 All right, just a roll call to confirm folks are here. Commissioner Cameron. Yes, good morning, everyone. I am here. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi, I am here. Commissioner Zuniga. Good morning, I'm here. OK, that's the four of us. And as you know, everyone, on this meeting is being recorded. Thank you, Austin. And thank you, Tanya, for your help. It's being recorded and held virtually because of relief granted by the governor through an executive order back in March of 2022, allow public bodies like ours to be able to meet virtually in light of the pandemic. So here we are all over a year now and approaching a year and two months. We appreciate that capacity. We've enjoyed it on a weekly basis. What will get started today is April 26. Just after 10 o'clock, it's a public meeting, 342. We don't have minutes today, so we're going to get started right away with our administrative update, because I can direct your wells. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the commission. I'm going to turn it over to Reda Lilios and Bruce Bann to just give you an update on what's been going on at the casinos as we've been doing at our regular public meetings for quite a while now to let you know the adherence to the protocols and what's going on with that. So I'll start with Reda and then we'll go with Bruce. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Karen. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, commissioners. Kathy, you mentioned the one year and two months timeline. And we've been at it, and all three of the licensees have been at it as well. And from the executive level, through all levels of their staffing, there is continued adherence to the measures that have been to place for health and safety, and they really haven't let up. So I don't have any significant incidents of concern to mention to you today. I can say that I do have a report that at MGM, they're starting to think about the warmer weather and that they have plans to open their outdoor patio at TAP on May 7 for dining consistent with all protocols. I do also have a report that because of the measures they put into place to monitor hotel activity, I understand that late last week they were able to intervene in what would have been an in-door gathering. So that did not happen. Their measures allowed them to intervene on that. PPC, their racing season began, as you know, as well as at Encore. I do understand that it's been designated as a vaccination site starting tomorrow, where vaccines will be available to the public and to their employees as well. I know Bruce is here and has some details on operations over the past two week period since we publicly reported last. I hope to him and then we'll answer any questions that you might have. Before we move to Bruce, do you have questions? Commissioners for Loretta, one of the developments that we just learned of was the designation of Encore as a vaccination site indicating, again, it's a good partnership with not only its immediate host community, Everett, but really for the entire Commonwealth. Loretta, do you know where the vaccines will be distributed in the ballrooms? Or do you know? That was my understanding. Honestly, Kathy, I don't have a lot of details on it. I know that the kickoff is tomorrow and that they were going to be able to utilize some of the space that's been underutilized because of this whole situation. Right. It is one of the ballrooms. One of the ballrooms. I know they extended that invitation early on, so it must be that the state has figured out that they could utilize that now. So that's very good. OK, any other questions for Loretta? All right. OK, Bruce, what do you have? I'm sorry to interrupt. Mine is mostly the occupancy. It's been steady at MGM, both on both Saturdays, the 17th and on the 24th. They were at 21% occupancy. They had a card giveaway on both Saturdays. That was real steady. They started, they finally got their craftstables operating. They have two craftstables. That seems to be going very well for them. PPC, a little different on Fridays. Both Fridays, they had 31% occupancy on both the 16th and on the 23rd. They had, my choice was their player promotion. And that was both on Fridays, unlike the other two properties, which was Saturdays, is their high occupancy. At Encore Boston Harbor, theirs was Saturday the 17th and Saturday the 24th as well. And their high occupancy was 19% on both as well. And they had a free slot promotion as well, free slot play. Other than that, there is really nothing real important to report. There haven't been any instances. Everything's been running smoothly. Quick questions? Yes, please. Quick question, Bruce. Do you have a comparison of pre-pandemic number for Friday or Saturday night? How much is, I know the numbers are gradually building, but how do they compare to those numbers? Do you have that information? I think they're a little lower than pre-pandemic, but we don't have as many people playing at the tables because we're right now at four seats at a blackjack table. We don't have poker and a few of those to the numbers are somewhat lower, but I wouldn't say they're greatly lower. I don't have counts for pre-numbers at that point. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Okay, any, okay, Commissioner Zimica? Yeah, thank you. I have a question now for Loretta. I realized that maybe she doesn't have these details, Loretta, but in case you know, or in case you could report back at a later time, relative to the vaccination site at Angkor, you happen to know if they will be having sort of walk-ins or they're all sort of scheduled appointments or it might be a combination of both. There's perhaps a good captive population there who might want to walk in at the casino. Maybe that's the reason they were designated as a site. My understanding, Enrique, from conversations last week was that it was starting out appointments, but I would want to confirm that and I can do that and report back. Thank you. I think it's going to help employees too, but it is open for the public and particularly those surrounding communities who will be so accessible, so hopefully they'll take advantage of that easy access. Okay, that's great news, good news. All right, Commissioner O'Brien, are you all set? Oh, there you are. Okay, you're all set, thank you. Karen, do you have anything else for today? Yeah, that's it for item number two, ma'am. All right, great, thank you so much and we're going to move on to Loretta and Bruce, thank you. It's an important update and we appreciate it very much. Thank you. Moving on into the racing division, good morning, Dr. Whitebound, how are you? Well, thank you. Good. So our item today is the split of the Race Horse Development Fund that was established in 23K section 60 and it takes monies that are generated from the three casinos and puts them in the Race Horse Development Fund. The Horse Racing Committee determines what they think the split of the money should be between the standard breads and the thoroughbreds and the committee had a public hearing for comments and then they had at least two different meetings to discuss this. As you know, Commissioner Cameron is on that committee as the representative for the commission. So she's here today to speak about it and before she speaks about how the committee worked on it, I will turn it over to General Counsel Todd Grossman to talk about the mechanics of how the program is going. Good morning, Todd. Good morning, thank you, Dr. Whitebound. Good morning, everybody. So this is more of a refresher slash reminder as we've of course done this at least on two other occasions as a group, but this comes from section 60 of chapter 23K and you'll recall that the statute specifically says the commission may only change the distribution percentage upon a recommendation by the Horse Racing Committee and the Horse Racing Committee has done that. They have made that recommendation that was done on March 22nd at an open public meeting of the committee as Dr. Whitebound just mentioned. As required by statute, the committee's recommendation was then sent to the clerks of the Senate and House of Representatives 33 days ago as so we're in compliance with the statute and this is ripe for review or approval by the commission. You'll recall, of course, that there are essentially what we call three buckets that have distribution percentages or splits assigned to them. They fall in the categories of purses, that's the 80% of the funds. They go to breeding efforts, that's 16% of the funds, and they essentially go to health and pension or health and welfare benefits, which is 4% of the total amount of the funds. And within each of those three categories, the committee has recommended a split between the two respective industry breeds, the thoroughbreds and the standard breed. The recommendations are set out in a letter, which I believe is in the packet and that's the letter that was sent to the legislature leadership. And I'll go through it quickly and I'll be happy also just to point out what the difference is from last year. So the first one relative to purses, the recommendation is that 92% be afforded to the standard breads and 8% to the thoroughbred interests. That has changed from last year where it was a 70-30 split. The second in the breeding category, the recommendation is that it be changed to a 75-25 split standard bred and thoroughbred. And that has changed from last year where it was again a 70-30 split standard bred thoroughbred. And third on the health and pension benefit bucket, the recommendation is that the funds be split 50-50. That is a change from last year where the split in that category was 40% to the standard bred and 60% to the thoroughbred. The rationale for these changes was discussed by the horse racing committee at its public meeting. And there are two letters or other submissions, if you will, that are in the public packet, the commission's public packet that were reviewed by the horse racing committee in making those recommendations. So you can see some of the rationale that is behind these changes. And that's, I think that's an overview of where we stand with all of this. The recommendations are now before you for final approval or you could, and of course send any of those recommendations back to the committee for reconsideration if you were to so choose. The other thing that I would just remind the commission about, we talked about this a little bit about that the agenda setting meeting is a provision of section 60 in the 4% category. You remember there's a piece of language in there that talks about that the commission determines after the split is already set, how much of that 4% category shall be paid annually by the associations, both the thoroughbred and the standardbred association to jockeys organizations for purposes of health insurance, life insurance and other benefits for active and disabled thoroughbred jockeys. That piece of the decision making is not on the agenda today, but it's worth remembering that it's there and we discussed putting it on a future agenda for the commission's consideration. Todd, may I interrupt there? Is it strictly jockey or is it jockey and driver? I think it's jockey and driver. Thank you for the presentation. Yeah, it's both. Contrast to the recent decision that the commission just made relative to that $65,000 payment to the jockeys field and that just goes the thoroughbred jockeys. Okay, could I add a few comments about the work of the committee, Madam Chair? Yes, if you could, I'd like to focus on that, but I do want to return to the section four issue as well, but we wanna hear from you, Gail, on the split, so thank you. Okay, thank you. So I think Dr. Leipaum and Chief Counsel Grossman just laid out the work, the timing, the law. I would like to add as a member of the committee, the work was done a little bit differently this year, meaning typically the standard bread and the thoroughbred representatives are not in agreement on what the split should be and it has come to the committee members to find what we have always thought was an appropriate number based on the many, many factors that we statutorily have to consider as well as all the statistics from the previous year on how many races, all of that relevant information. This year, the two representatives did do some work in advance and they did come to what they thought was an appropriate split, but of course we, as the remaining committee members wanted to make sure we did our due diligence and we actually asked those two to come back to us with more information, really looking at all of the factors that they considered and all of the relevant numbers from the previous year's racing, they did that, we did have a chance, we did have a public hearing too. In which frankly we didn't have a lot of input. I know there's some letters that came in after the fact, but I believe the committee did its due diligence and we did decide that those numbers were appropriate for this year and I just wanted to talk about the work of the committee and how we came about these numbers, which are pretty different than they've been in the past, but as we know there is no racing now for thoroughbreds, so I do think the differences are appropriate. Some questions. I just have a question, the numbers that we're seeing, those weren't changed by the committee at large, I assume that those were in fact the numbers that were proposed. They are, they are the numbers and as I said, we did ask for the appropriate documentation to really be able to consider why those changes were being recommended. Evan, thank you. So, oh, go ahead, commissioner, Sunika, yes, absolutely. Oh, thank you. Just in general in the history of the factors that the committee has looked at, is it fair to say that they've looked at factors that are typically retrospective in nature, the number of races and starts and breeding and activity, et cetera, on prior year or years, which then begs the question as to one issue that is brought up in one of the letters as to whether the commission, the committee is, has considered or should consider perspective, a perspective factor, the notion of business certainty by at least one of the investors that if there's only retrospective factors, this might put the trajectory of one in which there's less and less going to the thoroughbreds by virtue of the reality of the landscape. So along with that way of saying, what, how would you characterize the consideration of the committee of a perspective factor or has it always been factors that look back at the activity? Commissioner, I think the committee over the years has done both. We have looked at, we have made decisions year by year. So for this year's decision, we looked at all of last year's statistics and numbers. And, but we have also, and typically it's the thoroughbred representative who will bring us information about, okay, this is what's happening. There are two say, promising investors to build a new track. And we have taken that information and the consideration in our decisions in the past. Now this year, what the representatives and the NEH BPA is the authorized group heard the legislation to be the representative on the committee and to be representing all the thoroughbred horsemen and women. And they did in fact check with, there were two to their knowledge to prospective investors who were looking, they did in fact check with those groups and say, look, this is why we are recommending these splits and those groups did not bring us any concerns about these numbers. I thought that was an important factor to consider. And we did, like I said, do our due diligence as the other committee members to make sure that work had been done in advance. Now, as we know with the thoroughbred horsemen and women, there are differences of opinions, significant differences of opinions of how that money should be used. And we take all those factors in a consideration and frankly, it's never been a situation where you can please everyone, but we try to make those decisions based on all of the relevant information. Thank you. Commissioner Zuniga, if I may, and commissioners, just as a point of fact, you'll recall there is a good amount of money sitting in the fund from years past that hasn't been expended for purposes of thoroughbred horse payments that exists at present. Yeah, thank you for that. And that has also been at least with this commission a bit of a different take as to what those monies, who those monies belong to. There's some in the thoroughbred group that would call it thoroughbred money. And I have been at least in the past of the position that that's commonwealth money. But nonetheless, thank you for mentioning that, because that's also part of a factor here that some of the letters reference. Any further questions on the horse racing committee's work, which again, a reminder, it was a letter to the legislature that sent indicating those purses. And we haven't heard back from them as to any concerns. It's been 33 days. Just wanna circle back to the point that counselor Grossman raised, which is the other statutory provision that points back to the 4% amount in which under the statute, we as a commission must make an affirmative determination with respect to the jockeys and drivers. That wasn't on the agenda as counselor Grossman points out. It will be on the agenda. Second Director Wells, I think we were thinking that we could be prepared from May 6th on that. Yeah, that was just the discussion internally. I also think that we discussed possibility that we might seek public comment on that topic. And I don't know if you're prepared, Todd or Karen, to elaborate on that today. So Madam Chair, I think that the thinking internally was given that there is the statutory provision for that split. It is not the committee that makes that recommendation that the burden is on the commission itself. So it may be an opportunity now to request public comment on that. So on the 6th, when the commission makes a decision, we can have some information that the commission can get from the stakeholders when they in fact make that decision. I think our internal suggestion was we have put it out for written comments so those comments can be submitted before that May 6th meeting. We can look at the dates on the calendar on sort of a due date for those and what the commission thinks would be reasonable. But that way the commission isn't making that decision isn't a vacuum of the stakeholders have some input into how that should be divided. Maybe it'd be helpful Dr. Leipan if you just outline again the issue. As I understand it, it would address whether we determine that some percentage of that 4% goes to jockeys and drivers. Jockeys or drivers are neither. But that we do have an obligation to make this determination. Yes, that is correct. And it does involve both the drivers and the jockeys. And so we'd be interested to hear from each organization. The way the statute's written, it falls to the horseman's organizations to bring it up. The drivers are members of the standard bred horseman's association. The on the thoroughbred side, the jockeys are not included unless they are say a trainer and qualify that way. So we would be looking for something from each organization, maybe detailing what groups are included now in their benefit programs. And perhaps what other monies may be available for the different groups because they do get monies out of the handle. The jockeys groups, obviously they are getting the 65,000 that comes out of the racing handle. So that would be interesting, I believe for the commission also to have that kind of information available to them. And so today we would ask for public comments in writing and there would be something posted on the website that would explain this in a little further detail after today's meeting, Karen. Yeah, that was the plan that we coordinated with Todd and Alex to come up with exactly what the request is and then set it to communications department to Austin and Sarah to post on the website so people can see in writing what the exact request is and where to submit the comment. And one other point and then I'll turn to the commissioners. This piece doesn't mean that we can't vote on the split that commissioner Cameron is bringing forward with Dr. Leibranden today, but it would be noticed to the organizations that this piece of business is still out there, but we're going to tend to it, due course on hopefully by May 6th, is that right? That's correct. Okay, any questions, commissioners? No questions, Madam Chair, but I think it's totally appropriate to bring this matter forward since we have received inquiries about it and the public comments are certainly will be helpful to our work. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. The only one logistical question I have, if we shoot for May 6th, we could have a due date for the public comments of say, maybe Monday, May 3rd, or did the commissioners want some time on the public comments? Because we could accept comments all the way up to the 5th, but you may want a couple of days to look at the comments before the meeting, right? Yeah, I think there's a little compilation, if we get them, Alex will want to compile them for us. So that would give, if it's, today is the 26th, so that would give a week and a half, is that right? Well, it would give a week, if it's a week till May 3rd, we want to say that the public comment that you make 3rd, that gives people a week to submit written comments. Commissioner O'Brien, do you think that works or should we go, we'll give them a few more days, so do you think? And maybe they probably have, Dr. Lightbound, maybe you have a better sense of how much public comment you think we're gonna get and do we get them on a rolling basis? Yeah, something you flag where you say, look, this needs more exploring, we can always pull it off the agenda if it needs to be followed up on, but I don't really have an issue with it coming in through the day before, as long as we don't think we're gonna be inundated. Right, I don't think, I think it'll be primarily from specific groups of people, so I don't think the number of submissions will be that many. If there are a lot, it'll probably be fairly repetitive, just stating the same thing from different people in a different organization. It may take a little while for the groups to get some of the information together, so I think if they could have a week and a half instead of a week, that would be beneficial to them. So if the commission's comfortable with getting the information closer to the deadline. Then maybe, does it make more sense to just give them two weeks and put it out to the next meeting? Did just give them enough time to comment, and since we are going ahead with the split decision, I think that's the urgency with both breeds, and this is a follow-up, and if it takes an extra two weeks, I think we might have a full... You could even give them three weeks, and we get it a week prior, and then you're putting it out four weeks. So we did get a comment from somebody who's joined us through the Snapchat and member of the horse racing community who said that they wouldn't need more time. So as long as, again, that everyone's on notice that 4% could be fluid, right, because we still have to make that determination, we could go to the next meeting, then would be the 20th. And then, so why don't we do, let's get this done on the 20th, I think that makes sense, and we can have the public comments do by May 18th, and then our team can compile them for the public package, which they do on the day before. So that gives Jamie and Marianne and team so a little bit of time to get them organized. Let's just see, I've got another. Thank you. Thank you. I thank you. You're welcome. So that seems like it works. Commissioner Zuniga, you were going to chime in. On the same matters, so I'm perfectly fine. I was going to point out that typically we've done two weeks as a minimum, but only because we would go from meeting to meeting, and we have a little off schedule this time, but it sounds like it's been addressed, so. Right, in my head, I was thinking it was the full two weeks, but it really isn't. So this will give plenty of time. Everybody's on notice we're going to tend to this matter on the 20th, and then we'll be done this piece of work. I think that makes sense, right? Okay, good. Good, good, good. Okay, so with that taken care of, General Counsel Grossman, we do have a vote today that we need to take on the split. Do I have a motion? I think I saw Todd shaking his head. So we need a motion, yes. Before any motions, I just want a clarification, if I may. I know in the past we've done retroactive because of recommendations, there's nothing like that this time whenever something becomes effective by our vote, that's when we go to. Right, because the racing season just started, the committee was very cognizant of that fact that that can be problematic, and we really worked hard to get our work done in a timely manner so that it would coincide with the beginning of the racing season, right? I like that, Commissioner Cameron, I think it's a good practice for going forward, right? We had quorum issues in the past, Madam Chair, which caused our work to be delayed, but we have a full committee and we understood the urgency of working in a way that did not cause any disruption or any speaking, any talk about a retroactive. Perfect. I'd be happy to make the motion, Madam Chair. Yes, thank you so much. I move that the commission approve the distribution percentages recommended by the Horse Racing Committee in accordance with chapter 23K, section 60B relative to the Horse Race Development Fund as discussed here today as follows, for the 80% distribution for purses for live races, 92% shall go to the standard breads and 8% to the thoroughbreds. For the 16% distributions for the breeding program, 75% shall go to the standard bred and 25% to the thoroughbred. And for the 4% distribution for health and pension benefits, 50% shall go to the standard bred and 50% to the thoroughbred. Second. Thank you. Any further questions? I just want to thank the members of the Horse Racing Committee and particularly Chair Fitzgerald. The last couple of years, it really has been going smoothly, even though it's complicated. And for that, we appreciate everyone's hard work. So thank you. Roll call vote. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Zunica. Aye. I vote yes for zero Vivian. No, not Vivian Tanias. Thank you so much. See you now. Thank you. And I think we're all set to move on to our next item. Are we all set, Dr. Lightbaum? Thank you very much. Until the next meeting. Yes. We wish the horse racing community continued good luck as the racing schedule proceeds. Okay, then we're on to item number four. There's Director Lilios and I know that Kate will be joining. Thank you so much. Sure. And if I can jump in before just to circle back to Commissioner Zunica's question about the on-court vaccination site. So I have had follow-up that at this point, appointments are needed. Appointments will be available through the state website and that on-court will be coordinating the appointment schedule for its own employees and facilitating that. So with that, I would turn the next agenda item over to Attorney Hartigan who is going to present the IAB's findings on an MGM qualifier. Good morning. Good morning, counselor. How are you? Very well, thank you. And it's nice to see everybody. I do have a qualifier for your consideration this morning. Madam Chair and commissioners, and it is Mr. Todd Minor. He's a qualifier for MGM Springfield. The investigative team in this case who are joining us on this call are Trooper Kevin Owen of the Massachusetts State Police. And as I see in his square there, Matt Jordan, the financial investigator. And I would note that pursuant to request, Mr. Minor submitted all of the required forms and complied with all of the IAB's request for supplemental and updated information. The IAB was able to conduct its complete protocol for suitability for casino qualifiers and did confirm financial stability and integrity, reviewed litigation history, searched criminal history, verified that no prohibited political contributions were made in Massachusetts and conducted jazz civil resource and law enforcement databases. On March 2nd of 2021, Mr. Minor was interviewed using virtual technology by the investigative team I mentioned Trooper Owen and investigator Jordan. He was noted to be a cooperative and forthcoming in all aspects of the investigation. During the interview, Mr. Minor provided his personal history and career path to the investigators. It was noted that after graduating from college at the University of California in Santa Barbara, he worked for multiple different accounting firms at various entry level positions. He then relocated in 1999 from California to Las Vegas and accepted a position with Arthur Anderson as a senior auditor there. It was well employed with Arthur Anderson that he was introduced to the financial side of the gaming industry as he had multiple gaming related clients there. After Arthur Anderson was acquired by Deloitte, Mr. Minor did remain with Deloitte as a senior auditor for approximately one year. In 2003, Mr. Minor then accepted a position with MGM Resorts International and he has remained with MGM Resorts since 2003. He has had several positions within the company. Starting first as a manager of financial reporting, he then was promoted to director of financial reporting. He then became assistant vice president of financial reporting, a vice president of financial reporting and held that position from 2009 to 2016. And in 2016 he was promoted to senior vice president of financial reporting. And I would note that during the dependency of this investigation, he was further promoted to be also chief accounting officer. It's the subject of this investigation was his position as senior vice president of financial reporting. And in that role, Mr. Minor is responsible for the company's financial reporting and accounting. He handles everything from the company's SEC filings to day-to-day accounting responsibilities. He has six direct reports, including two vice presidents of financial reporting, one senior vice president of corporate accounting and three vice presidents who oversee the finance shared service center. MGM has a financial shared service center that does substantial gaming, audit, and accounting work connected with MGM Springfield. This would include revenue and tax filings that are provided to the MGC. And this is why Mr. Minor was found to be a qualifier in Massachusetts. Mr. Minor reports directly to Jonathan Halkeard, who was the chief financial officer of MGM Resorts International. Mr. Minor graduated from Jesuit High School in Carmichael, California in 1992. And following high school, he enrolled at the University of California in Santa Barbara. In 1996, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics and a concentration in accounting, which as you can see through his career path, he's fit to significant use, especially in his roles with MGM. At present, Mr. Minor is only seeking qualification in Massachusetts. And as I stated, that is due to the reporting structure with the financial shared services center and its substantial work that it does for MGM Springfield. And Mr. Minor has demonstrated to the IEB by clear and convincing evidence that he is suitable. And the IEB recommends that the commission vote to find him suitable as a qualifier for MGM Springfield. If there are questions, I'm happy to hear from the commissioners. And as I stated, the investigators are able to help as well. Thank you. I just want to say good morning to Matt. It's nice to see you there. Thank you. Good morning to you, Chair. Nice to see you too. Yeah, thank you for your good work. Questions for Kate, Matt. Commissioner O'Brien, you're still on mute. Yeah, I know my iPad is not cooperating this morning. Kate, you touched on this a little bit, but if you could just clarify the timing a little bit more about, you know, he's held the position since 2016. They opened the casino in 18. Sure. But the job responsibility shifted at a certain point after that, which is why we're getting this now as opposed to closer to the opening. Correct. And it is connected directly to that reporting structure and how his position and promotions have kind of intersected with the financial services center responsibility in terms of the MGM financial records and filings that are required for the MGC. So that is why he falls into our box for qualification and at this time, despite the fact he's held that position since 2016 and has made his way up through the ranks. Right. Thank you. Sure. Kate, with respect to that, when I spoke with you about the same question, you indicated that now there may be a possibility with his newest promotion to chief that other jurisdictions may find him to be a qualifier. Will you have to do an update now because of this change in his position? I think that would largely depend on, you know, any significant change in his reporting responsibilities. We certainly have a very good flow of information back and forth between our contacts at MGM. Mr. Modamba specifically was very helpful in this investigation. So if there were significant change to the job responsibilities, we certainly could update it. But at this point, where they're all kind of accounting and recording responsibilities that go up the chain with respect to his involvement in Massachusetts, I don't see a significant change based on his promotion to CAO. But I'm happy to follow up on that as well, if you'd like. Loretta, you think that that's a... So, you know, any additional responsibilities that he may have, we record those. They, those are recorded to us. They wouldn't necessarily impact his suitability, but we do record any updates and responsibilities as part of the ongoing process. Does that address your question, Kathy? Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking. I hadn't really thought about it when Kate and I spoke, but today we are qualifying him for his past position and not for his current position. Oh, actually, Madam Chair, pardon the introduction. He holds both simultaneously. He's both a senior VP for financial accounting and chief accounting officer. Yes. But so we're still qualifying him just for the senior vice-president. Absolutely. That's how the investigation came in. And again, with regard to his responsibilities in Massachusetts, those are through his role as senior VP. But if he had additional responsibilities that would make him a qualifier, it wouldn't change anything because he's already been deemed a qualifier, which is Loretta's point. He's already been considered recommended for suitability. Exactly. So we do track changes and responsibilities. Potentially he could have a shift that would make him no longer be a qualifier in Massachusetts. He could move on to a different area where Massachusetts doesn't fall under his responsibility anymore. But to the extent that he continues to have oversight of what happens in Massachusetts, we continue to receive updates of any additional responsibilities that the company may give to him. Thank you. Any questions for Commissioner Cameron? I actually just had a comment. First of all, well done investigation. Congrats to the investigative team. I agree there are no significant issues here that would impact qualification. And just a comment that I continue to be impressed by our licensees ability and someone can come in at a very low level position in the casino industry and end up as a senior vice president within a fairly short amount of time. So the opportunities are something I have noticed in many of these reports that come before us for approval. It is really an opportunity for lots of folks around the country. Anything further? I'll set Commissioner O'Brien. Okay, Commissioner Seneca. I'll set, thank you. Okay, thank you. Well done. Very helpful and we do need a vote. Yes. Madam Chair, I move that the commission issue a positive determination of suitability to Todd Robert Minert and his capacity as senior vice president of financial reporting. And Chief Accounting Officer Cape or just the one? Well, you know, we, I suppose as I said his job responsibilities apply through the SVP role to Massachusetts and that was a substance of the investigation. If Director Lilios has any specific thoughts on that I welcome them, but I think as the position came in in the interim you could qualify him just for this title. I agree, agree. Okay, so senior vice president of financial reporting for MGM Resorts International. Thank you. Second. Okay, any further questions or comments? Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Seneca. Aye. And I vote yes. Four zero, great. Thank you very much and Matt. Good to see you. Thank you for your good work and my apologies, Kate, for the member of the GEU that helped. Yes, Trooper Kevin Owen. Thank you. So, Trooper Owen, thank you so much. Okay, thank you, Kate. Thank you very much. We'll move on then. Let's see, what time is it? It's just a 10 of 11. Would it make sense to have a quick break now before we go in? I see Commissioner Seneca nodding his head. It's just a natural break for the next block of time. I think so. And if we need to take another quick break during that, that's fine too, but why don't we take a break? It's just on nine minutes of 11. And we can be at 11 for our community mitigation grants and I see Chief Delaney there. So we look forward to that. Thanks so much. The team is all here. So we are going to get started now with the next item of business, the community mitigation fund. Chief Delaney, why don't you set the stage? Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. So for your consideration today, we have seven specific impact grant applications, all of which fall within the public safety operational costs arena. As you'll see in your memo, there are a total of 11 specific impact applications. The remaining four are still under review. We needed to have a couple of meetings with some of these folks to get some additional information, which we've gotten. So we expect that we should be back before the commission at the May 6th meeting to finish out the specific impact grant category. Kate Hart again was the primary reviewer on each of these applications and is here with me to answer any specific questions you might have on the applications. She did the deep dive. So I'll give you the sort of the surface view when if you have any detailed questions here to answer them. And as I understand it today, we will just be reviewing the applications individually and then Chair, you'd like to wait on the votes until we've finished the specific impact category. Is that correct? Yeah, upon review of the materials and speaking with the Executive Director Wells when I was able to reach Commissioner Bryan, we thought it would make good sense Commissioner Cameron and Commissioner Zuniga to hold on the vote so that we could have kind of a full some discussion at the May 6th on, you know, as a collective body, if you will, and do our individual votes on that day of all 11 applications. And today hear from them. And then also if you have any questions or want any additional information, those details could be supplemented at the May 6th meeting as well. Does that make sense? Is everyone comfortable with that? And that's completely consistent with what we did last year, if you recall. You know, we did sort of the two marathon sessions but we didn't do any votes at the first one. We waited until the end of the second session and voted the entire slate of grants. Yeah, and we might want to do individual. We can decide in terms of next week if we just take at least the category of public safety together as one. Commissioner Zuniga, I look like you were leaning in. Yeah, I was going to say I'm fine. However, everybody's comfortable because I realize I have the benefit of have observed a lot of the public, a lot of the review team discussion and I'm quite familiar with the details. So however you guys, the rest of the commissioners want to take this. Yeah, I think it will allow us to cross-reference some. I did take a peek at the other application so there might be some cross-references I'd want to make but I'm not comfortable doing it today without getting the benefit of the review team's input first. You know, I don't want to jump the gun on that. So thanks. We'll get started then. Commissioner Cameron, you're okay with that approach? Sounds like an excellent approach. No worries. Okay, all right, thank you. Okay, Joe, thank you so much. Okay, so the first application in front of you is the Everett Fire Department. They are requesting $157,000 for a few different items. One is for EMT training for some of their staff, also for the replacement of portable radios and a new vehicle for the fire department inspectors. So the city has demonstrated that there's been a significant increase in calls for service due to the Encore facility and also a significant increase in inspections associated with Encore. And they have also demonstrated that their existing radios do not work effectively in the facility. So the review team believes that they've made that nexus to the casino with this application. So the review team agree that the provision of EMT training will allow the fire department to treat patients at a higher level than they do now. Right now, the fire department will respond, but with the folks that aren't trained as EMTs, they essentially have to wait until an ambulance arrives in order to have that higher level of service. And also the team agree that the replacement of radios is appropriate to improve the level of communication within the Encore facility. Facilities of this nature, all of the electronics and other things we have had this experience at before with other agencies and other facilities that communications can be quite difficult. So we agreed that that certainly is appropriate. And again, we've funded these in the past for other agencies. And finally, the review team agreed that the increased level of inspections has placed pressure on the fire prevention division vehicle fleet and warranted purchase of an additional vehicle for that group over at Everett Fire Department. So for these reasons, we're recommending full funding of this grant any amount of 150,000 dollars. And with that, I will open this one up to questions. Commissioners, any questions? Commissioner Cameron. Not a question, but just how important that interoperability is. So that request in particular, I think is really, really important in an emergency situation. That's with respect to the communications radios, right? So their technology seems a little antiquated is that what it is? Yes, it's just not. They did not have the ability to communicate with the other agencies responding to an emergency situations. That's the interoperability piece, which is really critical at any situation today of an emergent nature. Yeah, and they apparently had difficulty, there's an engine outside and there's people inside, just even the communications just to their team were difficult. Yeah, I see that being as a good an area where we can keep our eyes on this so that maybe it's a joint application for the departments as technology shifts so quickly. So we would like them to be able to be fully operational. It's actually surprising to me to see that they weren't. So the GEU, the police department and the fire departments for all three areas should be able to be keep up with technology developments as they evolve. Yeah, the radios that they're using currently are quite old, I think. Yeah. The application indicates that they're 16 years old. So that's pretty out of date when it comes to modern technology. Yeah, I think that's right. That's right. So there's very large radios from 16 years ago. I also was very pleased to see the request for training. It's for the EMT training. So it's substantive training, really important. And I saw the evidence that they indicated that there were 600 more emergency interventions because of Encore. Given the number of people who are there, that number seems actually modest to me, but we do want them to be able to respond fast and to be able to intervene with all the tools they need. So I was really pleased to see them asking for that training money. I remember Commissioner Cameron, you indicated that we're a public safety. That's an area where always training dollars are short. So this is a good... Yes, it's one of the first things that get cut when you go before for your budget. I mean, it is critical, I agree. Yeah, so I was pleased. Any further questions on that before we move on to the second one? Comments, okay. Okay, great. So the next application is also the City of Everett. They are requesting $30,000 for the installation of street lighting smart controls to allow remote access to lighting and cameras in the Encore area. Again, the city has demonstrated an increase in traffic and traffic accidents as well as calls for service in the area so that they have made the necessary nexus to the casino. The review team agreed that providing these controls would allow for enhanced monitoring of traffic and security in the area. Initially, we had some concerns with potential privacy matters, but the city did assure us that these would not include any kind of facial recognition or anything like that, that they were really only to be used sort of to monitor the traffic situation in the area, if they needed to provide some additional police details or other things, if traffic was backing up or to aid in investigations. So we were pretty intrigued by this. We do know that in the past, there were a couple of incidents there where people left the facility and having cameras out there and the ability to access them directly at the police station would certainly be beneficial in trying to investigate issues in the area. So for these reasons, we are recommending full funding in the amount of 30,000 dollars. Any questions on this application? Also, commissioners? Commissioner Zunika? I think, I'll just make a comment, but I think that Joe summarized it. Well, I like their approach. It's in the scheme of things, it's short money for what is a real, essentially a real improvement into the overall monitoring because they're leveraging the capabilities that they already have. They're just doing smart technology in these so-called smart controls. So I think it's a really good grant. I would agree. I think, first of all, improved enhanced lighting is critical, right? We want to try to cut down on crashes and criminal activity in lighting is really effective for both. And secondly, the cameras, we see how effective they are in the casinos. In the surrounding area, I think will help to particularly important with crashes and other investigations. Well, Commissioner O'Brien, anything? No, no, it's it to your comment. I think it's short money for something that seems like it'll be a vast improvement to that area, their ability to respond. I have to say, I'm interested in, I'd love to see once it's installed, it's actually quite remarkable, but $30,000 it seems. Yeah, I looked up, the name is escaping me now, but I looked up their website, the technology. It's intriguing, as you say. Yeah, yeah. Ubiqua. Ubiqua, yes, Ubiqua. That's the brand of the technology. Thanks. Okay, no further questions? Kate, good work so far, no questions for Kate. Okay, Joe, go right ahead. Okay, so the next one is Hamden County District Attorney's Office. They have come to us for funds for the last few years. They're asking for $75,000 to be used for personnel to mitigate the additional caseloads due to the MGM casino. And of course, the provisions of a 23K call for offsetting DA costs as part of the Community Mitigation Fund. And obviously they do have an increased caseload because of the presence of the MGM casino. Last year, the DA's office received a grant for $75,000, but they've actually only spent a small portion of those funds so far this year because of COVID. And I guess the courts were closed and other things of that nature. They do expect that spending to pick up as the casinos have reopened. Now, based on the 2019 grants, now originally they gave them $100,000 the first year and they ended up not really meeting all of that. So some of that came back to us and they reduced their request to $75,000 for 2019 and kept it the same for 2020. That seems to be about the right number based on the 2019 numbers. But anyway, regardless, they operate under an ISA. So any unused funds come back to the commission at the end of the year if they don't use them. They can request an extension of that. And if they do so before the end of the fiscal year, we can consider that, but that's not being asked for at this point. So with that, we do recommend awarding this amount to the audience. Questions? Yeah, I have one, Joe. We had talked the very first time this came up about them doing a tracking system so that they could have stats on the cases that generate out of the casino. I'm assuming most of them feed into Springfield district, but there might be some in the outlying district reports. Is there a tracking system that they have in terms of being able to figure out a portion of an ADA or victim witness advocate salary that goes to this? I'm gonna turn this one over to Kate. Yes, hi. So Commissioner Oberyn, as you may be aware, there is a statewide databaseing system that has tracking capability that DA's offices use through the district attorney's association. It's possible to modify that. However, that hasn't been something that's specifically investigated by the DA's office. It would be, I think, a pretty big technical ask. So what they are trying to do is just, as you said, find a way to quantify those outlying cases that end up in the surrounding district courts. I think it is difficult, especially with COVID, but it is something we're in touch with them about, although no formal tracking has been in place, they do certainly know that this money is being made available to them because there is specifically an increased case that's shared throughout the office as you get to witness advocates up through prosecuting attorneys. So I know that's not... Very to go forward, there can be, because I know we had this conversation and there was a request in Norfolk a couple of years ago and it basically blocked and said, we can't track. And having been in DA's offices and AG's offices, there is an ability to track. I mean, I grant you the MDA databases that can be retrofitted to this. That's the best way to do it. But if there's, what in fact that would take to get accurate staff from the various DA's offices in the different counties or to figure out if they're each trying to do it consistently, I'm thinking about Christopher Bruce's work as well and trying to figure out a way to supplement the accuracy of that information. I actually had that same thought because obviously Christopher Bruce's study is mentioned by some of our other applicants here. And I wondered if perhaps this may become easier with just one or two more years of reportable data, especially with Springfield, but also if we had similar requests from Encore, just because it is gathering this data, as you said, can be a little un-mildy. However, the longer the licenses are open and impacting our applicants, kind of the easier it is maybe to recognize some trends and how they intersect with a study such as the one done by Mr. Bruce. So I think it's a conversation we should keep open with this particular applicant and any other similar applications going forward. Right, because I'm also thinking that now that there are three of them are online, you've got multiple counties. I mean, you have Everett is technically middle sex, but it's really sitting in the edge of Suffolk. So you have two sizable counties plus you have Hampton, et cetera, and Norfolk. So you have easily four or five, six counties that could give stats and benefit from a tracking system like that. So it might be something deep in mind. Thank you. Any further questions? So I think what I'm hearing from Joe is that the ISA creates that really is a safety valve so that if the dollars aren't needed, they come back anyway. Okay, that is correct, yeah. Yeah, we'll continue that onto the sheriff's department. Okay, so the next one is the Hampton County Sheriff's Department and you've all seen this one before. So this is the sixth year that they're requesting lease assistance for the Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center that was displaced as part of the MGM construction. And as you probably remember, the commission originally agreed to pay up to $2 million in lease assistance for the first five years of the lease, which ended last year. And through conversations with the commission and with our local community mitigation advisory committees and some committee on community mitigation, we talked about this at some length. The fact that this facility was displaced from the MGM casino footprint, there clearly is an impact to them. And the fact that they pay an increased cost associated with their lease and their utilities and so on, there is definitely an impact there. But what was decided was that there shouldn't be any specific carve out for the sheriff's department in our guidelines, but it's simply that they're an eligible entity and can apply for funds as could any other eligible entity. And which is in fact, what has happened here. They're asking for the same amount of money. They're asking for $400,000. And based on the fact that there are, the impact still exists and they're an eligible entity, the review team does recommend that the $400,000 be awarded to the sheriff's department. And again, this, you've had this conversation before and it's probably beyond the scope of the discussion today, but I think we need to determine what we want to do here longterm and whether or not we want this assistance to continue or to not continue or to some phase out or whatever. But again, just, I don't think that's an issue for today. What we have today is an application for a certain amount of money and the review team is recommending that. Commissioner, do you have comments or questions for Joe? Commissioner Bryan? No, I mean, I remember this conversation last year in terms of, you know, how far out do you go and say, well, you would have had to renew maybe anyway, maybe it would have gone up somewhat. I understand that this $400,000 is just for the year. As you said, it's the one, you know, filling the gap for this one year. A question that I had last year that I was hoping might be answerable is what, when their lease term would have been up in the old facility? Yeah, we did ask whether or not they would still be under the old lease and their answer to us was yes, they were. We did follow up with them and asked them to provide us a copy of that lease. We don't have it in hand yet. They said they would get it to us. So having Mary just follow back up with them, they were supposed to get it to us last week, but we didn't see it come across our desk last week. So we will continue to follow up on that. Okay, yeah, I would be curious to see that, to know exactly when the lease term would have ended under the lease from which they were displaced. And it's kind of interesting. It sounds almost as if they were like tenant at will. I'm not sure that they had sort of a written lease, but we'll follow, again, we'll follow up on that. Or it wasn't like it followed into like a month to month to your point at will because they'd been there so long. Yeah, they had been there 27 years. And so the way the application was written, it seemed like that, but they did indicate they'd send us a copy of it. So we're gonna continue to follow up on that. They did say that they would have still been under the old lease terms for this year. And so the $400,000 represents their annual carrying costs. Is that in full? The, or does it include, is it the annual minus what they would have paid? I mean, it's the $400,000. It's the Delta between, so in their original lease, interestingly included utilities. So what they did was they took what their new lease costs were plus their estimated utility costs and looked at what the difference was. And that essentially came out to be the $400,000. And did you see that? Do they put that in the application? Yeah, we have that. We've got was back in their original application and they've essentially given that to us. And the lease that they're under right now is a 10 year lease? 10 years, yep. We did have a substantial conversation about this last year. Yeah. We did. And so, and we did it during this exact process. So I guess I'd like to know what we're expecting going forward. Enrique, you've been part of the process as a member of the review team, which we thank you for your service on that. What do you think about the long-term implications of this application? In short, it's a big question, which is what we've been wrestling with recently. And if we do the same thing that we've been doing, we will continue to have this kind of conversation. The last time we talked about it that I remember substantively, not only, there were two times actually, when we got the last grant, but when we also did the guidelines for this year, which Joe mentioned, we said, well, we'll just make them an eligible applicant. We don't commit to a set amount for a set number of years. So again, we will continue to see this if we do nothing different. It begs the question, as Joe points out, perhaps not for today, whether we do it at guidelines or in the future, they don't have the incentive necessarily to modify their budget, if you will, and they do get funding from the state elsewhere for other parts of their program if they will continue to get the grant Delta from us. Now, I mean, said that we recognize there's an impact and there was initially, the big question is what is the longevity of this impact? When would have been at least renegotiation, a new price, a need to move or upgrade anyway because they were not necessarily in class A space where they were before. And those are all very hard answers, very hard to answer those questions. It becomes kind of like how we feel about it in general, ultimately, with the reality that there's not a big incentive for them to modify, certainly not before the end of the current lease. And Joe's question, the application points out that this 400,000 is not accounted for in their other funding source. And begs the question to your point of, well, maybe going forward, there's some requests that we look at any efforts that have been taken to seek funding elsewhere. If you do that and hit a dead end, that might be a different reception here than just, to your point, relying on having the Delta fixed by money that comes from us. Yeah, and the key would be, what would we consider reasonable effort to what kind of evidence could we be satisfied with other than just them telling us that they tried and weren't successful? It's a 10 year lease, or is it a lease that's less than 10 years with options for extensions? 10 year lease? No, it was a 10 year lease, yeah. So I think this is, again, this is really a policy question of the commission on sort of where we think this needs to go. I don't know if it makes sense to try to set up maybe a meeting with the sheriff's department, later on sometime this summer, and maybe with a subset of the commission at that meeting to talk about some of these issues. And they did ask us back last fall saying, well, we'd like you to consider giving us another five years of lease assistance. And we did consider that and decided that, no, we wouldn't do it in a block of five years, we would do it on a year-to-year basis, which is where we are today, at least for 2021. And by the way, that, I think that's a prudent, even though it seems to be non decisive, I think it might be prudent for the following reason. I think context here is important. This is, as you might remember, we have followed on the recommendation from the local community mitigation advisory committees to keep the money that comes from each region within the region. And that, so it's effectively not necessarily taking money, quote unquote, from other potential applicants elsewhere on that, except for the one region of region B, which happens to be at least this year less subscribed than the other region relative to requests and monies available. So if we continue doing the same thing in future years, that landscape could change and could conceivably change the decision. But that's another factor that I guess relative to the policy, big policy question that Joe outlines should also factor in. And I think that that's an important factor is that money is available in the region for this. If we were oversubscribed by 100% and then we had to make the difficult decisions of, well, we don't have enough money to give out to everybody, where does this rank in the commission's thoughts compared to other applications? So that's where the difficulty will come in. We frankly don't have that difficulty this year. Right. And for me, if I were running, if I were the COO of the sheriff's department, $400,000 is a pretty good chunk of change to have to plan on if we're not an absolute steady stream of income for them over the next five years or four years after this year. But I think I'm understanding commissioner Zuniga's very important point, which is at a certain point, something in that region may come up where those $400,000 are vital to a different application and we might want that ability to apply it because it fits even more neatly into the needs of the community mitigation impacts of the region. So that's why I think we really did reserve that flexibility last year, but it makes for a budgeting challenge for them, I'm sure. I like the idea of them pursuing other funds and not having that dependency, although I do understand that this is an impact from the relocation. I just wasn't there the first time when there was a commitment to the first five years and why it wasn't a decision to do the first 10 years. So there was probably the thinking that we're doing right now, which is see what the needs are down the road of the rest of the region. Is that fair, Amike? I think that's right. And again, we can continue in the same venue because it's a year to year type of thing. Again, it goes back to both the policy, the comfort level that we all have versus the incentives, the lack of incentive or incentive that they don't necessarily have. I mean, because these are competitive dollars, it's not a given, that's right. That's right. Commissioner Kelly? Yes, I think the additional information, making sure we do get a copy of the old lease, figuring out what leases in the area, how much they raise per year will help us with the policy question. I think so. I think so. And if dollars need to go somewhere else, is there a way to, at that point, have a tiered system where they're not losing all of it, but they'd be losing some of it and we'd have some documentation to make those decisions. Yeah, I agree. So this is an area where today, we would not be voting on this one in particular. So we can, we'll have until May 6th to get some further information on this one. Yeah, I think really getting the lease is the key piece of information that we're missing. Great, great. Any further questions or comments on this grant? Okay, Joe? Okay, the next one is the Plainville Police Department. They're requesting $95,500 for a multi-purpose transport vehicle and some traffic mitigation equipment to help manage traffic more efficiently in and around PPC, you know, when larger events are going on there and things of that nature. Of course, Plainreach has been able to demonstrate an increase in traffic and traffic related calls that is attributable to PPC. So we agree, the review team agreed that the provision of traffic mitigation equipment, which this includes, I think primarily an electronic signboard and trailer and so on that would provide some efficiencies for the police department. And we also agree that the provision of a multi-purpose vehicle would allow for the efficient deployment of the equipment, but they are also calling it a multi-purpose vehicle because they also want to use it as a prisoner transport vehicle, which we like the idea of, you know, using a vehicle for multi purposes. And, you know, similarly, we did a grant with Encore last year or the year before for a prisoner transport vehicle and have done other projects of this type with some other communities. So we are recommending full funding of this grant in the amount of $95,500. Questions or comments for Joe on this one? I'll set, Michelle Brown, everybody looks like they're, yeah, I just want to note that Plainville Police Department didn't include any requests for training. Again, an opportunity perhaps missed if there were training that was relevant to perhaps interactions or diffusions needed at the casino site. Something to keep in mind for next year's applications. Well, we did certainly, at our outreach sessions, try to stress that with our applicants. Thank you, Joe, thank you very much. I'm glad that you had, you know, a reminder that you did do those brown bag luncheons and trainings to remind the potential applicants. And I think that's a great practice. And I suspect you'll be replicating that for next year as well. Yes, that's the intent. Okay, great, thank you. Okay, so the next one is the Springfield Fire Department. They are requesting $22,000 to purchase new defibrillators. And the fire department has demonstrated that there has been a significant increase in medical calls since the opening of the casino. And primarily, you know, the reason for these new defibrillators the old ones are a bit out of date. But also new defibrillators will be compatible with those used by AMR, which is their primary ambulance company in the city. You know, they sort of trade equipment, not equipment, supplies back and forth when they're responding to operations and having the same equipment means they could use the same supplies, create some efficiencies for them. So we believe the review team believes that, you know, having this up-to-date equipment that's compatible with other users will be beneficial to the city and their responses to MGM Springfield. And also, you know, $22,000 seems to be pretty reasonable cost for a project of this nature. Therefore, we are recommending full funding of the grant in the amount of $22,000. Questions, comments? I wanna note that in this memo, the event folks who are attending today's public meeting that the memo does include in each section a response from our licensee. And MGM does say that they feel there's no basis for the sweeping conclusion that MGM is having an adverse impact on the Springfield Fire Department's annual budget. Ultimately, though, they recognize that the health and safety of the residents of the Springfield area are patients and employees are a top priority. And so they do support this request, but that was a notation I think it's fair for us to mention in their response. And I like so much that the licensees are included in this process, Joe. It's a real credit to the, you know, the really the full-sum review that you and the team do. Yeah, we get written responses from each of the licensees and we also try to do a meeting with them as well, just to get, you know, a little deeper dive on some of the thoughts on some of the applications. So that does prove to be very helpful in crafting our recommendations. Yeah, it really shows the, you know, how it's a real 360 degree review. So thank you. Seems to me we wanna have defibrillators at work. Yes, yes. Okay, if there are no other comments on that, we will go to the final application for today's discussion, which is the Springfield Police Department. They have requested $105,000 for improved connectivity from the GEU to the Metro unit and Springfield Police Department headquarters. They've also asked for an F-150 pickup truck, some equipment storage units, protective shields, Bola wrap, de-escalation equipment, and some traffic cones. So kind of a whole laundry list of items that they're looking for. The review team is recommending partial funding for this grant in the amount of $22,500, specifically for the data connectivity improvements, for the storage units and for the traffic cones. So the police department has demonstrated casino related connections for these items in that obviously connectivity improvements are between the GEU and the Metro unit and the headquarters. So there's clearly some issues there on their communications between those different areas. The storage units that they are proposing, these are kind of the container units that you see in use. They have limited storage where they are and they need some weather protected storage, back for a number of the things that we've purchased for them or they should say that they have purchased with Game and Commission funds in the past. And then the traffic cones, they're used for traffic control in the vicinity of the casino. So we think there's a nexus there. So the review team failed to see the connection between the operation of MGM and the police department's need for the PolarWrap equipment and the protective fields. There have been some large events, protests and large events that have been drawn to downtown Springfield in the last year as there have been in many other locations. But these events were not driven by the casino. They had the Bernie Sanders rally and that would happen at the Pacific Center. And it didn't have anything to do particularly with the casino or an impact of the casino. So we do want to stand the need for police to be properly equipped but there definitely needs to be a clear nexus to the casino in order to fund that portion of the grant. And we just didn't, the dots weren't just more connected there for us. Commissioner Farming-Joe, before we continue, I feel, is any commissioner leaning in right now? Okay, thank you. Okay, and then the last, the other item that we also did not recommend the purchase of the pickup truck. And there's a little bit of a backstory here that I think we should just share so we understand why. So a year ago, we approved the purchase of a pickup truck by Springfield Police Department. And back last September, they came back to us and said, due to COVID related supply chain issues, they wouldn't be able to get a pickup truck. It would be months and months and months on back order. So they asked if they could replace it with an SUV type vehicle and we asked the question as long as that can serve the same purpose, towing trailers and the lighting and all those kinds of things. As long as it can serve the same purpose, we were fine with that, as long as they were okay with that as well. Now, with that said, now they're saying they would really like to have a pickup truck, but we feel that they didn't really identify an impact of the casino over and above that which they identified and funded last year. So we already bought them a vehicle. It would have been a pickup truck if they wanted to wait for a pickup truck. They didn't wanna wait for that. We feel like we sort of kept up our end of the bargain on that and we didn't see any overriding impact that sort of newly created that this would, so for that reason, we recommended not funding that piece of it and so with that, I'll open it up for any questions on this application. Commissioner O'Brien. I just had one, I looked up the Bolar app online and it looks like something out of a Spider-Man movie to be honest with you when I looked at what it did. What's that like? It's, it almost looks like a taser, you know, but then you go and these chords are released and it's the idea is it wraps somebody sort of remotely, restrains them remotely. The protective shields, I guess the description if you can help me and I know that we declined to give them funding for certain riot gear last year. Are these protective shields a different name for the same thing or is this a different type of protective shield? Would you like me to take that, Joe? Yes, Kate. Please. I feel like I should just bring my questions to you, Kate. Oh, that's all right. No, no worries. This is, I will say since we're at the final application to review today, this is a team effort. I may have done the deep dive, as Joe said, but I really have benefited from my colleagues on the review team, so I want to thank them. So the Bolar app, that is exactly how I described it when I reviewed it, Spider-Man-like. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I had some concerns about it and did a little bit more research there. And so with regard to the shields, this is a request for the same replacement of the same pieces of equipment that were identified last year. Got it, okay. Thank you. Sure. So I, sorry, Commissioner, go ahead. I was just going to make a comment that I think if you're familiar with the gaucho bolas in Argentina, that's what they use. It's an old technology, of course. I think this replicates that sort of idea of throwing things that wrap around the legs of somebody. They use it for cows over there. Commissioner Cameron. Well, I'm just listening to the work of the committee and I've read everything and I agree with their decisions and especially where Joe just explained to us that they were very clear last year when they said, okay, we'll let you replace the vehicle, but it's as long as you're telling us it serves the same purpose. So, and the clarification on the other two pieces of equipment make a lot of sense too that there's no direct casino impact. So can I just ask a point of clarification? The sounds as though, and I don't remember this, forgive me, I definitely remember the request about the riot shields last year. They've used a different word apparently and said protective but we'll get to that in a second. In terms of the pickup truck, we approved that in our regular course of business last year and then they came back in September. I know there's all kinds of supply chain issues. They came back, but not to the commission. And they came back to you and said, we'd like to swap it out. And are you saying that Joe, it was in that threshold that we've given you to, that didn't have to come back to us or did it come back to us? That's what I can't remember. We didn't come back to the commission with it. There was no change in price. It was the same cost. And we say as long as it suits your purposes for what we gave the grant for, why not was more or less the... Right, and you made record of the change. And so now, so they got the contract. And they definitely did the purchase of the SUV truck. They did. I should say vehicle. So really that's the point. Okay. And then in terms of the request on the Bullarath equipment in the protective shields, Springfield Police Department did know last year that we had extensive discussion around the request for riot shields. And we declined them last year because our expert in public safety, right on our very own commission, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron pointed out that it really wasn't protective riot shields aren't really something that would be used at the casino property. Am I remembering that correctly, Commissioner Cameron? You are, Madam Chair. You're remembering that correctly. And so the request was made again. Is there anything that they offer in the application process to distinguish why it would be appropriate this year? I can... Well, well, Mr. Delaney is looking that up in our paperwork. I think that this year, Madam Chair, the request for the protective shields, this was more in line with, again, kind of crowd control rather than any response to large-scale violent events. I think last year, they were also perhaps described as ballistic shields, which generated some considerable discussion. So in conjunction with the request for the Bullarath, perhaps the department sought to reframe this as kind of a crowd control device, which is certainly, I would say, is maybe an alternative use, not the use that comes immediately to mind. But at this point, I think that that was my interpretation anyway of this kind of reframed application because these two pieces of equipment are distinct from the other pieces of equipment that are being requested by the department, which really link back to requests they've made in the past, such as the connex container, which is that metal, whether tight secure storage container for items they've purchased with mitigation fund money in the past. So this did not seem to harken back to any prior requests. And I saw it as, but I won't say a new request, but I think maybe a reframed request with the addition of the Bullarath technology, perhaps to cement it as more of a crowd control equipment request, whether or not the commission agrees with that perspective by the department certainly is why we're having this discussion today. So in just looking at the application, what they talked about here, they were talking about having sort of large gathering, public protests and other things of that nature, but the way that they try to make the tie to the casino, and I'll just quote this here. It says, in one year, we have responded to multiple, well organized, generally peaceful protests, one of which drew a crowd of approximately 6,000 people. For the larger protests, we remained in constant contact with our officers assigned to the MGM gaming enforcement unit, as well as the MGM head of security. But each large gathering, a significant concern was held by all that high profile locations would fall victim to impulsive acts of random violence and malicious destruction of property. So that is really sort of the nexus they were saying, is that they're concerned that MGM could become a target of that because it's a high profile property. So it'd be for property preservation as opposed to life preservation? No, I guess they're trying to make the nexus to the casino, which has been always our litmus that's one of saying we would be protecting the casino in an event, in the event that some large protest went out of hand, let's say. But to me, it starts an end there. I think as the review team recommends, and at least Commissioner Cameron seems to agree, I think the nexus to the casino is low when it comes to this kind of equipment. It's very, very unlikely that there would be, in my opinion, the need for this type of activity to be linked to the casino. Yeah, I asked the question in part, I didn't know if it was some sort of COVID related protective shield that things are gonna be opening up, they're gonna have balance. So that's kind of why I asked the question thinking, well maybe there were some other COVID related equipment that they were looking for sort of going forward that they would be able to monitor as things reopen, but it sounds like it's really the same item. And by the way, I don't blame the Springfield PD and people for thinking about these things. I think they are seeing a number of activity, we're all watching the news, et cetera. But in my opinion, this starts and ends with the charter that we have relative to mitigating the harms of the casino. And I just want to hear. I'm gonna chime in here. I agree, we did, I don't see that in the course of this last year, that there's been a change in circumstances that really make me think now that I know that the protective shields aren't really very similar to what was requested last year. And now that I understand that bowl of wrap actually means wrap. Thank you for looking at that, Commissioner Bryan. And I'm not hearing from Commissioner Cameron that it would be equipment that would be necessary. She's for the record, shaking her head now. What I might have liked to have seen again is this isn't an area of, as Commissioner Prasunika points out, concerns in terms of controlling, a site that brings thousands of new guests to Springfield. And that we like that because Christopher Bruce's reports are not showing a significant increase in public safety concerns, but it is showing an economic driver. And we hope that it will continue to increase in that rent as COVID restrictions are decreased. I would like to see maybe a request for some good training here. Again, an opportunity for Springfield to get different tools in their tool valve, the softer ones, right, Commissioner Cameron? I agree. And so, again, I just wanna, I would love to see, I understand the desire for equipment. I'd love to see the offset, also some soft tools. So, I think I'm inclined to agree with the recommendation and I don't think we're asking for any, do we need any additional information for next May 6th on this, commissioners? No, I'm seeing no. All right, but for the next year grant, again, opportunity for Springfield Police Department to really be creative on those soft tools. Commissioner Kim, do you wanna chime in? I think it's all been explained well. I think the appropriate questions were asked and there is no real nexus there that I can see at all. And I think you brought up Christopher Bruce's evidence-based report, which does not indicate a rise in criminal activity. So I think we do have to be cognizant of tying this to casino impacts and I don't disagree with anything said. Yeah, and again, just the licensee response indicates that MGC does not believe that its facility or operations attract a greater concentration of political offenders than otherwise present in the area to the contrary, MGM's development efforts and revitalization of a previously challenged urban area push such elements out in a way. So their bottom line is they point that out as they did and with respect to the fire department requests, but they do say that they support any resources that will benefit their efforts to keep residents, businesses, and visitors safe. So MGM duly noted their response. All right, but so I think at this point, your presentations have been on me for today. So that, yeah, that concludes our presentation for today. You know, on the sixth, we'll be back with the, we'll be meeting tomorrow. So hopefully we'll be back with the remainder of these on the sixth. And we will also probably start into the, some of the transportation applications at that meeting as well. And I think if we, if you agree, it might make sense to then take the vote. If we get up, you know, I'd like to see off for public safety, you know, completed for next, if we can, and then take a vote on that category. Does that make sense? Sure. Okay. Excellent. Commissioners, are you all set? Okay. Then I think we look forward to the continuation on May 6th. And I thank everybody for these good reports. Karen, are you all set? Yes, I am. Thank you. All right. Councilor Grossman, are you all set? Mary Thurlow just left. That's an indication. There she is. Are you all set? Todd, are you all set? Yes, thank you. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Joe. Excellent presentation. Thank you, Kate, for your work. Tanya, thank you for your work today. Commissioners, if you have no further business, then we, in no commissioner report. Well, I got on just on that note, I can make a quick update. I was honored to have been invited to the, to give a presentation of the Japan Integrated Resource Association. These days, webinars are a lot easier to access. So I was able to do that on the other side of the world and present them as you said, case study of the legislation, what we did in terms of licensing and the mitigation measures that were followed, the mitigation of the conversation that we're having today as the Japanese are considering a lot of the same policy questions in their renewed effort to improve casino gaming down there. Great. I should say that they continue to regard Massachusetts as a good example, an example worthy of looking at the law, the regulations, the decisions and the outcomes. So it's a testament to the work that we've all done over the last few years. You know, perhaps Karen, we didn't, I think folks knew this, but our IEP was also asked to speak to a Japanese delegation and Loretta and Captain Connors did an excellent job. They were quite filled with the invite, as you can imagine. So the Japanese delegations continue to seek our input and that is a credit to Massachusetts commissioners. And I now remember, I don't, I forget if I also mentioned Loretta and Todd can help me in another conversation. This one wasn't a webinar, this was just a research person who wanted essentially the same thing. In other words, there's quite a bit of activity both in Japan and looking at other jurisdictions and we continue to be one of the ones that they look at, which again is perhaps something to be proud of. I think so. And then for those of you who were able to take a look at the white paper that came out of the AGA, Commissioner Cameron's expertise on the illegal gaming machines was noted. We're proud of that. So thank you, Commissioner Cameron for that work. I think the report was well done. I think they do good. Some of the work that they've produced is really helpful to the gaming community. Yeah, I'm not sure if the communications department has put that out. It's been on LinkedIn through the AGA, but I think we can also provide it through the MGC LinkedIn too, I'm not sure about the cost. So I shouldn't jump out at that. But again, probably it'll be at least in our newsletter. So to pass it on to a greater community. Excellent. Anything else, commissioners? All right. And we'll have a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Any comments, questions? All right, roll call vote. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Zinica. Aye. Yes. Thank you, Tanya. And I'll thank you everyone. It's always so nice to be able to gather even though it's virtual. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye, thank you.