 All right, I'm just, I'm just getting my packet back to the very beginning. Sorry, everybody. There we go. Thank goodness for Grace's marks. All right. Oh, that's weird. I just went really dark. Does it look dark to you? And now it's better. It's not anymore. It's weird, huh? Hmm. New computer and learning, right? Okay. We'll get started. Whenever you tell us go. All set. Great. Thank you. Good morning. This is a meeting of the master's this gaming commission. We're holding this meeting virtually. So do our roll call. Good morning, commissioner. Brian. Good morning. I am here. Good morning, commissioner Hill. Good morning. I'm here. Good morning, commissioner Skinner. Good morning, commissioner Mayer. Good morning. All right. Today is July 11th. Had a good meeting yesterday. Congratulations again to our. Interim executive director who will take over as of next week after Karen's departure and I want to congratulate you again, Todd. And I want to thank everybody for yesterday for. A very good meeting. And one that I think just make us feel really proud of the. The quality of the people who are the team. So thank you. Good. Diverse agenda today. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get started. Commissioner Hill is some minutes. Yes. Madam chair. I moved that the commission approved the minutes from the January 12, 2023 public meeting. That are included in the commissioners packet subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other nonmaterial matters. Second. Any edits, sir. Comments. My only comment was there was supposed to be another set of minutes that were going to be before us. And we wanted to just go back and make sure that we tweak them. So we'll see those in the very near future. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. And thank you. These were extensive minutes. So thank you very much to the good, the good work of the legal department. Mr. Brian. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. Yes. Five zero. Okay. Karen. Mr. Good morning. So I would like to add my congratulations to general council gross and soon to be the interim executive director. I thought both Alex Todd did a great job yesterday as the chair and mentioned, you know, just shows that the depth of the organization. So also Todd, I am here. I am available. You'll be getting my personal cell number. I'm here for anything you need, you know, as we transition and, you know, the weeks and months to come. So I know you will take care of the wonderful people that work here. So good luck and congratulations. So other than that, I don't have anything specific. I don't know if there's any questions. I think tomorrow's my last commission meeting. So that's a big deal. But I don't have anything in particular regarding any administrative work at this point. Anything that you want from a second director Wells in terms of updates as to any division right now, I know Karen, you're expecting to leave us with some kind of a transition memo. I had, I know, I don't know if you've met with every commissioner, commissioner Maynard. And I had a very thorough review of all of the, the work and how you divide it up and the status report. And I think it's a great framework for your transition memo. Commissioners, anything you want to follow up with Karen, because tomorrow really isn't about tomorrow will be a, a meeting that was reserved for regulations and then celebrating Karen. No, I had the same. I had a sit down with Karen yesterday and went over the transition memo, and I think that's a great way to get that. I think that's a great way to get that. I think it's a great way to get that back for me of interest that we can bring up later. But. And I'll, I'll save all the story. Tell me in the send out for tomorrow. So nothing that you need in terms of anything that's outstanding that you want to just, just in case. I know where to, I know where to find her. I find it. Oh, I was actually thinking, I wasn't actually thinking for just you, but I didn't know if I could go to the next meeting. I felt like it was just, just not a good idea to get the team in for all of the commissioners, but anything, anyone. No, Karen. Excellent. Move on then to succession of officers and positions. Commissioner O'Brien, you took the lead on this. How do you want to move forward? So based on the. Procedures that we adopted at the last meeting. for Treasurer would be Commissioner Hill and that the presumptive nominee for Secretary would be Commissioner Maynard. So we can ask if they're both willing to and interested in those nominations and then if there's no other discussion, we can just move forward with voting on the next year's officers. I'll speak first, Madam Chair, if that's all right. I have always been one that wants to learn everything I possibly can about this great agency. So I would be more than happy to accept this position. Should this commission vote to put me in that next position? OK, Commissioner Maynard. I second Commissioner Hill's sentiments. If called upon, I'm happy to serve. I know that Commissioner Hill will also have a lot of good advice on learning that position. And so if it is the decision of the commission, I will accept it. OK, before we move, I'd like to thank Commissioner Skinner for her work this last year as treasurer. I know that you work very, very closely with the finance team. And I think it was a really great experience for you coming in, not your first rodeo with the commission because of your earlier services chief licensing officer, but as a commissioner. So I just want to thank you for that year of service. And I know that you'll be able to help Commissioner Hill. We go ahead and vote so to help him in that process. And of course, Chief Lennon and his team are wonderful work with. So I want to thank you for that. And Commissioner Hill, thank you for your outstanding work as secretary. I know this takes a whole team to get those minutes done. And we thank you for your work on that. Do I have a motion? Well, I would be honored to move. OK, thank you. In accordance with Mass General Laws, Chapter 23, K, Section 3F, I move that the commission appoint Commissioner Hill as treasurer for a term of one year. Second. OK, any discussion? Mr. Bright. Hi, Mr. Hill. Hi, Mr. Skinner. Hi, Mr. Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes, five zero. Congratulations to you. And again, thanks, Commissioner Skinner. And now in terms of secretary, I have a motion. I'm sure you're unmuted. I didn't know if you wanted to go or I was, I would be more than happy to. In accordance with MGL, Chapter 23, K, Section 3F, I move that the commission appoint Commissioner Jordan Maynard as secretary for a term of one year. Second. OK, any questions? All right, Commissioner O'Brien. I, Commissioner Hill. Hi, Commissioner Skinner. Hi, Commissioner Maynard. I abstain. OK, and I vote yes, four and one abstention. Some, you know, when you've been an elected official, you always know to vote for yourself. I love the eyebrows, Brad. Mr. Maynard, congratulations. And thank you again, Commissioner Hill. All right, we're moving on to some good sports wagering stuff. I see director Bann, good morning. And, and, Sturrell, I don't see Crystal today, but thank you, Sturrell. And just also before we get started, I want to thank Sturrell for helping me the other day, get through a substantive matter, his words were magic. Everything clicked immediately. So thank you, Hedge Boots. Yes, Crystal should be here somewhere. Yeah. We're going to start today with two items from Business Manager Carpenter. One is a request for an addition to the event catalog. The other is House Rules and while he's kind of doing that, I will search out the business manager. And yeah, I'm just texting her. I wonder if she's having any trouble. Yeah, that's what I was going to. I can hear her on the other side. She might be on a phone call. Oh, OK, let's all pause. Crystal, are you there? Yeah, not quite yet, but I will just go check. Well, OK, I just want to make sure she's not having any technical issues. OK, yeah, thanks, Bruce. Good morning, Sturrell. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning, Executive Director Wells. If I could, I would like to just take this opportunity to congratulate both Todd and Alex. Both are excellent members of this commission and well deserving for their positions that they were earned and voted on yesterday. So congratulations. So what we have presented to us from DraftKings on June 12th, starting on the commissioners packet on page 24. So what happened is this is our first form filled out for a request for approval of a new event. So under 205 CMR 247.03, the Commission reviews all requests for additional events to be placed in the catalog in under Section 8 Commission may grant, deny, limit, restrict or condition. A request made pursuant to this rule and may revoke, suspend or modify any approval granted under this rule. So DraftKings has submitted a petition for a new event requesting that LIV Golf Tour be added to the golf section of our catalog. The PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and LIV Golf League have agreed to unify and move forward in a larger commercial business. This request is to add this league prior to this merger believing that this will take place in the year 2024 season. I stress prior because what you are voting on is for the LIV Golf Tour as it is constituted currently, any events that are going forward prior to this merger that will, as said, take place most likely in the season of the 2024. This form is attached to the to the Commissioner's packet for reference. Its website was also placed here for reference. The division confirms that all requirements have been met under the 205 CMR 247.03 and Sports Wadring Division has found the operator has answered all of the applicable questions on the form. The operator has not informed LIV Golf Tour that they are making this request to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. They have stated that they currently offer wagering on this event in other states. In doing so, DraftKings believes that expanding this offer offering into the Commonwealth does not require them to inform the LIV Golf Tour. I will pause there and ask if there are any questions. Questions, Commissioner Fitzgerald, Commissioner Bryan. I don't have any questions, just a comment from my perspective on this, which is I know the Justice Department is looking into the merger currently. So in terms of a request based on the merged entity, etc. I would not be wanting to do that for that reason. And then for a lot of the reasons that are in the press in terms of the financial backing of the LIV League to me, I feel uncomfortable putting this in our catalog, even as a live freestanding that with standing the DOJ investigation of the merger. The comments, commissioners. I agree with that excuse me, Madam Chair. I agree with Commissioner O'Brien's comments on this issue. And if my golf calendar is correct, if this is for the 24 season, I think we have time that we can take another look at this in the very near future. And I think we need that time. But I too am not comfortable putting this in our catalog right now with all the controversy that surrounds it. Yes, don't go right ahead. Just to be clear, your vote today is on that being accepted now for as it takes place currently, which is separate from the PGA tour. Two things would happen when a merger happens in the future, if it does, you would then need to review and direct the sports wagering department. We would then review, see all of the new terms and then present to you again or be instructed by the commission, whether that would be accepted as well. So right now, we need to just look at this as this is being brought to you to be placed in the catalog as it is currently governed. Can I just do a point of clarification? We've already voted on this to keep it out, correct, Sterl? It was not presented to us. It was it was none of the operators presented it to us officially. It was brought up and conversations were brought up, but nothing official was placed into the catalog. OK, thank you. That's really helpful. The commission, how did you have your audio on? So we never it came. I was going to say I'm sorry. Go right ahead. No, I was going to say thank you for the clarification. Which even helps me want to vote against this even more after the clarification. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we did bring it up, but we never officially it wasn't presented to us. That's really helpful. And then comes your skinner. So I think I'm of like mind once I've noted that the season started. The golf league season started on February 23 of this year. And I don't know if there's any insight as to why the request didn't come sooner than now, just certainly with the discussions happening, the public discussions happening around what's taking place. I would join Commissioner Hill and Commissioner O'Brien in holding off on making any decisions relative to this at this time. Mr. Maynard, thank you, Commissioner Skinner. One question I have, Sterl, do we have any reason to believe that L.I.B. would not want to be added to the catalog? I'm asking that because of our Boston marathon discussion, of course. Correct. So DraftKings presents that they have this and have never received any comment from the L.I.B. tour. And so since this is already in several jurisdictions in the United States, they felt that they didn't need to contact them when they addressed it in the form. Due to it already being approved and felt that they would have been contacted prior already if they had a problem with them off or wagering on the event. Hey, any further questions on this matter? Commissioner Maynard, are you all set? I'm good. Hey, do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the Commission deny the request to amend the official catalog of events and wagers to include the L.I.B. golf tour as included in the commissioners packet and further discussed here today. Second. Can I just have a chair? Could I just ask a process question? And I guess I should direct it to our legal division. Our regulations state that if the request is not acted on by the commission within 60 days, it's automatically denied. What is the implication? What are the implications of us denying it outright today versus staying silent on it and for 60 days and having it be denied automatically in that fashion? I say, Commissioner Skinner, it's already not authorized. So it couldn't be allowed without your express approval. I think it's without prejudice in either event. Yeah, absolutely. I think you could always revisit any decision along these lines. So yeah, I think that's a real practical distinction. Nothing I can think of. OK, thank you. One other clarification. General Council Grossman, these matters must come before the gaming commission statutorily correct. I believe so. I'd have to put the statute, but I believe the other commission has to authorize what's in the catalog. Yeah, so still nodding his head. I'm mentioning that because I know we're all looking for efficiencies. Stone, I have a little bit of a conversation about that as well. But this is one where at least on substantive matters, maybe not discussed, maybe if there's typographical errors, that might be something we could choose to think about where it wouldn't have to necessarily come back before the commission. But right now, the way the statute requires, it does require our action on these matters. Correct, still. Yeah. Yes, that's how I read the statute. OK, excellent. So just make a note of that. Todd, that would be great. All right, we have a motion in the second in front of us, Commissioner O'Brien. I. Commissioner Hill. I. Commissioner Skinner. I. Commissioner Maynard. I. I vote yes, five zero. All right, what's next? Next, we turn to page 29 in the commissioners packet. Here, we have received changes to Barstool Sportsbook in Casino has resubmitted their language to the House rules due to changes in their service provider. Barstool Sports is now bar is renaming themselves as Barstool Sportsbook and Casino. Also, their platform is currently under maintenance transforming over from their provider to an in-house provider, the score. They they purchased the score a Canadian based company. I believe it was a year and a half ago, but now they're transferring over and all the changes in this request for House rule changes has to do with the changes that are they are going through now. So the total changes are as follows. Throughout this document, the name Barstool Sportsbook is now replaced with Barstool Sportsbook and Casino. They are removing the term tatter stale. And I if I pronounce that incorrectly, my apologies in section six and three, their odd boost in special markets that used to be just from Barstools is replaces. I mean, I'm sorry, their Barstool battles in section 31 is now just being replaced with odd boost and special markets. So we can go through all of the terms and all of the highlighted changes. Or if you wish, we can skip through if if you've all reviewed and are familiar with it. I could just do the general highlights as well, if you wish. Cheryl, I have a threshold question actually relative to the name change on the Sportsbook. Is there a process under which the operator must get the name change reviewed and approved by the commission? What is that process? Is it just at the operator's discretion? How does how should we be thinking about that as a commission? I did notice the main change in the labor requests that we're going to be reviewing later in the day. So just really looking for some guidance as to how we should be thinking about the name change, if at all, as regularly. Can I turn to Karen on that, please? That would be great. I'm sorry, I was reading an email. What was the issue? Commissioner Skinner has asked whether there's a process involved in which the commission, the Gaming Commission of Massachusetts, would get involved in a name change of one of our licensees. We've only done that once before. So I think the only thing we had, I believe was and I think Charlie can remember, didn't I think it was Penn National changed the name at one point on their licensee. And I think they did come to the commission for the approval or at least the notification. Do we really have approval rights or is it just a courtesy for them to notify us? Well, it's the change of the license because it's the actual license. You know, I don't know. I probably defer to Todd on whether it's required. But can I ask, is this a DBA or an actual change? I think it's the LLC itself that was changed with Penn. So that's the. That's what I mean. But what about this one? That one was an average change, Karen. But the one today, is it a DBA change or is it an actual change? And that's what I like. You know, it's kind of the stuff I'd like to know because, you know, this might implicate involvement with IED. And I know, you know, there's an ongoing investigation as to their ultimate suitability. But I just, you know, before approving the name change in their house rules, I want to just understand what process we need to be reviewing. Relatives to change. I mean, my experience is that just changing changing the name is not something particularly substantive and that probably is does not trigger a lot of matters. I'm not sure it triggers regulators authorities. But I think the question is, right? That is the question. Yeah. So I'll turn to Todd then, Todd. You understand that the issue that Commissioner Skinner's raising. Yeah, I think I think everyone has kind of touched on all of the issues I would have just mentioned, but just kind of to wrap it up or try to summit, I would say, I don't believe we have any standard that you would apply as to whether you would allow such a name change. And as has been pointed out, I believe this is just the DBA. It's not the name of the actual licensee. So I don't believe we have a process by which an entity would be required to come to the commission, but certainly, as Karen pointed out, if it is the actual name of the licensee that's being changed, there are certain administrative adjustments that would have to be made. I don't believe that's the case here necessarily. So I will check while we're speaking here, but I don't recall any provision that requires an entity to come for the commission to seek approval for a DBA name change. I don't either. Could we just get confirmation that that is the case here? That that's what's happening with the name change that it is just a DBA? OK, so in terms of moving on this, if we could just table that. Are there other questions for Sturl? I just want to point out Sturl's including statement. One page. What page is that? It's a few thirty thirty five, madam. Thirty five. Thank you. And just not legally, but this change as as Todd was stating, this change is throughout their entire their entire company, right? So they changed this name and my in reading this and my assumption with this is that they're doing this because several other jurisdictions allow eye gaming and hence why they want to put the word and casino. So that is really only the change to the name. And they're doing so to go across all their states. Regulators, all regulators, correct. Do you want to skip this and come back to this? Well, Todd, and go to Crystal or I think that makes sense. Sturl, if you don't mind, are you able to hang on? Absolutely. OK, so I think Todd's just going to check that. And then Commissioner Skinner will circle back if we get the response that makes best sense. OK. Thanks. So now we're going to turn to. Is it item five C then the request for waivers? Bruce, well, there she is. Hi, crystals. Is it five C? OK, excellent. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I haven't been able to say good morning in a while. It's already always good afternoon, so good. Today, as you can see from your packet, I'm presenting the temporary waiver requests from several of our sports waiter and operators in relation to regulations 205 CMR 238. And 205 CMR 248, which are currently in effect by emergency. For each regulation, there are a unique set of dates per operator presented guided by the reasoning articulated in the memo and the full waiver request forms are actually included in the packet. So I won't go over each individual request unless you want me to, but I can quickly summarize. So under 205 CMR 238.45 to E, which is a personally identifiable information security. We have requests from DraftKings, Fanatics, Vanduul and PSI and DraftKings is looking for a date through September 6th, Fanatics is looking through December 30th, PSI through August 1st and Vanduul through the effective date of the final regulation language as published in the Massachusetts interest. The differences are related to exactly what it is they need to identify regarding the changes and the justifications, like I said, are identified in the waiver requests. They're all pretty similar. And again, with 205 CMR 248.16, responsible gaming limits. In this one, the operators are generally requesting temporary waivers through the dates in the packet to implement the technological changes required for those RG limits. If you have any questions specific to requests, I can take them. Otherwise, the sports wagering division review them and really has no concerns of granting such requests. And as with the other waivers, as we've approached, we will log the approved dates and then determine compliance upon the request termination date. We set up a system to do so. So, Crystal, I have two questions. One is, what is the date associated with the Vanduul request? What does that translate into? Good question. Is my handy-dandy legal carry on? That language actually came from legal. It essentially is when legal goes and puts that final language into the mass register, that would be the date. And then that really is extending them some time to evaluate what the commission decides on, and then they'll come to us with a waiver request because at this time, they're not sure how it really affects their technology. So they don't really have an active request right now because it's not- Yeah, they really just said, right now we need the waiver through this period. It's similar to how we did the last ones. They came with that same approach. They want the waiver through this period. And then if needed, they'll put in a waiver for text. Everyone else had just- Oh, thank you. Hi there. Hi, just to add to that too, good morning everyone. The reason that, when Crystal asked me about this, the reason that I didn't give a specific date is because we're just trying to confirm at exactly which meeting these regs are gonna come for final approval. And that will determine when we file them and what then they ultimately go into effect. Thank you. Okay. And the more substantive question I have is, August 1st, September 6th to me, those are pretty imminent. Fanatics 12-30-23, given what we're talking about is a little more troublesome to me. So can you go into some more detail about why it is they're asking for months longer than the other licensees are in front of us today? I don't have a, you know, technical background to give you a really great answer on that. What I have understood is that they are still because they're launching, they're still implementing their technology and they're not in a lot of other jurisdictions. So they're, what they're dealing with is a little bit different from DraftKings, who is in several other jurisdictions already. And I think they kind of just speculated this state based on, you know, they're a smaller tech team. So I'll tell you my thoughts, which are the sort of the other outside date of DraftKings of the nine, six, I'm comfortable with that. But to hear that it's more speculation, more small center, like this is a pretty important regulation that we're talking about. And I don't really want to be giving extensions out on dates on speculation with the, with the argument I'm, I'm small and I can't get there fast because I would want the protections regardless of the size of the company. So speaking as one commissioner, I feel comfortable with the nine, six date at this point, but I wouldn't go beyond that. I have a follow-up to commissioner O'Brien's first question. It's really around the posture of the regulations today. Did we file these as an emergency basis in which case they were effective immediately? And it seems that the operators requesting a waiver are citing technological difficulty in meeting the requirements of the regulation. Did we receive public comment relative to this prior to taking a vote back in June, on June 1st? And it's, if so, it's somewhat troubling to me that we went ahead with the filing on an emergency basis or at least that we didn't also consider a universal waiver at the same time. Can anyone speak to that? I can't speak to that on the data privacy reg, I would need Caitlin's input there, but on the 248.16, the small change in there related to limitations, I don't believe we received any comments on that change in particular before this came to me. And so there, I'm sorry, attorney Monaghan. Sorry, I was just gonna say on the data privacy reg that was not put through by emergency, that is going through the normal process. Okay, would that come back to the definition for, or would that state that attorney Teresee is trying to track down? We're trying to nail it down, yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, Lynn, I didn't hear your answer, I'm sorry. Apologies, we are trying to nail it down. We had wanted it to be the 810 meeting, but that may have shifted, so we're working on a new date. I missed the earlier, your first response. Oh, sorry, the data privacy reg is going through the normal process, not the emergency process. So it was voted on to begin the promulgation process, but it is not currently in effect. So it's not in effect. So we don't know when it's going to be in effect, but we know that they need these waivers. So it's gonna be in effect before August 1st. For the end of August, it'll be in effect. So PSI is that, am I meeting this wrong? That they've asked a waiver for August 1st, so that doesn't lie? Am I wrong here? I may be losing track of the dates. No, you're correct. They're just putting it in because the effective date was not yet determined. So they're saying they need to let least August 1st. So they are gonna have a problem. They're all set. The difference with PSI is also that they're already, because they're going through that technical platform change, they're in the middle of that. So they were just saying, this will be included in that, but that's not ready until August 1st. They were a little bit different from the others. They don't really have to make a change. They just need time to get that included in the transition that they're amidst. My apologies for catching up here. So August, so the dates, it's draftings will need a waiver if this is going into effect through at the end of August because they won't be ready till September 6th. Is that my understanding? The reg will go into effect at the end of August or is it? So we need to determine the date that it's going to come back. I think it has to come back by the 18th or something. So no later than a couple of weeks after that it'll be in effect. Okay. That's on the data privacy regulation, but the other regulation 248, that is effective now because it was filed as. Right. And so that's what I'm trying to get clarification on which one. And my apologies for catching up on this crystal in terms of reading through the waivers. The one that's in effect is not the person. Yeah. Is the, is the personally identifiable information secure? That one is the other one, Crystal. Oh, sorry. I'm reading my backwards. Sorry. It's the RG limits. Yes. 24816 is the one that. That is an effective RG limits. I wanted to make sure we got that straight. So Commissioner O'Brien, I think you were pointing out that the person identifiable information security one is the both very important, but the PII one is not yet in effect. Where? That's the one we're waiting on effective date for. Sorry. I have them written backwards on mine, but in your packet, RG is the second one. So now to, I think, Commissioner Skinner's earlier question with respect to the PII in the standard practice of promulgating a standard regulation, would we have heard from them already or will we hear from them later? You will hear from them. So we are in the process of collecting comments and all the comments will be brought to you at the next meeting. And what we're going to try to do is give ourselves a decent amount of time between when the commission hears those comments and can address those comments and when the RG needs to be filed. And that's not for tomorrow's meeting, correct? Correct. No, this is going to be in August. Okay. And just to add a tiny bit to that, the public hearing on that regulation is scheduled for August 1st. So we'd expect comments to come in between now and then. So Commissioner Skinner, does that help you? Right now they're coming in early to say we've got some tech challenges, but the comment period hasn't expired yet. Sorry, Madam Chair, go ahead. No, no, go right ahead, Commissioner Skinner. On that one regulation 238, I think that's fine. I understand the comments are still coming in. And so I guess one of my questions is review of the waiver requests somewhat premature. Is there a way that we can deal with this issue or the question of a waiver and whether or not we need to extend it universally? When we receive the comments by the deadline, August 1st and have that more fulsome discussion around whether or not a waiver is in order, we have, I think, is it four? At least operators who are seeking out this request. So I think it warrants some consideration. I don't have a problem with entertaining the waiver, whether it's on an individual or universal basis. I just, to Commissioner O'Brien's point, I think we need to really understand the wide variation in the dates requested. Relative to 248, that regulation is in effect now. Likewise, I'm okay with entertaining a waiver. But I think that the same applies. We need to understand why there's such a wide variation. I think Crystal spoke to that a little bit just a minute ago. But I am sympathetic to the requirement, the concern that operators have with the requirement to meet certain technologically difficult deadlines and time frames that we've put forth. So I don't know how we move forward after all that. So let's do it one rag at a time because I think that they are different. Commissioner Maynard, go right ahead. I'll just do that point. And I'll ask Crystal and the team, would it be easier if we set a universal date that was fair for all the operators? Would that be easier from actually tracking these and making sure that it was done? On our end, first, fourth, third division, yes. Which is why, in the last round, because those were emergency regs, we sort of did that in this, they're obviously too separate as you're discussing. The challenge is, we ask for this to give us a little guidance on every team's differing. How long it will take to actually implement something and what the technology already exists versus how they have to change. So we try to get an idea of what that might look like because I'm not the expert working through some technical specifications. So certainly it's up to the commission's discretion on if they want to do that. And then obviously if an operator thinks they would still have a challenge with that date, we could have then asked them if they need to submit an additional waiver. That's up to you. I do think it's easier on our end, but this is just what comes in when we request, like what is it really gonna look like for you? I appreciate that. Based on that, I'm a big believer in the kiss principle, keep it simple, stupid. And so if we can pick a date that's fair for all the operators, put a universal waiver in for each regulation, and if they meet it earlier, great, right? Like if they can get it done earlier, fantastic. That's kind of what I would be in favor of. Can I show Brian? So I'm okay with that, as long as you're looking at maybe the nine six, which would cover, and then Fanatix has to come back with a more realistic assessment. And I'll tell you, because once NFL season starts, I have a huge concern with the fact that these are not functioning and they're not in compliance with it. So I'm comfortable setting the nine six date at this point that gives us the chance to finish the reg that's out there in the terms of 238 and then giving them a chance to either get up and running or get a realistic sense of it. Anything beyond that, I'm pretty uncomfortable going past that given the NFL season. And that would cover all the operators except for one outlier in this regard. Correct. Who at this point it doesn't seem has really given us a clear explanation. It's sort of, you know, and hopefully when that's all, when the reg is clear and they have a better sense of it, they can come back prior to nine six if they need to and say, this is what we need and why. I guess, of course, September day. I'm wondering, Crystal, I understand fanatics is in a different development stage than our other licenses. And we knew that when we licensed them. But I am wondering for them, given the nature of the regulation, do they have some kind of security with respect to PII? And is it just something that we're asking that's technologically more burdensome? Because, you know, to Commissioner Ryan's earlier point, this is a very important reg. And I also know that they probably are not terribly interested in not securing PII. So I guess that's part of the equation too for, I'm not necessarily a fan of universal waiver because we do have a reg and you have a standard on how we issue waivers. We have our regulatory standard to that triggers our expectations. So in essence, what we're, you know, we're no longer looking in a tailored way. So I guess we could do it here, but I wouldn't say it's something that I would endorse as a practice going forward regularly because I think it kind of defeats what should be an exception if we put a reg in place. So with that, I would say if we're going to do move in the direction that Commissioner Maynard and Commissioner Ryan are suggesting, perhaps maybe the licensee fanatics can get back to us to let us know what they do have in place. Because it would be, I'm not sure what happens if in fact they can't meet the waiver date. They'll come back, I assume for another waiver if it turns out that we give a universal waiver to September 6th, but if they can't make that, they come back to us with maybe some more information. And to address that a little bit, the answer is yes, they have something as you alluded to. It's the way they are trying to discern what the clearly and conspicuously language came about and how they would have to make changes to make that the prominent component for withdrawing consent. So I think it's a good poll for them to come back, explain what it would be, and then if they did need more time what it is they'd try to implement. So I appreciate their desire to meet that component of our regulation and expectations. So maybe that would help Commissioner O'Brien address your concerns if we found out what they do have in place, right? It would help, but I'll be honest with you. The December 30th date to me is troublesome to me. This is important to your point. Some of these are in effect already and we have a number of operators who aren't even coming in front of us asking for waivers. So they must have taken care of this already would be my presumption for the lack of them being in front of us today. And we have two of the others coming back with dates within six weeks or so or not having too much. So I still have a problem with coming in with the requests that far out on something that's important. So we could also take them seriatim the August 1st in the nine, six and we could go up to nine, six on Fandall. I wouldn't go any further than nine, six on fanatics either in a certain sense. It doesn't seem that everyone needs it because the other licensees aren't asking for it. They haven't asked yet. All right, where do we want to move? Commissioner Maynard? I'm actually sitting here trying to figure out. I mean, the reason I like the idea of doing it kind of universal is to your point, they haven't asked yet. There could be some operators who haven't seen this yet that may say, oh, oops, I need to get that in. And so picking a date, the latest date that's reasonable before the NFL season to me seems like a totally reasonable date. And then going with that date and then that would allow any operator that may need to polish something up between now and then to get there. But I'm more than willing to hear out a lot. So I guess my concern is by doing, if they can go and they're operating and we have an expectation of a reg being in place on a certain date, what we're really now, but we're only doing it for this reg, right? We'll still consider waivers on a individual basis, because I think to my earlier point, if they didn't have any security on PII, we probably would have a bigger concern than if it's something that has to do with their graphics or something like that. I guess that's my question. And maybe Commissioner Skinner, what you were addressing earlier, like what exactly is their challenge and did it come up in our comments? So that's my only concern, Commissioner Maynard, is if we're giving, what we're giving permission to do. So if we're just gonna say, but this particular or these two or we just get on the PII right now, we'll just extend basically the effectiveness of the reg. We've done that certainly, but when we've had, when we've recognized how our reg was a universal challenge, and that's why it made sense to do a universal waiver. I'm okay with that. I mean, we could do the nine six for the licensees who are in front of us today. They've been following the regs with that comment period. I'd be pretty amazed if they went this far down the road having launched in January or March and they don't have the PII protections in place. Most of the other licensees are pretty experienced licensees and other jurisdictions. I'd be surprised if they were gonna come in front of us and ask for a waiver if they haven't already. We do have a meeting in August if for some reason they did need to come forward they could put in a very discreet request to also get the nine six waiver. Because it might be a component of the reg that's less troubling, right? Then sort of the general essence. Commissioner Skinner, what are you thinking? Commissioner Hill? I'm gonna ask for a summary of what's been proposed because I think I lost track a little bit. Is it for the PII? Let's do one reg at a time. Cause I think that helps because one is in effect and one isn't. So let's have Crystal walk us through 205 CMR 238 and that one to carry in Caitlyn that one is not yet in effect to the middle error and to walk us. So we have four requests for extensions or waivers and they range in time. As Commissioner O'Brien's pointed out then I think what I'm hearing is I maybe to at least extend through September 6th to all four possibly all of our licensees. That's the two alternatives. And if we go to September 6th and that isn't satisfactory they would come back to us with another request for a waiver and perhaps it's limited in scope and we're comfortable with it or perhaps it's not. And it's too broad and we're not comfortable. But this right now that I think there's a couple of questions. Do we extend it to the four here? Do we extend to all licensees or do we actually address each individual request here? So Crystal, is there anything that you want to add that we haven't that would help clarify the conversation? I don't think so. I mean, I think, I would just add I guess that we did press this to the operators so they were aware we were coming forth today for waivers. So if they have not requested one they were certainly aware that they I've been trying to be really proactive about I put this on the agenda if you need a waiver request please put it in. So as far as that goes these are the four who identified they were. So that's help of a commissioner may know your point, right? And can I ask this Crystal without going into the detail on all of their requests? Is it, are they generally narrow challenges or is it a broad challenge on the PII? Sorry, can you clarify? Well, the challenge in terms of meeting the requirements of our regulation is it, is it? Yeah, so if you're asking have they identified that it would just be something they have to upgrade almost? Yes, it's not that they've said, oh, we have nothing in effect. It's that they have to evaluate exactly how to comply with those, with that kind of really particular language. Okay, Carrie, we've got your hands. I do, let's see if I can figure out how to take it down. Apologies, I'm just looking back through the memo and these details. And I think there's a little confusion over the regs we're discussing. The waiver requests are from portions of 238 and a portion of 248, not from 257. 238 and 248 are both in effect. That's correct, right? Caitlyn, 257 is the one that is not. So we're not actually talking about 257. I think I misunderstood when we said the data privacy reg, because that's what we've been calling 257, but this is a portion of 238 related to data privacy. So they are actually both currently in effect. Oh, that's really important clarification. Thank you, Carrie. So they are both in effect. So it's a waiver that's timely then, a waiver request this time, which makes sense. All right, so, and this is on the PII security 238.45. And so knowing that they do need, right now they are saying, they are letting us know they're not in compliances for, but they've all been put on notice, right, Crystal? Correct. Okay, let's just deal with one at a time. Commissioners, now that we have that clarification. So Madam Chair, with that clarification where I am at this point is I would grant the temporary waivers with the September 6th date for the Draft Kings Fanatics Fan Dual PSI. I know Fanatics has asked for December 30th. I think September 6th is appropriate. And again, they can always come back and we can have a further discussion if they don't meet the September 6th deadline. So for 238, that's where I'm at. Thank you. Any questions or comments on that? No, I think that's the reasonable solution. Okay. Excellent. Did you make a motion to that effect? Since it was not my proposal, I did not make the... We don't see no motion. I'm happy if there's agreement there, I can make a motion formally. I agree that that's the reasonable approach here. Yeah, thank you. And it would seem to me to be that as to both, but you wanna do them separately, take 238 first I think we should take off. I think so, because of different issues. Thanks. Yep. I move that's important. I was good for no taking, Commissioner O'Brien. I'm gonna be able to pass the baton on that pretty soon to Jordan, right? Yep. I move that in accordance with 205, CMR 202.033, the commission issued the following waivers and the requirements that are outlined in 205, CMR 238.452E as granting such waivers meets the requirements specified in 205, CMR 102.034 and is consistent with the purposes of General Laws Chapter 23N. As to all of the licensees who requested today, namely DraftKings, Fanatics, FanDual, and PennSports Interactive, that the waiver go through September 6th, 2023. Second. Thank you. I think that I heard Commissioner Maynard's voice first, Commissioner Hill though. Is that all right? All right. Yep. Questions or edits? Good discussion. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. Aye. Well, yes, 5-0. Okay. Then let's go through 205, 248.16, with respect to responsible gaming. Madam Chair, I move that in accordance with 205, CMR 202.033, the commission issued the following waivers from the requirements outlined in 248.16 subsection one, specifically the requirement that the limitations must be clearly and conspicuously displayed, say that three times fast, prior to allowing registration of a new account, the first time a patron makes a deposit into an account, and the first time a patron places a wager from an account, as granting such waivers meets the requirements specified in 205, CMR 202.034, and it's consistent with the purposes of General Law Chapter 23N, specifically as to BetMGM, Fanatics, Fandall, and Penn Sports Interactive, for a date ending September 6th, 2023. Just for clarification, it's BetMGM on 248, right, and not DraftKings, right? It's BetMGM. Does it matter that they... Second. Does it matter that the date we're actually extending it out to September 6th, even though they said August 1st and August 24th? What was the final regulation date? That was my issue there. Is that date later than August 24th? I believe we clarified it's already in effect. Yeah, I got it. So I'm happy to admit that the 24th, if that makes sense. Yeah. Thank you. Second. Any further questions or edits? All right. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Commissioner Skinner, I couldn't quite hear you. Yeah, I didn't respond. Do you have more time? Yeah, can I just, I have a question. Is it just wondering the August 24th date? I mean, that would mean that FanDuel would have two separate dates to work towards in complying with these regulations. I'm just wondering if it just makes sense to stick with the September 6th date for the waiver for both of these, just to allow FanDuel a little bit of additional flexibility since we know that they have asked for December 29th in the first instance. I was supportive of it, Commissioner Skinner, just to give for the team to have a date that they don't have to track it in them. Excel spreadsheet every, you know, 14 different dates for 14 different things. But that's why I initially made the motion that way. Then I would really defer to Commissioner O'Brien on that. I'm going to turn to our council. We had a motion and a second. At this stage, how do I reverse and allow for an edit? Sorry. Sorry, I was still reading up on that other issue. So there was a motion and a second. Yeah, and then I asked for comments and discussion and I went ahead and went through the voting and the commissioner Skinner raised a question then. So we had two affirmatives and now there's a request for a change in the motion and I don't really know how to change what to do. So do we just go ahead on that and then just do a new motion or can I just retract that motion? Yeah, I think particularly if the two members who voted in favor, okay, the moving backwards, we could reset. I thought we had to finish this vote and then you can consider. I think either is probably fine. You can finish the vote, but if there are two members who want to change their vote. Well, I don't want to do that. Yeah, we draw the motion all together. But I think we already started voting. So I think what we can do is I don't want to have anybody go backwards because that's just not a good process. So what we'll do is perhaps commissioner Skinner, we could do, I would be willing to vote nay on this, commissioner Maynard, perhaps- Or we could do abstentions and then it doesn't pass, right? You only have the two of us. Because there's not a quorum. Right, we didn't get- Majority passing, we could do all abstentions and then start a new motion. Right, and then commissioner Skinner could move again. Yeah, I'm happy to do that. A little bit out of order, but we haven't had this happen. So here we are. That's okay, commissioner Skinner, no problem. So commissioner Skinner, why don't you go ahead and let's finish up what we have in front of us and then we'll just start all over. I abstain. Okay, commissioner Maynard. Abstain. And I abstain too. So three abstentions, two yeas. Now, for the record, we recognize that we wanted to have a point of clarification. Commissioner Maynard, do you want to move again? Yes, Madam Chair. I moved that in accordance with 205-CMR20203, the commission issued the following waivers from the requirements outlined in 248.16 subsection one. Specifically the requirement that limitations must be clearly and conspicuously displayed prior to allowing registration of a new account. The first time a patron makes a deposit into an account and the first time a patron places a wager from an account as granting such waivers, meets the requirements specified in 205-CMR102.034 and is consistent with the purposes of general law chapter 23N as to bet MGM, fanatics, fan duel and pin sports interactive through September 6th, 2023. Second. Any questions at its comments? Okay, Commissioner Bryan. Aye. And Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. I vote yes, five, zero. Now we have to return back to Manager Carpenter. I first, we're going to turn to General Counsel Grossman update as to the name change. I think it was a, no, I guess it was game change with the movie. All right. So I'm just going back to, that was under Barstool Home Rule Memo, right? Sterl, good morning again. Morning. It's page 30 that we're going to go back to, I believe. Yeah, 20, 29, yep, 30, yeah. But, it's taller than it, yeah. I'd be happy to jump in. So I first just wanted to clarify, we're talking about the category three tethered license here. This is the license that was awarded to Penn Sports Interactive LLC. So there was no license awarded to Barstool Sports specifically. Barstool, I just went back and looked at the application, is identified as a brand. So they're essentially a DBA and they were not formally approved as such, but that was certainly part of the application. That all being said, we do have a number of provisions in the regulations that govern certain changes. A name change of this sort is not covered anywhere in the regulations that I could detect. The closest that we have are in two areas. One is when there's a legal entity change. So if they were changing, whether it's an LLC to a corporation or changing the whole name of the entity, something like that is covered under section 212.01 of our regulations, that's in section 5K, where we talk about significant financial events and this particular situation would not seem to fall into that category. The second, of course, that you're all familiar with is transfers of interest. So we have those provisions in place to ensure that there is no significant transfers of a license or anything along those lines of that commission approval. So we do have the waterfront covered when it comes to changes, but there is no provision that talks about a name change of this sort anywhere. So as we sit here today, there's no requirement that the commission approve something like this. Thank you, that's very helpful. But just generally, I think that operators should absolutely be notifying the commission of changes such as these so that we know how to refer to them. So no longer barstool sports, it is now barstool sports book in casino. That's correct, right? Are there requests to update their house rules? Correct, I believe they might also be assuming that this is their way of informing us. Yeah, can I say, it's a little strange to be informed through their house rules. I will just say that. Well, I think we have my four waiver. One at a time, please. Isn't the operation certificate also referenced the DBAs? I have a memory that they are referenced on the op certificate. And so we are gonna have to amend the op certificate to appropriately be referencing the correct DBA. So that might be another avenue in which they come to us first before they go with the house rules or maybe it's simultaneously, but that could serve as the notice as well. Okay. So with that still has before us a matter and he did conclude with a concluding statement on page 35, the division confirms that all requirements have been met. Sports Wadring Division has no reservations about moving forward on approving these changes. Thank you, Mr. Olpuk. Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the amendments to the house rules submitted by the category three sports wagering operator Penn Sports Interactive, now DBA Barstool Sports Booking Casino as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, commissioner. Okay. Any questions or edits on this one? Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. I vote yes, five, zero. Great work on the part of the Sports Wadring Division. This is all new. I know that it's time consuming for you. We welcome a discussion on any way that we can help you streamline Director Ban. We hope that the legal team will be working with you to figure out where those efficiencies can be legally achieved. Again, if the regulations can be tweaked in any way to help you on those efficiencies, we have to deal with the statute as is, right? Yes. But our rags are rags and the commission's all ears on how we can help on that, okay? Excellent work. Thank you. Thanks, Crystal. Thanks, Terrell. Thanks, Bruce. Thank you. Bye. Okay, thank you. All right. So now, moving forward on our agenda for today. It's good work done. We now have another big piece of business, our Community Affairs Division. Good morning, Chief Delaney. It's still morning too. That's good news. Indeed. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Today, we have a couple of things to discuss with you. The first is the East of Broadway development itself and how we move forward on that. And also, I forwarded you a draft letter this morning at the request of Commissioner Hill to have a discussion about potentially sending a letter to the city of Everett, just outlining what some of the concerns that came out of our public hearings were. But I think at first, I'd like to take up the East of Broadway review and what will happen there and then we can talk about that. Right. And to put everybody at ease, that did come in early this morning. So probably what we'll do is have you just on the letter, just put it on the screen and we can walk through it. Sure. Okay. Absolutely. So let's start with your first item, Joe. Good morning. So we've held a couple of public hearings now on the East of Broadway application. We got a lot of input from a lot of folks. And what our next step in the process now is to actually start the review of this project to see if we want to move forward with it. Working with Todd, we came up with essentially what this is doing is modifying the gaming license to include the East of Broadway development as part of the gaming license, which will then require a modification to the operation certificate, which would happen towards the end where when construction is close to complete. And then also we will need to amend the section 61 findings as part of the Meeper process. So to move forward, we've put together a request for information from Encore. And I thought I would just walk through those items. And what I would like to get today out of the commission is if the commission is okay with this letter to send it out, or if there are any other areas that the commission would like to see addressed as part of this, we could certainly add those in and send that letter out. I think we want to get out something soon to Encore so that they can move ahead with the process. But just walking through the points in the letter, obviously we need a set of plans of the facility we are asking for the overall site plan. We would like to see four plans of each floor. We do want to see building elevations. We want to see renderings. We essentially want to see a set of plans that will give the commission a really good idea of exactly what this thing is going to look like and what it's going to entail. We are also asking for plans for any renovations of areas on the existing Encore Boston Harbor site. For instance, if memoir is going to be moved across the street, we'd like to know what they're proposing in its place. We also want to know how many new employees this project is going to have, both on the construction side and that permanently. We also would like to know about the number of gaming positions that are being proposed over in the new development and what impact that has on the overall number of gaming positions in the overall development. I think as you might remember, the project was conditioned on a certain number of gaming positions. And we always keep tally of that, but we need to know what that's going to be. We're asking for a high level summary of the traffic and parking related impacts. The environmental impact report that was submitted for this project, the traffic study entails about 2,500 pages, which I didn't think the commission would be particularly interested in perusing, although it's available if you would like to. So we are asking for a summary of this work. And of course, this is being reviewed very extensively by MEPA and MassDOT and others with respect to traffic. So, but we definitely want to know what's going on there. And also if there are any physical improvements that are being proposed on roadways and so on would like to see plans of those roadway improvements. We like their discussion on the lead of the leadership and energy in environmental design. In the earlier presentations, they indicated that this would be at least lead gold, but we certainly want to see what those commitments are going to be in any final submission to us. A discussion of the security and safety measures being put in place for the new development. I think Commissioner O'Brien had expressed interest in this early on with the bridge and the parking garage across the street. Now, of course, this will be under our jurisdiction at this point, but we do want to see some information on that. Joe, on that point, I think it was something that was universal. We've spent a lot of time. I think we had conditions on the earlier... We did. So are those just lifted? Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, if this project moves ahead, that would just be superseded. There's no... Okay, thank you. Because we spent a lot of time on the garage and the bridge. So I just wondered... So we could actually incorporate those concerns, right? Yeah, and presumably any approval that the commission would issue would likely have a number of conditions attached to it. Thank you. We are asking for an update on the MEPA process and one that's anticipated to be completed. And just for your information, the Encore has received a decision on their draft environmental impact report, which allows them to go to their final impact report. I will send a copy of that decision out to the commissioners just for your information. They do need to do some additional work with respect to parking and mitigation and a few other things. So their work certainly is not done in that area, but that will still probably take a couple more months before that is completed. We would like an update on the status of Encore's current section 61 findings. The presumption is that this project will ask to modify some of those section 61 findings since it's an addition to the facility. So we'd like to get an update on where that stands. We're looking for a workforce and vendor diversity plan for the construction and operation of the new facility. I think in this case, with the construction we'd like to know what their commitments are with respect to diversity. The presumption is under operation, they would probably just add this to their existing operations plan. Let's see, we're also asking for an update on the current status of the project permitting, the site plan review, the cities, owning changes, all of the other permitting that they need to go through. We don't wanna know where that stands. Now, these other items are things that particularly came out of the public hearing. We would like to know what Encore's plans are with respect to reopening the host and surrounding community agreements. We certainly heard loud and clear at the hearings that folks were very much interested in seeing the host community agreement be reopened. We've heard from a couple of parties on the surrounding community agreements requesting the same thing. So we do wanna understand what their plans are with respect to that. And we need to remember on all of these host and surrounding community agreements that the commission is not a party to these agreements. These are between Encore and the cities and towns. So while we certainly have an interest in them, we are not a direct party to those. We're also asking them to discuss any impacts the project may have on police fire and EMS services and any proposed mitigation. Also the impact, what impact that might have on the gaming enforcement unit. Again, these were issues that we heard loud and clear from the public hearings that people were very much interested in that. And also one, another thing that we heard quite often was understanding the efforts being undertaken by Encore to ensure labor harmony both during construction and subsequent operations of the facility. And this last item, a commitment we believe was made by Encore to the city regarding affordable housing. And we haven't heard directly from Encore about that. So I think we do wanna understand what that commitment is that Encore has made to the city with respect to affordable housing. So those were the items that we identified in the review of the public hearings and all of the various documents and regulations that we have to move forward on this. So with that, I'll open it up to the commission to see, A, if you have any additional areas that you would like us to look at and also just to get a sense of the commission. I don't think we really need to vote, but I think we can get a sense of the commission on whether or not we're ready to send this letter out to Encore. Mr. Nersh, questions or comments from Joe? Comprehensive Joe, thank you. You really captured so much of our conversations and hearings, so thank you. Commissioner Hill. First of all, thank you, Joe, for all the work you're doing in this regard. And to my fellow commissioners, I went over the letter with Joe that has been proposed today. And I think it really reflects what we had heard during our public hearings. And I think it's done in such a way that we're not mandating or demanding anything we're highly suggesting that the city look into these proposals that we put forth. So in regards to the letter, with the exception of, there was one sentence and I've talked this over with Joe, when we actually give a dollar amount of how many thousands of dollars we've given to the city in regards to public safety and traffic that we would add a sentence that just said, if anybody would like to sit down and talk further regarding these grants that we would be more than happy to do so. But otherwise, overall, the letter, I think is excellent. And I'd be more than happy to support. Commissioner Hill, did I, I think we're still talking about Jackie's letter, right? As opposed to the city's letter. I stand corrected. I'm wondering if I missed that. So I need a point of clarification from Joe. In regards to what's going to encore, it's an excellent letter and there would be nothing I would add. I think we've captured everything. And I thought when you were asking for opinions, it was on both. So I apologize. My apologies. I wonder if we wanted to deal with Jackie's letter first. Now, why don't we get that done first and then we can move on to the other. And I'll share that, the letter that we put together and kind of walk through it a little bit. So hold your thought, Commissioner Hill, because we'll talk about that amendment in a second. My apologies. No, no, no problem. I think we should just separate them out. But on Jackie Crom's letter, the draft letter, again, I thought it was very thorough and represented our discussion and our hearings. Commissioner O'Brien. So I agree, Joe. I know this is a lot of work. Thank you to you and your whole team. The one area that I feel like we should be more forceful on when I look back at the original process in relation to the host community agreement and then the granting of the license is number 11. And it sort of says, you know, please discuss your plans with respect to that. I feel like, you know, they weren't supposed to comment and Karen and Todd, you were here before me, but I think the execution of that chronologically was supposed to happen prior to sort of some advancement when this initially happened. And so to me, the leverage that the community has and that was probably one of the biggest areas of the public comment area in terms of what people wanted to see happen. I'd like to see that more forceful. I'd like to see a very specific commitment to reopening it and what the timing is on that because I do feel like the time for the city to act is now. Mangle. And may it over squeeze. I've been trying to get rid of them for like 20 minutes. So Commissioner O'Brien, just to help out, do you have any suggested language or what would you like to say? Maybe something even more pointed in terms of please provide the commission with a report by, and we pick a date, the status of EVH's discussions or with the city in regards to the reopening of the host and surrounding community agreements. Because to me, again, the time to act is right now. And I think putting a deadline on in process to say we want to hear what's going on. I do think we have not only the right to do that, I think we have an obligation to do that given that there's no other referendum happening. So if we set something, if we provide the commission a report by a date certain, I think it could just be with the submission of the entire package. I'd like a little earlier because I don't, this is a, for me, that's a priority in terms of that's not us, but I do think that that's a priority that needs to be addressed. So it may be that we're gonna have to do supplementals, but I do think that something out 45 days from now, something like that pretty soon to say, what's the status? Because I think as your letter that we'll get to in a moment lays out, there were a couple of topics that were top of mind at the citizenry and Everett, and that was definitely one of them. Yeah. Okay, so if we do something, I'd please provide the commission a report within 45 days on the discussions on core as had with the host and surrounding regarding this development and the status of those agreements coming to that effect. One minute, Bruce, I think you wanna mute. Cause we can hear your conversation a little bit. Yeah. I can't concentrate either, what do I do? I think you might wanna mute. Thank you. I'll set. Sorry, Joe. No need to compromise somebody's conversation. Did you work out the language as that? Yeah, so please provide the commission a report with say within 45 days on the discussions on core as had with the host and surrounding community, surrounding communities with respect to the status of those host and surrounding community agreements. Hopefully get out of that. Are any reopening or amendments? And there may be obviously parts of it, they hold back on, cause they're in the middle of negotiations necessarily, but just the status, the fact of it and the status of it, I think we should ask for. Yeah. Yeah. And Joe, I know that we received, I've received a letter that I believe Grace distributed from the mayor of Medford. I don't know if we've received, that's off the top of my head, my apologies if we've received others that I'm not aware, but would you mind attaching those, maybe like do a reference. Oh yeah. Sure, sure. They're increased, if there's been others, it would be maybe helpful. So they know that not only did we hear in orally at hearings, but we've also had some written submissions. Right, right. Absolutely. The only other contact that we have had was with the city of Boston. They had contacted me, this was some time ago, just via email said that they were interested in doing that and I sent them our regulations to talk about reopening and saying that they would be to initially contact encore and so on. And whether they have done that or not, I do not know, but. Okay. Should we be sending out CC copies or to the hosts and surrounding communities at this letter? We could certainly do that. CC them. Yeah, that's good. CC them, yeah. Commissioner Skinner, did you have, were you gonna make an additional thought or a new topic or did you just wanna make sure Commissioner O'Brien's all set with that one? This is new, this is a general comment on the letter itself. Okay, so I think she just gave a thumbs up on her issue, Commissioner Skinner. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the letter is very comprehensive. You might recall, Joe and Todd, I had asked for the opportunity to understand a little bit better. The components that went into the RFA to process for gaming originally. And I did get an opportunity to review 119, 205 CMR 119. So I think your instincts were spot on. The only thing I would throw out for consideration is on the problem gambling mitigation measures. I know Game Sense is prominently situated in the main location, but wondering if this would be an opportunity to discuss perhaps a Game Sense satellite office for the new projects. Given that, as the arrangement is now, I guess any patron needing those services would have to walk across the bridge to engage. So just throwing that out for consideration, maybe we wanna add a small piece to that, at least make the request that they speak to us about what their mitigation plans will be around problem gambling. Yeah, sure, I think we could definitely add a sentence and another bullet in there to tell us what your plans are with respect to problem gambling, Game Sense, et cetera, that obviously they'll certainly need to have, at a minimum, have signs and other things over there like they're required at other places, but and that's certainly on any application that we get, certainly be a topic of discussion if we think that that's something that is desirable to have some kind of a satellite. Office or even if it's a kiosk or something for that. Can I ask a follow up question? First off, did I miss that because that was an area that I thought we should flush out? Is there anything in here right now and did I miss it? With respect to problem gambling, there is not. So I think it would be helpful to maybe speak with Director Vandalinden to see, because I don't even know if we, if he would want to use the term problem gambling or response, you know, just whatever it's, yeah. So that would be really, really helpful. And I, you know, this is the time if we do want additional space, this is the time to ask for it, correct? Commissioner Skinner. So thank you for bringing that one up. Yeah. And I apologize if I have the terminology wrong. I just used the language. I just turned to Mark, whatever he wants, right? Good idea. Yeah. I have another question, but I think Commissioner O'Brien might have a follow up to this topic. It's just, it's a follow up to what you were saying where it's implied in number one is whether there's going to be other space for any sort of GEU, even if it's some small space, so they don't have to keep running all the way back. Whether, when we're looking at number one, the plans maybe add in there, including any, you know, any space for, you know, the MGCGEU presence. Yeah, it could be, you know, for commission staff. I mean, you know, gaming agents will need to be over there. Yeah. Commissioner Skinner, did you have another one? I did. This is relative to the commission's decision initially that the expansion would not constitute part of the gaming establishment. I just think it would be a good idea. I know there were a couple of conditions placed on the project at that time, you know, as we were considering it going forward or at the commission at the time was considering allowing it to go forward just to make sure that there, whatever conditions that still apply, get captured in this letter as well. And really, you know, generally, maybe whether or not we need to sort of revise that decision because it is now, it is now not accurate. So I raised that earlier about the conditions. I kind of disrupted Joe's presentation. Again, my apologies for that, but it was on my mind. What I think Joe, you said is that this will supersede and but we'll want to make sure that that's all done legally. Yeah, that would be, I think essentially that decision would just be void because we were, we said in that decision that this is not part of the gaming establishment and that we don't have authority over it with the exception of these couple of areas that we want to see additional information on. In this case, we would be making that determination that it is part of the gaming establishment and would be modifying the gaming license itself to incorporate this property. And then presumably on all of this, just if you indulge me for a minute, going forward, what we will likely be doing is once we get this application in, we'll be getting several staff members together to review these, the IEB will need to take a look at them, Burke and Bruce will need to take a look at them. And I'm sure we'll have a number of comments on these and probably several conditions that we would want to add onto any decision that the commission makes. So I think we can certainly any conditions that were on that original application that would still be pertinent to this, we can simply transfer into any decision that we want to, that we have. Yeah, because to commissioner Skinner's point, my memory is while we said it was non-gaming, we did add conditions to the gaming license. And so there are conditions that are going to have to be reviewed because to her point, they may be moved to this point. Yeah, and I think the other thing that we could do is in any motion that we make, we could rescind that earlier decision and replace it with this one. And that would probably clean it up. I'll leave that up to Todd. There were some, we were concerned about going back and forth in the bridge. So we want to take a look at exactly what that was and make sure any concerns we still had were rolled into the new one. Absolutely. Now I have to recreate the wheel. Yes. That's for sure. That was really my point on the bridge and the garage because we did have such extensive conversations. So that's really smart to roll over if we can. Other? Okay, I'm sorry, I missed your comments earlier. I spent about five minutes. I had to go off camera to find my notes. And the reason why I couldn't find them was because I had properly filed them away for once. Never loved one. That's the trick. Never put them in and get organized and you forget. No, but it was, I actually disrupted slightly because I had that on my mind that we didn't want to have to recreate the wheel. Can I just throw in as we think about the issue around of the hostess surrounding community agreements? Should we be asking about the I Love Again? Or is that conditional worked out, you think? Well, they have an existing I Love. I mean, we can certainly ask that question, what their plans are with respect to the I Loves and the... Yeah, because I mean, that was such a focus of our last, I'm assuming it's not going to, I'm assuming they're gonna comply fully, but I know we should at least add a courtesy to the local. A courtesy to the local. Yeah, I'll add that one in. Okay. Because don't they have a statutory obligation to communicate with them? I think that's... And there was maybe, yeah, a little lag in that compliance. Yeah, there's not much of statutory much with respect to I Loves. Or maybe it was within the four corners of the I Love itself that they were supposed to communicate with. Yeah, I think there is supposed to be certainly some communication. Yeah. Other questions or issues on this? And so the intention, Joe, is to send this to Encore and then they start working. If we thought of something else, we would be able to go back to them, correct? So the last, right after number 14 says, please note the commission reserves the right to provide further information as the process proceeds. And so on. I stopped at 14. Thank you, perfect. We don't anticipate having to do that too much. So at this point, did the commission want to see the letter with the revisions? Or are you okay with me sending it? You're adding those in and sending them out. Commissioners, I think I would recommend where I'll set. What do you think? I would be all set. Makes sense to me. Fine, I'll go along with that. All right. If you want to see it, I mean, by all means. I mean, I will send it for somebody in town. Oh, certainly. This is good. The commissioner Skinner, this is good. She's, see, this is good, right? Okay, excellent. So thank you, Joe. That was really thorough. So that's the Encore letter. Now, why don't I share the letter to Everett? And then commissioner Hill, why don't you lead with what you, your recommended change so that when we're, well, maybe when it gets to the point, Joe's going to walk us through it. I'll walk through in general. So, you know, commissioner Hill had asked me to, to put together a letter to the city, outlining some of the major concerns that we heard at the public hearings. Yeah, Joe, I just want to, I do want to just mention this because I think it's a courtesy to Mr. Hill. He did raise this issue in a public meeting about a desire to follow up after our hearing. And then in speaking with Brad, we thought that this might make, be the right approach commissioner Hill. So this is where we are, but I just want to make sure that everybody knew that he did start with all of us and indicate this goal. So thank you. And then I think you were considered the person, right person to do the drafting. So we appreciate that, Joe. Thank you. Okay, so essentially there are a few points that we brought out here. The first one obviously was the adequacy of the referendum vote. We heard from a number of folks that when asked that they didn't envision expanded gaming across Broadway when they originally voted on the project and believed that there should be an additional referendum for this project and what we're saying here, the commission has already weighed in on this matter back in February, but we did indicate that the city could consider adding a non-binding question to one of its upcoming elections. There is a primary in September and there's a general municipal election in November if they wanted to do that. This would just give the city a much better gauge on their level of support. So I don't think we're recommending it or not recommending it, just giving that as an option. The second item was the reopening of the host community agreement. I didn't mention the surrounding community agreements here since that doesn't affect them directly, but we did hear from many commenters that host community agreement be renegotiated. And I did tell them about the regulations that we have that identify which triggering events that allow for the reopening of mitigation agreements and the construction of this East Broadway development would appear to meet those standards for a reopening of an agreement. And in fact, their host community agreement has provisions for reopening it as well. And I would imagine that the city is already in conversations with Encore, but I don't know that for sure, but I think we still just wanted to bring up what we heard at the hearing from many, many folks. Then the other key item was impacts on traffic and public safety. We did hear from a number of folks that there are increased demands on the Everett Police and Fire Department, and we did hear about problems with traffic on lower Broadway and Everett in general. And we did hear, we talk a little bit about, you know, those issues are sort of city issues and their issues with the deeper process and so on, but we did want to mention here that we know that they get an impact fee to help address those issues, but over and above those we've provided as part of the Community Mitigation Fund, in your copy, there's a blank there on the dollar value, but we added up everything that we've awarded to the city and it's over $6.2 million for projects to assist the city in all of the various categories, long-term community planning, transportation planning, transportation construction and quite a bit of money for both police and fire departments to upgrade equipment and have increased patrols and so on. So essentially that is really the gist of it. And I guess the question is whether the commission wants to submit a letter to the city and how to do that or if there are any changes that the commission would like to see. Shaham? I'll start by saying, Joe, thank you once again for your hard work in helping us to go back and look at what we've actually done. During the hearings that we had, I was very concerned when I was hearing from folks that I don't think they really understood what we had done for them in terms of grants and things of that sort. And I felt strongly that we should let the citizens know what we have done to help with some of the issues that they brought forward. I also suggest highly and thank you for putting it in the letter regarding a possible non-binding vote, just to get a sense where the city is at this point, many years later. So I think that language is excellent. And I think the third piece of the letter showing what we have done was excellent. I would urge us as a commission to send this to the letter and to the mayor and CC to the city council. And the only thing that I suggested earlier is that if anybody would like in the city to sit down with Joe or the commission itself, whatever the case may be that we offer that up to them. That would be awesome. Otherwise I think it's a, it envisions what I had hoped we could do as a commission in getting language and a conversation in regards to the hearings that we had. Commissioner Hill, I echo your, the invitation they come, we have had elected officials in the past come to the public meetings and it would give them an opportunity too to express their viewpoint. So I like that addition a lot. And of course with Joe and the team too for more of the technical stuff, but if they want to really put their positions out publicly, we could accommodate that, right? I would hope so. I like the letter a whole lot. So thank you, Joe and thank you, Commissioner Hill. Commissioner O'Brien. I do, I like it. I think it sums up what Commissioner Hill brought up one of the last meetings in terms of how to get it across. My only request or recommendation is the last sentence in the second bullet. There's currently just a small typo before it says impasse in reached in negotiations. I'm thinking the better way to end that sentence is to say the commission to become involved in reopening agreements if negotiations reach an impasse. So to just rewrite it that way as opposed to what's written now. Other than that, I like that. I think it's great. It should definitely go out. Commissioner Maynard. Just to note that I appreciate Joe for putting this together and see the benefit of my colleagues every day. And in this letter in particular, I see Commissioner Hill's history of being a local elected official and seeing it from the other perspective. This is a good communication from a state agency to a local government. So I appreciate it. Commissioner Hill. Mr. Skinner, are you all set? I'm sorry if I missed this, Joe and Commissioner Hill. Do we have a final dollar figure for the total community mitigation fund amount? I was reading as Joe was. Yeah, it's 6.2 million. Thank you. And then could I get clarification on who the signatory is going to be on this letter? Is it Joe? It could be me, could be executive director, it could be the chair, whoever you like it, I guess. They have the block of all five of our signatures. We very often have all five of us on. I'm excited as the entire commission. Oh, I might not read, I must not have the latest version. So I'm looking at the signature blocks on there to your point. Okay, we could. We typically, when it's coming in front of us like this and we vote to submit something, we put all five signatures and Grace can help with that. Okay. Grace and Trudy. Grace or Trudy or Grace and Trudy? Yeah. Okay. I have a couple of just administrative edits that I will send to Joe. I don't, I won't bore you with them. There are not many, just a couple of commas, I think needed to be added in here or there. All right, anything else you want to vote? Are you all right just sending it out? I think if we have the sense of the commission that we want to send it out, I don't think we particularly need a vote. Okay. So commissioners, you're all set without taking any formal action. We have a consensus. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. That concludes my matters for today. Excellent work, Chief Delaney. Anything else commissioners? I'll set for Joe. Just on this letter, I'm sorry, since the five of us will be signing, I would like to take a look at it once again before it goes out. Sure, absolutely. Once you make all the edits, thank you. Okay, it is now noon. We have one more item on our agenda for today and that's with respect to reviewing the job description, but we also are going to benefit from A&K as we think about the executive director search. Does anybody, we have Mina just joining us. Hi, but I'm seeing commissioner O'Brien raising her hand. Mina, if you could bear with us, we have been in our seats since 10. Sure. Commissioner O'Brien, what would you like for relief? What I'd like is a 15 minute break to grab something to eat so we can hopefully come back and wrap up fast and not have to break for lunch. Is that where you feel, Kamina? Oh, absolutely. I'm free until three o'clock, so. Excellent. Can I ask for 20? I've been in my seat since 9.15 because we had the regulation hearing. It seems fair to me. All right, so is everybody all right? Are we turning at 1220? Is that sufficient time? Yep. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Dave, for putting up the screen. We'll return at 1220. Okay, if you can take down the screen, please. Okay. So this is the convening of the Massachusetts Game Commission. We're holding the meeting virtually. Someone will do a roll call. Commissioner O'Brien, good afternoon. I am here. Good afternoon. Commissioner Hill, I'm here. Commissioner Skinner. Good afternoon. And Commissioner Maynard. Good afternoon. Okay, and we've got Trinity McCarris joining us today. Thank you so much. Afternoon. All right, so we're returning to last item on our agenda. I want to thank the team, really productive earlier sessions this morning and now we're turning to our next job to search for the quote unquote permanent executive director. Very excited that we took care of yesterday's business and now have our interim establishment again, our thanks to both Tom and Alex yesterday. Both, no, we could say it over and over, but it really did mean so much to have such a very good process yesterday. So thank you, Todd. And congratulations again, and we'll get started with some input from NK on what an executive director search might look like as we seek to comply with the open media law and best practices around employment and hiring. Thanks, Mina. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon commissioners. This is a, I'll do a brief recap of our last conversation on this, I think the topic for discussion today is the job description that's in your packet at pages 78 to 80 for the executive director. As I mentioned last time, the commission has some flexibility in how it conducts a search for the permanent executive director position, but there are some limitations under the open meeting law to be aware of and therefore some best practices that have arisen. The commission can delegate to one individual, including one commissioner, the process of screening applications for the executive director search, if it chooses to delegate to a group that's larger than one individual, it would need to establish a screening committee. That screening committee can't, under the open meeting law, include more than two commissioners. So it can include a quorum of the commission and the screening committees work just as with the interim process cannot result in the selection of the final recommended candidate. It has to present a number of two or more candidates to the full commission for review and public interviews just as you went through with the interim process. There are a couple of competing interests, obviously throughout the process to be mindful of. One is transparency and keeping everybody in this group in the loop with the privacy and applicants who might not want their name to be put forward or made public until they're ready to, until they're closer to a finalist position. Because of that, the practice that has typically been followed by many public entities in the state has been to have the screening committee go through the initial work of one working with the Entities Human Resources Department, Mr. Mulder in this case, to put out the job description, the essentially the job posting with or without the help of a search firm. We talked a little bit last time about some of the pros and cons of utilizing a search firm. And then those applications are typically vetted by the screening committee who can keep the full commission apprised of how the process is going in broad terms, how many applications have been received, generally where the screening committee is in the review of those. It's projected timeline for reviewing them. And then the screening committee typically will present a group of finalists. As I mentioned, it can't be fewer than two people but it can certainly be more. And different public bodies have asked for different numbers of folks to be presented to them depending on the size of the search and the interest there. The commission can then, once it has the finalists, either interview all of them or have a public deliberation over some of the applications for that final group. That is if you establish a screening committee. The other option which can be one or a mix of options is to have a screening committee that, excuse me, to have a process with no screening committee where all five commissioners make it part of your regular agenda to run the search process. The complication with that of course is at the initial phases of the search that means having to publicly discuss all of the applications that come before you unless that process is delegated to one individual, either a commissioner or an HR person or a search committee to vet and bring you as a smaller subset. So there's some flexibility in the number of folks that you discuss publicly but for all five members to discuss that that part has to be public. And Madam Chair, I'll pause there for any questions before turning back to you for discussion of the actual job description and thoughts on next steps. Commissioner's questions for Mina on the process. I don't think we have to make any decisions on the process yet as we consider the job description but now you have that high level background and that's all in accordance with the open meeting law requirements. So Mina, I have a question for you in terms of, there was a discussion about search firms a while back, one of the last times we talked about this. And there are also screening committees where you pull in the expertise of non-employees like let's say a former commission member, a commissioner or something that comes in and assists maybe the one or two commissioners and other staff who are on that screening committee. Absolutely, it is actually quite common Commissioner O'Brien to do that to have a screening committee consist largely of members who are not members of the body itself but can have some expertise in the job or in what is needed to do the job. And that's different from hiring sort of a private headhunter firm, right? Correct, and they're not mutually exclusive. For instance, I can tell you from personal experience a lot of entities when they'll do outside let's say town council screening will have a committee of lawyers in town but also will have a professional who solicits that job for city solicitor or town council or the like. Right, okay, thanks. Other questions for Mina? Madam Chair, the one thing I would just add to what Commissioner O'Brien said is just as you did with the interim screening it's also appropriate and sometimes very helpful to dedicate particular staff as a staff liaisons to the screening committee if you are going to establish one. Keeping in mind just as Grace did in this case with the interim committee there will be a need for minutes, meeting postings all the regular things that happened with the committee as well as sometimes it's helpful to have a sort of intake person who's sort of sorting through applications figuring out whether applications are complete, et cetera preserving their privacy and so on. Other questions? And that screening committee just to be clear again would go through all the applications and assess them and determine what would be a final group and the commission could decide the size of the final group. The commission could say if there's 10 we want half if there are 20 we want half and it's 10 I don't know if you've ever seen that or they could at least advance two finals. Madam Chair, I have, I've seen the decision made all the way at the beginning of the process of we'd like you to come up with the final three or I've seen the decision sort of be made as applications are rolling in and sort of the pool is finalized. The report back might be we have a hundred applications which might cause the commission to say well we'd like to see more of those since there's so many versus if you have fewer you might want to see, you know the decision could really go either way and could be made as you go through the process it doesn't have to be made at the onset. Mr. Maynard, questions? So I have a question about thank you Mina for this explanation it's very helpful. Could the entire commission help establish boundaries and guidelines for the subcommittee and let me give you a good example. If I'm trying to figure out the process of how the posting's happening, you know what date the posting is can the entire commission come together with that and then give it as a charge to the committee? Absolutely. Yeah, so for instance you're about to embark on a conversation on the executive director job description, right? You could have, continue to have discussions on that on places and areas where you'd like to see the posting happen, how long you think it's wise to keep it up sort of when you'd like to see the process begin really the screening committee's role is to provide the interim step between that and when the applications, when the applications come in and before you get finalists for your review and their charge can be broader or narrower just like any other delegation to a subcommittee of the commission would be. Thank you, that's very helpful. Are there questions? All right, should we turn to the job description then? Any guidance that you wanna provide Meena for us in terms of statutory laws, guidance or anything like that? Madam chair, I think not much that I would say on the job description other than I would suggest referencing chapter 23K and 23N within the job description to alert somebody to review that that there are statutory obligations. I am struck of course, and I'm fortunate that the role is big as Executive Director Wells knows it takes three pages to describe even at a high level what it does, but beyond that, I think it is important that that applicants be aware that there is a legal basis for this, but that there is also some flexibility based on what the commission assigns to the Executive Director and what the Executive Director discovers needs to be done to keep things going, right? So other than that, I think the rest of this is more of a policy and legal discussion. In section three outlines our responsibilities in terms of hiring, some perhaps we would reference that and then also what the Executive Director has in terms of some very precise statutory obligations. I don't know if everybody's had a chance to review that section. Okay, how would you like to proceed, commissioners, in terms of going through the job description? So my question is the one that I saw originally looked a little outdated and I'm wondering, and I know Karen's had a ton of her play trying to get the transition memo and stuff out the door, but maybe we start with anything that she noticed that was sort of glaringly omitted from the draft that we saw. And just to be clear, we did try to get the most up to date Grace sought that out and worked with Karen and this seems to be the one that was, I guess, used to hire Executive Director Petrosian, I don't know. I have had time to look at it, that's the place to start, whatever's helpful. I would find that helpful. I would too, and that was gonna be my comment to start as well. Thank you, Karen, go ahead. So just looking at this, I agree with the chair that referring to 23K section three is very helpful and even some of the specific language in there. It's subsection, I talks about Executive Directors should serve with the French and Commission, so we'll see, I don't think you need to get the seller, but the Executive shall be the person who's still experiencing management to be the Executive Administrative Head of the Commission and be responsible for administering and enforcement for the provisions there after sort of paraphrasing a little bit. I would put that right at the beginning because that is the actual statutory director of what the Executive Director's goal is. I see that the second paragraph in that the job description sort of says that, but I would put the exact language in and then add the rest of that language in the second paragraph. I see that the first paragraph that's already in there, it seems to be more geared towards sort of the implementation of casino gaming rather than where we are now, which is casino game is implemented, actually implemented sports wagering as well. And it's sort of this new phase of sort of a regulatory enforcement body. So I would include casino gambling, horse racing and sports wagering as the overarching responsibilities of the agency. And then I just had some notes with respect to some of the bullet points. In duties and responsibilities, I think it's one, two, three, four, if six, if there's six one down talks about coordination priority setting. It uses the term directors. I would just change that to senior staff. And then the next two bullet points talks about these annual and individual business plans and monthly steps. I'm not even sure what that is. I don't know if we've ever done that at the commission. Could you say that one again? Maybe we should number these because- Yeah, I can pull it up on this. Or it's going to come a little more helpful. Senior staff, do you feel that is it limited to senior staff? Cause I'm not even sure what senior staff is, Karen. Oh, well maybe that's the, so I have the org chart. And so I do senior staff means that includes not only the deputy director, the head of the IEP, your CIO, CFO. Some people don't have that director title. There's only a few with the director title, but I see that as sort of the division heads and that could be another term. Yeah, so I guess I'm just wondering if it's really going to be helpful for the next person. What, how you've interpreted that to mean? Yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of the, you know, your sort of director reports. We have a, you know, our agency is a little bit different because you have the, in the IB, which has a direct activity director that reports to the chair. And then you have the, you know, the rest of the senior staff report to the executive director. So it's a little trickier than it's a little different model, but you could even just put the till it takes communication, coordination, priority setting, you know, with commission leadership and commissioners or something like that. It's just a little broader tone to it because I think the executive director would talk to a lot of people. And then the next two bill of points, one was presents annual and individual business plans and gains approval from the commissioners. You know, I hadn't seen this document before we started talking about this. So I'm not sure what that is. And we haven't done anything like that. Do you think it means like strategic planning and versus the annual reports that have to be done? Yeah, I mean, it's got, and then the next bullet point is produces monthly status report to be measured against the annual business plan and the cheese monthly courty and annual business objectives set by the commission. So I'm assuming what this is getting into is performance metrics. So, you know, what kind of performance metrics are we holding our, you know, our team to. So we have done some work on that through the internal audit and compliance working group. And I think it was last year before sports, everything's before sports wagering and after sports wagering. But, you know, we talked about, you know, setting up compliance calendars, things we have to do, certain divisions operate differently. So for example, the licensing division, you know, performance factors, how many applications have the process? What's the, what's the time for application average? Those kinds of things, easier to do performance metrics on those. Things like the legal department might be a little tricky or, you know, there are some things you can do like turnaround time for public records requests and things like that. But some other things are a little more, so I guess broader thinking involved in the sort of how you would, how you would put some kind of performance metrics on that. So I think the concept of that is really helpful. So maybe it's something like, you know, establishes appropriate performance metrics, measures for divisions and reports regularly to commission or something like that. But I think that's what they're trying to get at. I just don't know, you know, this business plan, I've never seen that within the agency. So that's just a comment. The next bullet point talks about managers that employs a diverse group of employees, consultants, agents and advisors, including legal counsel, accounting and audit staff and field agents. You could rework the terminology. I mean, we're talking about gaming agents, I don't know the term field agents, but it's basically that we're dealing with a lot of different folks that are helping us in the early part of the history of the commission. There's a lot of, you know, work with consultants, you know, and advisors and outside counsel, things like that. We have morphed into more of a self-sufficient agency compared to when we started back, you know, say in 2013 where we had a lot of consultant help. So I think that could be tweaked a little bit. The only other thing in the next bullet point, it talks about overseas development of extensive legal and regulatory policy. It may be helpful, you know, I see that commission is more of the sort of the policy directors and the executive director is more of the implementer, but you could, you know, that's just a note. The other thing is the next item, overseas and coordinates development of an efficient system of review and referral of cases to the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office Division of Gaming Enforcement. I would see that more as something for the IEV director to be coordinated. I wouldn't necessarily have that be the executive director. A lot of these other things, you know, the budget, organizational plan, all that makes sense. And then on the next page, so one, two, three, four, five, fifth bullet down, it says works with staff to manage correspondence and communication with gaming license applicants and licensees reflecting the official actions of the commission. I think that's another example of where we want to include racing and sports waitries because we're not just the casino regulators. So things like that. And then in the third to last bullet point in that section, it says ensures that gaming facilities are constructed, maintained and operated in a manner that protects the environment and public health and safety. Again, that feels very casino centric and we've expanded our role so that they be a place to work, work things out. And then, you know, the skills and qualifications that those seem consistent. The only thing I would say is that maybe where you want something from section three, I, yeah, it really just talks about to be a person, the skill and experience and management. So I think that excellent management and communication skills covers that. And then- Can I interrupt you for one moment? Absolutely. Would you also, as you've been making changes above adding the sports way during the horse racing and things of that sort, would you have wanted to be adding that type of language under experience as well, in your opinion? Yeah, I mean, I think that's, you know, that's sort of the overall issue. You, you know, cause it's got skills and qualifications and then you've got experience, education and training. Any kind of experience in that area is obviously extremely helpful. What would, I would suggest something for the commission to think about is, is it required? Is it preferred? What is the combination? What is the combination? Cause you may get different applicants with different varieties of combinations and you may want to, you know, have a bigger pool to look from. One thing we've been talking about within HR is, you know, trying to attract diverse candidates is that sort of leaving things a little more open-ended and not requiring them may give you the opportunity to interview more diverse candidates. So I would definitely note it because the role has really, it has really expanded since we, you know, in the last year even, but I also think you have to acknowledge the racing as well because that's part of what we deal with it as a whole industry. So that's really helpful. Yeah, so, and yeah, so that, that sort of ties into my comments and this experience, education and training, you know, they have the bullet point regulatory experience in a gaming regulatory agency or other regulatory compliance experience. So you could leave it as is, or you could say that that's preferred because you may have some other kind of experience. The other bullet point in there is just interesting is it has previous startup experience, including experience testifying its state or federal hearings that I don't know if that's really as relevant anymore because we're not a startup anymore. So that may be something you want to take out. So those are just some of my comments. This video, I was reviewing it. I find it very interesting if you know, obviously been doing this, you know, IEB job this job awhile. So happy to be helpful if you have any other questions. Fishers, this is a lot to digest. And, and we haven't necessarily had this document in front of us for much time. And Karen's input is help, is really helpful. We can also continue to work on, on this. I would think about, you know, we have the benefit of a couple of good interviews that also talked about the approach they may have taken as executive director. I thought that actually was really helpful. Karen, I'm not sure if you felt the same way. You know, that's, so there's new ways to think about it. You know, yesterday we did, I noticed, I noticed this, I had known I had read it somewhere but I wasn't sure where. But in I, it does say the acting executive director shall have all the powers and duties of the executive director and shall have similar qualifications as the executive director. We use the term interim. I don't know if it matters if it's acting or interim. But certainly if racing is going to be part of the permanent executive director, it needs to be clear. Because yesterday that came up as, you know, perhaps having been floated around here and there as under the executive director and not under the executive director, I think we would want to be very clear. And I mentioned that because racing, we have had on our agenda for a while now a number of racing related matters because I think, you know, we're starting with a very antiquated statute. We have some regs, we've got some policies but Karen's nodding her head. It's just has never been fully synthesized. And I looked at the executive director's job which is to make sure about all the legal requirements, Karen. I think that it probably deserves that steady attention of the executive director if we're going to, you know, for the permanent and make sure that we have the three areas fully covered and fully supported with all the tools of our MGC team. So I think that's a really good thing for us to think about. I think yesterday's solution was perfect but I do think and we want to make it very clear that gaming racing is demands as much attention, right? In terms of making sure that we stand it up with respect to the best of regulations that will support the team there. So that was one of the comments I was going to make is the references to 23K and 23N. We should have the 128's in there as well to make that clear. I now know where the phrase steady state came from. I was always wondering where that came from. Now I know. Don't know who actually coined it originally but I think we can all blame this document for it right now. We could use a UN in front of that, right? Yeah. But one thing that I do think needs to be clear in here too is sort of the recording structure up to the body of five and that there's five. And you need someone ideally, and I don't think you can say required because I think it's an unusual experience, but absolutely preferred is someone who has had the experience of having to answer up to sort of five bosses simultaneously and balancing the access and the support to those five. So that is something that I think when you talk about the job description and potentially also experience and qualification skills, we need to put that in there to make clear that that's the expectation. What was the last comment, I mean, I missed it, I'm sorry. I think we need to put it in not only the description of the job itself but also in what we are looking for in terms of experience or skills and qualifications. Someone who has had ideally, and whether it's required or whether we decide it's just preferred, but I absolutely think we need to flag it. And in terms of the gaming experience, I hear what you're saying, Karen, in terms of you don't wanna do this too narrowly to say required to have gaming experience, but all three of the prior EDs had some level of exposure to gaming before they got here. And so I'd hate to say it's not required, but I hear you, I throw that out for conversation amongst the five of us, whether that's a requirement or a strongly preferred. I'll say this, I would recommend that you keep it open because gaming experience, if you're gonna require will limit your pool to perhaps people who already worked at the gaming commission, which is perhaps a very good pool to have, but it does limit your pool. It means that you may not get folks with new perspectives on everything about running an agency that's complex, complex from an HR perspective, complex from culture building, all the things that go into running an agency and the state agency, the gaming you can learn. We all are learning, right? Karen got hired to run the IEB without knowing anything about casinos. And so would you do something about gaming? And so that's, it's a question of the gaming industry, defined broadly, I'm not saying casino experience, I'm saying some sort of gaming industry experience. Oh, so when she was hired as the IEB, and when she came in as the IEB director? Yeah, I mean, you can call it, I mean, it was essentially like the AGO version of it in terms of the wiretaps and the gaming and the enforcement in that regard. There was some exposure to the industry in general, albeit the illicit industry. I agree, it's absolutely preferred. If you make it a requirement, I think you might find that you limit your pool because we're Massachusetts, we're not Nevada. And we also have it. No, but it doesn't have to be just gaming. I mean, that's so gaming industry, how we define it. Like it could be sports wagering, it could be casinos, it could be online, you know, there's, I'm conceptualizing it as broader than casino experience, but I'd be loath with the 10 plus years under Belvedere's agency and the industry booming to not say we're looking for that. That doesn't necessarily have to be a requirement, but boy, if it's not, it's up there. Strongly preferred for me. Strongly preferred, you could put that in, right? And then you're not gonna, if you have, you know, a wonderful, wonderful applicant who just could absolutely get caught up on that, you won't be willing to mount. And it is probably a better practice in terms of our priorities we've established for hiring. Madam chair. Yeah, sure. So I'm in full agreement with that, that we use the strongly preferred language. My question to whomever, is there a word that we can use where when people are reading this application that they understand that we are strongly preferring somebody who's been in the industry, whether it be an overweight of casinos, of horse racing, is there one word that encompasses all that that I'm missing that would be strongly preferred? I don't believe that we should mandate it. And I'll tell you why in the past when I've been on the subcommittees, looking for directors of certain eight departments, when we were very specific, we did not get a very big, a lot of people who are applied for the job because I think of the wording. So I wanna be very careful how we say it, but is there a word that encompasses four industries that are under our belt right now? Gaming. Does that encompass everything? I guess not racing. Gaming, I guess, gambling, gaming. I'm just throwing that out because I'm trying to be helpful Commissioner Hill. Anybody have some thoughts? Yeah, I mean the betting industries, is there some term of art in the broader field that encompasses everything? Gambling industry and game betting industry. You know, it is a, it's such a complex set of issues that come up. Learning about the gaming per se may actually turn out to be not as important as how people manage all of those complexities. But I think that would capture it. And then we could make it clear that at least right now, before, right? I think if we said gaming industry, that to me, that would cover it, but I just wanna make sure. And then strongly prefer it. I think candidates will understand that. Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Maynard. I'm sorry, Commissioner Maynard. I was just gonna add my voice to the course. I think preferred is the way to go. And Massachusetts is unique. And I learned this last year in that we have a lot of commissions and a lot of boards vis-a-vis other states. And I think about our friends at Post-C benefited from having a former commissioner that was in a different industry come in and become the executive director. So I do think that there's a skill set of just knowing how to work with boards and knowing how to work with commissions. That's, you know, if you had the perfect candidate, but you know, it was a little thinner on the gaming piece. You know, they would be competitive. So I would leave it open, but definitely the perfect candidate would have some sort of gaming experience, but I would make it the preference. I agree with that. Can I add one more dimension to Commissioner O'Brien your point about that the executive director reports up to five? I think it's really important for candidates to understand that this is a full-time commission, which makes us a different kind of commissioner than what they might know of in some of the other agencies. That's a challenge for the team. That's a challenge for the executive director and it's a challenge for the commissioners to strike it right. And I do feel that it's a burden and an expectation of the executive director to kind of bridge that. It is, it should never be, should always be that we're all the same team. We're all the same team. And each and every one of us has a role and responsibility statutorily defined, sometimes regulatory defined, sometimes by policy and sometimes by custom, but that it's really important for an executive director to come in and understand what those roles and responsibilities are, both for their reporting up and for the commission, because we are statutorily complicated by that full-time requirement. So the opening line of the second paragraph, the introductory paragraph, it says the executive director is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the commission. We may want to elaborate, is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the full-time five-member commission or something like that. It's not particularly artful, but it gets it out there. Well, and it's throughout, if you're an applicant, you should be reading all of the 23K and 23N and horse racing statutes in our regs, but you know, section three really talks about our governance structure, which is, it's different from New Jersey and it's different from Nevada. And when I first came, the New Jersey model was often kind of applied, but we're not that New Jersey model. We're not that biker-kidding model. It might have been easier for us to be, but we're not. So. I'm just thinking about wordsmithing so we can move the ball forward. Yeah, something like that would work absolutely, Commissioner O'Brien. So the only other thing I'm wondering about is, I absolutely agree with you Karen, that that startup experience, although, you know, if online casino comes on, right? You got a whole other, I know, right? You're like, I can't get out of here fast enough. But there is a component to this of we're looking at restructuring, you know, we're gonna bring in the deputy. We're like, so is there a way to give a nod to that sort of experience that we're looking for? Maybe not general duties and responsibilities, but in the experience or skills section, you know, maybe there's, whether it's organizational, restructuring or developing. Maybe organizational development. Yeah. Organizational development skills. Development or restructuring, because I do feel like if somebody's been in that where they've had to merge agencies or shift reporting structures, that might be a plus, you know, for what we're looking for too. Commissioner Skinner. Just adding in on the heels of Michelle Ryan, somewhat to that point, I think there should be a reference to certain soft skills, and I can't name them at this point, but no matter what language we include in this job description that lays out the duties and responsibilities of the executive director and their obligation to report to the five commissioners, I still think that there needs to be an individual in this role who understands, you know, the nature of what that might entail in terms of personalities, in terms of preferences that each of the commissioners might have. Essentially, you know, that individual should, you know, have the skillset to manage each of us, if you will. There should certainly be, and I don't know if it's the place for the job description, but I do think that there should be a nod to this need somewhere in here. However, it's articulated, and I'm still thinking about that, but they're, you know, essentially, I wanna make sure that this individual has the ability to put certain guardrails in place that are designed to ensure that all commissioners have an equal opportunity to influence and develop policy, strategy, timelines, et cetera. And I know that can be hard to do, but I think the candidate must have a strong sense of what's required in that regard. I'm wondering also, so the way Commissioner Maynard talked about almost giving a table of contents to the subcommittee in terms of what we want them vetted by, is there some sort of summary of different qualities too that can go into that document sort of above and beyond the posting that guide the people who are actually gonna be doing the interviewing to say, look, this is a really important quality for me, and I really want you to ask about this when you're vetting these candidates. That to me seems like a great place to flush that out and ask whoever the interviewers are gonna be to do that. Kush, I really like that idea, and I was sitting here looking over, does something like that belong in skills and qualifications or not? I'll tell you, if something like this was added outside of this document, I would want a good sense of humor, right? Because you have to have a sense of humor to work here. So I think there should be a set of, I think that's a great idea, set of qualities. And Commissioner Maynard, I agree with that, and at one point, Commissioner Skinner, you used the term manage the commissioners. The executive director doesn't manage the commissioners, and so that's an important distinction. But they do know the team up, they do manage, the executive director does manage a team of over a hundred different personalities, but often there's not that, each division is not that big, right, Karen? And so, and each one comes with a set of different responsibilities and different personalities and different divisions. And that is, that makes this position particularly complex. And so it's, and it could grow if there aren't new initiatives that come by statute, and Karen saw that happen. She saw COVID come, she saw the sports wagering come, and it could be, who knows what could come next. So there is that ability to be able to be nimble in the management and also be able to plan so that expectations, particularly if they're statutory, can be met. COVID wasn't a statutory thing, and Karen had to work with the entire team and also work with the commission because we had to make a lot of decisions by our consensus or by our majority vote to be able to support the work that was expected not only through, and to support Karen's initiatives, but to support the state's expectations and the nation's expectations. So I just wanted to make sure that, you know, we see it's, the position is not, it's not about the commission. We are the governing body, the five of us are the governing body. And then the Karen and through her team seeks our guidance, our action, our work to be able to implement hers. So I guess I just want to say, maybe you didn't really mean managing the term manage as we use it, but. Yeah, let me clarify what I meant by the use of it. Thank you. You mean it in its absolute. I did mean, you know, I referenced, you know, the soft skill and it's the soft skill of managing your bosses and their expectations. You know, I get on the one hand, you know, yes, absolutely. We, you know, the executive director does report to the commission, all five of us. But I think with the addition of this document summary of qualities that was referenced, I do think that that is our opportunity to gauge the ability of this individual to manage the different personalities, manage the different needs in a way that adheres to the nature of, you know, them recording to all five of us. I said that I'm still working through the language of what this needs, what I think needs to be, this needs to look like. So you'll have to bear with me. I have, you know, a lot of thoughts, a lot of ideas, but generally it really is, you know, to ensure that this individual is a strong candidate in terms of ensuring that there is a level playing field for each of the commissioners in order for every single one of us to do the job that we've been appointed to do. That's right. And also, I think I will point out that the chair, having been the chair for four years and seen the chair before me, the chair does have additional statutory responsibilities. And so that's something that the executive director has to recognize. That's the explanation, you know, it's in the statute, it explains why Karen and I have had, we work together on dealing with some of the responsibilities that I view that the chair has in addition to my role as commissioner, but I do, I want to point that out, it shouldn't be the elephant in the room. There's going to be chairs going in the future and the chair does bear certain responsibilities. And as I've said in the past, there's a reason why the pay structures is different and there's additional risks involved. So I think that that's a piece of the, if it's important to this commission to clarify that, then this is the time to do that. I would advocate for that if there is any confusion around that. Well, so I made these comments at one of the public meetings of the screening committee. I absolutely respect the role of the chair and I understand under the statute, there are certain additional responsibilities that the chair has, but I do also understand that a lot of the statutory language relied on a certain interpretation. And I, you know, just reiterate the request, my requests to have a fulsome discussion around what that interpretation is so that we all can be aware of the sort of the rules that we're operating under the unwritten rules, I guess we should, I should say, because I think we all need to be on the same page with respect to any statutory interpretation, particularly when, you know, the chair has added responsibility. That's fair. And I also address the elephant in the room since you brought it up, Madam Chair. I'm sorry? Can I address the elephant in the room since you brought up the elephant in the room? Well, I'm saying the elephant in the room because no, it's very rare for anybody to mention the chair, it's positioned and because I sit in it, I thought I would just throw it out because when I've had some things arise, I go to the statute and I go to, I've gone to Todd and Teen to help me, I've gone to A and K to help me. So it is, you know, and that's unique to my chair responsibility. So, but go ahead. And I just want to say, I did not mention chair at all. I just want to make sure that that's- No, I brought up chair, I brought up chair, I said that. Just to the, I thought that you were insinuating- No, no, no, no, no, no, I just said, I just didn't want, I think it's important for the job description to be able to refer to that there's five commissioners is also a chair role. You know, Karen, for instance, saw some of the chair role when Crystal was promoted up and saw that there are some responsibilities that come with the territory of being chair and thank goodness for Grace. Go ahead, Jordan. Okay, so I can't address it. I think that we're all very familiar with the statute. I go to it also often. I respect the work that you put in and any chair would put in with their additional responsibilities. But I also want to be clear that every commissioner has an equal voice when it comes to policy, when it comes to vote, doesn't matter what the pay scale is. And in so much that the chair's decisions as chair affects the policy and how the policy discussions go, I want to be more active with those positions and not letting anything decision I make be structured by the conversation that comes out of the executive director and the chair's office. And it doesn't matter who the executive director or the chairs. And so... Yeah, because everything that you see in this public forum is transparent. Every vote you take is transparent. Karen Wells, I do not dictate anything with respect to Karen Wells. In fact, the motions come out of legal. Sometimes I haven't even seen those motions. Commissioner Maynard, I just want to be very careful because I don't want to reflect. I don't want to be in any way for our record to ever reflect anything that in any way impinges my integrity. This commission makes its decisions. And you know, Commissioner Maynard, you're very capable of making sure how to vote and you have. So in terms of the structure, in terms of how we operate, this song, I can sleep very carefully, very, very, very well at night. And making sure that everything that comes before you, it's a matter of the five of you and you are able to make your decisions and your plans and your policy. Madam chair, thank you, commissioner Maynard. It was not a personal attack, madam chair. It was not a personal attack. It wasn't personal. That was not a personal attack. But it wasn't personal, but it was an education. But it is structural, madam chair, if I may. It is structural. And this is a time that we're looking at the structure of the commission. I have heard feedback that there are four commissioners, you call them associate commissioners, whatever you want, that need to step up to the plate and be more active. And because of that feedback, I want to integrate this into this process. I have every statutory right to do so. Commissioner Maynard, I would welcome you. And I know that we talked about this, where you've said that you want to be more active. I think that that's your decision. Everyone's way that they operate in this commission is their choice. There's no prescription on how you interpret your role. But it is really important for the executive director to know that there are five full-time commissioners. That means they work full-time for the state. They are full-time commissioners and that they report. They don't report to anyone, but the executive reports up to five and our work is conducted in public. An executive director must be prepared to conduct all their work in public. And in terms of how you want to go forward, commissioners can move. They move as they wish. I don't get involved and I don't think the chair should get involved on crafting motions. I often don't even have them in front of me. So, but another chair might do differently. That is their focus. I think we need to circle back to kind of what we're here for, which is the job description. And I think commissioner Skinner's use of managing, and I don't want to speak for you commissioner Skinner, but it seemed to me more like the colloquial use of that term in terms of how you manage your relationships. Because the reality is this ED is going to be in charge of staff and managing down in that regard, they have to manage up to five of us. And so I totally get the use of the word, commissioner Skinner, because that is, it's managing up and should be blunt. There has to be, and I've said this in Karen's evaluations, there has to be an equitable use of time by the ED. There's a finite amount of time. It is an incredibly demanding job. The just managing down is incredibly challenging. And this ED has the added pressure of dealing with five of us who are ultimately setting policy and making the votes, et cetera. And we all need equal access to the ED. And my point in saying getting that in there was, and I think commissioner Maynard and Skinner have voiced similar issues, which is we want to make sure as we go into this new phase and reorg with the deputy ED, and maybe we're going to be restructuring how staff is coming up to the ED and us, that it is very clear to the candidates coming in, throwing their hat in the ring for this position that that is the expectation of the body of five that will be ultimately voting on who gets the position. Well, Karen, maybe you can give it. I know that some commissioners meet with you once a week. What would you recommend for the IDL arrangement? You do have seen meeting with me. We usually go over, sometimes we have a full hour. We usually go over the meetings and the agenda setting. We go through the agenda setting process with your team that's driven by the team. What would you recommend? Do you think commissioners should have seen any meetings because I don't know if that's a good use of your... I think that any commissioner that requests that should be granted that. I mean, I can't, I don't think any executive director be in the position to say, you know, I'm too busy to meet with you on a regular basis. So... And Karen, has any commissioner ever, have you ever denied them that if they wanna speak with you? Yeah. No, you are always available to every commissioner. Madam Chair, I think we need to wrap up this job description and I feel like we're going to come up with lots more to be blunt. I would like to finish this job description and move on because we're gonna need to put pen to paper and come up with a red line version of it. I think that we have all said what we wanted to say in terms of that, I think that we all have an understanding on the fact that that dynamic needs to be clear in this job description. And I think wordsmithing that job description, on that point and a couple of the others that we've brought up, I think what we need to do is really put pen to paper and have a red line version of this so we can get this up and out the door quickly and get moving on this. Todd has been asked to do two jobs and I'd hate to extend that time period longer than we need to extend it. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. So Karen, in terms of that balance though, you, would you think that an executive director should limit access to the commissioners or how would you recommend, just for going forward? How would you, what would you recommend? You know, I'm just trying to think it's funny because I am working on the transition memo at the same time, like talking, but trying to communicate to the if to Todd and the interim that he might use going forward. You know, it can be something as simple as the executive director, recognizing, you know, the chair responsibility to the executive director reports to the commission. That's all five. And it's responsible for keeping all commissioners informed of ongoing issues and coordinating with the chair on specific responsibilities under NGL chapter 23 case section three, maybe something like that. I'm just trying to be helpful to recognize all of this. Does that make sense? I don't know. Well, and if there's gargoyles that need to be put up in terms of timing and what you suggest, maybe one thing, should there be more full some administrative executive director updates, would it be more efficient to do it in public? You know, so that everybody's hearing the same thing at once, because I know you say often to me, I have to have five discussions with five different commissioners. So the more in terms of public, because if that's the best way, then that might be really helpful. There's no, because no one wants to borrow you from the bar, the executive director from having conversations with the other commissioners to get the work done, right? Everybody needs to be in equally informed. So having more full some administrative executive director updates so that everybody can be asked in the same questions, is that more efficient? Well, I mean, you could, it sort of depends on what your deal is. So for, you know, I'll give an example, you know, something comes in, you get some letter or there's some issue with one of the licensees. I get it, all commissioners feel that they want to be notified or informed, especially for example, some things that end up in the press, they don't want to read about that first. And then, you know, I've told two commissioners and not all five, something like that. So that's what's challenging structurally is you've got five full-time commissioners and then there's a lot of director boards. So there's a lot of touch boards and a lot of communication. You know, in some ways, I hate to be colloquial but sometimes you just gotta suck it up and make the five calls. And just tell them you do that and you do that. But it is something to think about for Todd going forward that if there are issues that I haven't asked about but maybe somebody else hasn't asked about but it's something that's important for all five to know, then we do it in an administrative update and make sure everybody's hearing the same thing at the same time because it's no one's intention to keep that information from each other. What do you think? Should we be using that tool? I think at that, it would be, you know, if you have the Venn Diagon, there are some that that works for, particularly if we're trying to get back to two a month, some things can't wait for the commission meeting. So you have to just, you know, I think one of the best things an executive director or any agency, especially one as complex as this one, it's just good judgment. You know, I think we haven't been able to trust that person that they were gonna know, you know, I need to check in, I need to talk. And I think that, you know, I guess the question is it the formal information or is it the interaction, you know, almost ad hoc communication that where sometimes things get communicated? And, you know, that, I think, you know, if you've seen through COVID and that, you know, first we're all remote and then, you know, not, you know, being in the office only part of the time, you know, that can impede that sometimes. So an executive director needs to make the effort to communicate and check in and talk and just be available. And a lot of that is just relationship building, you know, what you want an executive or each commissioner should feel like they have a good relationship with the executive director. And that executive director is gonna communicate with them, gonna talk to them, they can, something's going on, they're gonna hear them out both, you know, both ways. That's just my opinion. It's kind of hard to quantify, you know, as you've all identified through this conversation, it's a very challenging structure with five full-time commissioners and you add on the open meeting. My ideal would be something comes up, I get the five of you on a call, let's hash it out, we'll talk it through and move on. Can't do that, that's a violation of the open meeting law. So, you know, you've gotta work on those parameters and it's challenging. That's right. One thing that you and I talked about too, and perhaps it is going to be in this executive director description, would be the idea that we work and both using a virtual platform and that it probably makes sense to restore the in-person. I know that we're close to having that capacity to do in-person, Karen, and I think that that would actually benefit because right now five of us sitting in our separate spots and looking at boxes is hard for communication and it would actually benefit, give up one more, perhaps the opportunity for them to check in with you. I see emails joining, but that's another, right now we do use only virtual. Even when we're in the office. So, maybe we think about that and that means that people should, you know, commissioners and the executive director probably needs to plan on working in-person and of course, always in public form, which is a hard thing to do, right, Karen? Mills, how are we on that? I think, Chair, we are prepared to be back in person when that is the commission's pleasure. We've worked with Charles River Media Group who helped us install some new software. So, there can be remote participants. There would be a limit on that, but we could work it out as long as we had enough notice. I would copy out that chair with just saying, I would not like to start tomorrow, to do a drive-on or two. No, we know, we know. But, and we would want to work out the case, but I think that going immediately on, that would be a recommendation for the commission to be able to meet in-person. I think it would actually benefit the process and the opportunity to see the executive director all in-person, to see the staff in-person when we're making these policy decisions. Commissioner Hill, what are you thinking? I'm digesting everything that has been put forth before us. How about in terms of managing the, anything further with respect to the staff? Todd's waiting for any advice, any advice? I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't know if there's feedback happening in other people's computer, but I am having a very difficult time hearing people right now, which I didn't about 15 minutes ago. Well, that's weird. Are you getting it from everybody? I have a little bit of echo on Kathy's end, but not anybody else. Same here. And that may be where I'm hearing it, but I'm having, I didn't hear your question, Madam Chair. Oh, my apologies. I'm not sure why I'm getting an echo. I got my new computer, but it could just be- Right now you're echoing a little bit. Yeah. Can you just say, my apologies. Is that better, Dave? So I still hear a little bit. It's not preventative for me hearing you clearly. It's just a little wonky, but if the other commissioners are still having issues, we could try something. It might just be my new computer. I don't know. Carry on. Don't worry. Well, I think that there needs to be some additional work and editing done of the executive director's description. I'm not prepared to vote today, but if the floor of you are, that's fine. But I do think that there's work to be done in consideration to be made. Kishore O'Brien, what do you think? I think what we need to do is redline the version that we've all talked about with Karen's comments, what we've talked about. And we need to get this back on ASAP so that we can vote and get this out on the next possible meeting. And then we can figure out, individually, we can follow up with Mina and company in terms of questions about process, because I think at the same time, we're gonna wanna know how we're going forward with the vetting, whether it's gonna be an outside firm, internal, like what we're gonna do, that needs to be a priority, absolutely. I'm happy to put pen, I'm happy to raise my hand and put pen to paper if another commissioner wants to pair with me so that we get something done ASAP in terms of incorporating Karen's comments and trying to capture what we said today. So we can keep this moving. Commissioner Ryan, I'm happy to pair with you so that we keep this moving. Okay, great. Thank you for that. Anything else? Commissioner Mayer, are you all set? Commissioner Hill all set? Okay, then we have a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second. Any edits, comments, second thoughts, clarifications? Excuse me, how do you edit a motion to adjourn? I've always wondered about that one. Well, one of the elected officials I said, never ever heard it denied. Commissioner Ryan. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Mayer. Aye. I vote yes, five zero. Thanks everyone.