 20th, 2021 meeting minutes included in the packet subject to any minor typographical corrections or other non-material matters. I second that. Okay, Commissioner Cameron? Aye. Commissioner Zunika? Aye. And I vote yes, 3-0 Vivian. Moving on now to the administrative update. Good morning, Karen. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the commission. Just as a preliminary matter in the public agenda setting meeting we had, I wanted to recognize, we talked about speaking today about the Boston office reopening our hybrid work policy. And I think we were also planning on discussing the NGC vaccination policy. So that is not on the agenda today. It looks like we are looking at all those issues and reviewing all new information and best practices coming out. So we now, we're planning to formally discuss that at the public meeting. We're going to be scheduling next week so that the commission can get the latest information to get the most informed decisions on those. We're taking all of those issues very seriously and we really want to make sure we have all the information for the commission before we ask the commission to make any decisions on the policies with respect to the office reopening, vaccinations and the hybrid work. So, Chair, I don't have any further comments on that but that's what we're looking at. We're being very careful. We recognize this is an emerging issue on what to do on these issues. We want to make sure we get right. Yeah, and so I think, Karen, just to note, we're contemplating this meeting to be just that single subject matter. You have the working group that you've been working hard with, you'll come back with proposals, recommendations and we'll have a chance to digest it all. And we're thinking of next Thursday, correct? That's correct. I think one other item, we had to move on, force-racing item that may be a request for that and otherwise this fall meeting is about this, correct? Yeah, unless we move that to September. Okay, great, thank you so much. Correct, so I just didn't want to acknowledge that. So I think the first item on the administrative update is the acknowledgement of Captain Banks as the new commander of the GEU. So I'm going to turn that over to our director of the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau, Loretta Williams. Thanks, Karen, and thank you, Kathy, and good morning, chair and commissioners and Kathy, once more, congratulations and welcome to the Grandparent Club. Thank you so much. I'll be checking in with you, Loretta. Excellent, so I did want to acknowledge the installation of Captain Michael Banks as the commander of the Gaming Enforcement Unit and your invitation, chair, to do so publicly at an open meeting of the commission. So you know the GEU is a statutorily created unit established in the Expanded Gaming Act and by statute, the officers in the GEU are assigned to the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau and have a dual chain of commands to the command staff of the Department of State Police and to the IEB director. GEU plays an absolutely critical role with an onsite presence at each of the three properties in Plainville, Springfields, and Everett. The unit also has an integral role in performing the background reviews of the thousands of individuals and entities that require credentials or qualification from the commission. So as the commander of the GEU, Captain Banks oversees the unit with very varied responsibilities and he's got a long history and public service and law enforcement. I first knew him as an assistant district attorney when he worked as a prosecutor for middle sex and he was at the time prosecuting cases on behalf of the Commonwealth in the Superior Court. He was held in high regard then by those who knew him in that setting and of course he then decided to enter the academy became a sworn officer for the state police in 2002. I knew him again years later when he returned to the homicide unit attached to the middle sex DA's office. And again, his reputation was as an outstanding investigator who was familiar with the law and compliant with the law. He joined the GEU in 2016 first as a trooper, then a sergeant, then as a lieutenant and now he's risen through the ranks to captain and commander of the unit. So personally and professionally I'm very happy to be working with him again in this capacity. I know chair that he would like to say hello and acknowledge some recent updates in the unit. So with your permission, I'd like to invite him to jump in. Before we do that, I'd like to invite my fellow commissioners to just share their thoughts and an official welcome to Captain Banks. Commissioner Cameron. Sure, thank you for the opportunity. Captain Banks, you know, it's just been a pleasure for me as a former trooper to watch his growth. And as a young trooper, one of the things I used to love to do is walk down to the police office and stand on the rug. They have a really nice state police rug in their office. I was like, I just came down to stand on the rug and we chat and we talk about current issues and policing and how much we all cared about those issues. And Mike was always so passionate during those conversations about how things can improve and how things are going and his ideas. And so I have just loved watching him grow. I'm not surprised at all that he's risen quickly to the rank of captain. He has demonstrated at every level his capabilities and his passion for doing the job the right way. So I am personally thrilled to officially, you know, we've had a chance to welcome him already but to do it now publicly is important. And I think it's, it's excellent. It's great for the gaming commission that we have someone of his caliber leading those very, very important investigations and the work we do in the field. So just a quick welcome and I know he'll do a fabulous job. Commissioner Seneca. Yeah, similar thoughts, of course. Mike has had a great number of years with the gaming commission and the IEV of course has been a key player, team player in the IEV with the investigations and how we deploy to other, to the casinos. He's got big shoes to fill, but we know that he's up to the task after Lieutenant Connors has moved on. But really congratulations. It's great that Mike is in this new role and we look forward to a great continuing development in this unit. Good morning, Captain Banks. Good morning everybody. So I just wanted to chime into I'm thrilled for Captain Banks to be taking on this important role for then Massachusetts gaming commission. I was well aware of Captain Banks reputation prior to his arrival at GEU, even when I came here. You have a great ability to be one very charming and yet very serious, very fun and loving. And yet you're an accomplished lawyer and law enforcement officer. But what I've already noted, and I know that it will serve us so well is your humility and that in terms of being a leader and setting the right tone for the GEU will really serve you well and serve all of us well. And I'm just looking forward to getting to work with you. Looking forward to working with you in person. So office time can't come soon enough for me so that I can see you more frequently. And just big welcome. This is a meeting that I was looking forward to having which we could have done in July. And today it's the official start and big congratulations on this assignment and of course your rise to the rank of captain. So thank you. And Karen, I know that you had the pleasure of working so closely with Mike. Now the added bonus, Mike's a lawyer too. And that's special. But Karen, I don't know if you want to chime in and then we'll have Captain Banks give us an update on the unit. Mike, I am so thrilled that you were selected to take over for Brian Connors as units in regards to the big shoes to fill. You are certainly up to the task. You have the respect of everyone in the IB, the commission. So I just want to thank you for agreeing to join the family in this capacity. And I am looking forward to your leadership for the Amy Enforcement Unit and working with you on a daily basis. So thank you and welcome. Thank you. Thank you all for those are very kind words. I'm very, thank you. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to continue the mission at the Gaming Enforcement Unit. I'm very thankful and I recognize how fortunate I am to work with such a diligent conscientious team. The professionals here at the MGC from gaming agents and licensing, the commission, the directors, it's a great place to be. As you know, we have approximately 60 state and local police officers assigned throughout the three gaming facilities, the racing division as well as the IUD. And I'd like to at least take this opportunity to acknowledge and recognize our executive officers as well as the three officers in charge of the gaming facilities. Lieutenant Kevin Baker assumed the position of executive officer of the GU. Lieutenant Baker and I worked many years together at the Middlesex DA's office in the homicide unit as troopers along with then assistant DA Loretta Lilios. Lieutenant Baker moved on to the Gaming Enforcement Division of the Attorney General's office. He subsequently served as a frontline supervisor as a sergeant in the GU at Encore. Eventually became the officer in charge at Encore. Lieutenant Baker has an outstanding professional reputation. I've seen firsthand his strong work ethic and we're very fortunate to have him as our ex-all. He brings a valuable casino operation experience. Our three other OICs, Lieutenant Michael Scanlon at PPC, Lieutenant Michael Leo at MGM, Lieutenant Sean O'Brien at Encore. They all bring substantive, diverse law enforcement experience. All of them have outstanding reputations and hard work and professionals. We have our commitment that will carry out our regulatory and law enforcement functions to the best of our ability and to our licensees, you have our commitment that we will work to the best of our ability to ensure the public safety as well as the safety of your staff at all three facilities. And that's my update. And I do get very nervous at public events, especially one like this, so I appreciate you hearing me out and listening. Welcome to our world. Thank you. You did an excellent update for us, Captain Banks. Thank you so much. And we'll look forward to having you provide these updates on a regular basis as you're to make sure the public is well informed of the GEU's role. So thank you. Karen. Yes. All right, so next up, we'll move on to our communications department. So we have some updates and wanted some recognition in the communications department. Before we discuss Elaine Driscoll's departure, I did want to recognize that Austin Bumpas is going to be moving to California, but I wanted to let folks know he is, although it's sort of full-time employment as a regular employee here, he will be still connected with us remotely and doing some work with us on a temporary basis to help with that transition. So we will still have him for a little while, but I just want to acknowledge Austin and thank him for his work, but he is, he's still with the team for now. So I just wanted the commissioner as the team to know that we are retaining him as long as possible until we can find another communications director and the position that he's filling. So I just wanted to start off recognizing Elaine Driscoll. She is going to be leaving us for a position at the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. The team very near and dear to my heart, so I wish you well in that position, Elaine. I know you will be outstanding. So I did want to, we have a recognition for you and awards. I was going to read that, say a few things and give the commissioners a chance to chime in on your remarkable contributions to the office. So the certificate reads on this 19th day of August, 2021, Massachusetts Gaining Commission proudly presents the Distinguished Service Award to Elaine Driscoll in grateful appreciation for her distinguished service to the Massachusetts Gaining Commission and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Elaine Driscoll as Director of Communications was a leader in successfully developing and implementing the Massachusetts Gaining Commission's communications strategy. She built a forward thinking media and public relations operation that emphasized the commission's values of integrity and transparency. She was dedicated, hardworking and passionate and her optimism was contagious. A person of genuine character, integrity and talent with an unparalleled sense of humor, she effectively built positive relationships with her fellow colleagues in the agency, the media, as well as with stakeholders within the Commonwealth and beyond. The MGC extends its heartfelt gratitude for her immeasurable contributions, consummate professionalism, admirable dedication to public service. So thank you, Elaine. You know, with the commission's indulgence, you know, I've known Elaine since before the Gamin' Commission, but I worked with Elaine for eight and a half years at the Gamin' Commission and we'll speak more privately, but I did publicly want to highlight three things that I have come to appreciate about Elaine, having had that privilege of working with her here for the last eight and a half years. So the first thing is her wise counsel. Elaine has been an incredible advisor to the commission through many issues that we have had to navigate and having someone with such sound judgment in her position has been absolutely indispensable. The second thing I've come to appreciate is her proactive approach. Elaine has been an outstanding communications director because she not only knows how to deal with emerging issues, but she also implemented this proactive approach to what we do, whether it's putting out the casino revenue proactively on the website, working with strategic planning on the research and problem gaming initiatives or working with the community mitigation fund. She was always one or more steps ahead on the communications front, which is really the hallmark for an outstanding leader and communications director. So I really wanted to highlight that as part of her professional approach to that position, which is really, really outstanding. And the third thing I wanted to just publicly acknowledge about her work here at the commission and I don't know if everyone necessarily had the chance to experience this, but Elaine's sense of humor is parallel to none. There is no one that can tell a story like Elaine does. And when you're dealing with things at work and things can be tough or things can be going on, having that sense of humor and bringing that joy to the office and having a laugh at the office and having her tell a story and everybody around is just really engaged and appreciating that and really smiling and feeling good, that brings a lot to the office. So that contribution is a big deal, not only to the office, but it has been to me personally. I've loved our conversations. I know everyone loves, you know, when Elaine's got something to tell, it's funny. So I really do appreciate that it brought a lot to us. So thank you. And so I will turn it over to the other commissioners to chime in. I'll turn it first to Gail Cameron. Thank you. Oh, Elaine, now I will really miss Elaine. I have to tell you, and I have, of course, I've had time to think about it over the last few weeks since we heard about this opportunity that Elaine, you know, didn't seek, they saw her out, but I think she will do a fabulous job for them and more about communications and policy role. But for us, you know, I spent 29 years in the New Jersey State Police and rose through the ranks and never, frankly, understood how important that role was until I got to the gaming commission and we hired Elaine Driscoll. Never really understood how messaging can help an organization get the good messages out, mitigate some of the things that may be challenging, avoid it, I get to learn that firsthand. And I'm so glad we did. I remember, Elaine, you'll remember as well, we were just about to hire her, she wasn't even on board yet and we had her particularly challenging issue that led into the evening. And Elaine shows up, we're all around a table and boy, did she take control, come. And I just watched her in action and said, wow, did we make a hire here? Just strategic advice, how to handle this situation, which was, you know, early on, there were so many folks that were just skeptical gaming, right? So we had to demonstrate that we were gonna be strong regulators and handle this in a way that we did have integrity. But listening to her counsel on these issues over the years has really been eye-opening personally. I've learned so much from Elaine, probably more than anyone at the gaming commission, frankly, because of that piece that I didn't have a full grasp of, I've become a better public speaker, a better knowledge about messaging, so I could go on and on. But what I'll really miss, and Karen, you characterized everything well, her ability to get out in front, that's so important and message properly, calm, cool, demeanor, no matter what the situation is. But personally, I'll always miss, Elaine came from the Boston Police Department. So she had such, you know, and worked for, I think, three different commissioners. So really understood policing. And so our conversations about how to improve public safety and policing, I just talked about those same conversations with Captain Banks, but those are conversations that I've had at length with Elaine and her insights and how to do things better. I know that she will go over to public safety and we will see something very strong coming out of that office because of her hand and how they handle matters and the message there, the good work that they do. So again, I know I'll just miss her and it's just helped us, our organization is very strong and well respected and Elaine Griskell is, her fingerprints are all over that in the most positive way. So I could go on and on, but I'll stop there and just say how much I miss, we'll miss Elaine. We will keep in touch, I know that. And talk about big shoes to fill, that will be the case with the school. So thank you, thank you, thank you for all the work you've done for us over the years. And certainly you won't be forgotten. Thank you. I'll go to Enrique. Thank you, Elaine, all the best. I think I also remember that painful night of your first interaction with the gaming commission very vividly, as it was yesterday. I was reading the certificate of appreciation and I think it appropriately says, how instrumental and what a leader you were in implementing the communication strategy. But, and Gail was touching on this, you were critical in shaping the commission. It's not the fingerprints, you are aware and are a policymaker in many ways from the early days, teaching us much about this craft that comes so natural to you, but there's also a real thought. Your instincts are remarkable, but you're so thoughtful and careful and precise when it comes to everything we have to do relative to communicating, messaging, thinking about responding or choosing not to respond to attacks, for example, on lawsuits, where it was very difficult for us to respond to some of those allegations and of course later dismissed, but those critical moments, you were the leader that we sort of had to look towards and those contributions that teaching that you did for us is remarkable. I remember a number of instances, for example, talking to you about revenues, I would go on and on and you would have to say, okay, we need to distill it down to what's the key message here. And those examples are just so many, I know many interactions where with others, mostly with Steve, but again, your contributions are tremendous. You have also taught us the importance of developing really respectful relationships, even with people that are in a position of criticizing us and holding us accountable. And that's key to everything. It translates to a lot of other areas that's taught us a lot about how to deal with other stakeholders respectfully, but in a stern way. And again, this is something that you have just brought in with you, you take it elsewhere and that's really good for the people that are now you're gonna be working with. And finally, just such a friend, what a pleasure as others have said, your humor is contagious. You have been, we've seen you grow your family and that was also very special. You've seen some of our personal struggles and successes as well. And we will remain friends and in contact because I know you're a great person. So thank you Elaine for everything that you've done and we will miss you. Right, so such wonderful remarks Elaine and one thing that hasn't come up is of course your long history before you were hired by the gaming commission, your reputation as a communications leader preceded you, that's made a great hire. I've been the beneficiary of really the infrastructure that you put together, the molding of the messaging, your precision and really informed my steps helped me come in at kind of a complex time in the gaming commission's history. All of it seems to be every time we think it's gonna get a little less complicated, it never ceases to surprise us that there's this complexities remain and you navigated them so well. I knew right away because of how you counseled me your strengths that became very obvious and your warmth became very obvious and I did lean on you at the time because it was so important for the gaming commission's success and mission to get these communications right. And so thank you for helping me. I haven't been the beneficiary of working with you in person day-to-day because just after we got through one complexity, we moved into COVID and then we moved into remote but in between I had the pleasure of thinking about you in a different role and that was as a student at Harvard. And Commonwealth gets it right when they send all stars to a program where Harvard reviews your application, reviews your standing to be an admitted student and then the Commonwealth takes care of all the expenses and secures your position as well as gives you an opportunity for the future. And even though I hadn't worked with you long, I knew they were getting that right and I was thrilled for you with your admission and I still have very clear in my mind the image of you having to go into student as a remote student, a little bit of a disappointment but you and Shane were there in your setup and there was Harvard pamphlets and signage in the back and he was wearing his little Harvard sweatshirt and I said, yeah, she's off to school and I know you loved it. You know, I checked in occasionally and I knew you were growing and when you came out, we had a quick debriefing and you remarked on one thing that you hadn't really learned that as a communications director, sometimes you've really worked to keep everything tidy and the same and through your coursework you had learned about adaptive leadership and how you had to really be able to adapt to change. The Commonwealth gets to keep you still and I know EOPS is going to be a great beneficiary of all the experience you've had plus the learning you just recently had and you're going to a great team over there. They're lucky to have you and I think you're gonna be really blessed to have those you know, the colleagues at EOPS and then the wider Baker-Polito administration. I'm thrilled for you and thrilled for them. I'm gonna miss you. I'm pleased that you're leaving us so well equipped and that infrastructure got tested while you were gone this past year. We were lucky to have Austin and I'll just briefly mention Austin in a second because he was able to steer the ship for us with of course the long-time professionalism of Sarah magazine but the infrastructure was in place. The roadmap was there and for that, that's really the gift because it was always about the gaming commission and not about the land risk law. And for that, I'm very, very grateful that you're leaving us very well equipped and I think really you're going to be pursuing a great opportunity and that you deserve. It has to Austin and then I'll go back to Elaine. Austin, we're not saying goodbye yet but you demonstrated to us just how essential you are as a team player in Elaine's absence and so we can't ask for more for a communications team to be pursuing their passions and I'll use that word broadly for the future and I know that as much as that hole will be deep, will be okay because of your professionalism. So thank you and Elaine. One last image. I'll never forget the cutest story of COVID. There are a couple of great Shane stories but Elaine was helping me and I probably asked the 1,000th question that I often do that will drive everyone crazy and she was going through everything and I could hear Shane in the background saying, turn her off, turn her off. And I said, oh, Elaine, go to see Shane, go to see Shane. And she said, oh no, he's not talking about you. He has his iPad and he wants to turn off his class. And I thought, here she is juggling everything and now she's juggling raising her little guy in virtual, it was kindergarten, right? Elaine, virtual kindergarten, just turn her off, turn her off. And at that moment I said, and here she is juggling everything and that's what makes you so special. And we did laugh. I think the other great one, I don't know if everybody was on for that one when he appeared in his shark suit. So it has been fun to get to, in the short time we've been together, see a lot of you in a lot of the dimensions. So I'm gonna miss you terribly, Elaine. Thank you. Thanks, thank you so much. I will be briefed. The spokesperson is speechless for a change and I just thank you so much for all of the kind words. It's hard to express what the last eight years has been. I'm grateful for everything that I learned from all of my very talented colleagues and the truth is is that all of your commitments to public service is what inspired me to pursue schooling because I always was so inspired by your ability to address policies and understand how to go about it. And I really wanted to be able to contribute on the same level that I see with all of you. So please know that I was inspired every day by the talent and commitment that was around me. And the other thing that I'll say is all these past years that we have been together, that's just it like Enrique was saying, we were doing something really hard but at the same time, life continues to happen around you. And in my eight years of the commission, I got engaged, married, had a baby and we've together have had both joys and tragedies in our lives and have had to navigate that together. And I think for me just in addition to learning the job, just having the stability of your kindness and compassion and friendship on a day-to-day basis, when we were going through either happy and or difficult time just meant the world to me. So I can't thank you enough for everything that you've done. This isn't goodbye, it's just so long. I'm staying within the state and I won't be far and I know that our paths will continue to cross which is really exciting. But I just thank each and every one of you and I know we'll continue to be friends for a long time. And I also just wanna, while we're here to thank Austin, he's been my teammate and as the chair said, he was able to fill in on my, in then some, I mean, it was just really remarkable. Austin, you're so talented and driven and it's just been such a pleasure working with you. So I just wanna thank you for being such a wonderful teammate. And in Mike Sanglang before that, the comms team has been really wonderful all these years. Chair and commissioners, I can't thank you enough. Karen, like you said, we'll talk privately. And I just wanna thank all of my colleagues sincerely. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, so that item 3B on the agenda, the next item on the agenda, I'm gonna turn it over to Loretta and Bruce for an update on what's going on at the casino properties. Okay, back to business, I guess, but Elaine, best of luck, you're a real pro. So thanks for everything. So Bruce and I last appeared before the commission with the COVID update conversation on August 4th and you heard at that time from the IEB and also heard directly from the three licensees. Since that time, the licensees have been operating, continue to operate in accordance with all COVID-19 related orders and advisories from the Commonwealth and in consideration of all equitable CDC guidelines. We have confirmed appropriate signage to the properties and confirmed continuation of the enhanced cleaning and sanitization at each property, including the continued availability of the sanitizers and the masks, both in the front of the house and in the back of the house. Following that meeting on the 4th, PPC began to require proof of vaccination from its employee workforce with PPC has now reported that their vaccination rate among their employee population is actually larger than they had thought when it was a voluntary production of the proof and they're up around the 70% mark. With respect to MGM, you may have heard the public announcement from the company that it's a matter of corporate policy. As of August 30th, MGM will be requiring all new hires to show proof of being fully vaccinated. And as of October 15th, the company will be acquiring all salaried employees as opposed to hourly employees, but all salary employees to show proof of being fully vaccinated. And that's by October 15th. There've been a few operational updates on the amenity side that I can bring to your attention at PPC. They've rolled out a cornhole tournament that's been taking place on Sundays and will continue to take place on Sunday afternoons on the racing side through Labor Day. They're using that patio section and apron and on non-race days part of the track as well. It's very popular, no surprise. Who doesn't love a cornhole? But importantly, it adds another outdoor element to their offerings. At MGM, I know you've been interested in the Commonwealth Lounge and you recall that it closed in March of 2020 as a lounge pursuant to the statewide orders on the closure of bar type amenities. And it has yet to reopen as a lounge venue. It's been temporarily report purpose with gaming devices and service by cocktail servers. But MGM now reports that there are plans to reopen the venue as a lounge on Thursday, September 2nd. They would operate on Thursday evenings through Sunday evenings. The DJ concept has been dispensed with. The eventual plan is to introduce live entertainment on a jazz music concept. The slot machines have been removed from that area, I think as of last night or as of this morning. There are some updates to the on-court floor plan in the works, but that's an agenda item later on in the meeting, so I'll hold on that. And I know Assistant Director Band is here and he may have some updates more on the gaming operations side for you. Yes, operationally, the operations have been going smoothly. I'd like to update you on the number of gaming units. PPCs running with 910 slot machines currently. Encore Boston Harbor is running with 2,608 slots, 180 tables and 53 stadium games. MGM's currently running with 1,609 slot machines, 52 table games and 15 stadium games. Other than that, the casino operations seem to be running smoothly. This time, if you have any other questions, I'm pleased to entertain them. Commissioners, Commissioner Cameron, any questions? I see no. Commissioner Zuniga, no. I just thought I would add one update. After our last commission meeting, commissioners Lindsay Tucker, Associate Commissioner at DPEH, who we work closely with, with respect to responsible gaming and problem gaming and Mark works very closely with her and so does Commissioner Zuniga. She also has a job that has extended, of course, into the significant public health issues addressing COVID. And seeing the reports of our meeting, she reached out to me to see if she could be introduced to the leadership at each property so that DPEH could, offer any additional help to further the vaccination rates at the properties, including, for instance, a mobile vaccine clinic. And I just wanted to extend our gratitude to the department for that outreach and those introductions were made. And to the extent that the properties take advantage of that, that's excellent. But I know that DPEH truly wanted to support what became clear it was a priority for all the commissioners. So thank you to DPEH. And Kathy, if I can jump in on that, thank you for mentioning that. I do know that especially MGM, I particularly know about has been an active dialogue and I don't think their plans are finalized, but they have been talking about mobile units. So I think it's been a fulsome conversation with the licensees. Excellent, that's a great update. Thanks, LaViana. Okay, moving on then to, and first up, Karen, thank you for the administrative update. And again, a big thanks to Captain Banks and our gratitude to communications director, Lane Driscoe. Moving on now to item number four. Yeah, I'm glad to see you. Now you disappeared, Mark. There you are on my screen. Good morning. I haven't had a chance to see you virtually since your big bike ride across the Iowa looks like you are home safely and I assume your daughter as well. Yep, we all made it. Pretty successful way I should say. No falls, no very little complaining, maybe a little complaining, but it was great, so thank you. That's an amazing accomplishment, congratulations. So anyway, welcome back and you have a nice introduction and I see that Mr. Hires is here and I know you have a timeframe, so we'll get started. Great, so good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. I am joined by Ben Hires who is the executive director of the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. I do not see Victor Ortiz. Victor is here. Victor, okay, thank you Victor. I was scanning through and I didn't see you yet. I'm also joined by Victor Ortiz who is the director of the Office of Problem Gambling Services at the Department of Public Health. So it's actually your last statement, Chair Jed Stein was a good intro to this where we're also exploring other ways of the collaboration. I just wanted to bring this item to the commission and point out, you know, collaborations and partnerships are not always easy, but I believe that we're more effective and overall better off when we can pursue it in a collaborative manner. And the work that is done by BCNC, by the Department of Public Health, by the MGC, I think is a shining example of some of this collaboration. On a very important issue, problem gambling is widely accepted if not universally accepted as a public health issue. We know that when we look at problem gambling from a public health perspective, that there are communities that are disproportionately affected by negatively affected by problem gambling. One of those communities is the Asian communities that are located throughout Massachusetts. Now, several months ago, as we were doing our important work to look at where are our opportunities to highlight this issue and ways in which we can intervene and do prevention work. Victor Ortiz and the Department of Public Health also were looking at the exact same issue. And when we met, realized that there was actually, if you look at this across the public health continuum and as a public health approach, there's many ways in which we were complimenting each other's work. And so that was sort of the impetus for the paper that I included in the packet. Now, actually, I forgot to share that. So let me just do that quick. So that was the impetus of this work here. It's also, you can't do any of this work without the important partnerships of the likes of Ben Hires and the rest of the staff at BCNC. So I wanted to also make sure that Ben is a great example, but certainly not the only example of the ways in which we need to collaborate and involve and thinking about and finding paths forward to address this issue. I won't go into any great detail line by line of the sort of programs and services that are offered by the gaming commission. But as you can see, we think about this across that continuum, whether it's research, whether it's community-based services or casino-based services, the type of direct services that are provided are really important. I'd also like to just point out that it's not only collaboration that we need to have within the communities, but it's also looking within each of our casino properties to identify potential solutions and ways to address this. And so while I didn't invite any of our casino licensees to join us, they are also important. So with that, I thought I would just then turn it over to Victor and then to Ben to talk a little bit about kind of how they view this issue, both in terms of what is being done and if they feel so, talking about where we can continue to grow these types of partnerships. So Victor, do you... Mark, should we keep the document up or should we take it down? Victor, maybe I should ask you. I think we can keep it down. I think it's fine. Yeah, that way we can see everybody. Yeah, exactly, thank you. Thank you, there you are. Good, thank you so much. We do have it in our packet, Victor, so we have access to it. Fantastic, so good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning to commissioners. It's nice to be back here in front of you. I'm delighted to be here, join with Mark and Ben on this collaboration and partnership specifically focused on the API community. The Department of Public Health, as I mentioned many times when I've come before you, our values and our mission is rooted in the central belief that everyone has a right to optimal health and well-being. And in that, the values and our mission takes on a different meaning in the field from gambling for multiple reasons. And one of those reasons, it's because our field of problem gambling has historically been disconnected from the community experience of gambling and people of color. And I am grateful that in this day and time here in Massachusetts and our partnership with the mass gaming commission that we are working together to, you know, a new role and to address those significant disconnects. At the same time, we are mandated by the legislation and given ample resources to do so to mitigate harms associated with gambling. And when we look at the data and the research clearly identifies that people of color are disproportionately impacted by gambling and we must think critically about promoting equity in our strategies. In addition, it's imperative that in order to do this work, we must think critically about partnerships and collaboration as Mark I talked about in his beginning statements. So I just wanna say that, you know, this is to me, I've been a work in process for quite some time. This journey of promoting equity is not a one day job or a month job. It is a process. And so I am grateful to you, Madam Chair for your explicit leadership in regards to equity and your support of the work of the department and the promotion of our partnership because I believe that in our partnerships and working together, we can deliver better outcomes for the Commonwealth. And I think there's one Pedro captures that. This is I think an illustration that when we work together with the strength of the Department of Public Health and the strength of the mass gaming commission, we put that together. And every time I look at this one page and I see really what I believe is a model. I don't think anyone, and I could be mistaken in the country is doing what we are doing or have the opportunity to do what we're doing of combining a public health institution like DPH and a regulatory body and the leadership of the mass gaming commission and working together to really provide optimal service for people in the Commonwealth and specifically we're focusing on the API. And so I'm thankful to also to Mark who has always been open and figuring out ways and they're not always a smooth path because when you're trying to figure things out that could be challenging at times, but there is a commitment that we believe that working together is ultimately the journey that we need to be on. So our programs that are out there, I think Mark and the page will show you that this comprehensive approach which we're looking at programs and services that are led in the casino, community-based services that are led by the department and then the research that's led by the gaming commission and some aspects of community engagements that's led by the department. When you put it all together, I believe that we are all better for it. So I'm here delighted. Thank you so much for the invitation. I think that there is an extreme more that we can do and we are exploring that and we'll continue to do so. And we look forward to Mark and I and others to come before you to show you and show the gaming commission other work that we're doing together in collaboration. And there's so many opportunities in so many different spaces to think about the shared synergy between both public grabs and responsible gambling initiatives. So thank you. If I can just say thank you, that was great. And we can capture that very well. I do want to turn it over to Ben. How are you with this ballad? Before I turn it over to him, I want to say one thank you so much, Ben. I think I've learned a lot from you and from the work of BCNC. It highlighted some of my blind spots and it highlighted some of the path forward that and where we need to go. And that's the beauty of a partnership both with DPH and with BCNC is that we can help each other and pull each other along in very strategic ways. So Ben, I'll turn it over to you now. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Victor. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, commissioners, for having me share a few thoughts today. My name is Ben Hires. I have the privilege of being the CEO of Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, which is a 52-year-old community-based organization serving and empowering generations of greater Boston Asian and new immigrants. We do that by helping immigrants build healthy families, achieve greater economic success and stability through our childcare programs, our youth enrichment programs. We have adult education and workforce development classes. We also provide family and social work services and arts and cultural programs. And before joining BCNC about a year ago, I hadn't really thought about gambling much. I did grow up, I am from South Jersey and had the privilege of spending vacations at the Jersey Shore. And after I was 18 years old, I did go to Atlantic City a few times, maybe once a year with friends. And some of you may have seen the climate change article in the New York Times Magazine this past weekend. It was titled The Long Slow Drowning of the New Jersey Shore. And Atlantic City was mentioned as one of the most vulnerable towns to climate change and also one of the poorest municipalities in the state. And I had the privilege, even as a teenager, to drive past the poverty and the real lives that prop up and surround the casinos in the same way that the boardwalk props up those tall, shiny buildings that probably one day will be washed away by the tide. But I think the metaphor of the ocean slowly impacting those that prop up gambling, in particular in Atlantic City, is apropos as we take a deeper look at the impact of gambling on vulnerable communities, like the Asian community and communities of color. As Victor shared. And our working class Asian immigrants do not have the same privileges and protections and opportunities that many of us, if not all of us possess. Those same people live on the shifting sand day to day as the tide washes everything around them from COVID to the casinos. So with that powerful metaphor in mind, I'm very grateful, like Victor, I'm very grateful to the Mass Gaming Commission and the Department of Public Health Office of Problem Gambling because I know that both of those organizations care a lot about those most at risk for gambling in Massachusetts, like the communities, like the Cambodian community in Lowell, the Southeast Asian community in Worcester, the Vietnamese community in Dorchester and the Chinese communities in Maldon, Quincy and Boston's Chinatown. And BCNC has been very fortunate to have the commission support going back to 2019 when my predecessor Giles Lee and Dr. Caroline Wong presented a report on the impact of casino gambling in Boston's Chinatown. And at the time, one of the recommendations was to look beyond just the Chinese population. So the past two years, our most recent collaboration with the commission has been a research project with Dr. Heng Rubin and her team from Tufts University titled Asian Cares which stands for the Center for Addressing Research, Education and Services. And that work recently has been completed and is under review. And we look forward to sharing that in the near future. At the same time that we've had a very productive important relationship with the commission, BCNC has continued to develop a relationship with Victor and his office. Myself and my team, including my colleague, Yoyo Yao, BCNC's chief program officer have had an opportunity to lead an Everett community-level health project, an AAPI empowerment and outreach initiative. We've been able to advise and receive training from the Department of Public Health and be a thought partner about how to strategically think about prevention and intervention both at the upstream and downstream levels. So at the same time that our Asian Cares project was completed, we completed the Everett community-level health project which looked at the impact of Angkor, in particular on the Haitian, Latinx and Asian communities in the Everett catchment area. And we're again looking forward to releasing those reports both back to the community that participated policy and decision makers like yourselves and the many folks who care about issues of equity and health. So with all the work in progress today that Victor and Marques indicated in the commission and DPH1 pager, there's still a lot of work to be done. There's still a lot of resources and implementation on the plans that the community has shared they desperately need and that they desperately want. And so much like combating climate change, I think responsible carbon usage or building multi-million dollar barriers don't really change the underlying systemic issues that our most vulnerable communities face. I think we need to change the traditional approaches and think differently about the systemic issues. And I think the commission's collaboration with DPH, the commission's research and the DPH programs that already are in place and continue to be implemented are as Victor has said, leading examples of innovative impact that actually can be national examples of how we can strengthen our communities. And I think this work around the issue of gambling can actually be in Massachusetts a leading example about how we address the social determinants of health, a lot of the inequities that we've seen as a result of COVID-19. So I just want to finally say I want to congratulate the commission and DPH and all the fellow community-based organizations that are partnering together. But at the same time advocate that we all continue to demand more game-changing wins for the community. So thank you very much for the time and appreciate the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Mark. Mark, can we invite the commissioners to ask questions now? Yes. Commissioner Cameron, do you have questions or comments? I don't have questions or comments. Well, I do have comments. The partnership is terrific. Love to see it. I can hear it in all of your voices, how effective you think it is and beneficial to the Commonwealth. And I guess I did have a quick question for Ben. Ben, have you been back to Atlantic City recently at all? It's been a few years since I've been back to one of my favorite places, the Jersey Shore. I think one of the things- It's so beautiful, I think. People don't realize that about the Jersey Shore, how beautiful beaches are. But to your point, and I loved your analogy, by the way, to your point about Atlantic City and some of the disparities, there are some efforts going on now in the last few years to really improve. It really gives some of that money back to the community. So I think if you went back recently, you'd see some improvement. Good to hear. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Zuniga. Thank you. Just a comment that was implicit in the theme that all three spoke about, relative to the partnership and what we are trying to do here in Massachusetts. You may go without saying, but I'll say it. We're very fortunate in the Commonwealth to have the resources come to address these issues directly from the gaming taxes. Those revenues are projected to increase as the casinos get their footing after a period of a lot of uncertainty because of the casino closures and then limited capacity. But I think it's, of course, that's what the legislature provided for. That is a little bit the exception around the country. There are some resources, but not in the same amount. And we're really fortunate to have that here and that collaboration is there for that much more important. We're tasked with a lot of the research as Mark and Ben were alluding to. But of course, the DPH has the programs that they know so well and continue to make strides and implement them. So thank you for those updates and look forward to more of those conversations. I just want to chime in first off, Ben. Thank you for joining us today and your metaphor was very powerful. I will keep that in mind. With respect to first the document, I want to thank Mark and Victor, DPH and the gaming commission for producing it. I think at one point in time, we were being asked from various stakeholders as to what is going on to support the important challenge of supporting the Asian American Pacific Islander community. And when you work together, you started to realize we have a story to tell and this product in a very simple fashion explains that. It also, as Ben points out, points out that there's continuing work to be done. And I know that Victor, you're shaking your head because equity matters so much to you and Mark, your mission is to support these efforts. And so I think I turn to Ben and say, well, it's accountable, press on us, don't let go. You galvanize the community, Ben. And you have two leaders here who want to be partners in support of the communities and we want to do what our missions demand. And as Enrique points out, we have resources to support those efforts. I'm really looking forward to the research, Mark. Is that, we're sort of slating that for September. Are we, maybe, or October? Yeah, it's going through the review process. Now I believe we're in the second round of review. Ray Claire does a fantastic job of tracking that and making sure that it moves along quickly. But yeah, I believe it's looking at September, correct, Marie Claire? Yes, that's right. For around late September, sometime in September. Marie Claire, do we expect recommendations coming out of that research? Will there be stated recommendations or requests as you Ben shaking his head? Yes. Yes, Chair. And we also, working with partners here, do plan to have a release event, if you will, and share this widely. And I know that the commission also shares this widely as well. Well, I'm looking forward to that. I just have to say that today is, it's for me just a pleasure to see the three of you as leaders in these important conversations, important work, important efforts to address inequities. Particularly with respect to prom game. It's nice to see the three of you, you're literally lined up in my screen together. And so it creates a great visual for me. One last point, I wanted to, I hate to look to Elaine. Elaine, you're still here. I'm assuming that you're still here. I'm assuming that we're making sure that this really nice 61 pager gets properly distributed. I know for instance, Councilor Flynn would be interested, I'm not sure if this has been shared with him, but you all know all the constituencies we want to make sure get this. And just to make sure the conversation stays very much alive. And again, holds us accountable. So Elaine, I don't know if you've thought about the distribution, if there's an assignment awaiting. Yeah, we can, we'll have a conversation about that. But that should be easy enough to pull together. So we'll work on that. Right. Ben, great to see you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And Victor, thank you to you and your colleagues at DPH again. I don't know if you heard, but we were very appreciative of Associate Commissioner Tucker's outreach to the three properties as you continue to really expand on the vaccination rate. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Anything else? Commissioners, are you all set? Thank you so much. Thank you. So we're moving on to agenda item number five. This is one of those days where it amazes me the variety of issues that we can cover in one meeting. So here we are at our core with our quarterly report from MGM, correct, Chief Delaney? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. First up, we have MGM's second quarter report. And from MGM, we have with us Daniel Miller, who's Director of Compliance. And he is also joined by Arlen Carballo, Jason Randall, Beth Ward, Amanda Gagnan and Sean Dolan. And with that, I will turn it over to Daniel to get us started. Thank you, John. Thank you, Lady Chair and fellow commissioners for having us here today. And then also congratulations again, Lady Chair, on becoming a grandmother. I think right now, especially over the last 18 months, there's nothing more magical or meaningful than a new life. So that's, you know, that's wonderful. Thank you. Getting on, let me just share the screen here so we can show the presentation. All right, is everybody able to see the first slide? Yes. All right. So as usual, we will begin with Arlen beginning on afternoon and lottery. She'll hand it back to me for the compliance. Arlen, would you like to speak on this first slide for the numbers? Yes, of course. Good morning, everybody. Hope everything's having a great day. I will go ahead and start reporting our venue values in practice for the second quarter with the break time as follows. April, we generate a 21.9 million. Daniel, may I interrupt? I'm wondering if most of us should put ourselves on mute because we're having a little hard time hearing. Right. And see if that background knows. Does it better now? Okay, I think I'm going to start speaking. For the month of May, our gaming revenue is 21.3 million and total taxes is 5.3 million. For the month of June, our total gaming revenue is 22.3 million and total taxes is 5.1 million. Ending the quarter with $63.4 million in gaming revenue consisting of manuals and factories. This was our highest quarter since the opening in July and we were only down 1% compared to our second quarter of 2019. Thus, to the scenario seen again mentioned earlier, we are well in our way to exceed our number between 2019 and 2021. Any questions or any questions about the next slide? Daniel, can we get to the next slide? Our total lottery sales for the second quarter was $285,000, small increase from the prior quarter. I believe last time there was a question regarding our seasonality and how it was fluctuating from one month to the next. I did review this month how it increased, our increase in April to May. And then from May, and then a drop from May to June. We're looking at 2019, if we hear completely different, it actually decreased. Arlene, I just want to point out we've lost Arlene and Daniel, we've lost the visual. I'm sorry about that. Which is interesting. I'm not sure how that happened, Joe. Joe, would you like to share it? Do you have it to share? Yeah, I've got it up here. Hold on. And then again, for those, just one minute Arlene. One minute Arlene there. And then for folks again to, I'll go ahead again. Our total lottery sales for the second quarter was 285,000. Everything, it had a slight increase from our prior quarter. Last time we met, there was a question regarding seasonality of our lottery sales as it fluctuates from one month to the next. I haven't been able to find a correlation. I did look at our sales in 2019. I think it's a completely opposite to what it's doing now. So we'll keep an eye on it also, but there doesn't seem to be a clear line that explains why it fluctuates on one month. Thank you. Arlene, is it you that's in control of the slides? No, Daniel, I put up your copy. So I'm controlling them. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate that. I'm sorry, it kicked me off and I had to come back on. I'm sorry, everybody. But I'll continue from here with the compliant slides as these are mine to deliver. As you can see, I'm actually quite pleased with this quarter's underrated minor access. We did only have four total incidents throughout the entire quarter. And I've provided a little extra information this time based on previous slides that we've given in these quarterly meetings. And what I really wanted to be able to deliver is that the far right column showing mine is preventing from accessing the gaming area, period. These are sort of would be opportunists between the ages of 18 and 21 that will walk up to our checkpoint, provide a fake fraudulent ID or even their own ID, hoping maybe we wouldn't check it closely enough. And each of these months, obviously, we were able to reject about 30 people at a time from gaining access. So it's a working system. And you can see the numbers at the bottom. Of course, 35 and a half minutes is an average and then an hour and minutes is the longest. Those, of course, look the way they do because there were so few incidents. Joe, next slide, please. The other thing I realized that in previous quarters, we have delivered that we were going to make some physical changes to try and deter access to our gaming floor. And so these photographs here depict some handrail that we've installed around the perimeter at different sections. These two were the first sections that were deployed, one close to the entrance of the poker room at the end of the tile, and then the other is right by our plaza entrance that leads out to the armory. After working with surveillance, they were able to deliver a heat map for us as to where our main areas of entry were. So these were the first areas that were put up to try and avoid that. Since then, we've gone a little further and Joe, next slide, please. As of just this week, in fact, we have now installed further handrail as well and a couple of other key points. So the one to the left of this slide is right in front of the coaster restaurant entrance. And then to the right, you'll see that it extends from what is our high-limit area toward the hotel entrance. There's also a little break in there. When I created this slide, I was under the impression there was only one, but there are now two gates in there as well to help us with access in the event of an emergency and not impede egress in that event. So these are the only ones scheduled at this time, but we do feel that these physical measures with some of the others that we put in place, continued training as well, are really assisting us in the prevention of access to monitors and underage. That's my last slide on compliance. Back to you, Arlen. Oh, Arlen, you're on mute. Yep, I was trying to figure that one out. Our total spend for the second quarter was 9.7 million and of that total, I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong side. Our total bill will spend for the second quarter of 2021 was 8.6 million and 7% of that went to diverse suppliers. Our total bill will spend for the first half of the year was 18.5 million and 6% of that went to our diverse suppliers. Our supplier diversity mentorship program is underway and for this class, we have two vendors that have enrolled. One of them is SELO, which is a facilities department vendor that's working on 18 fixing facades and we also have New England promotional marketing which does our marketing collateral. We had our part cleaners was one of our prior vendors that has graduated from the program and since then we're actually working through a master's service agreement with them now as a result of the success of the program. Our total spent for the second quarter was 9.7 million and of that we spent 10.5% within the Commonwealth, 25.3% within Springfield, 12.8% within surrounding communities and 1.5% in Western Massachusetts. For the first half of the year, we spent the total of 21.3 million and 48% of that went to Massachusetts suppliers and 48 went to mass suppliers and 31% within Western Massachusetts. Great, I'm sorry, when I'll pick up from here, great to see you commission again. Our first slide here on our employment numbers shows the quarter over quarter view of our numbers and going back current Q2 back through Q3 2020. You'll see an increase in the total account certainly as the curfew restrictions lifted and we're able to open more money on the property here but as a 6.30, 75% of our workforce was made up of full-time employees and 25% in that full-time or sorry, part-time or on-call category. And then our next slide showcases our staffing compared to the community agreement goals with meeting or exceeding in three of those areas with our continued work on increasing women percentage in the workforce here. Our next slide. So talk a little bit about our workforce initiatives and what's been going on on property here. So we last met, we've hired the external new managers to our property and we've been able to promote 26 individuals into advanced leadership roles. More than half of these hires of promotions are women sort of as we work towards that goal. We've transitioned back to conducting hiring events on property. We've done in-person events, both Q2 and Q3 where we've been able to offer positions on the spot. Additionally, we've a referral program to reward employees for referring friends or relatives or other successful candidates to come join our team here. We've been participating in mass hires virtual career fairs. Most recently, we've been on board with the one in this past week that they're doing statewide. So leveraging their platform and being able to chat with participants that are out looking for either careers in our industry or potential industry changes and some great conversations we have there which will hopefully transfer over to new hires to our property. We continue our collaboration with Holyoke Community College and their train initiative and the programs that are running at the Culinary Center in Holyoke as well as the Hamden County Sheriff's Department and their culinary training program that they run in collaboration with HCC as well. We offer an interview training. We do mock interviews with all the participants and really give some great candid feedback in addition to being able to share the MGM story and why we think we would make a great employer of choice for them. We're certainly helping to give them the tools to succeed in their interview process be it with us or any other entity in the area. We have begun hiring more employees that fall in the 18 plus age range. To date, we have 20 employees that fit that 18 to 21 range working on property. Right now they're all in non-gaming areas but we are adjusting our recruitment to be able to attract more individuals that are 18 plus in our distressed position areas. And then lastly, a fun note for our employees. Our employee dining room is now free for all of our employees which they're definitely taking advantage of and we think it helps separate us as an employer of choice being able to offer this as a benefit to our employees is really one less thing than worrying about having that free meal available to them. That's the end of the employment report before I hand back to Daniel certainly pause for any questions. Great, thank you Daniel. Thank you, Jason. So previously we would get to this part of the presentation since reopening and set to a takeover and deliver on our community outreach and our future impact. And generally speaking, those were quick slides with not too much going on sadly. But Q2, especially with the lifting of many restrictions afforded us quite a few things to speak about. Just before we go into these what I wanted to do is two new speakers. We have Beth Ward who has just popped up here on the screen. She's our new community outreach manager and she'll deliver on some of the events that we've been doing locally. Amanda Gagman who is our entertainment manager she'll deliver on some of the entertainment offerings we've been able to bring back and we'll be bringing back in Q3 and Q4 as well. Sadly, Sean Dolan our general manager at MassMutual couldn't make the meeting after all. So I'll deliver his couple of slides from MassMutual. I think that the main thing that I wanted to present here today was that with the lifting we've been able to move back out of just these four walls of the gaming establishment where we manage the MassMutual Center and Symphony Hall and include those in our portfolio again which is great to get to expand. So with that, Beth, if you'd like to take off. Thank you, Dan. And I just want to say I'm so happy to be here, Madam Chair, commissioners. It's so nice to meet you even on this platform. I'll jump right in. It's been very busy since I hit the ground running here. If you take a look on the left side of your screen you see President Chris Kelly, our Vice President of Hospitality, Abe Berry delivering water donations to a cooling center in Springfield. We've had some really hot weeks here at the beginning in the spring. They were able to deliver those to the city of Springfield has several cooling centers that have opened up sporadically. So it is a partnership that we continue and that we value and we'll have more on that coming up in the next quarterly report. On the right on April 22nd, you can see Governor Baker came on property recognizing MGM Springfield as one of the very first resorts in the gaming industry to achieve. It's the highest rating for new construction projects in the United States. It's the Green Building Council's leadership and energy and environmental design, the lead new construction platinum certification. It is a distinction that we are incredibly proud of. So we wanted to make sure we brought that to light. We continue to work on that. And again, so proud of the work we have done on that. If we could go to the next screen, little fun here, Wahlberger's grand opening on May 25th. Madam Chair, I think that you are here for the groundbreaking on that. But as you can see in that slide, that's day one, the line going blocks and it has continued to be just so well received by the community. I think by and large for their truffle tater tots, I think that is really what has brought people in, but it continues to be a great gathering place for the community and we're very proud of that. On the right, you see our outdoor concert series, Free Music Friday. That started in Q2 and that again, has been tremendously well received every Friday night. It's pretty darn packed. And I know Amanda Gagnon, who is all things entertainment here, she is going to have more on that coming up in just a few minutes. Let's move on to the next slide if we could, moving on to Future Impact. You can see there on the left the much anticipated, and we talked about it here, the 31 Elm Street project coming along very nicely. A contractor has now been chosen, Fontaine Brothers. It's a local contractor who is very well known to us here at MGM Springfield. It's been an integral part in our building out process. They have been named for that project. MGM, very proud again to be a major contributor in this project. That is moving on. Construction is slated to begin in Q4, so you will be hearing much more about that in the weeks to come. If you see there on the right, that is our Armory. No entertainment in Q2 because of COVID, but we are happy to report that the Roar Comedy Club is back to much fanfare. We have some big names that have been out. It's been a tremendous success. I think people are anxious to get out and laugh and be together. Our entertainment team will have more on that and Amanda coming up in just a moment. Let's move on to Development Update during Q2, the build out of our MGM Sports Lounge. Continue just on time. As you can see, massive viewing wall will be perfect to catch a Pat's Game or Red Sox. Plenty of comfy seating there. Over in tap, you'll see on the right side of your screen that is another build out that has been happening over Q2 that is taking the place of our arcade that used to be in that place that is going to be our VIP Sports Lounge. Another huge viewing wall. We know New Englanders, we do like our sports, so that's going to be just another fantastic amenity for our customers and for everyone as we head into, especially the fall sports season. We are very excited to announce that the grand opening of both of those is next week and we of course will have more on that as the week's unfold. So right now I'm going to hand it over to Amanda Gagnon. Again, all things entertainment to talk more about what's happening on that side of things. Good morning and thank you Beth. So entertainment has finally returned to entrance for the build and we couldn't be more excited about it. We are thrilled to have a robust calendar of events returning to property and simply hauled this year. You can see here, these are the types of headlines that we like to see. Powerade and new shows, activations, partnerships, all announced just this summer with great reception. Beth mentioned for Music Friday, our outdoor concert series, which was launched in June and brought live local entertainment back to downtown Springfield after much too long of an absent. Attendant has surpassed our expectations and just last week we saw a full plaza of guests which was a welcome sight after a long time. It's been great to activate that space once again. Moving on to the next slide. As Daniel mentioned, we do manage some pay haul and with the downtime the city was able to capitalize on that and invest $1.8 million into the theater there, including dressing rooms, signage, concessions and most importantly, their sound and lighting system, which I'm not feeling up to in quite some time. These updates will make Symphony Hall more attractive to touring acts and different promoters as well as expand the types of events that we are able to hold and promote there. Symphony Hall is a great venue for us and we look forward to activating it to be more in the future. So with that in mind, we do have a very powerful calendar event on deck over at Symphony Hall. We currently have seven shows on sale, six of those being MGM promoted events, one on Ticket-Aide rental event in Joe Bonamassa. But like I mentioned, it's a fantastic venue and we're really looking forward to putting off live entertainment back at the theater there as well. And moving forward, we of course have Ticket-Aide events coming back to property and for our property venues as well. As mentioned, Roar, our Roar Comedy Club we opened last week after much too long. Just as you last week, we saw 440 guests in attendance. We'll have more Roar shows announced in the coming weeks but we're really happy to have that back in the armoring. And additionally, we'll have our first Ticket-Aide ballroom event coming up in the fall with Carrot Top and the Aria Ballroom on October 9th. We're really excited to have him there. And once again, activate all of these venues and our theaters that have a private R2-1. With that, I know Daniel's contributing for Sean and the Mass Mutual Team, so I'll turn it back over to him. Thank you, Amanda. So yes, there are two slides relating to Mass Mutual. This first one was shown in Mass Mutual's way of showing. This was the first major conference. They were able to host once again after reopening. As you can see, there are lots of bustling stalls within that conference. And as a facility, it's mixed use. It has the arena in the back that hosts many different styles of arena events. And I'll touch on those on the next slide. And in the front, they have the exhibition halls for Banquets Conferences conventions. So this was a very welcome reopening for them. They were kind of the last ones of our crowd to be able to offer events again. So it's great to see them operating. Next slide, please, Joe. And just as a flavor of some of the things that have happened or are up to come, we had the PVR, the professional bullriding event here last weekend. That was successful. Having come from Vegas, I actually participated as an attendee at those types of events and bring huge crowds. Of course, we're very, very happy to be the home of the Thunderbirds and the AIC hockey teams. They'll be coming back as of October and having full seasons with us. And then you can see one of the real shining lights for us, Springfield being the home of the basketball Hall of Fame, that we will be having the annual enshrinement weekend as of September 11th. And most of those events will be happening at MassMutual. And we as a gaming establishment will be assisting in whatever way we can to them. We do have some people staying in our hotel. And I think up in the top left-hand corner, the little statistics that Sean offered is that we've been able to reopen, offer these 47 event days, 26 events that then led to 725 hotel rooms, which of course, as you know, our facility itself only has 250 on its own. So that then spilled out into other local hotels and innkeepers, that that was able to bring $11 million with the calculated revenue to the city from a tourism perspective. So, you know, we're very, very happy that that's it. And now on our final slide, I'm very, very happy to announce that MGM Springfield will be welcoming Play My Way as one more tool in our responsible gaming toolkit. It is scheduled to go live on September 19th, right in line with the Responsible Gaming Education Week, RGEW, that is celebrated annually. And it is my understanding that if not today, as the slide says, as of tomorrow, we will begin our social media marketing campaign that will be the teasers to this as another item for our MLife rewards players to receive. And that is the end of our slideshow. Any questions? I believe it's customary to return back so we can all see each other again. Commissioners, do you have questions? Commissioner Zuniga, it looks like you're leaning in. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that update. It's very good and there's a lot of activity, of course. Unfortunately, Amanda was a little muffled with one of the slides and I just want to come back to the Update Relative Symphony Hall. Those were improvements that the city is making, which is very exciting. Are you programming some of the events that you went through or are you just planning at this point future events? So all of the events that we have on sale, we have seven shows on sale, of those seven and six are NGM promoted events. The second best joke on them off with that was the other one tour event. So we are programming the majority of those two shows on sale this year. That's great to hear. Thank you. Any other questions? Commissioner Zuniga? No, great activity. It's a great update. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron, comments or questions? Thank you. Great to see all your events coming back. You just outlined several of them that will be back in the fall. So the revenue numbers in particular, the Hall of Fame, that's great to have that back as well. I wondered if you, when you went through your employment numbers and whatnot, do you have positions available now that you're unable to fill or are you able to fill all your positions? Great question. We have positions that we certainly identify as distress that are certainly challenging to fill. An example would be a cook position and our region has always, in Western Mass, always been short of cooks and our operation. We're strong partnership with Holyoke Community College right now who is turning over training programs for line cooks that we're actively recruiting out of. But not just for us, but we know our neighbors down the street are also actively hiring cooks as well as restaurants in the surrounding community. So it's certainly a more distressed position in the property that doesn't generate a lot of applicant flow currently. But we look for revised recruiting methods and ways to attract candidates here to be able to increase that pool of candidates for us. Thank you. Just following up maybe with Commissioner Cameron's inquiry, perhaps on behalf of my fellow commissioner, O'Brien, who is not here, first of, congratulations on the success in terms of the vet hire and the veterans hire and also the minority hiring. You continue to be strong women. Your goal continues to be escape you. And I think that if Commissioner O'Brien were here, she might ask, do you find that there are challenges hiring women in particular perhaps because of the impact of COVID on women as care, often the primary caretaker for children and really the challenge of getting child care back running? I see you now, Jason. Yeah, great question. And I think, candidly, yes, that is one of the contributing factors and anecdotal examples of an employee who wants to return just week that we've had great conversation with about wanting to return to workplace you who can't give us a defined start date that she can return while she's seeking a caretaker for her child. So I think it's one of the reasons certainly that it's presenting challenges. Well, I think, Joe, this will be a continuing dialogue as we emerge out of COVID. Let's hope the trends go in the right direction as to just sort of a societal question. But I think we'll be asking it. I had another more direct question with respect to today's stats. And again, Arlen, you may have answered this and I couldn't hear you, so forgive me. On the lottery numbers, it did look like it was a pretty big drop off from the 100,000 plus two, almost, I guess the 77,900. Are you working directly with Executive Director Sweeney for any additional strategies that could support additional sales of lottery products? There you are, Arlen. I'm looking around my screen, my apologies. Yes, hi. No, to be honest, I have not started working with them directly. I was trying, I looked at 2019 to see if there was a common threat in seasonality. There was normal for it to drop off and I haven't found anything. It seems that it does fluctuate. It can fluctuate significantly from one month to the next. In 2019, it was opposite, significant drop off in May and then it jumped up up in June. So there was a thing that would really show me that there is something going on when looking at our total sales for the quarter compared to the 2019, we are down 20% which I think is just attributed to overall volumes of down. I will be working, kind of taking a closer look and just really monitoring. You know, if there is a seasonality, there is something impacted. There was one of our kiosks, they'd have an issue. It was down for most of the month and June, so that impacted it, which the lottery was able to in July. Some thinking that could have impacted it somewhat, but I haven't found anything that's a clear distinction from one month to the next as I looked at the first half of the year. Well, he's a great resource and very innovative. So the lottery's been busy with the Bax lottery recently, but again, it would be great to see those numbers reversing and we'll wait for the next quarterly report, Joe, I think. I'm all set in terms of questions. Excellent report, really exciting to see that the contractor has been picked for Elm Street. Very, looking very much forward to watching that the transformation of that beautiful building that we know will enhance your property. So thank you again for the comprehensive report. I think, Joe, you're going to go on to the item B for today. Yes, so the next item we have up for you is a discussion on the status of poker at MGM. And in addition to Daniel Miller, we also have Gus Kim with us, who's a vice president and legal counsel for MGM Springfield. And so Dan and Gus, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you again, Joe. So really, I think our first statement is that poker will be returning to MGM Springfield. We have plans that it will come back in Q4 of this year. It will likely come back at something of a reduced rate. So maybe 10 to 12 tables as opposed to the, who was 28 that we had previously. But we have listened to our poker players and also our previous dealers that want this back as an option at our casino and we want to provide it to them. So we're working on putting that together and figuring out the best course for it to bring that back. And it will go back into the poker room that was recently changed to slots. Did you say a date? I'm not sure if I heard that or you're still working out that detail. Correct, still working that out. We don't have an exact date yet. That's why we're reigning for Q4. We're previously, we had made the statement that we would make a decision on it by the end of the year. We've at least made that decision and we will move forward with a plan on how we're returning it within that quarter. Questions? Commissioner Zuniga or Commissioner Cameron? Thank you for that update. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kim. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you again for the comprehensive report. Joe, are we all set or? Yes, that concludes our business, community affairs. To the entire MGM team, thank you for all your contributions today. Thank you very much, Joe. Have a good day. Thank you. Then we'll move right on. I'm just looking at my time. Commissioner Zuniga, I'm adding my three hours. Are you all set for to continue or do you wanna show a break? Okay, I'll set. Commissioner Cameron, you're all set for a bit? Okay, excellent. Then we'll continue on with item number six. Research and Response for Gaming, Director Mark Vandalenden again. Good morning. Good morning again and thank you. Well, Daniel Miller teed it up and so I will pick it up from here to talk with you about the implementation of Play My Way at MGM Springfield. I'm going to turn it over to a slide deck here so it hit me just a second. Okay, can you see my slides here? We can. Great, okay, very good. So I'm gonna go ahead and just kind of update you on kind of where things stand, but first I'll give you just a little bit of background. If you recall Play My Way was launched at Plain Ridge Park back in 2016. You can believe it that many years ago. As a trial or as a test project in 2017, the MGC decided to extend Play My Way to MGM Springfield and on for through a cooperative agreement. So at this point, moving it beyond that sort of test pilot into a program that we will offer at all properties. After several months of discussions in October, 2018, we entered into an MOU that included summer environment with MGM Springfield, with on for Boston Harbor and with IGT who ultimately ends up building the Play My Way system. So in March, 2020, we hit a hiccup with COVID while it was originally intended to launch in September, 2020. There was a request by our licensees to delay that until September of 2021 for MGM in September, 2022 for Encore and the Gaming Commission agreed that given these extraordinary circumstances that we would grant that request. I'd like to point out since 2019, actually even prior to that, there's been a great collaborative relationship to meet these technical requirements and to come up with a successful communication plan that included MGM and included Encore, IGT, the Mass Counseling of Gaming and Health and of course, several of our staff at the Gaming Commission. At this point, we have an anticipated launch at MGM Springfield during Responsible Gaming Education Week, which is September 19th through 25th. And I say anticipated, there's so many moving parts here. All indicators are that we will hit that deadline, but of course I'm gonna use the term hedging my bet on that. We do anticipate hitting this deadline right now. So again, just by way of a little bit of background that explains why we're doing this. So play my way is considered a pre-commitment system. General definition means that a decision made in the present in order to kind of limit options in the future. And as it relates to gambling, defined as a strategy, I'm sorry, it's a harm minimization strategy that's intended to minimize the degree of harm to hold people accountable to a decision made in the present before they get down the line and sort of in a hot state and making decisions while they're gambling. Two goals of play my way. One is to sustain recreational gambling while establishing feasible parameters. The second, eliminating regret from loss of control. And so with these two goals in mind, you can see we have a target audience of recreational gamblers at risk gamblers and problem and lower risk problem gamblers. Recreational, the key is recreational gamblers, sustaining recreational gambling by providing this tool. For those that are at risk for problem gamblers, it's wanting to help them move down that continuum towards back towards being a recreational gambler. And this is supported by some of our evidence. Actually, this is just an example. We actually, I have several examples, but just to limit it here, if you take a look at the positive play study that was released last fall, about 40% of those surveyed in this study scored low or medium on the positive play scale as it relates to degree commitment. We want, obviously want to change that data as we move forward and increase the degree of pre-commitment, as well as, you know, increase in gambling literacy, which are our additional strategies that we roll out through the game sense program. This slide just highlights some of the success that we saw at the Plain Ridge Park Casino. Our original question back in 2016 was, who's going to enroll? How many people will be interested in this? So as you can see, as of August 1st of this year, we have 27,000, over 27,000 people enrolled. We have roughly 4,000 people who have unenrolled. And this represents about 30% of the eligible players, those players at Plain Ridge Park Casino who have player reward cards. So play my ways intended to help players make decisions about gambling, allow them to monitor and understand their playing behavior in real time and support their decisions. It closely aligns with the game sense program, but we also want to position this as a benefit of being an Mlife member. So as you can see, just as a brief overview and reminder of exactly what it looks like and how it feels, this is available Mlife player reward card holders. This is a voluntary system you can enroll or you don't have to enroll. But if you do enroll, you're invited to set daily, a weekly and or monthly budget. You can choose one or you can choose all three. Unique to this system versus Plain Ridge Park Casino, we begin notifications starting at 75% of the budget that was established and then providing notifications or reminders every 25% after that. It doesn't stop individuals from gambling beyond their budget, but it will continue to provide reminders of what they originally set their budget to. You can unenroll, enroll and set budgets. You can change budgets and you can check your spending both through the gaming device or slot machine as well as through a key out. If you make a change, there's some systems that require kind of a cooling off period and if you increase that budget in Massachusetts, we decided to let those allow the system to have the budget changes take effect immediately. The three images to your right are screenshots. I guess they are a little rough. I apologize for that, but we'll work on those. But you can get a sense of what the look and feel of the Play My Wave system will look like on the slot machine. Next, I'm going to turn it over to Scott Helwig to talk about, provide a quick technical update. I'm going to invite Elaine Driscoll to provide a communication update and Marie Claire Flores-Peugeot to give us an update on the evaluation piece of this. So, Scott, I'll turn it over to you. Thanks, Mark. Hi, Chair and fellow commissioners. It's nice to see everybody today and congratulations, Chair, on the new addition to the family. Scott, it's so nice to see you. We don't get to see you very often and I thank you for your kind words, but I'm so happy that you can join us today. Well, thank you. I'm happy as well. And we'll go ahead and get started right away here. So, with the first bullet, all technical requirements have been verified for the advantage Play My Wave module. And some examples we can tell you about, like the reports, there's a player enrollment report we can look at. There's also a player activity report we can look at. The patron alerts, they have alerts that are triggered prior to them reaching to the budget that they set, excuse me, and then also they get alerts after they've reached or exceeded that budget that they have set for themselves. And can everybody hear me okay? We can. Okay, good, good. And then the user experience, we wanted to ensure that Play My Wave looked consistent across all three properties. So we are able to do that within our gaming lab to make sure that the patron goes to PPC, they're gonna have the same experience if they go to MGM and use the Play My Wave application. The next bullet, the GTC team tested the platform and algorithms to identify bug fixes, which were reported to IGT for further development and implementation. A good example of the algorithm that one of the algorithms that we tested were the budget calculations. We went over those to make sure that they are being calculated correctly during our patron session. And then a bug that we found is something really simple with the web browser resolution. We had to adjust that a little bit to be able to see like the scroll bar on some of the screens and that's just kind of the behavior of the application. So those were some of the things that we found through the rounds of testing that we did in the MGC gaming lab. The next bullet, the GTC will continue to assess and periodically perform tests to ensure continued compliance of the advantage Play My Wave module. And what these continued assessments will be would be if IGT needed to make an update to the Play My Wave module, we could go into the lab and verify that that update that they made is working and that it didn't break anything else. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, you did freeze for that. So you were just starting on reading the bullet that ends with the advantage Play My Wave module. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I'll go ahead and read it again. I'm sorry to be redundant. The GTC will continue to assess and periodically perform tests to ensure continued compliance with the advantage Play My Wave module. And as I was explaining those assessments will be, will take place when IGT decides that they need to upgrade the module for some odd reasons. So we'll go into the lab and we'll test that update, make sure that the update works the way it's supposed to and it didn't break anything else within the module as well. And then another assessment would be if a user or patron experiences something uncommon, we would go into the lab and try and recreate that and be able to provide more information back to IGT so they could apply a fix. If it's something that we deem is needs to be fixed and not just a one-off that somebody experienced. And then for the last bullet, demonstrations of the module are always available in the MGC Gaming Lab by request. And we just asked that you give us a few days in advance so that we can make sure the lab's in a good operating space so that we can provide a consistent demo and show everybody the features and the availability of the Play My Way module. And that's it for the technical update. I'll go ahead and turn it back over to Mark. Thank you, Scott. I'm gonna actually turn it over to Elaine Briscoll to just kind of give us an overview about where we stand on the communication aspect that go on to Play My Way at MG. Elaine? Sure, thank you, Mark. So the good news is that we had a lot to work from from the 2016 launch at PPC and we're able to really use that in terms of how we inform our way forward. And so essentially in terms of objectives, naturally we want to generate awareness about the availability of the program at MGM Springfield and also in the surrounding area. The goal is to educate the public about how the program works, how to enroll in what the benefits of the program will be. Also, certainly we're trying to underscore our commitment, the agency's commitment, as well as those who are partnering with us on this, MGM Springfield, the Mass Council in regards to our continued effort to provide responsible gaming programs. And so essentially what we've been doing over the course of the last several weeks is working to update the Play My Way brand. The good news is back in 2016, that's when we did logo creation, material creation and whatnot, it's still very applicable. And the fact that it has some brand recognition among casino patrons, we're carrying that brand into MGM Springfield as well. Next slide, Mark. So in order to spread the word, we're using a combination of traditional media, digital strategy and also basically advertising and marketing. There's a number of different teams working on that. We've been working very closely with MGM in terms of what inventory we'll be able to use to have on casino signage about the availability. We've been collaborating on digital assets and we'll be able to use that across numerous social channels to sort of amplify the message for one another. MGM, for example, will be doing a direct email blast to their rewards members to inform them about this. There'll be a lot of signage. We're working with the advertising firm, KHA, to do a very targeted digital strategy in terms of, there'll be geofencing strategies and whatnot to let people know in the area about play my way and then something similar when they exit the property, for example, but it's very targeted, very specific and KHA is working on that and we're working very closely with them. So just in terms of, and with my departure, we have created basically a drop box where we have all of the assets. We've shared that with everyone and I've also included the press releases, media advisories and whatnot for years past. I've already updated those so that they're ready to go once we're in a position to fully announce. Yeah, so I think I hit on a lot of this already, but as you can see, basically it's everything from email blast, retractable banners, digital signage, the geo targeted campaign, which I mentioned, the goal is to just increase awareness. And by the way, another key aspect of that is certainly the Game Sense advisors who were tremendous ambassadors of the program back in 2016, that's another very important part of the outreach and we know that from 2016, these strategies, as well as working closely with the Game Sense advisors, really resulted in a remarkable enrollment early on. Thank you, Elaine. Next I'm gonna turn it over to Marie Claire to run through the evaluation component of Play My Way. So Marie Claire, I'll turn it over to you. Yes, thank you, Mark. Great, so in parallel to the launch of Play My Way, there will also be a study taking place on the evaluation of Play My Way. And this study will be led by Dr. Michael Wall, who will be, who's from Carleton University in Canada. And this study is funded by the International Center on Responsible Gaming. And for background, there's not a lot of studies out there that are looking at the success of play management systems like Play My Way that are designed to facilitate pre-commitment in gambling. So the goal of this study is to build on to this evidence and look at who is and who is not likely to use Play My Way. And secondly, to see if Play My Way has an influence in changing gambling behavior and how. So for this, the plan is to recruit around 600 regular EGM players via the M-Life rewards program with MGM. And participants will be required to complete a survey and they'll be asked for permission to access their player data. So this study will take place in three phases. So if we go to the next slide, we'll be able to see that the first phase is a survey conducted prior to the launch of Play My Way. The second phase will be three months after the launch and the third phase will be six months after the launch. So the survey questions from the first phase will be collecting some general demographics data as well as some baseline data on gambling behavior. So EGM Play, outcome expectancies. So what are participants expecting whether to win or to lose and how much? Limit setting, so whether they're setting monetary limits. If you ask how much, are they adhering to this limits? As well as looking at their overall level of positive play. And there will also be some general open-ended questions on the Play My Way program in general. So what they understand by the program, whether they'll be interested or not in joining. And then the phase two and three survey will be asking some questions that will be allowing to assess if there's any change in disorder gambling severity. To see if there's any changes in the perception of Play My Way, any changes on outcome expectancies as well as to see if there's any change on their limit setting behavior. They're setting different limits, see if they're sticking to it. So overall this study will allow to assess to see if there's any factors from the phase one of a project that will predict the likelihood of enrolling and engaging with Play My Way as well as to see if there's any change in gambling behavior. Great. Thank you. I hope you see it's illustrated that we have a lot of different moving parts to this. There's a lot of collaboration that happens. And while this was represented by our MGC staff, I do really want to point out just how important our partnership is with the Mass Council on Gaming and Health, who leads the game sense program as well as MGM Springfield and IoT. So with that, I'll turn it over to commissioners. Commissioner Zuniga, do you have questions or comments on this initiative all underway now? Yes, thank you. Great update team. It's a great effort of many months really. Well summarized here. I'll underscore some of the points that were made before and just drawing back on the experience from PPC and looking back at our experience there and the evaluation effort there the game sense advisors are key ambassadors as they were called here. And that's of course a big part of the plan. I remember when we started the initial effort, we had game sense over here and we had play my way. One of the biggest insights that I derived from from that just how well they work together because they form those relationships. They already have those relationships. They have the customer care approach and they're good at signing people and that in my mind explained a lot of the uptake in lineups. I'll also mention that it's great to see that the look and the feel is similar and that the technical team spend a lot of time thinking about that and that's good for branding. But I should also note that there are a couple of important differences that are also gonna tell us a lot of the program. And I hope that we then can bring based on the research and all the findings and the analytics might end up going back to PPC perhaps and the platform there and see we need to make some modifications. And then the one I'm thinking of especially is the ability to opt out of the early notifications and whatnot. But the two platforms were different that was just the way that the licensees had their house systems and that is by the way one of the reasons that we find ourselves a few years after the fact with the deployment at MGM. I'm also very excited about the evaluation project. We're familiar with Mr. Wall, Dr. Wall. I very much liked the pre and the post analysis that these will tell us, they're gonna tell us a few additional things to the prior evaluation effort which we also learned a lot from. It's a great update, great deployment. I know there's a lot of work that goes week in and week out to get to this. And I'm also hopeful that we can reach responsible gaming education week. But if we don't, that will be fine. It's important that it's also deployed without interruptions for the rest of the play because that's a very important part of the experience. And finally, I think you already get credit mark but this takes a lot of resources from the licensee in terms of time and other things, technical expertise, et cetera. So thank you to MGM for speaking to the original time frame that we discussed just a year ago and making it possible. I know it's not easy. So really excited and thankful. Commissioner Zunika, can I ask a question on the out-to-out provision? Were you saying that you would like to see more opportunity for Opt-L, or are you, I think Scott would be able to address that. Are you satisfied in terms of the plan as presented? Yeah, very much. I'm very much satisfied with what is presented. I think the tool here, unlike the one at PPC, gives the player the option to opt out only of the early notification. That's a button that you may have seen in one of the slides. It's not, they can continue without doing nothing and they'll get that early notification. But that's not something that's available at the PPC property. And that's one that, again, was conceived after the experience of PPC. As we do the analysis and uptake, acceptance, use and whatnot, I suspect that will be an area that we can then ascertain and compare to PPC to say whether it's important for us to try to go and modify that there and whatnot. But there's, again, this is all a little bit too much inside baseball, if you will, but important to, in my mind, to point out that not only are we achieving the notion of the branding, which is to look good, to look similar, but because we know that players will go to different places, same players, but there's important nuance differences that are gonna also continue to teach us about this tool and in an effort to increase its uptake, which I think is also really useful. Thank you. Very helpful to me. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron, do you wanna comment or question? I do, thank you. First of all, I also wanna thank MGM for being willing partners with this whole rollout. So that's really important and I know it's already been mentioned. I think it was an excellent technical update and the communications plan forces sound and really does help make a difference with the plan like this, right? As far as educating and getting an interest in this. I had a question for Mark. Mark, remind me with the unenrollment, I think that it was 30%. Didn't we ask a few questions around that so they folks give us some reasons why they are unenrolling? I'm not remembering that properly. Yeah, we do ask just a brief set of questions as to why people unenroll. I would need to get the data back to you on that. No, that's fine. I remembered that we did that and I just wondered if, well, we won't know with this new one yet. It'll be interesting to see if those who unenroll or the reasons are similar, right? So we have an unenrollment rate of around 10 to 15%. It's always been difficult to say whether that's a good, good or bad, but I was doing research on the unenrollment or unfit bit that has a much higher sort of, if it's not unenrollment, but people stop using that type of technology at a far higher percentage than play my way. So while it's not apples to apples, I think that there is a way to kind of consider this type of self sort of monitoring technology. Yeah, I've always liked that analogy, by the way. And this evaluation plan, I wanna say it's more robust than when we did the first time. Is that accurate as well? Which plan, I'm sorry, commissioner? Yeah, the evaluation that will be done that Marie Claire outlined for us. And I remember from the first time that we had an evaluation, you can, I believe this sounded more robust. Is that correct? I think that the ability to do the type of pretesting that in recruiting players into the study as opposed to just taking a look at general data of play my way users versus non-users that the previous evaluation study did. We know a lot more, we can be more targeted. I really do appreciate Dr. Wall and the International Center for Responsible Gaming for funding this, which that's a key piece. We have a robust research agenda. It's great that we have partners that will provide additional funding for this evaluation. Right, excellent. And it's nice that we are building on something that's already in place. Great work, love the presentation. Thank you for everyone for making it as successful as I know it will be. Yeah, I don't need to add on. I think my fellow commissions have taken care of my questions but I do want to thank MGM for its partnership. I've been leaders with respect to embracing Game Sense and now this program and to our team very thorough presentation, looking forward to the launch and see what the data ultimately shows. We also may take up Scott on his offer to perhaps show us some training for us. So we'll keep that in mind. Thank you so much. Daniel, thank you to your entire team for the ongoing support of this important initiative. And I still have the shirt that says play my way that I'm ready to wear whenever that happens. There are new shirts coming provided by MGM for the launch of play my way. May I move on to the next item? I think it makes sense. I think everyone's again, thank you for the thorough report all the way through the communication plan and the strategies. So thank you and we'll go on to item B. Thank you MGM. So continuing on, I have some good news in this next agenda item. So each year, the National Council on Problem Gambling honors individuals and organizations for their work on problem gambling and recent gaming issues. Awardees are announced each year at the NCPG annual conference. And this year, Massachusetts was very well represented across a number of different categories. And I just wanted to highlight what those categories were and the extraordinary individuals that received those awards. So it was broken down into sort of annual awards and then there was one lifetime award that I wanted to get special attention to. So the annual awards, there was an award given to representing Massachusetts work. It was the NCPG media award for outstanding news reporting by a news organization that covered problem gambling issues. And this year, the award went to its Mark Pasnokis of the Connecticut Mirror in Hartford, Connecticut. And he did an outstanding job highlighting the Game Sense program at MGM Springfield. The title of the story was Base State Confronts Problem Gambling in Ways that Connecticut Does Not. So I think it does a great job of highlighting some of the amazing work done by our Game Sense program at MGM Springfield. We also received, or actually I should say, Plain Ridge Park Casino received the Corporate Newsletter Award. It's an outstanding newsletter related to problem gambling related newsletter, sorry. I thought that was a great award, recognizing what I consider to be about seven years of collaboration with Plain Ridge Park Casino, specifically calling out Lisa McKinney's work on this issue. She was, Lisa is here, but she not that long ago received one of the Game Sense awards on a quarterly basis. So thank you, Lisa, for your work. Lynn Ho, who is a Game Sense supervisor at Encore Boston Harbor, received the Joanna Franklin Annual Award for Direct Service Recognizing Achievement in the Direct Provision of Services to Problem Gamblers and or their families. This is great. It's an amazing acknowledgement of the work of the Game Sense program at Encore Boston Harbor. And the last annual award, but certainly not the least, was awarded to our very own commissioner, Zuniga, in recognition of his extraordinary voluntary contributions to the NCPG over the years. And Commissioner Zuniga, I believe you were on the finance committee at NCPG during some really challenging and interesting times for that organization. So thank you. And then finally, and this is the Lifetime Award. It was a Lifetime Award given to Dr. Rachel Volberg, who is our principal investigator for the Sigma and Magic projects. Lifetime Awards are really outstanding awards, recognizing lifelong efforts towards the issue of problem gambling. Dr. Volberg received this award and I wanna say she's the first woman to have received this award over the course of the history of ranking it. So a very warm congratulations to Dr. Volberg. Actually, I asked Dr. Volberg to join us today. It really is extraordinary and I really do appreciate her work, her leadership and our research agenda over the past eight plus years at this point. And so, Rachel, would you, can I invite you to just say a minute, spend a minute or two talking to us, sharing your wisdom over the course of your career? Sure, thanks Mark for that lovely introduction. I timed my remarks and I think I've got about two minutes here to bend your ears. So I'd like to thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. And I'm going to begin with a confession that I never expected to spend an entire career doing gambling research. I graduated from the University of California, San Francisco in 1983 with a PhD in sociology and a determination never to enter academia thanks to my mom and her bad experiences in that sphere. The following year, I was offered a job in Albany, New York doing technical writing for a software startup and moved across the country, delighted that I would be able to start paying off my student loans so quickly. Six months later, to my horror, I got to work one day to find a sign on the door saying that the company had declared bankruptcy and advising all of us to apply for unemployment benefits. Through diligent snowball sampling, I was able to find a new job within a few months. The job was to evaluate the new treatment programs for problem gamblers in New York State. My first day of work at the New York State Office of Mental Health in May of 1985, I was handed a two-page bibliography and told that this is everything that has ever been published about problem gambling. My interest was peaked. How could so little be known about a subject that the New York State government was then spending $750,000 a year to address? I was definitely in the right place at the right time when it came to doing gambling research. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a rapid expansion internationally in the availability of legal commercial gambling, starting with lotteries, then casinos, then electronic gambling machines and online gambling. I became known for conducting prevalent surveys and more and more consulting work came my way. In 2007, when the Mashpee Wampanoa received federal recognition, I knew that casino gambling would soon be coming to my home state of Massachusetts. People say, be careful what you wish for, but I've never regretted the hard work that I and so many others here in Massachusetts did to make sure that the gambling expansion in Massachusetts was accompanied by a world-class effort to understand, minimize and mitigate the negative impacts of this new industry. I'm going to end by saying that at the age of 67, it may seem like this award is a fitting capstone to a career that is coming to an end, but my mom did not retire until she was 80 and she's still kicking at 92. So I'm pretty sure that I still have a good bit of life and some research ahead of me. Thank you so much. First off, before we move to Dr. Volberg, commissioners in the good, congratulations to you for being recognized for your extraordinary volunteer work. It's volunteer in a sense, but it's very much core to the work that you do as part of your service to the Commonwealth and the commission, so thank you. You've really been leading that effort and commission is the beneficiary of all your efforts, so thank you. And Dr. Volberg, I was going to comment that I didn't think probably lifetime was the right description for you. Maybe midlife, but even that feels wrong. You came to the commission with extensive background. I remember when you were selected to do the important work that you're doing and now I'm more directly impacted by your excellence. So I just wanna thank you for your continuing leadership. And yeah, we know you're not going anywhere. We are very dependent on your continuing good work, but what a lifetime story you do have so far. And I think it shows that one group's failure has amounted to a wonderful success. So that's quite a story. I don't know if your earlier employer knows what you're up to, but it has worked out and I'm guessing that the bills may have been paid off. So commissioner Cameron. Yeah, thank you. I would like to congratulate all the award winners, all of them impressive and have made a huge contribution, right? But in particular commissioner Zuniga for this has been from day one, commissioner, you have been on this and very, very interested and willing to contribute in every way to responsible gaming. I think you were influential in bringing Mark on board and the relationships. So I do wanna thank you well-deserved. And Dr. Fulberg, I'll always remember that was a competitive process, right? Your team had to submit to be and compete against others who wanted that position of the research for the Commonwealth for the gaming commission. And you were so excited when your team won that award. And I just thought, wow, this woman's gonna be terrific because she really does care and is so excited to take on this research. So it's something that we are around the world. People mentioned to me at conferences about the work we do with responsible gaming. So a lot of that is, we may take credit but it's you and your team who have brought all that good work to us on behalf of the Commonwealth. So thank you, well-deserved. And I don't mind lifetime achievement awards. I think they're just fine at any age but we do expect it to have you working for us for years to come. Again, thank you so much. And to everyone, but you too in particular really well-deserved. I do wanna note that I can see Lisa is here still. And so Lisa- Lisa is here, yeah. Yeah, she is. So congratulations to you. How nice to have your work recognized and continue to be recognized. I know that we had recognized it earlier as Mark said. So congratulations, it does take a village and how, you know, if you think about it it's not startling that Massachusetts would be so well-represented in these awards because of the outstanding efforts and expertise. I'm gonna note what Commissioner Zuniga pointed out and Dr. Volver, you know, you've already noted it is when there are dedicated resources to support this important work, things can happen. And so that positions Massachusetts very well. And we're seeing the fruits of all of it got the recognitions that you received this year. Congratulations again. Commissioner Zuniga, I'd love for you to express a few words and then we'll close and we'll discuss our next steps. I do note that apparently there's quite a storm going on in Massachusetts and some people may have lost some of their power. But I think unless I hear something from Executive Director Wells, our meeting will continue. Good. Commissioner Zuniga. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for those words and the NCPG for the recognition. I do really wanna emphasize the difference between the awards that everybody like myself and Lynn and Lisa that are great to receive. But it's a very, very special distinction to recognize Rachel on her lifetime achievement. She's well-deserved. We are of course very familiar with the work that she's done before the Massachusetts during Massachusetts and we should continue to do and teach us from everything else that's going around the world and what we're trying to do here. I believe we get a little used to all the work that we're doing, the research, the responsible gaming programs. But I think this kind of recognition, the fact that a few awards came to different people and especially to Rachel is really a testament to all the work that is being done here that we are very lucky to have the resources to do and the mandate to do on an ongoing basis. So Rachel, you may be the first person to win two lifetime achievements one day, the way you articulate your history and your drive to continue. And we hope that that may be an option but I know that you'll continue to be recognized not just by the NCPG but others because your work has been really groundbreaking and very significant. So thank you for all the work that you did for us. Commissioner Cameron, you and I did not acknowledge Dr. Volberg's achievement as being the first woman. Did that shock you? It shocked me. I guess I'm never shocked at that frankly. There's still lots of work to be done but we're certainly proud of it. And I remember being proud when we hired her that this was gonna be a woman to lead this team. So yeah. Yeah, so again, another barrier broken and we're pleased that you're leading that effort. Dr. Volberg, so thank you. Mark, wonderful, wonderful news all around in this item. It's always positive. We always have positive updates from you but this was especially nice. So thank you. I am just gonna take a temperature. Oops, sorry, I just wanna get to my other screen. We have a few more items ahead of us, commissioners. It's now your time about 12.30. I understand there was a tornado warning maybe in some of the areas in Massachusetts. I'm wondering do we take a short break for a copy and I mean a bio break or do we need a lunch break? How many minutes? Well, I would think a 30 minute lunch break now would work because we haven't taken a break at all yet this morning and rather than taking a short break and then a lunch break shortly after that, I think it makes sense to just hold until we get back to those items as soon as we come back from lunch. Yeah, and then maybe some of the weather will also move its way through. I have to say where I am, it's quite nice. The weather is so predictable that it seems odd. I knew that you were gonna maybe have some big storms in Northern New England. So all right, then we'll reconvene. So about 110, 105, 105, all right. Zach, does that work, Commissioner? Yeah, well, I'm doing some quick math here, Gail. Yeah, that's fine. We can do it. Well done, 105, all right. Thank you, Commissioner. All right, and again, for everyone who contributed this morning, thank you so much. Austin, I think that we can resume. Thank you so much. Karen will continue to keep track of the weather for the team, make sure everyone is able to participate. It looks as though right now we have good connectivity and that everyone is safe and sound. Yep, okay. So we are reconvening. I'm not sure if I announced the number of today's public meeting, maybe I did. Reconvening number 352, always an impressive number when I think about my fellow commissioners who started on day one. We are now reconvening and we're gonna start on item number seven, but before we get started, I just wanted to point out to all who are participating today or listening that in might of Executive Director Wells' early report that the Governor Baker announced right before, I think we went on break, that he will be instituting a vaccine mandate for all state employees that numbers around 42,000 state employees. His policy will extend to in-person as well as telecommuting workers and it will apply to booster shots down the road. I had a chance to check in with Executive Director Wells on this and this is an important update that she will bring back to the working group for its consideration because next week as we already indicated, the commission will be looking at our own return to office or workplace policies as well as the issues around vaccination. So that Executive Order will be available to you, Karen, and I'm just looking real quick at my notes. Those are the, and it does note that there's an encouragement to independent agents like ours to think about consistent policies so the timing is perfect that we'll be looking at this next week. So with that update and the fact that there are apparently continuing tornado warnings in Massachusetts, we'll now move on to item number seven, Director Lilias. Thank you. Thanks again, Chair. And with respect to this item, I know that the commissioners are aware that Encore has been engaged in a renovation and some repurposing, can you hear me? Can you hear me? I can now. Listen, that's an actual stock standard, right away. Oh, no, no, no, no. Go right ahead, Loretta, I think you're okay. Okay, let's, is this better? Okay. So I know the commissioners have been aware that Encore has been involved in some renovations, construction, and repurposing of some space at its gaming establishment. And specifically, their former buffet amenity has been out of service for some time and has been under construction. The space is being repurposed and going to be reintroduced as a sports lounge, a sports bar, very different concept from a buffet. The plan is for a lot of viewing television screens, a video wall, a bar, and two food amenities to be included, as well as the addition of some countertop electronic gaming devices, 10 of them in total. There's also been some repurposing and construction modifications to a second floor area previously in the garden, the garden restaurant area, transforming an area into a VIP lounge and adding for the first time some additional, or some for the first time countertop gaming devices, eight of them in total for that area. So this renovation would be adding, going from zero to 18 gaming positions in these areas. Their target date for launching these areas is September 4th. This would require advanced approval from the IDB under the regulatory provisions related to amendments to the gaming establishment floor plan. Trinity Monaghan has been really helpful to the IEB and to the legal division in understanding what's involved in this from an approval point of view. And I'd like to pull her in and ask her to give you, just orient you to the regulations and what's involved. So I see Caitlin, if you could jump in, that'd be great. Thank you very much. I'll keep this short, but it's a four step process for implementing a floor plan amendment pursuant to 205 CMR 138.07, section three. The first step is that the licensee must file a request for a floor plan amendment with the IEB that includes certain required information. The second step is the IEB reviews the proposed amendment to ensure that it will not result in a violation of any law, regulation or approved internal control or may jeopardize the safety, inter security of a patron for the integrity of the gaming operation. After reviewing the request, the IEB may preliminarily approve the request. It can deny the request, request further information or request that the request be modified. And then if preliminary approval is given, the fourth step is that the licensee may implement the amendment. The IEB then inspects the physical changes and may issue a final approval or request additional changes. So in short, that's the four step process that a floor plan amendment would need to go through. So we thank you, Caitlin. And we of course have been in contact with Encore about this. They understand the process and we expect to be in communication with them in the upcoming days. Also, the sports bar arrangement, in addition to the bar, there will be the introduction of two food amenities as part of the plan. The intention for those is for Encore to request alcohol beverage amendments for those two amenities and the new bar associated with the sports bar. In the past, I think hour or so, we did receive the request for those beverage amendments. We have not had a chance to review those yet, but we will do that as quickly as possible. You know, I'm aware there's a limited meeting next week. We may be asking to add a short item to next week's session, but I'd be getting ahead of myself because we haven't even looked at them yet. So that's a short update on where that is and that we expect a lot of activity in the upcoming days on this. Any questions for Lavella? Who else at Commissioner Cameron? Okay. And I think we're moving on to Chief Skinner. Good morning. Good afternoon. Okay, sorry, I thought I was muted. Good afternoon, Chair and commissioners. I will try to keep this brief. So I have just one position for you to consider exempting from the service employee registration requirements. It's the server position at the Walbergers restaurant out at MGM Springfield. And you have the full job description in your packet. As you know, Walbergers is located in a standalone building on MGM property. So there's no concern about the server's access to secure gaming areas or any gaming related confidential or secure information. And the server doesn't have any managerial or supervisory responsibilities. However, Walbergers does hold a gaming beverage license and the server is responsible for checking ID serving the alcoholic beverages, physically walking the beverage from the bar to the patron. They obviously don't pour or mix the drinks or secure storage. That's left to the bartenders and managers. So there's really, there really is a limited access and handling of alcoholic beverages by these servers. In comparison of the servers at the Regal Theater, the only other vendor operated establishment on the property are exempt from registration requirements. The commission impart based its approval of the exemption back in June of 2018 on the fact that the theater was located in a separate quote unquote entertainment block of the casino, much like Walbergers can be said to be in a separate commercial block. And that is, it is significantly distanced from the gaming floor and is surrounded by other non-gaming restaurants and businesses. So really just as a matter of consistency, I fully support exempting this position from the service employee registration requirements and do recommend your vote to approve. And of course, I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Commissioners, any questions for Nikesha Chief Skinner? Nikesha Kevin. Yeah, I don't have a question. I certainly agree with the recommendation. It's consistent with what we've done in the past. And I suspect the servers might be needed in a hurry. Seeing from the quarterly report that that line was around the block when they opened that restaurant. Good point. Commissioner Zinica, do you have questions for Nikesha? No, same thing. I think the analysis and parallel is very good to point out. And I'm in full support of exempting this position. By the entirely and defer also to Chief Skinner. It's a good judgment. So what do you need from us? You need a vote. And Commissioner Zinica, are you in a position to move? Yeah. Yeah, Madam Chair, I will move that the commission exempt the position of server to the wall burgers to a profile number 1802-W from the service employee registration requirements as presented in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Thank you. And just again, this recommendation Chief Skinner really does reflect what the legislature contemplated when they made that disarrangement for exemption to get these positions built. And I hope Commissioner Cameron's right that the need is great and get people to work. So thank you. With that, I'll take a vote unless there's any other comments. OK, I'll start. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Zinica. Aye. And I vote yes. That's 3-0 Vivian, there you are. Thank you. And thank you for that good work. And I think it was quite a quick turnaround, Nekisha. So thank you very much. Thank you. OK, bear with me so I get back. So Director Lilios, that concludes your item. Are you all set? All set. Thank you very much. Thank you. So exciting developments for Encore. Now moving on to other exciting developments. We always love these reports. Dr. Lightbound, good afternoon. Good afternoon. I wanted to say a quick thank you to Elaine for everything she did for the racing division. She was a very quick study on some difficult issues and always had a great way of distilling things down to what was really important. And I wish her the best. So today we're here to talk about the Spirit of Massachusetts Day. If you remember, last year we had just opened a couple of weeks before it with COVID. And the track and horse were able to pull it off and hold it. This year it was, thank goodness, a whole different ball game where we could have people attending and everything again, a much better situation. And the chair and Commissioner Cameron and Zaniga both all came out, as well as our executive director, Karen Wells. We appreciate the support. As far as our own staff goes, we did double our TCO2 testing on the big races. So we had quite a number of samples from that. The track increased the number of big races to include the Burt Beckwith for the first time in years. So that was nice for the local horsemen were involved in that race. And we also did close to 100 licenses through that time period for the Spirit of Massachusetts Day. Our staff really stepped up to do that, as well as Steve O'Toole will go into what they all did as well. Now I'll turn it over to Steve O'Toole and he can talk about it from the track's perspective. Thanks, Alex. I'd just like to say it was great to see three commissioners that came out. Madam Chair, Commissioner Cameron, and Commissioner Zaniga. It was great to see you all again in person instead of on these videos. And I'd like to also say good luck to Elaine. I remember being present when she was hired back in the early days of the commission starting up. So good luck to you, Elaine. Thank you, Steve. Pleasure working with you. And same to you, Alex. Thank you. So getting on to the Spirit of Massachusetts Day, Alex kind of gave you a little bit of a brief overview there. The Spirit of Mass, again, was a very nice race. It was won by Manchego, who won the race last year as well. And she wasn't nominated to the race originally. So it's kind of an interesting story there. She set the world record the year before. But they didn't nominate her to this year's race because they were going to retire her. But I guess she didn't want to be retired just yet. And they put it back into action early in the year after the nominations, the early nominations, which these races are like a poker game where you ante up in February and again in April to be eligible for the race. It's a $1,000 fee in February and a $1,500 fee in April. And that makes you eligible to the race. Well, Manchego did not nominate to the race. However, there is a supplemental fee that you can pay on race day to get into the race. And that's $20,000. So her connections ended up to $20,000 to get into the race. And obviously it was well worth it. And a couple interesting notes for that day. That put her earnings over $3 million for her. She's a six-year-old Trotter. And that put her earnings right now at over $3 million. And then she continued her success the following week on Hambletonian Day at the Meadowlands, where the Hambletonian, that's a big day down there as well. And she won the Cashman Memorial for another court of $1,000,000. So I believe she did the same thing the year before. I think she won't want her next start after being at Plain Ridge as well. In the Clara Barton race, the winner was Lyon Sentinel. And she tied the track record held by the Horse of the Year Shartan N. the year before in 148 and 1. And trainer Jim King, he was the trainer of Shartan N. as well as Lyon Sentinel this year. So he does very well in that race. And a familiar story, talking about continued success, Lyon Sentinel went to the Meadowlands on Hambletonian Day and she won the Lady Liberty for $200,000. So the scheduling of this race has really been a nice stepping stone for some of those Hambletonian races. And as the three commissioners that were there, were given the presentations in the winner circle, this is a picture here of the spirit. And I see Madam Chair and Commissioner Zaniga and Commissioner Cameron right there next to me. And we had a couple of these made for your lobby. So I'll be sending this, it's bigger than the normal small ones that are made that you can have for your lobby. Getting on to kind of the rest of the day, as Alex mentioned, the rest of the entire day, we awarded over $500,000 in purses. So it wasn't just those two big races, but a lot of our local horses got to race for some pretty decent purses. We named some of the races for some of the horsemen that have passed away, some very prominent horsemen. As a matter of fact, just a few weeks before the spirit of Mass Trot, really popular personality here in New England, John Hogan was a great driver, a great trainer. He passed away. So one of the races was named for him. He brought back the Burt Beckwood Memorial. Burt was a very popular figure back in the Foxboro days in New England. So we brought those two races to the forefront for our memorial races, and we had a few others. And it was really nice to see a crowd in the banquet room again. That was the first time that there was an event in the banquet space that overlooks the track since COVID hit. And just I got to thank you the other day from John Hogan's sister. And she kind of summed it up. She said, it gave us all the opportunity to reconnect with many of Jack's friends and to share stories of all of our times together. And it really was a nice event upstairs. The day was promoted in partnership with the horsemen, my announcer, which you all know very well, Lenny Calderon and horseman director Bob McGiggian. They worked tirelessly on the advertising, both radio and print. And they also came up with a few giveaways, patrons that visited that day. They got to either choose from a nice ball cap with the Spirit of Mass logo on it, or one of these, it's called a six-pack cooler. So it has the Spirit of Mass on this side, and the Clare Barton logo on that side. And what you do with this is this goes in your refrigerator, your freezer. So this gets frozen. And then if you go into the beach or to the track or the Saratoga or wherever you put a six-pack right inside of it like that, keeps it nice and cold. So that was a really unique giveaway that the guys came up with. So that was well received. Paul London, the treasurer of the Horseman's Association. He did a great job tracking everything that we were doing. Alice Tisbert arranged a nice seafood spread for lunch for the participants down in the paddock. Nancy Longabardi from the Breeders, she helped out. She pitched in coordinating the winter circle presentations as well as the banquet and other small details that usually get overlooked. Our fund staff here, Andrew Tavares, has become pretty good friends with Todd Anjali who sings the National Anthem for the Boston Bruins. And Todd came out to sing a few tunes for us that day. And he's really a great personality and people love to say hello to him. So that was a great addition. Mike Sweeney, the local New England on-air personality, he came down to do all the color commentary for all the races. And I just want to give another shout out to Andrew Tavares who's our boots on the ground and really coordinated everything to a tee. And finally, the last race of the day was in support of the Standard Bread Transition Alliance. And the Standard Bread Transition Alliance was actually spearheaded by the USDA directors from District 9, which is our district, the New England district. The New England states is District 9. And our chairman, Dawn Marine, is very sensitive to the needs of our race horses after their racing days are done in retirement. So the Standard Bread Transition Alliance coordinates efforts to retrain the Standard Brets to do a number of things. They do show jumping. They become police horses. There's a lot of things that these race horses can do in retirement. And so we ran that race in support of the Standard Bread Transition Alliance and sizable donations from Plain Ridge, the Horseman's Associations, the Standard Bread Owners of Massachusetts, which is the breeders, the Massachusetts Breeders' Associations and the New England Amateur Drivers Club all donated to that cause. So that was a nice way to end the day. And so all in all, I think it was another successful spirit of mass and it was great to be able to really be able to promote it and have a lot of things going on like we had in previous years. And as Alex pointed out, last year's race was a great race and it was a really good car, but it was kind of tampered down by the restrictions of COVID. And I just want to thank you guys again for coming out. It was really a pleasure having you all here. It was a great day. Commissioner Cameron, I know that you want to make some comments on this great horse racing day. Thank you. First of all, I just, I want to thank everybody. It was so apparent. First of all, it was really busy, right? And that was wonderful to see. But both our racing staff, as well as Mr. Tools racing staff worked so hard that day. I mean, you could just see it. It was a long day for everyone, but they love racing. They love this day, which is really special to have some of those horses there. And, you know, the best horse in the world, right? That's pretty nice. And she didn't let us down, did she? She was tremendous. So anyway, I love being there. I love to see how busy it was and just a real tribute to everyone because it takes a lot to put a day like that together. And everybody pitched in and worked hard. And I think a great time was had by everybody the other co-operated and it was really, really packed. So great for racing in Massachusetts. And I think this has really put us on the map in racing Steve, right? I mean, it's just, this is something that these, the best horses want to be part of now. And that just a few years ago, that wouldn't have been the case at Plain Ridge. So great for the sport, great for the commonwealth. And just a big thank you to everyone who worked so hard that day. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Zinnega. Same thoughts, not much to add, but exactly the same congratulations to the team, to the track Steve, to Alex. They work seven times harder than or more on a day like this, because of all the testing and all the arrangements that have to be made and safeguards, but we show up and we get to see how smoothly it just feels. And it's all a testament to the hard work of elaboration between both the track and the staff. There was a great atmosphere and it's great to be there and be part of the, you know, how many people enjoy the day and the sport and all the exuberance that was clearly present in that day. But I know it's not the only day there's great work all around. So congratulations, Steve, and thank you, Steve and Alex. Thank you, Commissioner. Yeah, I'll just echo my fellow commissioners remarks. And again, thank you for allowing us to be part of the celebration and a part of these athletes. At work, Horses did an incredible job that day. And we know that behind the scenes, Dr. Leibman and her team were making sure that all the races were being conducted with integrity and safety always being paramount for the horses. So thank you. And also, Steve, I'm touched by your gift to the commission's space. It's a really nice memory coming out of a really difficult time. So thank you for memorializing that. Appreciate it very, very much. Looking forward to the rest of the season. There's many days ahead. I know we had to, you did acknowledge that there was a real heat wave and those two days you shut down last, was it last week or two weeks ago now, Steve? It was just last week, yes. Yeah, just last week. So that was a very smart move. The heat wave was incredible. And then, but the season has extended right to Thanksgiving. So a lot of good racing ahead and we wish all the athletes the horses and of course their drivers best of luck. So thank you. We have the annual report. Some more great news, Dr. Lightbaum. And I don't know, Steve, if you're staying on for that, but in any case, thank you again. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to admit, Steve, didn't see the swag, but that's a nice piece with the cooler in there. Very, very good swag. And the other thing that didn't get noted is how Commissioner Zuniga and I got a little bit nervous when the driver was putting the horse in place and then we realized the professionals had everything just right and we just need to hang out a little bit more with those horses, with Zuniga. Yeah, when they come off the race, they are well, very excited. So the winner's circle is clearly quite something to see. Yeah, I think our inexperience was definitely showing a little bit, but it was really exciting and it was so nice to be part of it. So thank you again. Well, luckily we got to practice a couple of times before the big race, right? And I appreciated that opportunity. Thank you so much. Really very, very exciting and very pleased that it worked out so nicely. Thank you. Okay, so Dr. Lightbaum. So we're ready to talk about the 2020 annual report for racing and I have Chad Bork, our Senior Financial Analyst here as well. And we're not gonna go through figure by figure. The main thing obviously last year was the COVID experience. And I'm sure you all remember, we were in the middle of our March meeting and everything kind of came to a standstill. And that day our racing items for that day got canceled and it was all stuff about reopening the track in April. So that got delayed. We were fortunate enough to be able to get opened again in July with lots of effort from the commissioners, the governor and his committees for COVID reopening, the horsemen, Plain Ridge, a lot of effort went into planning extensive COVID protocols to get us up and running again. Thank goodness we were successful in staying open through the whole rest of the time for a lot of effort on everybody's part, which I appreciate. A lot of times we'll compare one year figures to the previous year's figures. This year it's really, for 2020, it's really hard to do because of COVID. So obviously we lost about 40% of our days that we were going to run. So numbers like live racing and things that all goes down obviously. And with that goes down the number of samples we take and things like that. So when people look at the figures for 2020, they'll have to keep in mind that COVID, the impact of COVID. And also something was different from 2019 was 2019, there was still limited live racing at Suffolk. So for instance, about $4 million in racehorse development fund, first money went out on the thoroughbred side in 2019 that did not go out in 2020. So those are a couple of events that really affected the way our numbers look. And once again, I just wanna thank everybody from the commissioners, the rest of the gaming commission staff and my staff, the horsemen and PPC for all their efforts last year and keeping everything going. And with that, I'll turn it over to Chad to talk about some of the financial numbers. Thanks, Alex. Good afternoon, everyone. So in the interest of time, I will bore you with going through every line item, but I would like to provide just a quick overview of the division's financials and highlight a few items. So I'll start with the division's racing tax and fee receipts. We were able to collect over 230,000 in association license fees, over 45,000 in licensing and badge fees, over 8,000 in fines and penalties, 750,000 in assessment, and over 1 million in commissions for a total collection of $2,071,009. And this represents actually an increase of 2.93% over 2019. I would like to highlight one of these categories. That would be commissions generated from the 2020 racing handle. This was up over 26% versus 2019, which is actually pretty remarkable, seeing that live racing and simocast wagering was down almost 48%. However, wagers placed through account deposit wagering providers, those like TBG, Express Spreads, Twins Fires, Daniel Racing were up almost 90%. And that was in large part the attribution for the excess return. So good to see that racing wagering still did continue and that we had those account deposit wagering companies. So could you just explain that? I hate to interrupt, but just on that opinion, could you just explain it a little bit more why it was so up, not with standing COVID? I didn't quite understand that. Sure, so I actually, I think COVID was actually probably the main factor because patrons were allowed on track. I'm assuming that many of those opened up an account wagering deposit through one of the providers and then they were through that, they were able to place that wagers on tracks across the world, basically. So there was still racing going and through those account deposit wagers, that's where we saw the uptick in the handle. Okay, that's really helpful, thank you. Sure, so moving on, we also distributed $8 million from the Racehorse Development Fund. There was also a total of almost 188,000 that was added to promotional and capital improvement funds, the trust funds for both Plain Ridge and Suffolk Downs. And lastly, we were able to provide over 800,000 in local aid. So that kept on pace, which was also pretty impressive. So in conclusion, I would definitely say that 2020 was a tremendously successful year considering the significant challenges that everyone had to overcome. Obviously, the success wouldn't have happened without the collaboration and tireless work by the licensees, the horsemen, the commission, and especially my teammates in the racing division and obviously Alex. And then just to lastly wanna thank everyone who helped out with this report together and concludes my little update, thank you. Very nice questions, Commissioner Zinnega. No, just to comment that job well done, it's interesting to look back at a very unusual year in comparison with the rest of the years, but we all know the main reasons. And nonetheless, it's a good in terms of activity and other things. So thanks for the efforts, Chad and Alex, and thanks for the update. Isha, Cameron? Yes, a couple of things jumped out at me. First of all, the formatting of that report, it's improved so much over the years. It's just so professionally done and very easy to follow and understand exactly what's happening with every phase of racing. So congratulations to the team for that. And secondly, Dr. Leipam, I was looking at our percentages with the testing and the very low percentages of overages and or positive tests. So I really do think that is something to be proud of, that not only is your team doing an exemplary job, but obviously the horsemen and women are adhering to the policies, which is not the case in every jurisdiction, right? And all we have to do is look around the country at different races who have had real issues. So I just wanted to commend you and the team and the horsemen and women in Massachusetts for really paying attention and following the rules and preserving the integrity here in the Commonwealth. So thank you to the team. Thank you. And it is a group effort between the racing commission and the racing division and the horsemen as far as keeping the knowledge out there as to what we're looking for, what, how to follow the regulations and meet them. Great job. Thank you. Very, very good report as a commissioner camera points out. It's so clean and really easy to follow. But if you're not deeply familiar with horse racing, very, very helpful. Can you remind me? I was just looking to see if I missed it in reading it the other day, Dr. Leiband. Does this have to be distributed or maybe Todd to any other stakeholders by statute? It does and I don't remember off the top of my head who it is that we send it to, but what we do, so. We'll make sure that happens, correct? Yeah. Okay, excellent. I also thank you for acknowledging the GEU, the folks who are there by your side and including them consistent with starting off today with Captain Banks. So thank you. Chad, it's so nice to see you. Yes, you too. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. Yeah. I guess it's not often that you can share the birth of a first grandchild. So how fun to do it with a public audience. So Dr. Leiband, thanks so much. Very good report and thank you for, as always for making sure that all of your team is acknowledged. Thank you. Okay. So just looking at our time, we have one more item and Commissioner Cameron, it's all yours. Item number nine on the IAGRA status conference update. I'm happy to just give an update. I think one of the things we haven't been able to talk about because of an uncertainty of how many panelists would be able to get here to Boston to participate, but I think the panels are coming together nicely. Just a reminder that this is a joint conference between IAGRA, the International Association of Gaming Regulators and IMGL, the International Masters of Gaming Law, a joint conference, which is rare by the way, but there was such an interest in coming to Boston that these two organizations decided to put their conference, their fall conference together in a joint fashion. The unfortunate part is that many, many of the folks who would love to have come to Boston will not be able to do to travel restrictions from around the world. Having said that, it's still gonna be a very, very substantive conference. Some of the sessions will be live streamed, there'll be a hybrid model for those who can't be able to attend. So I think those individuals will still be able to obtain great value. So just a quick idea of what's happening here. So we're talking Monday, September 13th, will be the opening of the IAGRA portion of the event. And that'll be one in the afternoon. I know the board meets in the morning, so the conference will kick off at one in the afternoon. And I know our chair will be giving some opening remarks there. The IMGL portion will be Wednesday the 15th, and that'll run through Friday the 17th. And all day Wednesday is the joint day, right? So all of the participants of both organizations will be there on Wednesday. All the panels are joined for both and luncheon and a reception and the whole thing. So just a few, I didn't wanna bore you with every single topic. If you can go on either website to look at the topics. But just a couple of things that'll be going on, how big data will reshape the compliance and regulation, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and sports gaming regulation, the role of chance in game, something we've talked about over the years, new regulatory tools, this is all on the Niagara side, procedures for the next generation of technology, risk-based framework, there are a lot of RG components to both conferences, which is so important. Disrupting the regulator, how to narrow the gap between research and interest, right? And that's something that we play a part in with the research that we do with the gaming commission. Low risk gambling guidelines, our own Rachel Volberg will be presenting and leveraging innovation in financial regulation. I thought Commissioner Zuniga would be interested in that one. And then other RG panels, as I mentioned, I believe Commissioner Zuniga has been participating in one of the panels with responsible gaming. Our own Mark Vanderland will be presenting, I'm pushing the limit, Game Sense is a public health approach to RG. So, the world is fortunate, I should say, to have Mark on board for that. And this is new, I have never seen anything like this in all the years I've been attending these international conferences, but it's prioritizing equity and inclusion at every stage of casino development. And of course, that is our own Jill Lacy Griffin and I believe Akisha Skinner will be assisting as well. So, what happened is both organizations put, they put out invitations to apply for a panel. If you have a good idea, they wanna hear about it and they vote on who gets to participate. There are always many, many applicants for these slots, right? So, I was really pleased to see that that one was accepted and that will be presented at the conference. And then we have state regulating, how states are regulating the frontier of mobile sports betting and our former executive director at Bedrosian will be presenting on that topic, international collaboration, which I think is critical, will be another topic, cyber resilience enhancing that as a gaming agency, another timely topic, right? What regulators would like the regulator to understand? That's an interesting topic as well. We can always learn from one another. And then we have on the opposite side, tips from regulators as to what they expect of gaming licensees. And I'll be participating in that panel. There's a panel on investigations regulation on the IMGL side, which again, starts Wednesday. Our chair will be offering a keynote welcoming remarks at that event. And this is an interesting one, how to regulate gaming machines outside the gaming floor. We don't have that yet in Massachusetts. We are seeing it in many other jurisdictions. And the status of eye gaming and eye lottery in the United States, mergers and acquisitions. I always listen to these and say, okay, commissioner, I think you would like that one too. Hot topics in tribal gaming, our own Caitlin Monahan has been asked to participate in that because of the very interesting case with the Wampanoa, right? That's a great interest in. And so she's been asked to assist with that one and developing markets, wagering on eSports, a COVID update from around the United States and commissioner O'Brien will be participating. And that's a great interest too. How is everybody doing around the country with keeping their casinos, their patrons, their employees safe, right? So our numbers are increasing a bit. So that is the good news. There are going to be a number of live participants not as we would have had, but like I said earlier, the hybrid and the streaming options will be available as well. So it's coming together nicely. And I think the internationalist world is very grateful that we were able to participate and in particular with a lot of our speakers and frankly, a lot of that was done on their own, right? Our people got involved. They said, yes, I'd like to participate and I will submit a proposal to be accepted. So I looked at how many of our people were participating and I'm very proud of everybody. And we're hoping this will come off smoothly without a glitch next month. Excellent. So many moving parts that's... Right. No, because this isn't, it was postponed. It was, this is yes. We were supposed to, yes in this year, but I don't think anyone really anticipated we would be in a similar situation a year later, but we are and we're, I think everyone is giving it their best effort to keep it safe and have some very substantive programming without the huge numbers of people in the live audience. Questions? Commissioner Zuniga? Yeah, no, great. Thank you for that update. I was thinking of the last two conferences that I've attended online from the NCPG and it strikes me as these two groups are striking a good balance on what we miss when we attend them online only. There's a lot of great information and exchange that happens in person. Of course, it's limited in terms of who can travel for an international organization, which is the numbers that you explain commissioner, but it sounds like it'll be a good, healthy mix of some people attending in person. Many of us here in Massachusetts and that's easier, but of course from around the country and then some perhaps online and we'll also benefit from the full information. I always think about all these conferences and often I wanna attend two of the same sessions that happen at the same time, but that's the way it goes because there's a lot of interesting and number of very diverse topics all related to gaming and gaming information. So I'm really looking forward to attending this one as it comes. Great. Thank you. Thank you. And now I think, Todd, you have some follow up. Yes, and thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners and hello to everyone. Happy to jump in here as you all very well know in the context of managing conflict of interest-related matters and associated ethics issues, the notion of the appointing authority is critical. Ordinarily, it's very clear who a state employee's appointing authority is. Of course, when it comes to commissioners, for example, it's either the governor or treasurer or attorney general or all three in some cases. For the executive director, the commission of course is the appointing authority as it's the commission who appoints the executive director. For the rest of the commission staff though, the executive director is the appointing authority. When it comes to the upcoming conference that has been discussed, it's notable then that director Wells has recused herself from the internal decision-making process where she's a member of the board of directors of Viagra. And just for the record, she's, you'll notice shut off her camera does not participating in this conversation. So with her recusal, that leaves a bit of a hole in the process for resolving certain matters and making certain decisions when it comes to the commission staff involvement with the conference. Accordingly, we're here today so the commission can review that matter and designate an appointing authority for the limited purpose of deciding conference related matters that would otherwise have fallen to director Wells to handle. And there are several options that the commission may wish to consider. And this is not an exclusive list, but I thought it would be helpful just to present some options before you as to who may fill the role of appointing authority. So first, the commission of course may designate itself as the appointing authority as the body that appoints the executive director under chapter 23K section three, that would be a natural default. Second, the commission could designate an individual commissioner for purposes of practicality to fill the role on behalf of the commission and make any such decisions as the appointing authority. Third, the commission could designate the director of the IEB to fill that role. As you'll recall, chapter 23K section six refers to the director of the IEB as the deputy director. And it's been said that the deputy piece refers to the deputy as deputy to the executive director. In that case, it would also be natural for the deputy director to step up in a situation like this where the director has, the executive director has stepped aside. And I don't believe there's any need to resolve that deputy related piece, but based on past practice, the IEB director merges as a viable option in this particular situation. And certainly there may be other options. Those seem like the three or three of the more natural options for your consideration. There are likely only a limited number of issues that whomever it is would be called upon to decide or a pine on, but it is important that someone fill that particular role. So with that, I thought I would just stop and perhaps open up the conversation, Madam Chair and commissioners, to see if we can resolve this particular matter. Todd, can you just clarify? You do put some conference related matters, but it's a pretty limited role. Could you just give an example so that folks understand what really is that issue here? What kind of actions would need to be taken? Sure, absolutely. And for example, and there's no reason, it doesn't appear that that would be the case here, but as on occasion is commonplace, sometimes a conference organizer will waive admission fees to a state employee if they're participating in an official capacity or what have you in order for a state employee to accept such a waiver, their appointing authority would have to make a finding that accepting such a waiver of fees serves a legitimate public purpose. So there would need to be an appointing authority for something like that. It's also not out of the ordinary for staff of a local commission as ours to offer assistance in certain ways to conference organizers on the ground during the conference and in planning the conference and things like that where staff would be called upon to make limited use of the public, their public time. And saying that's a decision of the, would normally be a decision of the executive director or a decision of the commission? Well, if it's just a staff member, that would be a decision of the executive director as the appointing authority. The commission obviously has general superintendent's authority over the commission as a whole, but as a matter of ethics. So for staff resources, if we're going to, so it becomes the decision of the executive director, you know, like putting aside Karen's recusal, that use of state resources is a decision of the executive director and not of the commission. I believe so as she is the appointing authority to members of our staff, the law calls upon the appointing authority to essentially make a determination that there's a public interest in the use of those resources. Where these two conference organizers are private entities, it's important that public resources be used responsibly. And that falls to an appointing authority to essentially make that determination. If I can chime in here, I think giving, just in reviewing the options, I think we have, as you pointed out, general counsel Grossman, what we have used the deputy director's role to fill in in case of a situation like this with the executive director. And I think deputy director Lilios would be a fine choice to move forward to make some of these decisions on behalf of the MGC staff. And I'm in favor of that option. I am too. And I don't see that there's any need to resolve the issue around deputy director. I do view that she is on by statute that role as number two. Commissioner Cameron, you agree with that? I do. Yeah. So that's really helpful that you've clarified that that's not a decision for those state resources to be one of the commission, even though it's under, I guess, our budgetary guidance that it would become that decision. And it would be recorded. Commissioner Zuniga, do you have any questions on this? No, I'm in full agreement. I think it's the best choice for the reasons you stipulate to designate Ms. Lilios to this for this limited purpose. I was initially comfortable also with the possibility of designate an individual commissioner, but I understand that it's just cleaner. It's a limited purpose and it's more straightforward. The way it's, you know, implied here. Okay. Do I have a motion then to answer some further questions for councilor Grossman? I suppose the rather Lilios who's might want to chime in if it's going to be affecting her. I don't know if you've had any guidance from Todd on this or not. You know, he did brief me the other day on this agenda item. I have not been involved in the conference planning in any way. So I suppose in that regard, it's a positive for the role, right? That I'd come to it with clear slate. I know that Todd would be available as I served in this role. I know there are other resources as well in terms of our state ethics commission. So I feel comfortable doing that if that's your choice. Yeah, and not bad. I'm sure that Todd talked to this, but I did arrange for us to have some guidance from the state ethics commission and there is some guidance in writing. So that will be really helpful to you as well. Great, thank you. Okay, with that said, I thought she should at least be able to chime in. I'm happy to make that motion. Thank you, commissioner. With regard to the designation of the appointing authority in consideration of director Wells-Ricuzzo, I move that the commission designate Loretta Lilios as she is the deputy director to serve in the capacity of the appointing authority for the commission staff and to make associated decisions relative to the upcoming IAGR IMGL conference. Second that motion. Okay, no questions. We'll move on to the three of us. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Zuniga. Aye. And I vote yes. Thank you. Great process in place. And now commissioner Cameron, we're all really wishing the unfortunately the leaders, the international leaders, I understand are not going to be able to make it, but we wish everyone involved internationally in the planning of this great success. And I also know Gail, you've been very involved in the planning committee for IAGR. I know Todd, you've been very involved in the planning committee for the master. So thank you for your efforts. And then of course Karen in her volunteer effort has been really working for the success of this, but understandably we accused herself in accordance with very good guidance from the ethics commission. So thank you. Appreciate the work on this. All right. Now we'll cross our fingers, right Gail? It's kind of day by day. Do we have any other updates? I do not. Commissioner Cameron, do you have another horse committee, the horse racing committee meeting on the agenda yet? Do you know that? Not yet. No, we haven't scheduled anything for the upcoming year. Typically they'll wait until the end of racing season. So all of the numbers are in and in order to make better decisions. I would like to give it some thought. Commissioner Cameron, given your work with Dr. Leibhahn, next Thursday I had envisioned that meeting really being focused on the return to workplace. If the matter that we had on the agenda today could be deferred and there's Alex now until September without consequence, that might make good sense. But if in fact there is some, there's a consequence that I'm not knowing right now, we can add it to next Thursday, but perhaps two of you can talk about that and with Executive Director Wells, and then we can either Gail, you can reach out to me and we can figure out what to put on the agenda. I'd appreciate that. Trying to make sure it doesn't evolve into a meeting that gets so big that we really can't give it the main topic, the full attention that we want. There's something nice about having a singular subject matter meeting. Commissioner Zuniga, do you have any update? No, it's good to be back from a few days off, so I'm looking forward to the next meeting. Yeah. Commissioner O'Brien, you'll be reaching out to her, I think, or if you haven't already, I think she knows about next Thursday, right Karen? So I think she anticipates joining, she's on vacation, and so now we want to make sure she can participate in that. Yeah, that's correct. Excellent, yeah. All right. All right, anything else? To the entire, go ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say thank you to the staff and make a motion to adjourn. Yes, thank you. A second motion. Yeah, thank you everybody and thank you for staying with us, great meeting. Thank you, Karen, for your team's efforts. With that said, commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Zuniga. Aye. And I vote yes, three zero, thank you so much. Bye everyone. Bye bye.