 This meeting is being conducted using virtual connectivity technology we're allowed to do that given some relief that the governor issued giving us relief from the open meeting law provisions allowing us to do this virtually you've been doing it since March so here we are today you will call this meeting to order it is public meeting number 324 I've said it before when we conduct virtually that means something particularly to all of you who are here for meeting number one today is October 22nd start 10 a.m. and we'll call this meeting to order with the minutes commissioner Stevens sure good morning madam chair in your packet you have the minutes from the July 30th 2020 Commission meeting I would move their approval subject to any corrections for typographical errors or any other non-material nice any corrections or edits commissioners I'm I'm looking for Gail commissioner Cameron did we I should have called to order to a real call to call I didn't do that but she was here and now she is not can you text her camera let me get in touch I wonder if there was just a disconnect and then look I'll do the roll call again hello hi hey hi Kathy I have called in because I dropped out and I'm unable to get back in so far I'll continue to try okay as long as you can hear as we were looking for you yeah I dropped out and it doesn't let me back in yet so I'll continue your absence was duly noted so I just I'm going to do a roll call because we are working virtually so commissioner Cameron present thank you commissioner Brian I am here commissioner Zeneca here and commissioner Stevens present okay so we're all set on that and then when commissioner Cameron reconnects virtually here she might be coming back on there you are excellent so I don't know if you heard commissioner Stevens made his motion for the minutes you might have missed that commissioner Stevens you want to repeat please I'm sure Madam Chair colleagues I would be happy to make a motion to approve the minutes from the July 30th 2020 commission meeting so I was any corrections for type of errors or any other material matters a second do I hear yeah I'll second that thank you any edits corrections okay commissioner Cameron hi commissioner O'Brien I wish your stem Zunika hi and commissioner Stevens hi I vote yes 5-0 sure thank you move right on to the administrative update executive director Wells please thank you thank you madam chair good morning commissioners so we have two items on the agenda for the administrative update the first is the update on the casino COVID compliance as we've been doing for several weeks now after the reopening of the casino so I'm going to turn that over to Loretta Lilios and Bruce Van just give you an update on their operations I I'll start with Loretta and then I think Bruce is going to talk to you about the roulette as well given that that was a change after the last meeting thank you good morning Loretta hi good morning chair good morning commissioners overall operations under the health and safety measures are continuing to go smoothly as Karen mentioned the significant change since you met two weeks ago was the introduction of roulette that you authorized so there's about almost two weeks of data on that that Bruce will brief you on but with respect to overall compliance with the COVID related measures patron compliance has been good with no significant issues to report casino employees continue to be highly engaged in enforcing it reminding yes there are time for reminders are needed about the proper wearing of the mask to cover both the nose and the mouth casino employees are highly engaged in that and overall compliance no significant issues with respect to amenities at the properties on core the spa and some additional retail space has now been open for a couple weeks the spas opened on weekends operating under state guidelines I understand that it has been popular some of the restrictions are you know you come in for your your treatment after you enjoy your treatment you know the the patron leaves without some of the other amenities in the spa that you might have access to at other times but I understand that that it's been fairly popular it's going well on court is considering another restaurant option it's oyster are to open next month again that would be under state guidelines MGM their full service restaurant Chandler's has now opened for weekend service and MGM is continuing with its hotel one floor for invited guests am I frozen can you hear me you're okay now yeah you we could always hear you okay and then with respect to plane rich their full service restaurant slacks is scheduled to reopen this weekend with weekend hours by reservation because the entrance to that amenity is through the casino the restaurant service is also over 20 21 and over only but you know they are scheduled to open and I did want to point out that local public health officials have been on site at each of the properties you know of course our gaming agents have a window into all operations but with respect to the restaurants there is also the oversight of local public health they have been there performing their inspections as well so no significant issues to report on that front if there are any questions happy to try to answer them otherwise would ask Bruce to update you on roulette any questions for the matter well Loretta this is Bruce I'm assuming that our licensees are still remaining well below their allowed occupancy level in terms of patrons on the floor that's right the occupants that's right the occupancy levels have remained stable since the last report even with the introduction of roulette there has been no no real changes in the occupancy levels so well below the modified level well below the reduced levels that you've authorized thank you other questions Loretta do you mind if you have this information reminding us of the other restaurants that are open at encore I'm not sure if you know that or not I know that the full service restaurant for tellies is open and that they did have a local public health inspection and are they are open I don't know Bruce can you help me out with what else at encore might be open yeah yeah a rare is open I can't totally think what else it is is open there yeah I can add in a couple of mystique is open yeah okay great I think I'm pretty sure Sinatra's is still closed yes that is close and then of course there's the oyster bar and waterfront I think they're both closed but the oyster bar is going to be opening right Greta that's right they're looking to open that next early next month and of course the buffet is still closed yeah and the sports bar on deck is open yeah as is rule I think as well I'm sorry so at Plain Ridge their their food court is open under state guidelines as well a couple of the places have a reduced reduced selections I think but but they are you know the food courts open and Bruce is joking you help out on MGM I think their food court area is open as well there and Chandler's yeah I think yeah food courts open Chandler's just open for the weekends the their sports bar is open that weekends show I think yeah I think they're like maybe Thursday through Sunday or something like that and I believe the Italian restaurant is still closed yes yeah I think that's right I appreciate that of course with each opening comes more jobs and and and of course they have the guidelines so excellent thank you so much and on the roulette update currently MGM on weekends has four tables open on the weekends three tables open on weekdays they have seven roulette tables ready on the floor the response from the public has been very good on core has 16 tables open and with pretty much full play on the casino for it's been received very well by the public and everybody seems happy that roulette is back anybody have any questions how's compliance going at specific oh it's been been great people getting a little used to sitting at the table but you really can't place a bet unless you're sitting because the way the plexiglass is so it people are warning yeah if you want to play you got to sit you know so it's working out great thank you any other questions for Bruce on the lot okay thank you thank you Bruce thank you Loretta Karen so the next item on the administrative update is the host community agreement update and our chief of the division of community affairs Joe Delaney's gonna update you on what's going on there hi Joe hi thank you so yeah this just a quick update on where our licensee stand you know with respect primarily to their host community payments you know as they related back to the COVID-19 pandemic I'll start with PPC so when PPC closed down in March they worked with the town to defer some of their host community agreement payments and those have since been repaid and they're basically up to date on all their payments at on core similar to PPC on core defer their chapter 121 a payment which is their payment in lieu of taxes and I believe that was actually an action of the legislature that allowed those payments to be deferred but those were paid back in July so they're up to date with respect to that on core also has had surrounding community agreement payments that needed to go out in the September their requirement is that those surrounding community agreement payments have to be paid within 90 days of the anniversary of the opening so I you know September 23rd I guess that was those payments have all been made and they've sent us all the receipts that show that those similarly MGM they deferred a payment to the city of Springfield back in April and MGM is not yet paid this back to the city but they have been in conversations with the city about repaying this amount I did speak with a couple of the city officials and they are confident that this payment will be coming soon and also they you know they will have surrounding community payments that are due but those aren't due until November same same deal as on core they have like 90 days from the anniversary of the opening to make those payments so what they're opening on August 23rd I think it was they would have till November 23rd to make those and that completes my report any questions for Joe on that update thank you really helpful that concludes the administrative update item 3 on the meeting agenda madam chair anything else that you want to add today Karen not that I can think of but if I think of anything I'll chime in later okay excellent thanks moving on then to item number 4 today legal division Todd Grossman is of course general counsel but I think we're leading off with Kerry today good morning Kerry on the regulation with respect to the community fund mitigation funds good morning madam chair commissioner Teresa I think the community mitigation fund ones are first though if Shahra could actually share oh sorry okay I think Shahra is gonna share this right for us all right okay so good morning so there are two regs on the agenda today the first is the 205 CMR 153 related to the community mitigation fund as they also have a small business impact for this reg in your packet section 61 of chapter 23 K of the general laws establishes the community mitigation fund to assist communities with costs associated with the construction of operation of the gaming and delegates authority to administer that fund to the Commission there are currently no regulations codifying the procedures and guidelines for the community mitigation fund so we've drafted this proposed regulation covering four areas related to the fund the first section codifies an annual review of guidelines for the administration and distribution of funds and outlines what shall be included in the guidelines the what's included here in the draft reg is taken from current and past guidelines there's nothing new here we're just adding it to a regulation so we've included such things as the types of grants available who may apply the types of projects that may be funded and any limitations the availability and allocation of funding the process and criteria for commission review a timeline within which funds must be extended before reverting back to the fund the use of surplus funds and a procedure for providing a waiver or variance from a provision of the guidelines the second section of the reg creates an emergency procedure by which parties seeking appropriations from the fund may submit requests and receive awards on an emergency basis and the reg defines what would constitute an emergency in terms of the process for applications section 61 of chapter 23 K states that all requests for appropriations from the fund must be submitted before February 1st of each year but to align with that statute the draft regulation defines each year as running from February 1st through January 31st and requires that emergency appropriations from the fund for applications received on or after February 1st be funded from the following community mitigation fund fiscal year allocation the third section codifies the minimum requirements of the grant instrument following an award of funds from the commission similar to the first section this is something that we already do but we're just codifying it here in the regulation this would include things like the detailed scope of the grant the person responsible for management of the grant on the applicants behalf a timeline and breakdown for disbursement of the funds reporting requirements a requirement that the funds be returned to the commission in the event of non-compliance with the terms of the grant and indemnification provisions for the commission and its staff finally the last section establishes that the commission may assess to the community mitigation fund reasonable administrative costs incurred by the commission on behalf of and in furtherance of the administration of the fund that's a maximum percentage of the funds available in the fund for the fiscal year that may be assessed as administrative costs at 10% and outlines the types of administrative costs that may be assessed to the fund this would include staff salaries technology software and office supplies and in particular it requires that any such cost must be directly related to the administration of the fund so this is a general summary of the regulation I know that CFO Lennon is on here as well if you have any questions for either of us about any piece of the regulation questions for Carrie I can't see everyone so chime in there we are thank you can if I'm not hearing any I have one go ahead yeah well I was I was just gonna make a point about the financial aspect of it I think it's very appropriate to set a maximum figure and I think 10% is an appropriate or adequate figure I think there's an intention to overcharge or really lean on this fund to administer it even though the administration of it that we've done in the in the past has been also very very efficient I would argue very lean when it comes to the activities that we that we do so I like that it's now being put forward to be part of the process we can hear from the public and and I think it's also good to codify the other aspects that we've been operating on there that also pertain to these three these yes if I agree with uh Commissioner Zuniga that this is a good idea actually I agree with all of the uh recommended recommended changes are certainly appropriate I wondered if um pandemic uh was the rationale for taking a close look and codifying some of these changes or was it just um a normal course of review I can feel that question I think there's a normal course of review I think that had been identified I think um our CFO had identified it because it is in the normal course a lot of grants uh but there are administrative costs taken out so this is you know general practice across the board so I think this had been a situation where we had picked up on that and just wanted to follow through right now because we were looking at budget issues I don't know if Derek you have any comments on that but that's my understanding that's uh accurate summary um we've been pushing to do this for a few years um both casinos are fully operational now so you've got the tax dollars flowing into the category one facilities you've got the tax dollars flowing into that fund so it seemed like this is a good time um if you recall in my budget proposal I had already um requested shifting some of these costs off and the commission said why don't we write some rags um run it through the local um community mitigation groups um advisory groups and then put it off a public comment so that everyone can have a say on this great thank you can I just share sure um first of all just a a shout out of thanks to Carrie for all her good work and Derek's involvement and uh and our uh our new community team for working through these rags um I think we'd also noted that more money as Derek just pointed out is being generated more money is going out the door and it's taking up a lot more time on behalf of our team to monitor these uh in some cases very large grant awards making sure they're being spent appropriately um so I appreciate all the good work that was done um I noted on my call yesterday with commissioner Cameron is we're doing our two by twos that uh you know we discuss this issue of using you know monies for administrative costs with our with our lick mac members and with our subcommittee everybody was in agreement certainly understand it's a common practice uh but as Derek noted uh yesterday that they do want to make sure that uh you know we're not just taking a lump sum every year but as it's built into our budget process that we're being mindful of the costs and how uh we're funding some of those administrative needs so everybody is on board obviously in the reg process they'll also have an opportunity to weigh in thank you um just one clarification on that we were quite careful to bifurcate this process a little bit with respect to the section of this regulation that addresses the uh use of the funds for administrative costs um our team was not involved in that um in light of the potential for a conflict uh if their salaries might be addressed there but I do my question does relate to something I think Joe um and Kerry um advised on and Derek advised on am I right that the emergency fund piece is also new this year are setting aside Kerry yes yes yes that's that will be Joe do you want to speak to that yeah so we're proposing to do that this year this this sort came out of the whole COVID situation of I think we we have talked about it years past but I think the fact that we had you know crazy situation come up that nobody could have foreseen we decided an emergency set aside if you will um is appropriate for you know something that no one could ever conceive coming up and and give us more flexibility and let us be a little bit more nimble in in addressing issues yeah so I think that does um link to Commissioner Cameron's question that the emergency piece was inspired somewhat by the the fact that we are dealing with an emergency now and then the only other um clarification because I understand that the fund funding for any emergency down the road would come from the next fiscal year fund but Kerry am I right that it's maybe not addressed in the regulations but maybe would be addressed in guidelines that if a community did have an emergency they're able to demonstrate it's an emergency and it's you know properly meets the requirements that they could actually receive the funding then it's just that the funds would ultimately come from the next fiscal year as opposed to having to wait for the yes that's exactly right yep and I think um the details of how the process will work will be laid out in the guideline because it's not in the reg right now right the reg just says that um that the process will be in the guideline yeah that's what I thought okay so that's helpful clarification so that's a real new a new choice or asset for communities down the road should they you know let's hope it's never as global is what we're dealing with now but a community could have some kind of emergency thank you for that any other questions on this this is really good work Kerry and team thank you so if there are no other questions you have in your packet a small business impact statement as well as the regulation and we would be looking for motions on these to begin the promulgation process do i have a motion madam chair i'd move that the commission approved the small business impact statement for 205 cmr 153 community mitigation fund that's included in the commissioners packet second thanks commissioners any any further questions i'll set commissioner camera hi commissioner brian hi commissioner zunica hi commissioner stephens hi and i vote yes five zero commissioner stephens uh sure madam chair i'd further move that the commission approved the draft version of 205 cmr 153 community mitigation fund that's included in the commissioners packet and authorized the staff to begin the formal regulation promulgation process second thank you any questions or edits okay commissioner Cameron hi commissioner brian hi commissioner zunica hi commissioner stephens hi and i vote yes five zero thanks great thank you um all right so the second regulation you have in your packet is um draft amendments to the voluntary self-exclusion regulation 205 cmr 133 and a corresponding small business impact statement for this regulation as well i'm going to turn it over to director van der linden to run through um these changes morning madam chair and commissioners morning morning morning so the the proposed revisions to this regulation are really intended to more closely align the regulation with the current program needs and so i thought i would just walk through with you the the specific changes that that we're proposing the first one is a good example of aligning the program with the current needs 133 02 is a small change but meaning that the commission can define what the format is that individuals enroll this really is intended to allow designated agents to conduct remote movements rather than just face-to-face this has come up as a need of the program in order to allow somebody to enroll by electronically or by phone with a designated agent this is a this is a process that we're working out the details with our it legal departments currently should this change go into effect the second 133 03 um really highlights the need for us to always pay attention to confidentiality and protecting personal protected information we want to make sure that wherever we can emphasize this through the regulation we do so 133 02 03 uh broadens the definition of what a designated agent is we're clear with this program that it's important that for those individuals who enroll persons into the voluntary self-exclusion program that and they are defined as designated agents that they have the appropriate training and background in order to do so recognizing this is more than just simply an administrative function um by widening the the definition of a designated agent it clearly includes the game sense advisor it also broadens it so that health and mental health professionals not just those who are licensed registered or certified can enroll persons and into the voluntary self-exclusion program 133 03 01 uh we we we simply are requiring just the last four digits of social security number now as opposed to the full social security number the program realized that we did not need access to the full social security number but the last four um health especially when we need a positive identification for somebody uh 133 03 02 um just provides clarification that um we we need a photo um with that clearly shows the facial features of those individuals that are enrolling into the program um but if that individual is wearing wearing headwear that we would make an exception for religious purposes 133 03 8 um it's it's really important that designated agents um when they're enrolling helping somebody enroll into the program um extend an offer for additional services the voluntary self-exclusion program is a a very good program um and it's a very important first step for a lot of people to to um access additional help this just defines or broadens the definition of of what that help is so we added peer support we also um widened the net beyond just the clinicians approved by the massachusetts department of public health um but other individuals um that may be qualified as defined by the gaming commission i like as i spoke with um commissioners through the week um the perfect example of this is that we have designated agents that are enrolling persons in connecticut um and we want to make sure that those individuals um also have are being receiving additional referrals for help that we uh they would need to find that help in connecticut 133 03 9 and 133 05 1 accomplish a similar goal which is recognizing that designated agents who um do the reinstatement session with persons who are on the list need to have access to a small portion of that list to verify that they are indeed eligible to to do that reinstatement session in other words um individuals who sign up for the voluntary self-exclusion program do so for a one three or five year duration um the designated agent would want to confirm that they have completed that piece of it and are eligible for to do the reinstatement session um and the the final change that we're recommending for this regulation 133 05 2 recognizes that there really should not be a need for our licensees to share the list um with each other that the gaming commission is holds the master list and we distribute this twice a week um so that that should be sufficient uh that is the extent of the changes and I realize that these changes um allow us to continue to kind of evolve the program and into the current needs I welcome any questions I can't see um so you'll have to speak up if you have any questions for mark do you mind removing the document please thanks great thank you so commissioners Zinica you have a question yeah I would just make a comment that these are very straightforward but um appropriate in my opinion as mark says uh changes or updates to the regulations that really reflect the way that the program needs have evolved since we first promulgated piece regulations um so I'm happy that we're doing that it's a good process and we'll go along with them yeah I I would agree that the changes seem really appropriate in particular um and I know I asked about this in the two by two but the the peer support emphasizing that I think is a critical piece um just to understand that that is an option and there are folks that have been through uh what you're through or or maybe not but they're there to support even though they may not be a professional so that I thought was really an important piece to highlight and I see that this whole document just strengthens the program which is already very successful so good work to the team other questions or comments just thank you I see Teresa and thank you again to Carrie Teresa and of course mark excellent yeah I forgot to call out Teresa specifically but um she she carries this program every every day so um those detailed questions she's uh she's our local expert on it yeah so thank you thank you Teresa we know that you are good and busy on this so and it's so important thank you and everybody loves seeing your background the sunny day on the harbour see that's the harbour beautiful all right no further questions we have some motions that you need Carrie yes that's right for the small business impact statement and the draft reg uh to move forward with the promulgation process so madam chair I move that the commission approved the small business impact statement for 205 cmr 133 00 voluntary self-expansion as included in the commissioner's packet second okay uh any further questions everyone's all set all right commissioner Cameron aye commissioner O'Brien aye commissioner Zunica aye commissioner stephens aye and I vote yes 5-0 thank you commissioner madam chair I further move uh that the commission approved the draft version of cmr 205 um 133 voluntary self-exclusion as included in the commissioners packet and authorized the staff to begin the formal regulation promulgation process okay thank you any comments or questions excellent work commissioner Cameron bye commissioner O'Brien aye commissioner Zunica aye commissioner stephens aye and I vote yes 5-0 so we'll see those come back after public comment correct Carrie yep that's right all right excellent thank you so much thank you so what's next for us already onto item number five dr light boundary you are good morning good morning and good morning commissioners um to start off if I just wanted to mention that on Monday we're going to have the um standard bread uh mass bread races the finals of it they've had uh three different rounds of races leading up to these finals and they're going to give out over $700,000 that day so that's quite a um success story on the readers program um so our first item on the agenda for today is um the local aid approval and I'll turn it over to Chad Bork our financial analyst for that thank you good morning madam chair and commissioners good morning Chad morning uh so today uh I I have the quarterly local aid which is payable to each city and town where racing activities are conducted the amounts for this quarter's payment were calculated by using handles that took place in January February and March of this year uh so that said the total local aid payment for the quarter ending September 30th is in the amount of 167,562 dollars and 59 cents and in your packet you will see a breakdown of the handles and uh the distribution amounts for each city and town Chad do you want to go through those um sure if I have them but just in case I think it's it's interesting thank you yes absolutely so um for uh Plain Ridge uh their local aid um will be in the amount of 20,302 dollars and five cents um which is given to Plainville um for Rainham uh the amount is 16,587 dollars and 90 cents uh that is for the Rainham track which is given to the town of Rainham and uh for Suffolk Downs uh they do a split between Boston and Revere uh so the amount for Boston from Suffolk is 86,868 dollars and 42 cents uh going to Revere from Suffolk is 43,433 dollars and 56 cents and then uh last we have Wonderland which is also split for Boston and Revere um so stemming from the Wonderland activities 247 dollars and 11 cents uh will go to Boston uh or is requested to go to Boston and uh for Revere it is 123 dollars and 55 cents thanks any questions for Chad quick question Chad um uh these numbers um how do they compare uh to a previous um pre-pandemic um just it seems to me that a significant amount of those patrons are back um back betting is that is that accurate or is there a significant drop here i'm trying to remember what it was prior yeah so um this is actually because the handles um or local aid is calculated six months prior um we really didn't see um a drop off um uh it was i believe $2,000 less in total from um the last quarter local aid where we will see um a drop will be um the following quarter because that's gonna bring down um that will be due to um the the covid break that we that we did take so there will be a um a pretty significant drop there um and then uh going forward i will be sending out an update on the handles and you know how we've been fairing so far um i can say that they're pretty much on par for what we've been seeing from last year um again this is an uptick in um our our adw business sort of licensees adw business yes so i will i will get that out um to you today and um yeah so it'll be the following quarter where we see um a down tick in the in the local aid i see thank you yeah i see it ends the local aid these are um just the uh 930 ends just the distributions but that's not i understand your point that that's not that doesn't reflect the numbers during um this period yeah it just was January through march so maybe march was impacted gail but i think your your point is really a good one so chad maybe for the next quarter quarter right yeah um maybe you could do the year over year comparison that might be interesting for us okay sure yes absolutely get that out yeah chad just on that note so it's not going to be zero right even though the following quarter April May June uh was the the racing operations were all effectively closed or you know suspended in operations there was still some activity because of the adw is that um first statement yes significantly less but it's not going to be zero right i i would if if if i have to guess it would probably roughly it's kind of total roughly around um 70 000 so there will be there will be aid paid out um i'm going to be contacting the people um at the towns to to give them a heads up to let them know that um this will will be your number because again i do have the numbers um set out already because the handles are based on six months so yes they it will not be zero um but it'll be less than they're accustomed to thank you i'm just thinking ahead and i'm glad you you're thinking of at least um keep down administrators or finance people a little bit of a heads up yes other questions or comments for chad missus debon's all set okay good all ready um then you have your next item alex dot did i found um did we vote on um the well i guess we have to have a vote i'm so sorry i'll need a motion commissioners i need commission uh certainly um madame chair i move that the commission approved the local aid quarterly distribution for q3 of 2020 in the amount of 167 562 and 59 cents as described in the memorandum dated october 13 2020 and the commissioners second thank you any further questions all right right commissioner kameron i commissioner brian i commissioner zuniga i commissioner stephens i think that was an i we couldn't quite hear you thanks and i vote yes five zero thank you all right um then we have your next item on the the fill in judge and we will need a vote for that as well excuse me uh thank you um so um ceo tool um director racing for plain rich park has asked um for approval of paul verratt as the fill in judge and um paul has been there racing secretary for years and has been involved in the harness industry for very long time and um it does have a usta um license as a uh judge um ceo tool is on the line if anybody has any other questions about paul um my recommendation is to approve um mr verratt as a fill in judge commission kameron you want to comment um i i believe someone left the state uh dr light bomb is that correct why there's a need um late in the season for an alternate right i'm not sure if he left the state but he left the left plain rich for another job the fill in judge that they had before so i see somebody that can fill in till the end of the year yeah now this is a pretty routine um request and certainly needed to finish the season with with the appropriate staffing and the usta is the right certification yes okay excellent any questions for alex all right then i'll need a motion for this um madam chair i move that the commission approved the request of plain rich park casino to approve paul verratt as the alternate judge pending satisfactory completion of licensure by the massachusetts gaming commission division of racing and satisfactory completion of his background check by the massachusetts state police thanks any questions comments just uh thank you to director otul for joining today we appreciate your bill being available for us you're welcome you're welcome thank you um we'll go ahead with our vote then commissioner cameron hi commissioner brian hi mr zunica hi mr stevens hi and i vote yes five zero dr lightbound it was really nice for to have the chance to see your whole team last week i was lucky enough to have one of our commissioner meet and greets or whatever we're going to call them with alex's team but i felt a little guilty because it was on a racing day and we went a little long um but it was a huge treat for me as i said to you an email and uh and it was actually i'm sure i gained much more from it than your team did so thank thank them um it was really a pleasure oh thank you and the team really enjoyed meeting with you it was very special for them as well well thank you it was a gorgeous day and my big regret was i wasn't down there so anyway congratulations to all of them for a good season so far i knock on wood getting through on the next month and monday i was going to look for the weather for monday for you i'll check in on it thank you we'll stay tuned on that um so you're all set then it looks as though we have now um our division of community affairs um chelle good morning morning thank you madam chair and commissioners um so today i will be presenting our draft uh 2021 community mitigation fund guidelines um you know the process that we went through in developing the guidelines first uh involved uh developing a series of policy questions that um are also in your packet now then we we discussed these policy questions with all of the commissioners and with our local community mitigation advisory committees and with the subcommittee on community mitigation and we took all of that input from all of those discussions and that results in the draft document um that you see before you so um in the interest of time i won't go through the policy questions uh document um as really the answers to all of those policy questions are what's in the guidelines um so for the guidelines we're not proposing any really significant changes to the guidelines for 2021 you know there are no new categories of grants um and the grants that uh that are in there uh all of the existing grant categories remain uh so you know given the challenges that we had in 2020 we felt that um we should only really make changes that are that are really absolutely necessary to make at this point um now with that i will share the guidelines so that we can walk through them everybody see that we can okay so what i did here um and again i'm really just going to go through the the changes that we made to the document um and what i did is i highlighted all of those in yellow so it was a little bit easier to follow um and just basically i did revamp the the guidelines a little bit i tried to make them a little bit more user friendly um you know these over the years these have gotten a little bit you know as we added new categories in we added new things sometimes it was a bit of redundancy in there and i tried to sort of clean it up and just make it hopefully a little more user friendly um so some of the key things the application deadline is january 31st 2021 um that is actually a sunday and under normal circumstances we would have pushed it up probably the friday before but since all of these things are filed online and can be filed right up to the very end uh you know if i wanted to work the weekend to finish it they could do that um so the first change here that we that we made um isn't really a change it's sort of a reorganization but when we talk about who's eligible to apply the first thing is the communities in the vicinity of the gaming establishment um and originally this always just said the host and surrounding communities but that's not really uh true in uh it's not limited to just the host and surrounding community so we clarified that this had been in another section of the of the guidelines uh before and i just wanted to get it right up front so everybody knows who is what communities are eligible for that um so i will go through you know how much funding will be available so what we did was um you know we did a calculation on how much money has been generated in the fund through september of 2020 and we estimated the revenues for october november and december and the way we estimated those was we took the october november and december uh gaming revenues from 2019 and we took 80 percent of that number for this year you know the numbers are running a little bit better than 80 percent i think you know out in um and uh at mgm it's uh almost uh i think 87 or 88 percent uh but we thought that was just being conservative um and this also includes money that has been rolled over from previous years so um we're putting a target of 12 and a half million dollars on the program for this year now that still does leave is 1.7 million dollars that will still be in the fund at the end of the at the end of the year um and you know we always like to leave some money in the fund you know just in case we have you know if we have a huge demand for the program and we have a lot of really good applications and if we wanted to go over those target amounts we have a little bit of money we're able to do that um you know historically we haven't had to do that but again we always like to be a little bit conservative with the funds just to make sure we're not sort of draining every every last dollar out of the fund and how are we going to split that up um essentially it's an even split between region a and region b each with six million dollars and we are reserving half a million dollars for the category two facility that's of course the planeage park facility um typically we haven't really come close to this half a million number uh in in uh for category two um but if we don't get that that money just becomes available for region a and region b uh if we wanted to succeed that six million dollar target um so this also includes the money that has been rolled over from previous years if you remember from last year actually two years ago we came up with our policy on how uh we would uh sort of divide up the money we we agree that the money that was generated in each region would stay within the region but we also realized that if one region or the other uh were not using all of their funds and we had large surpluses building up that we would didn't want to continue to reserve those for that region uh and make we would make it available for any region uh you know should the need arise so what has happened is um the first year that we generated money was 2018 and that was in region b at mgem and uh so we're still rolling over 780 thousand almost 781 thousand we've done some refinements of these numbers these are going to change just a little bit when the final guidelines go off public comment but it's a little bit lower than that it's actually about 690 thousand i think um in 2019 essentially the entire 4.1 million amount generated in region b is rolling over and about 1.2 million in region a is rolling over um from 2019 um so now of course these monies are available for 2021 and we've added those to the money that's been generated by the regions and you know i've come up with that 12 and a half million dollars um this section here section two on the grant categories um we did just put a little uh caveat in here um last year we had one of our applicants applied for a single project under two different categories which is something we never really envisioned happening uh we have no problem with a community applying for money in more than one category for instance you could have a transportation planning grant and a specific impact grant but we didn't sort of envision it the other way where one project would come under multiple categories so what we are saying is that you can apply for grants in more than one category however any individual project they only be included under one grant category and of course in the case of what happened last year was we did actually grant both of those grants and in probably the proper way to do it would have been to apply in the one category and ask for a waiver on the on the dollar amount um so on the next issue that's up for discussion and and i would ask for your thoughts on this before we you know go out to public comment on it we have the the reserves from 2015 and 2016 um if you recall a hundred thousand dollars was given to each of the communities sort of the host and surrounding communities uh very early on really to try to um give them some money to do studies and other things to help identify what impacts there might be from the casino um you know we're going into 2021 and we still have several communities that have not fully expended their reserves um there's almost a million dollars that's out there that that hasn't been spent in these reserves so what uh we would like to do what we're requesting here is that um or suggesting i should say is that we give these communities until the end of next year to commit these funds and we're not saying that they all have to be spent but we're saying that they have to be committed so for instance if a community wanted to hire a consultant to try to help better align local businesses with opportunities at the casino say as an example um if they have the consultant hired by the end of 2021 that would be fine and um and look we're also not suggesting that um that we're just going to do this unilaterally we're going to reach out to all of these communities that have um existing funds out there uh once the um guidelines are approved and if this is approved what we would do is first we would send a letter to those communities letting them know that they have these funds there because you know there could be certain instances where um there's been a change of administrations or a change of personnel the town planner leaves and a new one comes in and they don't know that the money is there uh or how to even you know obtain the money or use the money so um i guess on that one i just i'd ask um you know sort of what what your thoughts are on on that particular item you'd like to pause then right now yeah this i think that makes sense joe um commissioners what do you think sure um madam chair i i i've talked about this issue with um with joe and completely support the idea this is money that uh you know we have the foresight to give communities some support prior to the casino's opening so they could assess impacts or look at opportunities so i'm on board with uh with the team's recommendation about these reserve monies um but i do want to go back to and madam chair you phrase this idea of having uh some type of grant uh best practices session um to assist communities in their applications uh this might be a an aspect of of such a session is to invite those communities in and and i'd like the outreach joe has planned to say hey money's still available but i think we could take it one step further and actually have communities who have used their reserves create creatively um you know have a session with these communities so they can think about what their application or what their request would be uh and try to do it in a creative fashion i think just letting them know the money is there is a good step and it's the important first step but backing that up with maybe some brainstorming to get them to think either on behalf of their town or on behalf of the region to think about how to use their reserve uh effectively um i think would be a good step and it follows up on your recommendation or your thought of having kind of a best practices session for that yeah i think i'm even having i mentioned to joe having a couple of our successful applicants from last year be part of that so they can give their own you know thoughts of how they approach the application process but i think you're right this is a real opportunity and it's i do you feel good about the timing commissioner stephens that it would be until the end of calendar year 2021 that that's sufficient amount of time i do and um yeah i thought that was a good recommendation from joe and his team and obviously some of the smaller communities it's also having the bandwidth and the team to you know again kind of take an award they got to put it out for bid if they're looking for certain services you know make a contract for those services so i think i think the allocation of time certainly works for joe's recommendation so i'm on board with his recommendation other comments for joe on this on this piece that he's looking for some guidance on if i could jump in yes thank you thank you madam chair um i i agree with um and hadn't thought of the idea of trying to assist them because there may be impacts uh that they just haven't considered and if other other communities have and they can learn from what other communities have done so this effort is not just you want the money back it really is we're keeping track but we're trying to assist you with making sure you've you've really considered all impacts and um as commissioner steven said a creative approach as some communities have taken so i really i really do support this two things support the um uh the idea of you know having the money committed until the end of 2000 by the end of uh 2021 but in addition to that um assisting with a workshop or whatever we're going to call it to assist those communities in understanding what other communities have done and they may it may it may be that their communities have the same impacts they hadn't really thought it through the way somehow so two good ideas yeah i think you know the notion on this whole thing is really that we we would love the people to use the money but there's a point where we we can't let it sit out there forever as well commissioner zunica did you want to comment yeah um thank you actually i mean it's done that very thought that that joe just expressed that um i think i'd like to at least just comment on a prior um part of the guidelines joe where where we roll over up to for up to three years monies that are unused i still i don't know that we'll solve it today but i still um i'm not quite pictured in my mind how monies ultimately get reverted back to the fund prior to let's say that can then be allocated among the different regions if we always roll forward everything from up to three years to the following year um and and continue to do that um i think there's there's a formula there somewhere where we have to say once you have not expended a multiple let's say of the funds on any given year we might need to revert that portion back but it's something that i think needs to be sort of modeled this is only the first time that we're doing this as as you point out um and and that's that's great that we don't be has a lot more available the point is that as as we do these from year to year i think there's a there's something for us to think about as to what exactly is going to be the mechanism to revert back those monies that are unused because those could grow substantially this is my point yeah and i think so we are right now in year three this will be our third year of this so i i think we want to at least play this thing out through the way it was designed to see what happens at the end of year three do any money actually revert back or do we um you know like i think that for instance here is that the um you know the money chances are that this 2018 money will all be used this year and some of the two will probably break into some of the 2019 money or maybe all of it and then we'd just be rolling over the money from 2020 and and we're still in good shape so yeah we'll have to see how it plays out yeah but but it's that figure the third figure that's growing you seek out how you know it also is a function of how much comes in right um if if you never if you if you're always generating more than what is being distributed in any given year like the the balance continues to grow right that's that's part of my point that there is the formula is partially fine as in the rolling over and and we're but eventually there's a balance question in my mind that we also need to consider that if the balance of the fund grows to a certain amount whatever it is three times four times the what we usually see in requests for example it's time for us to start thinking about whether even the rollover is is leaving a lot of money on the table yeah but again for for later discussion okay so the um if there's no other questions about um or no other comments on that we'll move on to the specific impact grants and under this item under the public safety operational costs um you know we we do allow public safety uh agencies to come in and they've asked us in the past for money for uh equipment and they've asked for some uh overtime uh monies and so on um I think in here what I think what one of the things that we wanted to try to encourage a little bit is uh potentially doing some training for uh public safety organizations that's associated with the casino and um at this point I've just put in these few words including relevant training to try to raise that up a little bit um I've asked Kate Hartigan to take a look into it and see sort of what kinds of training might be available that might be associated with the casino and she's doing that right now and chair I don't know if you wanted to add in anything on this killer item well I'm going to of course defer to our um commissioner Cameron given her extensive experience um as a law enforcement officer and and commissioner Brian given her experience but um I think given our discussion the last round just made me wonder if we want to prompt um applicants to think about if they're getting particular equipment would they also like relevant training you know perhaps you know if I don't even know if this is the correct language commissioner Cameron I can't see you right now but you know de-escalation or the kind of training that that would enhance um any uh public safety issues that might arise at a casino I can't see uh commissioner Cameron oh you know what you're muted can you hear can you hear me now yes thank you I would think they would um certainly um find that relevant um and inappropriate to have monies to to conduct those trainings I know um that's always an issue for police departments is um you know finding the money for for things like training so I I think that's totally appropriate and would be welcome do you think there's any other details needed I know that Kate's going to look at it but I think perhaps there was a question should we give examples or just relevant training associated training is sufficient to prompt it um I think if you try to uh delineate in writing what that training may be that that I actually think it's fine the way it is and um during conversations that may be appropriate um to talk about the different kinds of trainings and similar to what we just spoke about um the creativity of some communities this may be an appropriate one as well to say just just an FYI this is what another police department is doing with what kind of training they're conducting just so um but they're pretty good I think at talking to one another and understanding um you know what what's what's available so um um just highlighting it in this way including relevant training I think is is appropriate right and even if even if they weren't getting equipment that asking for any equipment that you're just asking for funding for training would be fine it's what I would hope you know if everybody I would agree with that wholeheartedly and I think the other the other notion here is I think what we wanted to do was in our outreach sessions you know we're going to be asking you know all of the people who are coming for grants to you know to to attend these and I think you know we're going to talk about sort of things in different modules and I think when we talk about public safety uh grants in there we could you know mention some specifics about what types of training might might be relevant to a casino um and things of that nature where it's not really here in the guidelines but when we have these sessions that we could sort of highlight some of those any further questions for for Joe on that and also Joe you just probably want to address public safety operational costs I guess that's the only highlighted section there but the amount is still 200 000 and that was that's been in place since operational cost room introduced yes yeah okay so the next item here um the Hamden County Sheriff's Department just uh as you probably recall uh in 2016 we awarded Hamden County Sheriff's Office money for um to help them uh on the Western Mass Correctional Alcohol Center and in providing lease assistance um you know they were in the footprint of where MGM is now and they needed to move and in the facility that they were going into there were significant upgrades that needed to be made to that property um to handle this this operation and so um you know they had obviously increased rent costs associated with that and we agreed in 2016 that we would give them a maximum of 200 000 over five years or 400 000 per year this is 2020 was the last year of that and when we met with the Hamden County Sheriff's Department as part of our 2020 applications they did ask for the commission to consider providing this lease assistance going forward um you know we talked with our local community mitigation advisory committees and the subcommittee on community mitigation and um I guess sort of the consensus was that well the Sheriff's Department is eligible to uh ask for funds there was there was a uh a casino related impact on them and as such and you know they're a public agency so a public safety agency so they are eligible to um uh come in for an application the notion of sort of earmarking money over the long term was not looked upon really favorably by the groups but saying hey sure they can come in for assistance and so what we're recommending here is you know the only reason we spelled this out in the guidelines previously was because essentially we had earmarked money for them that said really you need to apply and as long as there's available money you get it um and what this would do by eliminating this section it would it would simply need to um uh they would need to apply like any other applicant and it's a competitive fund and they would be competing against others uh for for the available funds um so with that said I think if the commission agrees that we should eliminate this section of the guidelines that you know we should probably send a letter to the to the sheriff and and let them know that you know we're not saying that they can't apply for money they certainly can't apply for money but they are they would simply be an applicant like any other um in sort of competing for these funds so I guess again at this point I'd like to pause and and just get the commission's input on this on whether or not they're in favor of just sort of eliminating this or if there's another approach that you think we should take I'm in favor of eliminating these and uh and again treating them like everyone else much like the people from the local community mitigation point um committees are are suggesting but some doesn't protrude them from uh we applying um and um it needs to be taken into context with available monies and other requests at the time like that would imply if they simply apply with everyone else yeah I would agree with that the only factor that I might consider extending this language any further is if their initial lease when they were displaced um theoretically was still be ongoing I think I've mentioned this before in the briefings um to go back and really that um but other than that if that's not the case then yeah I do think it's time to eliminate it and treat them like any other applicant I would agree with that and and because we did um layout specifically what the time frame was initially so this is actually this will be a new request and um outside of that time frame that was originally um designated so I I agree that they should now apply with a separate application and make the point make the case for why the assistance is uh continues to be um they continue to be in need of that assistance commission Stephens yeah only um to add that when we discuss this with the you know the region view lick mac uh there was uh also consensus that uh it was time to take a new approach and and that the sheriff's office could certainly come back and apply like any other that okay um so the next item just uh under 2.3 uh just a name change we used to have transportation planning grants and then non transportation planning grants um I always thought that was a little too bureaucratic so I thought using the name community planning grants maybe was a little more uh uh explanatory of what those those grants are um so the next item here um on transportation construction grants there's a couple of items in here one is the first one is whether or not we want to put a a cap on the amount of assistance that she would give to a project and also if we wanted to modify the dollar values of uh of the grants am I coming through okay I just got my message that my internet connection is unstable and it's just a brief disruption I think we captured everything okay um so in essence what what happened in 2020 it was our first year of these transportation construction grants and we didn't put a cap on the amount of money that the commission would spend on a project um and what we wound up with was we had applications where um in in sort of the the one circumstance you know the commission was only paying about 10 of the total project cost and in other instances we had applicants request 100 percent of the funds be paid for by the commission and I think you know all of these things the notion was while we didn't put a cap on it the notion was that really we didn't want to be the the tail wagging the dog here that that really there was um usually on most of these project there was a significant benefit to the community in general while also mitigating a casino impact and the amount of money that we put towards those projects should sort of be commensurate with mitigating the impact you know just as an example last year on our Chelsea project they're doing a major road reconstruction but it also includes water sewer drainage improvements pedestrian improvements bike improvements a whole lot of other things that are certainly great for the community but are not really but no are not necessarily addressing an impact of the casino now the thing that is addressing the impact of the casino is the increased amount of traffic that's used so in in this case in that case we ended up providing I think is oh about 18 percent is something of the total project cost which seemed to us to be a reasonable amount of money so what I've done here is um I I put in a number of that we would pay a maximum of 25 percent of the total project cost and again that significant other federal state local private other funding needs to be available for the remaining cost and we also put in this you know waiver requirement saying that if the applicant really can really demonstrate that the cost associated with mitigating the impact exceeds that limit we would certainly consider it and then the other piece is um last year we had three million as a cap for the total amount of grants with one million for any individual grant now these roadway projects are very expensive or can be very very expensive so the thought here was that you know we we had over six million dollars in applications last year and we actually went over our target amount by a little bit we awarded 3.2 million so the the thought here and I think the folks at MAPC were in favor of increasing the limits to maybe maybe making it four million statewide and maybe uh one and a half million on on the grant I think I would be in favor of sort of raising the overall cap but maybe not raising the individual project cap because that essentially you know so we're saying if we gave someone a million dollars and we went with this 25 cap that would pay you know for up to four million dollar project which is a pretty good size you know roadway project so I guess those are the two questions that I have for the commission um are you comfortable with sort of this 25 percent number you know last year where we didn't have a cap we did give I think um you know west spring field we gave about 31 percent towards the project and I think in in Malden we gave about a third of the project cost so I mean this not hard and fast rule we could maybe go a third I don't think I'd feel comfortable going anything over that so and the other thing is when we when we talk to our advisory committees they were all over the board with this I think most of them felt there should be some kind of a cap but nobody could really put their finger on what they thought it should be I think the only thing that got thrown out was a dollar for dollar match which would mean a maximum of 50 percent paid by the commission so again I guess I'd like a little input on that on whether we think 25 percent is good do we think a third is good do we want to have a cap at all we could go back to the language that we had last year where we say that we'll only provide a percentage of the project cost and that we need these significant other sources of funds so I guess I'd like to pause there and gets a little bit of input from the commission on this particular item Commissioner Stevens do you want to chime in first I see you sure line up first sure thanks madam chair you know I think Joe has laid this out pretty well and and as you pointed out we had a lot of opinions coming back at us from the subcommittees and the local committees but I think we just you know this is only going in our second year of doing these transportation construction grants so I think we still have some experience and some track record to build upon here but you know Joe mentioned the projects that we did award and you know the Chelsea one the West Springfield one which were really strong applications certainly did not attribute the need for the grant completely to mitigating traffic to the casino certainly demonstrated that the project was sound they had other sources of funding so you know looking at our first year of grants those were great models and I'd like to see us kind of build off of that so I think the recommendation here is is sound we still have the opportunity to wave the requirement and you know as we go into our second year of this we'll see what we get in terms of applications but I think building off the model of what I consider a couple of good applications that we got this year and they were funded that this follows that model and we'll see what we get this year but I think it's I think it's a sound recommendation commissioners could I could I comment please yes sure thank you I can't see you on my I have to scroll there now I can see okay Joe I I wondered where last year we did set some precedent in awarding 31% and 33% if it wouldn't make more sense to stick with that and and consider a third of the cost here I think the board direction we can give communities really assist them with their planning and what they're able to come up with as as a match so I just wondered since we did start last year with a 31% and a 33% match if that would make some sense here as well yeah certainly you know I mean I don't think there's there's not really a magic number I don't think but I you know the but the reality is is that most of these projects that we're going to see will have a very large benefit to the community you know the recommendation from one of our our members of a you know a dollar for dollar match you know 50% seem to be very high to me but I could certainly live with with the one third hi it feels to me if I may that the third is fine and appropriate if not only for the president as Commissioner Cameron says but the fact that you know generally I think of three major players in in some of these grants state local and ourselves and that sort of leaves you know a third each at least from a sort of rough stand starting standpoint I think oh by the way that the the waving language is is key and I think is central so it really matters not too much in terms of you know going from 35 to 35% but but but ultimately agree with again Commissioner Cameron that it's good to have some planning figures for communities and and a third would be would be inappropriate I I am intending to agree as well although I'm absolutely willing to defer to Joe I guess I'm more influenced although Joe when I hear that there the extent to which the local community advisory committees the community community mitigation advisory committees might have been pushing back but they did they indicate that it can be a real challenge to get the partners and they were fearful fearful about that was there any indication why they were even looking for the direct match anything you want to add yeah there were some some of the folks who were saying well you know maybe a community just simply doesn't have any matching funds that they can use and this is the only source of funds for that type of project you know that's that you know that may or may not be true I mean if we're talking transportation construction every community gets some state money they get chapter 90 money and so on but yes there certainly could be instances where there's the local community can't put up any money towards the project and they can ask for a waiver from that and you know obviously I think we would probably consider something more if it was on a much smaller end of the scale than on a much larger end of the scale you know if someone came in with a five million dollar project and said well I can't afford any local match I want you to pay for the whole thing and it would blow our entire budget there's probably not high likelihood that we would grant that waiver this is I think an opportunity to build the capacity again in the workshop or whatever scenario we're imagining it to be so that they you know they see or hear from Chelsea that was so successful last year with one of these grants you know oh who were your partners how did you access you know the the you know maybe the funds aren't so obvious so I think I'm inclined to say let's go let's stay with the 33 percent and then see where it trends for next year you know okay turns out we get a lot of interest and we need to reduce right Commissioner Cameron um Commissioner O'Brien we haven't heard from you and I know um Commissioner Stebbins you might want to chime back in because you were suggesting with a 25 so I'm I'm comfortable without a 25 or a third I mean I think if we have historical precedent for going up to a third that might be a nice place to start but again if Joe's experience is a judgment as a 25 it's more appropriate I'd be comfortable with either percentage yeah Commissioner Stebbins you want to help us out you're you're the um the real expert on all of these I don't know about that but um you know I I do take heed of my uh my colleagues point about you know what we awarded last year I think Commissioner Zunigan Commissioner Cameron made a good point that you know the one the good solid projects that we did award were right around that 30 percent or 33 percent so I'm comfortable with moving moving the number up there again you know ultimately this all comes back to the Commission's discretion and you know the review um an input of our of our new community team so um I think it's a good benchmark and again we're we're only we only have one year under our belt so we'll um we'll pay attention to the request that we get in this year looks like Joe's making a decision well I'm hearing a consensus so I've got uh and Enrique I'm using SharePoint here so making changes in real time I saw it that's how I like it and then I guess the other question is again do you feel comfortable uh sort of raising this amount I was thinking of going sort of from three million to four million and would keep the cap at a million again they can always ask for a waiver if it's really a project that seems to to to make sense to do you know more than a million uh Joe can you remind us what the total was last year for those two projects that were 31 and 33 what was that uh what was that number so West Springfield they we gave them a million dollars and that was uh about 31 percent although I've seen recent cost estimates where it looks like that number might wind up being a little bit less than that I think their final cost estimates are coming in a little bit higher um and the other one was the um the bike path over in um by Wellington station that was the one we gave them about a third of the cost which was how much do you know do you remember uh and actually in that case they ended up asking for quite a bit more than than a third of the cost and we ended up sort of cutting it down it was about 500 and I'm going to say it was 560 000 of memory served somewhere around there so so the 1 million is really in line with with what we've done meaning it's not it doesn't seem like even though we're thinking of a third that it's necessary to move that higher than a million right well we did give Chelsea one and a half million you know in the in the two categories but theirs was on a 12 million dollar project so their percentage was quite low I think that was your question commissioner Cameron right so the Chelsea one was much bigger than the other two right yes it still seems appropriate to me to keep it at a million and then you know there's always the way to um to make the case for more if necessary right yeah yeah so so Joe though you said you might want to increase that to four yeah you know we got over 6 million in applications last year um you know and and we did cut a couple of them down uh that uh Maldon one we reduced the amount in the city of Boston one we reduced the amount a little bit um you know we still did award more than 3 million so my thought is if we if we've raised it to four that gives us a little bit more flexibility obviously we don't have to hit those targets you know if the applications aren't good um I'm not usually the big spender but I'm okay we've sent raising it to four as as as a target just even the balances that are now greater than last year and that um even though there was a suspension of operations of casino um you've already taken that into account for planning purposes can I just ask one more follow-up question when I think about the Chelsea is a 12 million dollar project I'm really building on commissioner Cameron's good point um that was 12 million and the other two really were in the more of the vicinity of three to four or two to three um are are we limiting ourselves by having that one million dollars because obviously Chelsea ended up with one five so they would have had to ask for a waiver this year or do we want to think about the scale typically being in the three to four million dollar or two to three million dollar project rather than the 12 million dollar project right because essentially by keeping that million dollar limit we're essentially if if they get the maximum if they're asking for the maximum percentage of a third that would that would limit the project to basically a three million dollar right right and so that I guess that's just my question um is that the scale that we want to be at or do we want to be at a bigger scale like the Chelsea project and if so do we increase that that one million I don't have an opinion I'm just raising the question you know my thought I guess really is for this year let's keep it at the million and see what we get you know we are only in year two of this you know the you know that Chelsea project wound up you know being bigger than I expected it to be you know that coming in for this money um because I think the thought was really that we would be looking at you know if we're providing a million that you know it would be a three to four million dollar project is as sort of the maximum that we would fund um you know provide a portion of that funding um so this does two things though the the million dollars also provides another limitation on so we say we'll fund a maximum of a third of the project cost but if they have a project that's five million dollars and they ask for a million we're only funding 20 percent of that and again I think we're trying to weigh what the impact of the casino is and how much of the project we're paying for you know how much of it's really due to the impact of the casino and how much of it is a benefit for the local community and the bigger the project is frankly I think the more benefit there is to the local community than maybe you know addressing again with Chelsea they did you know they were doing water and sewer and drainage improvements which is absolutely appropriate to do hey while you're tearing up the road you might as well you know you might as well fix everything while you're there but that doesn't mean we should be paying for any any questions on for Joe on this I think then you would put change that three to the four that was what you were anticipating yeah I think that's you know and keep the one yeah yeah okay commissioners I'll set on that thank you and so uh the next item is on the workforce development grants um we're really not proposing any real changes to the program but we did add in this sort of introductory paragraph just to hopefully give a little bit more context to to the to the groups who may come in looking for funds um you know we we talk about what happened in 2020 how we had to eliminate the hospitality and culinary programs basically because you know because of the shutdowns or COVID shutdowns and applications but also trying to keep in mind that you know these programs have have a direct correlation to the impact from the casino now again we're not eliminating we're not saying that they can't come in for hospitality or culinary programs but they really need to demonstrate that there's a need there and it was quite interesting and one of our advisory committee meetings and I can't remember who the person was that said this but was talking about how a lot of folks who are in you know the culinary uh business or hospitality if there's a large large layoffs like there were a lot of these folks will just leave the business altogether and go do something else um so it doesn't necessarily mean the second that a restaurant reopens there's this whole long line of people just waiting to come back to work um there may be or there may not be but I think the whole point is that we're not trying to limit we're not we're not saying for 2021 that we're not going to pay for those things we need them to make that good compelling case that um that there's a real demand for these kind of uh flows and see what are what are their what are their needs what kinds of you know that you know they are hiring now you know the the casinos are hiring they're bringing people back but you know um so we need to understand you know from these groups uh what the real needs are so that's all that that paragraph really does is just try to put things in a little bit of context without making any. Commissioner Stevens? Yeah let me just jump in. I think I think the language that you're including kind of reflects where we are but it it also endorses what we have always said when it comes to workforce development grants is that we want applicants and they've been mostly led by community colleges um the workforce boards we want them to make an application that reflects the need of the local licensee so they need to demonstrate that they've had that communication uh with our licensees to look at what the real needs are. Director Griffin and I had a call with one licensee and surprisingly the issue of culinary training came up in a actual shortage of of applicants for some of their culinary jobs so I think the languages you have it really spells out that each application from region A or region B is going to be different but it needs to be focused on you know the applicant having direct conversations with uh with our licensees to make sure that that their application is sound. Any further comments on this section? Thanks I'll set. Okay and then um Jill too on that. Oh yes yeah Jill and Crystal um you know I've done a lot of work on on on pulling those sections together for us. Yeah Crystal too yes thank you um so the next section is the emergency mitigation grants which you already talked about a little bit in the discussion on the regulations um so what we're suggesting here is that we're looking at $200,000 which seems to be an amount that's it's substantial enough to probably be able to address a a need but it's not so large as to hamstring the program um by you know sort of setting aside a large chunk of money um so what we're and what we're saying here is that that any impact must be newly identified and be of an emergency nature that would cause significant harm to the community if it were not remedied in an expeditious fashion. So you know this this is not intended to circumvent our normal processes you know any any person that came in with this you know they would have to follow all of our specific impact grant requirements and so on um that it's um again it's just it's not a way to circumvent the normal processes. What we're saying here really in this last line is that you need to contact us if you if you're if you're gonna think about using this and we need to have a really good discussion on you know what category does this grant fall under what you know what do we need for application materials um is this truly an emergency is this something that could wait for the next grant round or is this something that really needs to be done today um so we didn't try to get release might evolve you froze just for a bit so you didn't intend to get to we didn't want to get too specific in in the guidelines you know we wanted to give us some flexibility because we just don't know what that emergency might constitute you know you know it's it's so unknown that we don't want to try to write this long set of regulations on something that can't not regulations but guidelines on something that we have no idea what it's going to be so um and obviously anything anybody who came in for an emergency grant um you know we would have to come back to the commission you know at at that point to say hey this is the emergency and here's you know we'd have to keep the commission up to date and the commission would need to vote on that um you know that emergency application so it's not like it's a uh just uh you know giving us carte blanche to to start awarding these things so i guess again i'll just pause there um all of our local community mitigation advisory committees and the the subcommittee on community mitigation everybody really thought this was just a great idea um you know and the whole notion here is that we hope it never gets used you know the fewer emergencies that we have the better um but setting aside some money everybody thought was a great idea that's great uh great initiative and innovation questions for joe on the emergency mitigation uh grants of course it correlates with the regulation that we just reviewed well just just a comment i think the the language is fine the way it reads and i'm glad that um uh it's well received and uh by by the local community mitigation uh committee committees um the one thing that i can imagine and i'm not sure how i feel about is perhaps an emergency situation uh at a at a local level in which because of budget shortfalls they may be facing uh the prospect of some layoffs let's say of their own staff uh and then you know they could come to the commission to request you know some of that relief if you will um and that's something that i'm not sure is part of the intention of this section um even if let's say somebody facing a layoff uh at least partially had been in the past involved in community mitigation related activities so it's i think that's just to say that the language is not explicit about that that's fine that's what i imagine might be um what we might see uh in you know especially in the near in the next year or two given the situation around us um and we'll just have to analyze in the same way we do every other project with the the the um access to the casino the impact to the community and and and whatnot but i figure i just mentioned that because that's what i imagine might be um one situation we might see commissioners do you want to chime in i i think this will be application specific and it's so hard to for me anyway to really think about what it could be but seeing it and and reading the case for the emergency um and the need uh that would cause harm i think are a critical element so i until you see it it's hard for me to think about what it could be but i do think this idea is excellent for sure to have it there in case yeah and i'm um commissioners in again i'm not sure if i follow on the layoff piece what you were alluding to what if i if i may i could i could further explain we could again i'm not saying this is this is what what would happen but we may be inadvertently creating the the an incentive to um if somebody was facing the need for layoffs because there's a budget shortfall for them to come in and say let's apply to the to this emergency grant to make sure we don't do a layoff um because we have a budget shortfall um they and somebody might again this is a bit of a moral hazard but somebody might be saying you know if you don't uh you know if unless i get money from from other sources we're going to have to let go of some people and they have in the past done some work that is communication related and that's my emergency and again in that situation um you know from their perspective is perfectly legitimate we would then analyze it like we do every other grant and say well what's the next was to the casino and we want to make sure that you're not just putting this emergency on this one but that's what i imagine as a scenario that could happen and one situation that occurs to me was not necessarily the intention of um something like this that it would be for really an emergency that's related to the casino but again i i think that that's absolutely right i do think and i and i don't know if Derek is still on but just in case any one were to hear this i'm not sure if if those if these funds could be used that way but that's maybe a topic for another another day um i don't know if Derek is still on but in terms of these kinds of funds being able to be used for um individual jobs like that well i i i can imagine that's a good question but i can imagine if in the past we have paid for 50 percent of a planner for example like i know we have or the the city planner to do some planning around x y or c that that person is let's say no longer being funded by the community mitigation fund because they put on the plan of the things and that that person might be facing hopefully not facing facing a layoff and then a community say well let's go let's go and and um i say into this fund to make sure we don't lose them which again i want to emphasize is a legitimate a thing to probably want to do if you're the community my point is that's a scenario that may not necessarily have been envisioned when when we as we were drafting this as a budget sort of plug you well in truly emergency situations for some communities i i think it's i think commissioner zuniga raises a good point um but i would harken back to the language that joe is included here which is unanticipated casino related impacts i think it's communities think about budgeting they look at what the the covid closures might have done to uh a source of revenue for their community that you know they're in you know there is some expectation and planning around the impacts that those might have on a local municipal budget so you know as joe point you know joe used a great example when we were talking to the local communities about this it's certainly an example we don't hope happens um but you know it really is intended to be something that is completely unforeseen um and you know pops up on you know an emergency basis and i think it's commissioner cam and camera and reflector we're going to look at what's in the application and view it almost on a case by case basis but our hope is this money may never get tapped if we keep to a strict definition and again something that is completely unanticipated by the community and it comes before us yeah any further questions or comments on on this language for joe i'll say i think okay i just have one more one more item which is um rescission of grants um you know the the situation is we do have several grants out there that um where money has not been spent on them um and what this does is this gives us the ability to rescind those grants if we find it necessary now we're not again similar to the reserves we're not suggesting that we just want to unilaterally pull this money back we're saying here that before any grant is rescinded the commission staff will notify the grantee that the expenditures on the grant are not timely and establish a timeline for the grantee to either expend the funds or have the grant rescind it so you know we give them certainly a final fight at the apple to say to us oh yeah we really do want to move ahead with this um you know look and if there are legitimate delays for some reason um uh you know we can certainly consider that and all but um you know in our contract language our contracts are a four-year term and they are also they those can be extended um you know so we just wanted to get something in the guidelines that just explain to people that if you don't spend this money we can take it back i think this is going to be more and more relevant as as time progresses uh and the reserves may not be quite a good example because they're meant as a reserve but um i i agree with this the inclusion of this language and uh and i agree that it needs to be a bit of a judgment call based on the particulars of the project or the the community's efforts with any one of those projects and and establishing a a hard and fast timeline on the guideline i don't think would be appropriate i would i would agree i think um i think joe's got a good plan in place to reach out to the communities that have been slow to draw down on some of the grants that we've awarded in the past um and joe i think if if i'm not mistaken there might even be a second category where the commission approved a grant request but a contract was never executed um and you know those might be in you know those i'm thinking of one in particular as it relates to encourt boston harbour that the project itself just may simply not be moving forward right now or in the foreseeable future and the question becomes should we consider pulling back some of those grant awards that were never executed in the contract yeah that's i mean in in that particular case um you know with the contracts were never executed we held those back specifically saying well we have to get some assurances that other things are going to happen first and you know we haven't been able to get those assurances so um you know technically we could probably just i mean that that grant technically has never really been awarded so uh we could just make it kind of disappear i suppose if we wanted to do that um but i think we just want to be sort of above board on all of these things saying you know we'd obviously have to let the communities know that yeah we're not moving you know this thing's not moving ahead and so we can't we can't give you the money you know and there's there's always this notion of maybe we can repurpose it to something else or whatever and um you know we can certainly talk with folks about things but i mean it has to be really closely related to what they propose i mean this is a competitive program so we're rating a project on what it's supposed to do and we can't say we're just going to take money for you know a roadway design and then give it to uh you know building a bike path or something you know it's just it's probably not appropriate to do that um so yeah we just want to um you know get this out there that we have this ability to do that and that we uh will do it if necessary and i and i think you're playing an approach to you know having a good conversation with with the communities that receive the award i think is straightforward and you know appropriate and you know we want to be completely transparent with uh how we go about taking some of the steps as it relates to any possible rescission okay so that is all that i had so i guess our next uh step on this unless there are other those couple of changes that we made as we went along and we've got to send this out for uh public input so what i will do is between today and tomorrow i'll just clean up the document a little bit and uh uh we will put it out for a public comment we put it out for a couple of weeks and then we uh intend to come back in front of the commission i believe on november 19th for a final approval of the guidelines so we'll get our public input and then we'll incorporate anything if we need to and we'll have that final meeting where we can go over any of the changes that we may or may not have made uh based on public input and um and if we can get this out by the 19th that's great that puts us a couple weeks ahead of where we uh where we have typically been on this in the last couple of years so it'll give our applicants a couple more weeks to to prepare their applications that sounds good i think it is november 19th i can um we can confirm that charis shaking her head so i'm that sounds good and any further questions for joe before he cleans cleans up the document doesn't look like you have much left to do you're doing it in real time joe so he might have froze again well i'll just but he froze nicely he did he um a lot of shot he froze nice no it's a case just to say that great work great work on there is great work of consultation with the local community uh local committees um a lot of thought into the policy questions and the draft so thank you all right thanks um and i just want to acknowledge uh commissioner stevens because i i know that he not only has been so so such an important support for this team but also he chairs the region b um lick mac and so um thank you for your leadership on that that input you know it's becoming clear and clear to me how important that local input is and really serves as the foundation for joe's team's work so thank you well the the new community team joe and mary and tanya have been great to work with and uh doing some great work thanks so that looks like we can move on then to item number seven commissioner thank you joe commissioner zeneca you have um um a matter today you might be jord yes thank you um madam chair i um i wanted to bring up a bit of an update on the draft of the annual report um and give a little history and then the the peculiarity of this year um and get feedback before we we drafted something that needed to be corrected or we edited um just as a reminder the the animal report covers the fiscal year which ends in June 30th and we end up uh we close the year the financials uh around uh august and september we end up drafting a lot of that in the months that we are now september and october and in the past have issued the report around late november or even december we are in good we're making a lot of great progress um as we speak and we will be bringing back a draft very soon this year and um in in that history or in that with that background there have been instances in the past where we're writing the report in september or what have you and um even though the period closes on june 30th um i say because we're going to be eventually distributing the report um in in november or december it's it's um it's relevant or a pertinent to put in the report information that may have been after the the june 30th deadline but relevant and perhaps even um discussed publicly or in the news you know as a particular example in this year we had undertaken the process of relicensing then we speak a lot about it we had spoken about it before in the prior report and even though the report covers until june 30th the actual relicensing did happen sometime in september and it's important not to be silent as we are drafting the report on that particular topic and we do mention it one particular and so that has been continues to be the the modus operandi but in in one particular section this year i wanted to bring to your attention um and that is we usually put in a casino summary the a page of each of the properties with the actual specifics the gaming positions the square footage the the amenities the restaurants on bars and and what have you and that's usually a good description for the reader at any given time to see what's what's part of what we regulate needless to say that those statistics if you will are very different depending on what we take into account if we take into account pre march the pre pandemic the gaming positions were you know what we all know are fully available uh as of the closure of the year the fiscal year the gaming positions were zero that they were all effectively closed and when they when the when the operations resumed those positions were significantly different by virtue of the physical distancing and guidelines and that we imposed so on that particular matter i wanted to bring that up and discuss it and get get a feeling for what and how we should report um i have an idea or a recommendation that sort of tries to tell the whole story and that is to essentially put a before and after of what is what was before the the the suspension of operations and what is after when we um agreed to reopen the properties sometime in july and and have that discussion as a as a as a matter of what's a big important thing to report uh as part of that report so i can pause there and take questions or or for here comments um madam chair i'll jump in um i think commissioner zuniga raises a couple of good points um you know certainly making some notation that the fact and i'm gonna i think he had two questions one how do we deal with the issue of the pen re-licensing and mentioning it um i think that's fine to kind of add a section or a footnote to say you know with the publication of this report we had done x y z even though the real you know issue around re-licensing came up during the fiscal year itself um and i think with respect to you know kind of the covid related impacts um i think we'd be a little tone deaf if we didn't talk about it somehow um even though you know some of the work carried over into the new fiscal year but um i think you know providing some information being completely transparent is to the impact and the fact that we acknowledge the start of this in one fiscal year and carrying over i think is going to make a a more thoughtful report that will have a lot more information for uh this goes out to legislators lawmakers stakeholders um you know i think it would provide them a good round picture even though the the course of the report would somewhat extended to the new fiscal year so i'm completely on board on those recommendations commissioners a brian our camera no i um i agree as well both strong recommendations important to include in this year's annual report um and the format you know probably similar to something we've done in the past would be appropriate but um i think commissioners in ego for taking on this project every year and being thoughtful about what changes would be appropriate mission i would agree with that i think it's absolutely necessary to make a reference to what happened this year and it the the structure and the approach sound appropriate i'm imagining you can maybe do do like some kind of a table and categorize even maybe the shutdown period it might be interesting even if it's all zeros we do know it won't be all zeros for ppc because of just the adw if that gets included i'm not sure if that's part of the typical reporting for ppc there but you know you do have some i think it would be i i think tone depth as bruce said but also it's it's data it is and you wouldn't want to include that snapshot you know in a complete fashion but i think probably the trick is is that you are going to be sleeping into the next fiscal year but i think we're just you know i think that's okay um you know guidance i it's good it's good to hear a clear consensus and that was my feeling but i i did want to bring it up uh and and have this discussion um because it's such a such an anomaly really in in terms of um of this pandemic and how we how we report and what we report and by the way there are there is plenty of language um in in the current draft acknowledging what happened that that you know the dates that we went and voted on on suspension of the operations when we voted to uh reopen etc etc it is that snapshot that really became um that i do want to mention if nothing else is an update but i'm glad to to hear that we all seem to be in consensus here that is important to report as well any other issues so far that you've identified christian no just regular editing you know needing to take away the um the passive voice which i uh as an editor i find myself doing um and um but commissioner o brian that's no i i remember uh she she she like me has embedded this notion that it's it's better to be always writing in the active voice but um you know just getting everybody to um i i take the credit but it's everybody else who writes it i'm just trying to shepherd and edit those sections every section that we have in the report has a couple of people that like joe for example and mary work hard on on all these um all these things um relative to community mitigation and they're the ones who write it and uh an update and and and that's true as well for responsible gaming and and workforce and and i e b and technology so um it's going well it's um we're trying to continue to make the um make sure that we don't go past december too much um so that we we can we can keep to the same cadence so anyway that's the other thank you any other updates commissioners i'm seeing no no uh karen i'm going to swing back to you anything that anything that's happened during this time that you need to no i've been monitoring my phone in my email and we're all good that's a good that's a good sign so i'm nothing to add in at this moment yeah okay then not hearing any further business do i have a motion motion to adjourn second just want to thank everybody um excellent work uh you know all of this is all being done remotely except for of course our racing team and we just thank everybody and of course the gaming agents who are on the gaming floor we think of you all who are out um outside of your home working on behalf of the commission we just want to thank each of you for you know every day going through and attending to the the typical routine work that you're so good at during still this really trying environment so thank you okay barring no objections to adjourning commissioner karen hi commissioner bryan commissioner stevens hi good commissioner stevens hi and commissioner zenica hi my vote yes thank you everyone thank you shah live zero on that thank you everybody they say everyone thanks everybody