 and we are live and just waiting for it to go and we're all set. Okay, excellent. Good morning, everyone. This is the convening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and because we're holding this meeting virtually, I'll do a roll call, although the good number of us right next door to each other today. Good morning, Commissioner Bryant. Good morning, I am here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Mayard. Good morning, I'm here. Okay, we'll get started. This is public meeting number 433. It's February 8th, just after 10 a.m. and we'll turn to Executive Director Wells for her call. Thank you, Carol. So following the theme that today is the Joe show, I am turning it over to Joe this morning for administrative update on the Community Mitigation Fund and the grant request that we received. Great, thank you, Karen. So this is really just a very brief update. We'll be giving you a more fulsome update a little bit later once we've got everything in our database. But so applications were due to the Community Mitigation Fund on January 31st. We received 58 total applications and the total ask was just a little bit under $15.5 million. So those numbers are up fairly significantly from previous years. I think if memory serves last year, I think we have 43 applications. So that's up almost a third or more than a third over what we got last year. So that's a pretty good turnout. So the breakdown by region, about the ask is about 6.3 million in region A and just a little bit over 8 million in region B. So again, similar to last year, region B, the ask in region B is a little bit greater than the ask in region A has been. As far as applications go, 28 applications out of region A, 22 applications out of region B and additional eight applications out of our category two facility. So that's the highest sort of level summary of that. As I said, we'll be putting a memo together with project descriptions and other things so that you can dig down a little deeper into this. But as of right now, that's our report. Great, thanks, Joe. So that's all we have for the administrative update today. I think we have a lot on the agenda so we wanted to dive right into it. Thanks, Joe, for that and we'll look forward to the full summary, but that's exciting. That's very, very good news. Yeah, very good. So turning to item number three, we'll turn it right back to Delaney and I know we have guests. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. So today we have in front of you the East of Broadway matter and this of course is a continuation of some work that we did late last year. And just as a matter of housekeeping, I'm just proposing that we follow this format. I'll give some opening remarks and an update on where we stand. I'll then turn it over to Encore and along with their attorneys, Mintz, to give an update on some of the project changes and the newly submitted materials that they gave to us. So there's a couple of additional memos, one from early January and the other one from February 3rd. And then at that point we'll turn it over for an update from the city of Everett, if they would like to give us one. We do have an additional document from Everett's outside council from Jonathan Silverstein on their opinion regarding the adequacy of the referendum. And we also have some correspondence from them regarding the probable cost of a referendum if a new one were to be held. After that, we'll turn it over to Todd Grossman with our legal division for some update from him on where our analysis is regarding the referendum question but also sort of that will of the voters kind of question that the commission had asked. Then open for commission discussion and if the commission is ready, we would take a vote of course, if the commission's not ready, we can certainly refer that. So if there are no questions regarding the order of the meeting, I'll proceed with some opening remarks. Okay, so what we're trying to do today is determine whether Encore can be allowed to have gaming in the proposed East of Broadway development. So in essence, the question before the commission today boils down to whether the affirmative vote on the ballot question that Everett held that has outlined in chapter 23, section 15, is a vote in favor of the issuance of an application's gaming license in general, or does that affirmative vote limit the issuance of a gaming license to a particular property or location? As we've discussed previously, 23K is silent on the matter of potential gaming expansion. I think it's also important to note that no matter how the commission decides, it does not in any way prohibit Encore from developing the properties on the East side of Broadway. It only potentially limits the presence of gaming on those properties. So for example, if the commission were to decide that gaming could not be allowed on those properties, Encore could go back to the original proposal that was under consideration last year and move ahead with that project after obviously going through all of the necessary permitting with the city and the state and so on. Now, should the commission agree that gaming may be allowed on the property, additional work will then need to be done in order for the project to proceed? Again, we are really just trying to answer the question on whether gaming is allowed on that property and not really dealing with the specifics of the project itself. So if the commission did allow a gaming to happen on that property, as we did with that earlier non-gaming proposal, the commission would need to hold a public hearing to obtain input from the host and surrounding communities as well as any other interested parties. And then we would hold a public meeting to discuss the merits of the project itself and deliberate on the inclusion of the project in the gaming establishment. So with that said, I'd just like to take a couple of minutes to summarize what has happened so far with respect to the development. So again, going back to February of last year, hard to believe that it's been a year, Encore submitted plans for proposed development at Easter Broadway that included a 999 seat entertainment venue, some additional restaurant space, a parking garage and a bridge connecting to Encore. At that time, no gaming was proposed in the facility. And ultimately the commission decided that the proposed development was not part of the gaming establishment. So the commission did place certain conditions on the development related primarily to security and access to the space. So fast forward to the fall of 2022, Encore refiled plans with the commission to now include a poker room and sports betting in that facility, which by necessity requires the commission to regulate this operation as part of the gaming establishment. So the commission initially took up this matter on November 16th, 2022 and raised several questions that they wanted answered before proceeding. So in response to those questions, the following additional information has been submitted to the commission. We included a section of the City of Everett Assessors map that shows the Encore Boston Harbor property as well as the Easter Broadway properties and also the old Monsanto property across the tracks, now the site of the Gateway Center. And that whole sort of lower Broadway area. We have a couple of additional letters, one dated January 5th, 2023 and a second one dated February 3rd, 2023 from Mintz that provides additional information regarding the referendum and the host community agreement and outlined some historic ownership of the East of Broadway properties that with some links to the former Monsanto property. Again, we also have a legal opinion from cities, the City of Everett Outside Council regarding the adequacy of the referendum and the provisions of the host community agreement as well as some of the efforts that the city undertook to rezone that area for entertainment and sort of the planning process that you place down there. The commission did ask for opinions from our other licensed communities regarding this matter. We did get a letter from the town of Plainville, which is included in your packets which provided input from their select board regarding the interpretation of the referendum requirement. We did not receive a response from Springfield. I did reach out a few times from them but we did not get any letter in response from them. And then lastly, there is a letter from the City of Everett outlining the probable costs of an additional referendum which total about $130,000. So in the interim, from November 16th when we last met on this project, a number of things have happened with the project itself. Encore has continued to pursue permitting of this project in parallel with the commission's review and that's quite common for projects of this size to undergo various permitting processes at the same time in the interest of time. And some of the things that have occurred since the project was last in front of the commission, Encore submitted a notice of project change to MEPA to include the full buildout of the East of Broadway project. So this includes not only what is in front of the commission, the parking garage and the auditorium and the sports betting but also the hotels and warehouse space and conference space that they are also proposing. So back on January 6th, MEPA issued a decision on that notice of project change and is requiring Encore to do a supplemental draft environmental impact report. And then that would be followed by a supplemental final environmental impact report. The main areas of study focus on traffic and access related items, you know, pedestrian, bicycle, traffic and traffic in general, but it also covers environmental issues such as environmental justice and greenhouse gas emissions, water and sewer use and things of that nature. And at the end, toward the end of that process on the MEPA review, the commission will need to revise its section 61 findings and presumably, you know, MassDOT would need to revise theirs as well as any other section 61 findings that need to be generated. Also, the city of Everett Planning Board has reviewed and approved the first phase of this project. The city is now drafting the decision on that. They are doing that, of course, with the full understanding that the MEPA process could require some changes to the project, which would mean that they would have to come back in front of the planning board to resubmit for those changes. And also the Everett City Council has reviewed this project in its initial review. This parcel was not included in the resort casino overlay district. So in order to allow gaming on that parcel, the city council needed to rezone that, which has happened. So that property is now considered part of the resort casino overlay district. So let me just stop right there. And if there are any questions from the commission at this point, I'd be happy to answer them. If not, we can move on to Encore with an update on their status. Commissioners, Joe, do you just want to frame the question that you've presented to us as we think about that for framework for today's discussion? I know that it's presented to us, but commissioners, it's for guidance for today's discussion. Yeah, so again, I think we're trying to determine whether Encore can be allowed to have gaming on that proposed East of Broadway development. We are not considering the project itself or the merits of that project, only whether gaming can occur over on that project site. And again, it comes down to with the ballot question, whether that affirmative vote that was taken by the city of Everett on the ballot question is a vote in favor of the issuance of an applicant's gaming license in general, just saying, all right, where will it give Encore gaming license in Everett, but not tying it to a particular parcel? Or does that because that vote did reference the parcel location, does that affirmative vote limit the issuance of a gaming license to that particular property or location? And I think that's the essence of the question. And let me, because this is a legal question, let me just ask Todd to make sure that I've stated that all the right way. I think you absolutely have, if it would be helpful, Madam Chair and commissioners, we could certainly look at the statute directly or we can allow Mr. Starr, Mr. Silverstein to present and then look at it. I'm sure they'll be addressing the same provisions I would point out as well. I think we stick to the plan for the programming, but I just wanted just to reframe just so that everyone keeps us in mind. And again, we can go back to the original framing as we hear more. So Joe, you are now going to turn to Mr. Silverstein. You won't, well, turn over to Encore first. We'll turn over Jackie Crum and she's joined by Tony Starr from Mintz, who I'm assuming will be doing much of the presentation. I see now I skipped over one line. Good morning, Jackie. Good morning. And maybe we should say I'm joining Tony Starr because he is going to be doing the bulk of the presentation. Thank you, Heidi. Good morning, Councilor Starr. Good morning commissioners and members of the gaming commission staff. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning on behalf of my client, WinMA's request that the gaming commission approve a revised gaming establishment boundary that would include gaming in the Easter Broadway development. My office has previously provided the commission with three letters in support of Win's request. Chief Delaney mentioned each of the three of those a September 13th, 2022 letter, a January 5th, 2023 letter. And then most recently this past Friday, a February 3rd letter to Chief Delaney as well. Thank you commissioners for the opportunity to submit those letters and for your thoughtful consideration of the material we included in them. I also appreciate the opportunity that the commission gave Jackie and me on November 16th that your open meeting then to address some of the issues regarding the request to revise the gaming establishment. This morning, my plan is rather than simply going over the material that I've already provided you in those three letters. Instead, I went back to my notes of the November 16th meeting. I probably should have gone to the transcript but I guess I'm old school and I trusted my handwritten notes in my little spiral binder here. And I found that toward the end of that meeting the commissioners posed four questions. And what I'd like to try and do today is address each of those four questions as I made note of them. The four questions that I took note of was that the commission asked for an overlay of the Monsanto properties. The commission asked what the two other host municipalities Springfield and Plainville would say about their interpretation of their referendums on the matter of expansion of a gaming establishment. The commission asked for a copy of the actual mailing that was sent in June of 2013 to the residents of Everett before the June 22 vote. And the commission asked for Massachusetts case law on how we determine or interpret voter intent. I'll take each of those up in order. So the first question was the request for an overlay of the Monsanto properties. We were not able to find a single document that contains neatly in one place for you all of the properties in the lower Broadway area that Monsanto and its predecessors have occupied, owned or done business at since the late 1800s. What we did confirm is that during the last 125 years Monsanto and its predecessors including Cochrane Chemical Company, Cochrane Chemical Works and New England Chemical Works had ongoing operations and land holdings to both the West and the East of the current Encore site. My letters of January 5th and February 3 and the exhibits we attached to those letters detail some of what we located through a review of the available land records. If I could, I would direct you in particular to page two. I don't know if you have it in front of you of our February 3rd letter. And if you are able to look at page two of our letter of February 3rd, you'll see the information we shared which showed that at one point, Monsanto owned land on the West side of the railroad tracks that run next to the current Encore site. So that again is to the West. And I think Chief Delaney mentioned that as well. And we attached as exhibits A1 and A2, some of the land records that showed that. And we also included a graphic on page two. Can I, I'm going to ask if there's a way to find it in our large, popular materials because I printed out several, but I have a different. So we have a scroll package of 34 pages. We're on page 14, Madam Chair. Page 14, because I had a different version of the letter. So thank you. Thank you, Chief. I apologize, Madam Chair. I should have done a better job. It's okay. That's okay. I don't even got, I scrolled by down. So I had my own personal index was wrong. So thank you so much. So as I mentioned in the February 3rd letter, which I understand my reference to page two of my letter would be to page 14 of the material from the chief that he circulated, had the information regarding to the West of where the current Encore building is. And then on page three of the letter, we included the information we were able to locate regarding some of the historic properties to the East of Broadway. And what I tried to do in the letter, I should really say my colleague, Katie, who I hope is with us was able to do is we were able to embed in the letter itself a graphic from the land records showing property that was owned by Merrimack Chemical in the block that's framed by Dexter and Robin. There are a couple of lots that we were able to identify there. And then there's also a lot that was owned apparently by Mary Cochran, who I assume, although obviously I don't know this for certain, we're relying on the land records that Mary Cochran was affiliated with Cochran Chemical. So we included that there and you can see side-by-side a graphic of the proposed development East of Broadway, which at least in part overlays right on properties that were owned at one point by a predecessor to Monsanto. So our search of the land records, which is all we were able to look at, it focused on property that was owned by Monsanto or its predecessors. And we've shared what we were able to find with the commission principally in my February three letter. I would note that it's certainly possible that Monsanto or its predecessors had operations on some of the other properties on this area as a tenant or some other arrangement. Again, we were looking more at ownership information, but I do think it's reasonable for us to conclude based on the review of the records that we were able to do is that at one point in time, Monsanto and or predecessors operated both to the East and the West of the current Encore site. So moving on to the second question, which was about the interpretation by Springfield and Plainville of their community votes. I understand from what Chief Delaney just shared with us that Springfield had not yet responded to the chief's outreach. As for Plainville, I had an opportunity to review what the chief included in the material for today's package. It apparent to me that Plainville does not consider their ballot voter host community agreement as limiting the potential expansion of the gaming establishment. That said, I've spoken with Attorney Silverstein and my understanding is that Attorney Silverstein actually worked with Plainville on their host community agreement. And I think he's in a far better position than I am to share some insight into the situation in Plainville. So I'll really defer to Jonathan on that. I know he'll address it in greater detail. The third question that I'd made note of was that the commission had requested a copy of the letter that the city sent to the residents before the June 22, 2013 election. Of course, a copy of that June 18th letter has been provided. We included it as exhibit C to our letter February 3rd. And I believe chief, you've included it in other material. It's our understanding that all residents of Everett received the letter, which plainly included a copy of the host community agreement. Again, I think Mr. Silverstein has counseled that Everett will provide you with additional detail on the efforts, efforts made by the city to ensure that all of the residents received the June 18th letter and the copy of the host community agreement. But I think from my client's perspective, as a result of the efforts that the city did make, we believe that the Everett voters were notified by the clear terms of the host community agreement, which they all received, that the project site was subject to expansion, that when has or will acquire land and options to acquire land in and around the project site. We talked about this on November 16th. The very first recital in the HCA notifies the reader of Wynn's current ownership or intent to acquire land in and around the project site. So if you're thinking about what was in the mind of the voters, if they only read the first page, they knew that Wynn already was purchasing or had purchased additional land in and around the project site. And also importantly in that HCA, the Everett officials had negotiated a specific provision to address new construction on property other than the current site, including a mechanism to address that construction. We think that the proposed Easter Broadway development with the expansion of the gaming establishment is precisely the type of new construction on new property that was contemplated by the HCA, which was in the hands of all of the voters prior to the June 22nd election. The fourth question that I made note of was the commission request for case law on how we interpret voter intent. We summarized the case law that we were able to find in our letter of January 5th, which I know is in your packet. You know, the short answer is there really is no case law directly answering the specific question asked by the commission here, which is with a referendum like ours, how does one determine voter intent? When I was talking with one of my colleagues about this, she said to me, well, as a practical matter, the only way you could truly determine that is you would ask each voter what he or she intended when they voted, which of course is not possible in this instance. But I do think that said, the case law that we provided regarding decisions with ballot referendum typically do provide us with some guidance, at least to answer the question that the commission posed. And that is you focus on the information that the voters had before them and how would we expect a reasonable voter to understand that information that is before them? And here the voters of Everett, of course had the ballot in front of them with the reference to the host community agreement clearly in the ballot itself. And they had the letter from the mayor, which enclosed a copy of the host community agreement. And if you look at the mayor's letter on the third page when the mayor provided a summary, he concluded his letter by saying, this is a summary. Please refer to the formal agreement. That is the host community agreement for all the terms. The case law that we shared if the commission or council has had an opportunity to review it, typically arises in the context of whether or not a ballot question met the statutory requirements and various appellate courts have weighed in on that. As I said, I think those decisions do provide us with some guidance in this case. Obviously the ballot question here, if you measure it up against the case law included a fair and concise summary of the host community agreement. And of course, the host community agreement was provided to the voters before the vote. So I think that requirement was certainly met. But I think more relevant to the specific inquiry that the commission made here is that questions about a ballot should not be considered in a vacuum. In several of the cases that we shared with you, talk about that, albeit in the context, for example, of whether or not there was an error or an admission in a ballot question, the courts say the question of whether or not there was an error or admission should not be considered in a vacuum. Any error or admission in a summary must be assessed in the context of the entire proposal and it's likely impact on the voters. A determination cannot be made in a vacuum whether an error in a summary or is minor or fatal to the validity of all or part of a proposal. And that's from the Massachusetts Teachers Association case which we included in that case, if you had a chance to look at it, it involved a tax limitation measure and the court went on to explain the summary was not the only source of voter information on this widely debated proposal. And then it went on to say in the entire scheme of proposition two and a half in the Attorney General's summary, the error though unfortunate was minor and not significantly misleading. You know, the lesson there is what the court looked at was not just the ballot summary, they looked at and trying to understand did the voters get all the information, get the intent of it, they wanted you to look at the whole thing. What we take away from that is voters don't vote in a vacuum. The Everett voters here didn't vote in a vacuum and we hope that the commission will consider and not ignore the following circumstances that surrounded this vote. The Gaming Act required a host community agreement as a prerequisite for a vote. Had to be agreed to before the vote and that requirement was met. The host community agreement references property in and around the current site and the parties negotiated a specific provision to deal with the very situation we are faced with here. The Gaming Act required a concise summary of the host community agreement to be included in the ballot question and that requirement was met. The Gaming Act required that the host community agreement be posted in public and that requirement was met and Everett went further. Everett made sure to the best of its ability that all of the residents and voters received a copy of the host community agreement. In the Pensley versus Attorney General case which we also included, the court noted that making the full text of the proposed act and other information available to voters does not obviate the need for a constitutionally adequate summary and I'm quoting here but it does give the court confidence that the voters understood the scope of the initiative petition. Here we think the voters were notified by the clear terms of the host community agreement that the project site was subject to expansion. The ballot question passed with over 80% of the vote. We hope that the commission does not view the ballot question in a vacuum. The parties complied with all of the requirements of the Gaming Act. The voters were plainly apprised of the contents of the host community agreement which as I've said repeatedly contemplates the quote new construction, close quote on quote new property that is proposed now and the Everett voters overwhelmingly approved the host community agreement with a yes vote. Well, I'll stop there and answer any questions or let Jonathan pick up on a couple of the points that I thought he was in a better position to address today than me. Commissioners, should we pause just to see if we have particular questions for Attorney Starr before we continue? Okay, let's have Attorney Silverstein go forward then Joe and then maybe with a combination we'll pause again, check in on their two analyses. And I see just the main artist is nodding his head. So that's where we should go. So we've got Jonathan Silverstein and Aaron Devaney from the city of Everett with us today. So I guess maybe Jonathan, it makes sense for you to follow up on what Tony had been talking about first and then Aaron. Certainly. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the commission. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the city this morning. I'll try not to retread ground that Attorney Starr already covered. Perhaps I'll start by following up on the choice posed to you by Chief Delaney, which was whether the gaming establishment is limited to the original site, the site that it currently sits on or is not limited. And I guess I would note that from our perspective, it's not quite that binary. Certainly we would not suggest, and I think this was a question one of the commissioners posed to me at the prior hearing that expanding the gaming establishment across town without a new referendum would be appropriate. So that is not what we're suggesting. And I think that dovetails nicely, although the safe Springfield didn't have an opportunity to comment the town of Plainville did and it noted in its letter, look, we don't think that this would be something that could be expanded anywhere in town, but we don't view the ballot question that was passed by the voters in Plainville as prohibiting any expansion of the gaming establishment. And as Mr. Starr noted, I represented the town of Plainville with respect to their permitting and host community agreement and proceedings before the commission with respect to the Plain Ridge Park Casino. And I can tell you that there are a few distinctions that or contrasts that I would wanna draw the commission's attention to. First and foremost, unlike the host community agreement in Everett, the host community agreement in Plainville cites a specific property address and a specific acreage. And although unsurprising since I negotiated both agreements there are some similarities in that the agreement calls for expansion of payments if there's an expansion of the gaming establishment it refers only to new square footage, additional square footage, in other words, expansion of the building. Whereas the Everett host community agreement refers to expansion of the project site or expansion on to quote unquote new land. And I can tell you why there was never any discussion in Plainville during the negotiations or the permitting of first hour way and then pen acquiring additional land and expanding the gaming establishment onto additional land. However, that was a discussion from day one of the negotiations and discussions between Everett and Wynn. And so I think that's a really important point and that's exactly why in several locations throughout the Everett and Wynn host community agreement in contrast to the Plainville host community agreement there are explicit references to expansion on to new land. I also wanna note that the practical implication of the commission's decision here is not as Chief Delaney mentioned to prohibit almost every aspect of the East of Broadway development. The only implication would be to prohibit a poker room as part of that development. And I think apart from the fact that the voters of the city were on very detailed and repeated notice of the fact that the gaming establishment could expand, practically speaking, it simply doesn't make sense that a voter of the city would say, well, we're fine with hundreds of thousands of square feet of redevelopment, entertainment space, restaurant space, parking, all these amenities that all flow out of the existence of the gaming establishment. But boy, we don't want that 8,000 square foot poker room on the East side of Broadway. We wanted to stay on the West side of Broadway. So, as Chief Delaney said, the practical implication is not whether or not this development happens on the East side of Broadway. It's only whether or not a very, very small portion of that development includes gaming. And I think it's important now to again reiterate, but I won't dwell on the fact that the legislature felt it very important that the voters of a perspective host community, not just know where a gaming establishment is gonna be, not even have a summary of the host community agreement, but that the actual wording of the host community agreement be available to every voter of a host community before the vote. It prescribed how long before the vote it had to, the host community agreement had to be available, how the host community agreement had to be made available and the city followed those requirements to a T and then some as Mr. Starr noted, although not required, every household in the city was provided a letter from the mayor and a copy of the host community agreement by mail prior, well, prior to the vote. And that's in addition to a number of public forums that were held where the host community agreement was made available. And so the legislature wouldn't have required voters to have the host community agreement available to them prior to the vote, if the legislature didn't think it was important for the voters to understand and have available to them the details of the host community agreement when they voted. So they're not voting just on a location, they're voting on the terms of a host community agreement. And the terms of the host community agreement are very clear that there could be expansion onto additional land. I also wanna know, and I run through some of the history leading up to and following the ballot vote in terms of the planning efforts that the city has made with respect to the lower Broadway neighborhood of the community. And I'll note that the ballot question in the summary refer to lower Broadway as the location of this site certainly do also refer to the Monsanto chemical site. And while I laud Mr. Starr and his colleagues for the detailed title history that they've provided to the commission in terms of what was once upon a time part of the overall sort of chemical site along lower Broadway. I think in all honesty, members of the voting public and you've heard from Attorney Deveney last at the last meeting and you'll hear from her again today that people in Everett refer to lower Broadway as a neighborhood. It's an area, it's a region of the city just as Beacon Hill isn't just the Hill, it's Charles Street. Lower Broadway is an area and the Lower Broadway Economic Development District zoning that followed the Lower Broadway master plan includes land well off of, quote unquote, lower Broadway, lower Broadway being anything south of Sweets or Circle. It includes Robin and Dexter Street. It goes well off of Broadway. And that's what people in the city understood was that this was part of the lower Broadway master planning and redevelopment effort that began before wind came to town and continued well after the vote through adoption of zoning, through adoption of a redevelopment, an urban renewal plan creation of a number of different planning documents both leading up to and subsequent to the vote. I won't repeat Mr. Starr's exposition with respect to what the will of the voters should be viewed as in this context. Again, there's no specific case law but I do think it's important to understand that when the courts have looked at the will of the voters they have looked beyond the actual ballot question and they've looked at the general circumstances and attendant to the vote and what voters had available to them in terms of information. And I think at that point, those are the main points I wanted to highlight. I'll turn it over to Ms. Devaney who again is chief of staff for the city to just follow up maybe on any items she wants but I know that she can speak more knowledgably than I with respect to what's considered lower Broadway in effort. Thank you, Attorney Silverstein and Madam Chair and through you to the commissioners thank you for the opportunity to share the community assessment of where we stand on this proposal. The mayor started talking about the redevelopment of the lower Broadway area back in 2010 well before even contemplating having the Encore Casino and Resort as a possibility in the community and his conversations since that time and to the present day have focused on that entire area of the community as a way to revitalize Everett and bring in new industries and opportunities to diversify the tax base with the hopes of eliminating burdens on residents. If you were to talk to residents in Everett that lived in the community for generations before the referendum was taken and those who reside here today the reference to Monsanto was not exclusively to one parcel but it was bringing its easy attention to an overall area in the community. As Attorney Silverstein and Attorney Starr have both referenced when the public conversations and meetings and the mailing which the city undertook and did an effort to combine as many informational and mailing lists as possible to make sure it was a comprehensive informational and outreach effort was done it did reference the willingness of Wynn to participate and support that lower Broadway master plan which was not one parcel which was an entire area within the community. If you talk about lower Broadway in the city of Everett you're talking about an area you're not talking about any one particular property or parcel. So we would ask the commission to keep that in mind that the vernacular in the city isn't limited to one particular area. And I bring attention to the conversations that have been taking place within the community most recently about this proposal whether it be before the planning board or presentations and conversations that have taken place at city council meetings. Those conversations that members of the public have participated in clearly reflect an understanding of what the host community agreement language contained. It does contain information as attorney Silverstein has shared which clearly contemplates either the project area that was initially embarked upon by Wynn and Encore Boston Harbor but it's also talks about if there is any new construction that were to take place. And the reason why residents are focused on that and why we believe it's a reflection that they always knew that expansion was a possibility is because they're very eager to have the city reopen and re-engage conversations with Encore about what this expansion will mean and the potential financial benefits that the city will yield. In all of those public meetings and conversations that I have been at for more than the past year, I can share with you I've never heard residents questioning whether or not this expansion is going to happen or any concerns about what type of expansion the public conversation that has been taking place has been about what will happen once that expansion takes place. So I wanted to share that information with all of you to try to answer that question about whether or not the residents in this community when they first took a vote had information and were aware about the possibility of further expansion. And from Mayor DeMaria's position, he's always been very clear about the possibility of expansion of opportunities not limiting to the types of opportunities in lower Broadway and those conversations that are taking place before public political bodies and amongst residents. There has not been any conversation in this community recently that has even raised any suggestion that community members would question the ability of Encore to be able to expand. Residents are more focused on what that expansion will mean for the community in the terms of positive benefits. So I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have from the community perspective but thank you for the opportunity to share that information with you. Thank you, it's nice to see you. Thank you very much for that update. Before we turn it to our own legal analysis, does it make sense now to just pause Joe to ask a few questions and then turn back to Councilor Grossman so that he can sort of react to the growing questions we may have? Should we wait? Well, I think it makes sense to ask some questions now. Commissioners, do you have questions now? Commissioner Bryan. So the one question that I still haven't and to give you a sense of where I keep coming down on this is the statute required a referendum with a description of site in the referendum. And what I'm gathering from the position of when and ever it is that that description of site, plain bill viewed as site-specific, you're not necessarily disagreeing that it's site-specific but the question is what was the description and the outer boundaries of that site? And I'm still having trouble figuring out what that is. So I went back and I looked at the historic maps, et cetera, which didn't really provide me with any clarity in terms of where the outer boundary is. And there's even a reference when you make the reference to the HCA saying there was some reference to across the street properties but there were no outer boundaries given. And so what I'm struggling with is the description that was in there that references lower Broadway is not lower Broadway than neighborhood. It was the property on horizon way off of lower Broadway. So I feel like if the description had been the lower Broadway district, the lower Broadway neighborhood, et cetera, I would be far more comfortable without a specific address and saying the boundaries went beyond that. This is really a morphos for me in terms of the requirement that it be a description of a site. And so if anyone can give me any more clarity on that, on where you would view the outer boundaries of the description of the site that was voted on that because that's really what I'm struggling with. I'm happy to jump in on that first, Madam Chair. So I think it's a fair question, Commissioner O'Brien. And often in the law there's the, I'll know it when I see it type of answer, which is in this instance, I guess we need to step back. Why did the legislature require identification of the site? Was it to ensure that voters would know the specific map and parcel number? Or was it so that voters would know where in the city an establishment was gonna be located as opposed to are we gonna allow generally gaming in the city, which I could contrast chapter 94G and maybe we could invite Commissioner Stebbins back, which communities generally legalized or prohibited marijuana establishments within their boundaries with 23K, which requires identification of where in a community gaming is gonna be allowed. And so practically speaking, does a voter, does the objectively reasonable voter, which is a tough platonic ideal to pick to grasp, but does the average person going into the ballot box in Everett care if the poker room is on the west side of Broadway or on the east side of Broadway, as opposed to in the Glendale Park neighborhood of Everett or in Everett Square where city hall is. And so I think you need to apply and courts generally apply when interpreting this type of language. Sort of objectively reasonable standards. And I think in light of the case law that we've cited, those objectively reasonable standards should be read in conjunction with what is stated in the host community agreement with the legislature, which the legislature required. And so what are the outer boundaries? I can't give you, you know, would it be reasonable to go all the way up to Sweets or Circle, which is still technically lower Broadway? I can't give you the outer boundaries, but what I can certainly tell you is that everyone knew that when was negotiating to purchase land proximate to this, the original site along lower Broadway and everyone knew and hoped that they would expand their development onto those properties. From day one, there were attempts to purchase the MBTA yard adjacent to the site. Never owned by Monsanto, but still in the lower Broadway region. You go to the lower Broadway Economic Development District Zoning, which included all of this land which was adopted. And it talks about the purpose being to redevelop this area, create jobs and create revenue opportunities for the city. So I guess I can only answer if I saying, I don't know what the outer boundary is, but I certainly know that everyone in the city anticipated and hoped that the establishment would expand to the areas where they're currently proposing expansion to. And I don't know if Mr. Starr or Ms. Devaney have anything to add on that? To compliment what Attorney Silverstein has said, and we also appreciate the commissioner's question but wanting to truly be able to ascertain what the residents would reasonably have identified based upon the ballot, the referendum question and the information on the ballot. I don't necessarily know that a resident would have been able to tell you at the time where Horizon Way was. But they can identify a large parcel of area. But I think if you look at the entire language that is on that official ballot, it does include all of that other information that was included in the mayor's mailing of information, which does include the language about the lower Broadway master plan that was done prior to this referendum. And because to do that master planning process, the city had to engage in very extensive community outreach in communication, the steps that the city had taken prior to this referendum, in addition to the work that it did surrounding the information sharing in advance of this vote being taken in the community, did all talk about one greater area in the community. So I think if you look at that to the commissioner's point about what would a voter have reasonably interpreted because there weren't specific boundaries or sort of title, the information you would see in a title for a specific plot of land, if you look at all of the information and conversations that have taken place in the community, as part of the master planning process in advance of this referendum, the reference to the lower Broadway master plan, that was something that was arguably reasonably known within the community and did not just focus on this one particular site, which is why the mayor believes the proposal to include gaming across the street would not be inconsistent with the possibility that the community has been contemplating since this original site opened. Commissioners, follow up questions or new questions? Commissioner Hill, are you're leaning in? I am not, but thank you. Thank you. I think it was Mr. Silverstein, perhaps it was Mr. Starr. We just put Commissioner O'Brien's question in parking lot for right now. Our regulatory powers extend to the gaming component and that's why I wanted to make sure that I heard Joe's framing of the question clearly and set points in our memorandum. As I look at the host community agreement and I do think about that in conjunction with about language and what the voters in effort had before them, I appreciate that recital right at the very top of the page or at the very top of the document. I think one of you is saying can't really point to gaming but that it would have been not practical to imagine that the voters were authorizing an expansion across the street that would just be for strictly the entertainment hotels, restaurants and not imagine it would also be an extension of I think the poker room or some kind of gaming. I think if I can get around the boundary issue that would be my question, okay, did they contemplate gaming in that expansion and not sure if it's precisely stated in the host community agreement, but this would be maybe a question even for Alison Brosman, the host community agreement was a requirement an applicant for a gaming license. So the outcomes for the host community agreement or to be an economic driver, all the issues that Chief of Staff are saying raises, our role really is the oversight of gaming. And so when the host community agreements were reviewed, Todd, I don't think the gaming commission approved them but we received them, but it really was from a lens of not development in general but our role as regulator of gaming. So when I see that host community agreement and I see that first recital suggests to me that the voters were put on notice that this was likely to be a project that extends beyond the construction project that was being reviewed by our team. Do you have any memory of that, Todd? Or do you agree that the under chapter 23K was a component of gaming that the host community agreement and not simply development? Yeah, well, one of the core principles of chapter 23K and the commission at the time spent a lot of energy thinking about was ensuring that wherever a gaming establishment was to be cited was in a place that the community wanted it. And a key component of that was the host community agreement. And to your question, the commission did not approve of host community agreements. It didn't go through it line by line and say it has this, it has that. There are in the statute some minimum requirements and we did look at them to make sure they were all covered and they were in every single case. That was not an issue. But ultimately that was left to the host communities to negotiate the best deal they could with the applicants at the time. And it was a factor in the overall assessment of the individual applications, the arrangements in general and how welcoming of the applicants a particular community and the surrounding communities was. But to your question, they were not specifically approved. And we had no time was this specific question ever reviewed to the best of my memory as to what the expansion might look like or whether gaming was covered or what have you. And I do have a few other thoughts. I'll stop there though and just kind of... But it was a requirement of a gaming licensee to have the community agreement executed. So if I were the informed voter, received all the information when they received the host community agreement, do you think it was practical for them to read that in the context of this is about expanded gaming and casino play or is this strictly about development of an area in the city that really needed some attention? It's hard for me to answer that question as to what the voters may have understood at the time. I think perhaps everyone would agree that the host community agreement does not specifically say that there might be gaming across the street or there might be gaming elsewhere. That is, I think I heard Mr. Silverstein address this to some degree, but there's no question. That the host community agreement contemplated project expansion. It does not get into to the best of my reading, whether there might be gaming activity elsewhere or anything along those lines. To that point, I agree with you on that. And I think we heard that the language isn't there. But if you were a voter in Everett, when you received this host community agreement, it wasn't an agreement. That they would normally see in the context of ordinary development. In fact, if they weren't doing, I think we know this, if they weren't having any gaming, this kind of development goes on without any kind of oversight from certainly the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. We don't look at every development in Everett, correct? So I guess I'm wondering when would it be practical to assume that when the, and we always assume voters are informed. I learned that, gotta be sex, you know, back in the day. So when they read their materials, they would have been thinking, this is about the proposed casino that's for Everett, as opposed to strictly an ordinary development. This is, I'm not, I don't want anyone to foreshadow where I stand on this. This is where we are, probably there's a struggle, you know, between the two, even if we can figure out the boundaries, then how, what was the buzz that was occurring at the time about this host community agreement and they can, it's reading. Yeah, and I don't wanna jump again, but I'm in, when it, when my turn comes up, one of the things I was hoping to do was to help place all of this in context, to try to understand why that's an important question and what lens to view it through, perhaps. Yeah, so that's why I sort of thought maybe a couple of our questions would help frame it. So commissioners, councilor Grossman's heard, a couple of our questions, anything else that you wanna frame? So that's on your mind right now, okay. Then you've got those two questions, come to help address so that you don't have to read our minds. Oh, I see, Mr. Starr. At the risk of getting too far into the weeds on the host community agreement, the idea of expansion is addressed in two spots. It's addressed on page four with the annual community impact fee. And then again, on page five, with the pilot payment. And as I read the impact fee, it's addressed in two spots. And as I read the impact fee, that's for the operation of a destination resort casino. And the sentence at the end of section one, paragraph one there, talks about if wind commences operation on the new property, then the party shall renegotiate the impact fee and if you agree with me that the impact fee is to provide compensation so to speak or money to Everett for the operation of a destination resort casino. The fact that the parties wrote in, when you have expansion, you have to renegotiate that impact fee because I think at least some indication that you're talking about an expansion of the casino, that's what the impact fee is for, for the operation of a destination resort casino. And if all wind was doing was across the street, putting in a restaurant, as you say, that's not a casino. That's other types of development. And if you notice, if you read in the second part with the annual pilot payment, that's renegotiating on the real estate tax, but that doesn't talk about, you know, that doesn't tie back to the impact fee. So I appreciate, as I said, we're into the weeds here on language that was drafted 10 or 11 years ago. But in answer to your question, can we discern in the HCA whether there was language that forecast not just when putting in a restaurant across the street or on new property, but actual casino operations, operation of a destination resort casino. I think you have some language here that shows the intent of the drafters that they were anticipating that the casino itself, the casino operations itself, the gaming could expand, and not just other aspects of the development. That's very helpful to me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to talk about just a bit of. So. Except as Kentucky roots, I have very strong Vermont roots. And what I'm enjoying in this whole discussion, Commissioner O'Brien is that the boundaries of an urban. Project. As perhaps as. As I said, I think it's a little bit of a struggle where that often is tied to a old maple tree or a stone wall. And where that maple tree is long gone, maybe replaced by a pine. So it's a little refreshing to see that it's not just rural areas that struggle with land boundaries. So Commissioner O'Brien, I put your question in the parking lot, but it's only temporary. So thank you. And now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Madam chair, I think. Attorney Silverstein wanted to make a call. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thanks. Good eyes. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Yeah. I just wanted to follow up on attorney stars point and draw the attention of the commission to the recitals of the host community agreement again. Specifically the second recital. The second recital. The third recital. The third recital. The third recital. As. A project involving a category one gaming license. And the development of a luxury hotel and destination resort casino on the project site. And we're talking about. A host community agreement that authorizes expansion of the project. So the project is the destination resort and casino. And I can tell you that. Having done. 20 years. It's never entered into a host community agreement other than for the development of a resort casino. Then two recitals down. It talks about, and this goes to Mr. stars point. The intent of the agreement to mitigate impacts in accordance with Massachusetts general law is chapter 23 K. And then the purpose, the next one down. The agreement is being entered into. To satisfy the requirements of section 15. Sub 8 of the app. So all of this supports, I think what. Madam chair, you were. Alluding to. In terms of the reason for this agreement. So that's why I think we can turn it over to Todd. To authorize the. Development operation and expansion of. Christina. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now we've got to three. So I guess at this point, I think we can turn it over to Todd for the legal divisions presentation. So is anyone else asking a question now before we turn. I think we can turn it over to Todd. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good morning, Todd. Good morning, Madam chair, commissioners. Thank you. I would start by saying I certainly don't take issue with anything. Anybody has said at this juncture. And again. My hope at this. Point is to just help go through some of the specific language in the city. So to help you reach a decision here. I think again, I don't want to reiterate everybody's points, but I think an important one that bears repetition is that again. The question here is not whether. The lower Broadway master plan can be executed by the city. Or when can develop across the street. Or anything along those lines. They can. That's not what we're here to talk about today. But it's not just the poker room. It's also potentially sports majoring. Which under chapter 23 N. Has to be in a gaming establishment. As it relates to a category one license. Which. When resorts. When mass is. So with that. There are a couple of. I don't know. I don't know. Of course. Subjective city and state approvals as. But as. Has been referenced. The real question is whether gaming can be conducted across the street. Now just add. It's, it's not just the poker room. It's not just the poker room. There are a couple of. Points that I wanted to get to. And I wanted to add before I jump in too far. We're joined here as well by me and Macarius partner at Anderson and Krieger. Who has assisted with this review as well. And he can certainly speak to. Issues related to deciphering voter intent and that. Subject area and perhaps any other areas. As I start to go through. Some of the, some of the, some of the, some of the, some of the, some of the statutes and some of these considerations. But ultimately the question. As has been framed is what is the effect. Of the vote that was taken on June 22nd, 2013. In the city of Everett. And it's important. Because there is a, a statute that talks about that. And I think it goes without saying, but it is critically important. So how do we place that in context? I would submit that one way to look at it is that the, the will of the voters provides some context to you when you're trying to look, you're deciphering what chapter 23 K. Section 15 paragraph 13 means. What would the voters have understood at the time. And that's one factor in helping you resolve the question as to what the effect of the vote is. And I think in order again to put it in context, we should take a look at what section 13 actually says. And I know you've all had a chance to look at it. It's been included in the materials. I can certainly share it if it would be helpful, but there's a couple of points. That I just wanted to get to. Before we jump into the analysis. And the first part that I think is important because there's been some question as to whether another vote would be appropriate. In some circumstances here is important to look at the introductory language to chapter 23 K. Section 15. And it says that no applicant shall be eligible to receive a gaming license. Unless the applicant meets the following criteria and clearly states as part of an application that the applicant shall. And then of course there's a list of things that had to be done. And I think that I would only to ensure that we take a look at what section 15 was designed to do in the first place. And that is to set some of the prerequisites in order for the applicants to apply for a gaming license in the first place. So whether it is of continuing effect is part of the question before the commission. So then it says the applicant shall and the. Relevant language is down in paragraph 13. And there are a couple of places that are worth talking about. The first is the very first sentence of paragraph 13. Says the applicant shall have received a certified and binding vote on a ballot question at an election in the host community in favor of such license. So when you're trying to decipher what the purpose of the ballot question was, the statute does add some context there and provide some guidance as to what the purpose of the vote was. It suggests that the ultimate question was whether the host community is in favor of such a license. The section or the paragraph then goes on to articulate a series of provisos. A couple of which are relevant to this analysis. And the first one that we've been talking about. Is the actual language that had to appear on the ballot. And this was a proviso in paragraph 13. It said provided further. That sucks such a lot at such election. The question submitted to the voters shall be worded as follows and then it goes through it. And the language appeared on the actual ballot. We've been talking about it already. And it required the question was, does the property of Everett permit the operation of a gaming establishment licensed by the Massachusetts gaming commission to be located at property located on horizon way off lower Broadway in Everett, formerly known as the Monsanto chemical. That was the question that was presented to the voters on the ballot as required in paragraph 13. There's one other proviso that I think is important to bear in mind. And I think it's important to highlight this evaluation. And that is almost directly after the. The proviso that I just read, it says that provided further, that if a majority of the votes cast in a host community and answer to the ballot question is in the affirmative, the host community shall be taken to a voted in favor of the applicant's license. The vote was specific to a parcel. Or more broadly, whether it was in general favor of license being awarded to this particular applicant. These are parts of the statute that are important to bear in mind because they speak directly to that. So with those provisions in mind, I wanted to just address one of the points that was raised earlier. Mr. Silverstein noted that the question was not necessarily binary. And I do agree to some degree with that. But I think it's also helpful to try to simplify this as much as possible. And I think you can consider it a binary question. And the question being. As Mr. Delaney already articulated. Does paragraph 13. Only speak to a specific parcel and allow the applicant to move forward on a specific parcel. Or was it intended to allow the voters to speak as to whether they were in favor in general of a license being awarded to the applicant. And that perhaps the location was identified to add some context and texture to that vote. As everybody has discussed, of course, but I think that the question that was included here in paragraph 13 was a requirement that the host community agreement. Be posted and made public. And it certainly was. To the extent. That we are getting into the weeds to take. Some phraseology from Mr. Starr to decipher exactly what it says. I think you can consider whether an average voter would have the right to vote or not. But I think it's also important to point out. That as Mr. Delaney also mentioned, if you were to answer the question. That. The purpose of paragraph 13 is to try to. Determine what exactly the host community agreement said at the time they were casting a vote. And then think about it through that lens as well. So I think the question is binary to that degree, is that the purpose of paragraph 13 was simply to. Vote in favor of the applicant's license that doesn't end the inquiry. The commission would then have to go in. And evaluate whether it wants to actually allow the gaming establishment to be expanded there. And you'll recall, we have established a test. Through which you would run that analysis. And I would expect that we would use that test or some version of that. In the future to determine whether you wanted to allow the boundary of the gaming establishment to be moved over there. And I think that's important to note, because I think it would be reasonable to be concerned that this could be a slippery slope. If we were to conclude or you were to conclude. That the vote simply approved. Gaming in the city of ever. And that you could move from there to allow gaming anywhere in the city. That's not necessarily the case. It's not the case at all. I would submit the commission would still retain complete control over where the boundary of the gaming establishment. Would lie based upon a series of factors that have been previously used and articulated. And are rooted deeply in chapter 23 K itself. So it's not a slippery slope here. And I think the question is to some degree binary. That said, I think it's also important. Just to recall. When you're interpreting. Chapter 23 K. Section 15 paragraph 13. That this is a provision of the gaming statute. Which means that the commission is afforded tremendously broad discretion. In. In providing the first read of it and determining what you think it means. And I thought I would just briefly. Mention some of the discretionary language that's contained both in the statute. And in the jurisprudence. So you're, you have that before you as you're making this decision. The first is within chapter 23 K itself. And this is the familiar language that we've looked at a number of times and cited often in courts have recognized. In a number of on a number of occasions. In section one paragraph 10, it says that the power and authority granted to the commission shall be construed. As broadly as necessary for the implementation, administration and enforcement. Of chapter 23 K. And further chapter 23 K provides in section four that the commission. Shall have all powers necessary or convenient to carry out an effective purpose. So on the face of chapter 23 K, the commission has tremendously broad discretion to interpret. This provision of the law. There is one other piece of jurisprudence that I think might be helpful. In, in reaching this decision. The highest court in the Commonwealth, the Supreme Judicial Court has. Held expressly. That in accord substantial discretion to an agency to interpret the statute at its charge with enforcing, which in this case is chapter 23 K section 15, especially where the legislature has authorized the agency to promulgate. Regulations, which in this case it has. Where the statutory language is not without ambiguity. Our deference meeting the court's deference to the agency's interpretation of the governing statute is highest. I think when you connect all of these pieces of law together. You are left with the conclusion that the commission has fairly broad authority. To make a decision. In this matter. As to what the statute means. So. With all of that being said. Again, I would circle back to what I believe the, the ultimate question is. And I think Joe framed it. Correctly. And I think. Just to simplify things that is the helpful lens to view it through. Is essentially what do you think. Paragraph 13 means. Was the vote. Intended to approve a single parcel of land. For construction of a gaming establishment. Or was it more general in nature? Where by the voters were simply approving. The applicant's license or the sentiment that they would approve the applicant's license if issued by the gaming commission. I think that's ultimately the question before you. All of these other factors, the, certainly the. Will of the voters, the understanding of the voters. All adds. Context. To that analysis. And I think that's how it factors in and why it's important. But it doesn't answer the question directly. What, what the voters thought at the time. Doesn't answer the ultimate question. It's a part of the answer. And so with all of that. I'll stop. I'll see if there are any other questions. Or whether it would be helpful to ask. Mina to talk a little bit about. Deciphering voter intent. I have a follow up question to that. I hear us deciding between general. And specific and specific being. The language that I assume. Is in. You say is in the ballot. And so with all of that. I'll stop. I'll see if there are any questions or whether. It would be helpful to ask Mina to talk a little bit about. The ballot language. And what I hear general. And I don't know. What that means, because I think I've heard that. No one believes this mean. That. It was without any kind of scope or boundaries that was imagined. And so. The idea that we might be saying that. The voters have ever voted in favor of the game. When mass. I'll see generally. That doesn't take him. It doesn't sound as though. Taking into consideration. All the information that was delayed. About this particular ballot vote. You know, we all know when we enter. To vote on those questions. That you need to do a lot of study. Before voting on a referendum. Because they usually are written in a crazy way. And so you have to do your homework. And you have to read about it. So. There's the idea of specific, which I think you're saying. That's the ballot language. But generally. He doesn't mean without. All the information that came. Conjunction. With. The. Referendum in the ballot itself. Where are you saying something? I am not suggesting. Even if you were to conclude. That the vote is of a more general nature. That any licensee could simply construct. Casino wherever they wanted in that city or town. I'm talking about the, the idea of the voters. I think I'm seeing language that. We might consider that the voters. Ever voted in favor of the gaming license. Awarded. To win. Generally. And not specifically. And I'm having trouble with the idea. Generally. Because. It. It wouldn't necessarily. Include all the other. Information that did inform the voters. Well, I think, I think. That's a good point. And that is why this is a difficult question. I think it's important to just reiterate that it seems clear to me. That the law did not squarely contemplate. Certainly expansion of a gaming establishment. Or this. Specific issue. That being said. The commission does have tools at its disposal by which it can. Control. Where the gaming establishment is located. Which go beyond. This ballot question. And what is described here in section. 15 paragraph 13. So certainly there. There must be control over that boundary. The question is whether this ballot question limited that control. That. To a degree. And I would suggest to you that certainly the voter intent in the will of the voters. Does factor in. To the answer to that question for sure. And, but ultimately. If you were to conclude that. The voters just generally voted in favor of the license. That would allow. The commission to expand the boundary of the gaming establishment beyond. The existing boundary, which is on the horizon way site. Off of. Off of lower Broadway. If you were to conclude that it's specific to that parcel, just to be clear. Then the boundary cannot be explained. That it is. Where it is. And that. That's. Pretty much it's subject to where lower Broadway is. And that's what commissioner. Brian's getting at. How far out does lower Broadway expand to. And. If we're talking about the specific parcel. But the ballot question also talks about. The property located on horizon way. And ever. So it's not necessarily. Potentially. That the voters would have signed off on. A gaming establishment anywhere in lower Broadway. If you're reading the language of the ballot question specifically. It specifically says it properly located on horizon way. So that's. That's the specific read. I would submit a broader read would be. In that general area. And the more specific view of that would be whether you're actually limited to that specific area. Or there. You could move further away. Of course, the further away you get. You certainly move away from what the voters probably understood at the time. And that's the rub here. Yeah. And I think that. It might be a little bit of language and we can charge. The important conversation that I know that. Turning carries quite an offer, but it might be a little bit in the semantics that are you saying that they voted generally. Or specifically. Or are you saying they voted on a specific parcel. Versus. A less specific parcel. It's like, is that the generally. Is that the advert of the voting that you're talking about. And I'm looking at. And I think. It might be a little bit of language and we can turn to the voting that you're talking about. And I'm looking at. Proposed draft language. Or are we, you know. I, I think. That one of the things we have to consider is do we. Do we just look at the language of the ballot. Which is. Art. Of this. But there's a whole lot of other provisos. And so I wonder how we take into consideration all of that. And I think that's why I wanted to go through those provisions in paragraph 13. I think that they're not necessarily in conflict with one another, but they do kind of speak to slightly different things. There are the two places where it says that. The affirmative vote. Shall. If it occurs. Shall be taken. To mean. That's why I wanted to go through those provisions in paragraph 13. I think that they're not necessarily in conflict with one another, but they do kind of speak to slightly different things. And I think that. That the voters shall be taken to mean that the voters voted in favor of the applicants license. It doesn't say. It could have said, but it doesn't say that should be taken to mean that the voters voted in favor of awarding a license at that specific location. It doesn't say that. And it actually uses that language twice in the statute that says that. The voters shall be taken to a voted in favor of such license. So then if you were to take that view that that's what the purpose of the vote was, the question becomes why was a specific site location included in the language of the ballot question. And there are a number of ways to answer that question. You could view it to mean fairly that well that's the voters were voting on the facility to be located at that location. And that's what we meant by it. Or, as someone suggested earlier, you could view it to mean well, the law was designed to give the voters an idea of what was being proposed in conjunction with the host community agreement which was posted and included, and the concise summary. So voters would have an understanding of what they were voting on, but whether it was designed to limit it to that parcel is a separate issue. So it is a bit complicated, but I think ultimately it boils down to how you read these provisions of paragraph 13. Thank you. Any questions for Todd before we turn it over to turning the carriers. Okay, thanks. Madam chair I don't really have a separate presentation actually what I was going to add dovetails to this part of the conversation pretty directly. I think the we've reviewed the case law that was provided by attorney star and attorney Silverstein on voter intent following the last meeting. I think attorneys star actually characterized it the same way we read it that it's not directly on point but it does sort of reiterate that general rule that voters are presumed to be aware of the surrounding circumstances not just the letters on the page so there's not much to add on the language, but we're in ties to here and I think is important and and maybe this gets at your question, Madam chair which is the, as Todd explained that the sort of additional language, if you just take it on its own the host community shall be taken to voted in favor of the applicants license. One of the sort of limiting principles or limiting features in the gaming act of how a license might be interpreted in the future comes from the host community agreement and actually playing bills short but sweet letter helps drive this home and I think interesting got at this. It's very possible that host community agreement could say, we're agreeing to this site and if we don't, if we want to go beyond the exact meets and bounds of particular site we're going to need a new agreement or we're going to get a new agreement, etc. Or it could, it could contemplate some expansion. And so I agree with you know Todd, what Todd has point out is, if you're voting in favor of the license that may include reference to the host community agreement. So I think ultimately the question for the Commission to put it in the simplest terms is, do you read section 13 as being a vote for, quote unquote the license as a whole with those background documents. If you resolve that question, I think the second question is, do you read the license as voted on at the time as contemplating. I wouldn't say any expansion I think that's been sort of conceded it's not any expansion, but expansion to these sites and as we talked about last time there's language in, you know there's an attorney star as pointed to language of supports expansion here, so language that may suggest that it was more limited but I think that's, that's reading into the agreement itself. And the, and then after all that, even if it's permitted for, I think to answer a question you asked a while ago, I think it would all be within the context of a license for gaming that that is clearly what was, was being voted on no one thought they were voting. I think, having been around at that time to and in the litigation following it. No one thought this license was about building anything other than gaming so if it extends to their and arguably extends to gaming. The last point just to reiterate what Joe and Todd have said is that then there are other external limits on what that might mean so the host community agreement maybe one, but there's also this the city's own zoning the city's and the MEPA process and the city's own, you know, sort of agreement to let it expand, not to mention the Commission's weighing of the four factor test that Todd mentioned so. Commission's questions for all of our presenters 1012 I think maybe it's a good time for everybody to take a little bit of a break, and then regroup and think about the questions they may have. And then next steps. That makes sense commissioners. Madam chair, I do have one question. Thank you for Miss Devaney if I could and we have to go back in history for this question. The city held many meetings for its citizens to give them a preview of what was going to be happening of preview of what was going to be happening on the ballot. Any questions that may have been asked was expansion ever brought up during those discussions before the vote was taken do you remember, or anybody that can help me know what took place during those meetings in regards to expansion. I will also suggest that attorney Silverstein could could provide some some information from the information and the materials I've reviewed. So, consistent with what Attorney Grossman was was outlining under the statute was the community agreeing to the license, and then the license being for for gaming versus necessarily a specific site, the conversations that took place in the community meetings were focused on the concept of bringing gaming into the community as part of the efforts to create a catalyst for overall recommendation and then I don't know, and this is where attorney Silverstein might be able to give you further clarification as to conversations about what exactly was in the host agreements. But, but there were there were very clearly conversations about whether the city wanted to bring gaming into the community is as part of overall economic development engine. And if you were to put those conversations in the context of what the Commission is considering today. The language in the language in the host agreement did clearly talk about we're going to talk about the city bringing in this initial project with the opportunity to to expand from there. And so Jonathan might be able to attorney Silverstein might be able to talk more specifically about any conversations at the meetings themselves. I'm happy to weigh in on that. I did attend all of those public forums. They were held, most of them were held at the Connolly Center which is a large public meeting venue in the city and they were well attended. Over a decade ago now or close to a decade and be lying if I remembered specifics, but I will say that a lot of the conversation at those at the presentations made by the city's planning director at the time. Jamie Erickson, as well as other city staff and the mayor himself, all it all started with here is the lower Broadway master plan. It always started with that the lower Broadway master plan that the mayor commissioned in 2012 that concluded shortly before the host community agreement was signed. And here's how this project fits within those redevelopment goals for lower Broadway. I know that there were a lot of questions asked by people about the host community agreement in general. Everyone, as I said, copies were handed out at these forums. People had clearly read it, they asked questions about it. I cannot tell you commissioner that I recall specific questions about specific provisions and regarding regarding expansion. It's very possible but you know I can't make that representation to you. But what I can say is that the thrust of the presentation from the city side was this is sort of a lynch pin of lower Broadway revitalization redevelopment. And then Madam chair, I have another question. When I was going through the host community, and I think attorney star brought this up the impact fee on expansion language popped out to me when I was reading about it. Can anybody elaborate a little bit more on the negotiations that took place on that language on an impact on expansion, because clearly somebody thought about expansion, when they put that language in the host community agreement. I can take that one as well. I think I'm the only person on the zoom who was in the rooms for those negotiations for every negotiation. And I can tell you those that specific language was heavily negotiated. And it was based specifically upon the fact that the mayor knew at the time that there were discussions ongoing. When was trying to negotiate with the MBTA for the adjoining train yard property. They were already starting to talk to other property owners along lower Broadway. And what the mayor didn't want to happen was that there would be a substantial expansion of the gaining establishment without a concomitant increase in the benefits, according to the city, and the impact fees according to the city. So that was the specific conversation about all that language contemplating exactly what's before the commission now. It would be clear for me to and you've seen me before it takes me a while to get it all going and figuring it all out. When you were negotiating this with when it was clear in your mind and in the mayor's mind that the expansion would not just be for a hotel slash restaurants, but would include expansion of gaming as well. In one word. Absolutely. And I can tell you that it was repeatedly brought up. At the time it was going to be with the it was going to be called the win. And I remember the win of the mayor repeatedly saying during these negotiations. Let's look at Las Vegas. Let's look at the original win and the encore. Now we've got the encore and I don't know what, you know, if we're going to have double encore, but it was specifically in the context of looking over at Las Vegas, we made a trip over there and saying, this is the second casino resort. Essentially, what if they do the same thing here we know they're buying land. We want to make sure that the city's going to share in those benefits. So Madam chair, I'm continuing my questioning if that's all right. So this is, this is a question. This is a question for when. So now we have the two locations in Vegas. Do you have a separate license for each one, or is it one license for both. I can answer that. Vegas is very different so it's, it's not like you receive a specific as specific license so those are run as a joint property though. And they're next to each other and they're not across the street from each other. They are next to each other. They're on the same side of the street connected with a large walkway between them. That's very helpful Jackie thank you. And I think that for now, does it for me for questioning Madam chair. I thought you were going to get to asking perhaps chief, did any weather. Do you have any insights on community input right now. You've had commissioner skinner was that I'll let you go right ahead and ask that question. Exactly what my question was going to be. Thank you. You know, just to follow up to commissioners Hills first question. He talked about any feedback from the public back during the 2013 referendum and around that time. I don't know whether there was any and so that's my specific question relative to today. What is the public discussion right now. If any given, given, you know that the matter is before one of the state agencies MEPA, although that might be the act. So you'll have to forgive me. I think you said the zoning board, the city council, the planning board. Is the public engaged in that process in what's what are you hearing. And I'm assuming that the gaming establishment, the proposed gaming establishment is part of the landscape in those discussions. We're going to have to think that the chief of staff that I was directed to. Is that right commissioners going to do that were you first asking the chief. I'm actually asking whoever is is is. Well, then I will leave. I will leave our guest first and then turn to Joe. Thank you. Lainey Devaney, you know, it's sometimes hard to tell. I do. I do go back and forth though and I thank you. It's fine to commissioner Skinner's question. There have been conversations that that have been going on throughout the community. That started with the city's efforts to change its zoning to allow for specifically the expansion of the destination district as we're calling it to the other side of of lower Broadway. So there's been public, we followed all of the local and state requirements for modifying our lower Broadway urban renewal plan that does require publication of notices. So residents could know when hearings and meetings were being held and what the topics and subjects of those conversations when also has appeared before the planning board. And that included sharing information with our planning board for the original proposal, which was brought before the the the MGC as well, when it did not have a gaming component. But they've been very transparent regarding this proposal as the gaming landscape has shift shifted in the Commonwealth and how they saw that that would impact their operations. Our city council is aware of the of the proposal both the original one, and they're also aware now that the proposal has been amended to include gaming specifically on the other side of of lower Broadway. The conversations in public meetings from from residents who have opined has been focusing on the express interest of renegotiating or having an opportunity to renegotiate the host community agreement to be able to revisit the conversations about any financial community impact that the city envisions that would take place. And so the focus has really been on on how this development, including the including the most recent proposal with gaming across the street really has been about Okay, how can this go forward and how can the mayor and negotiate the additional benefits that the city would be able to realize from from that expansion. In the community meetings that that have been held. I'm not aware that that any residents have publicly come forward and questioned or criticized the addition of for the expansion of a gaming location that that isn't something that that's taking place in in in the community at this time. Yeah, okay. No, I just to thank you to misdemeanor very helpful. Okay, and I just want to make sure that she's doing this. There are very close to me. I just I just misheard. Okay, great. Thank you. So during the planning board meetings that took place to allow the development to move forward. I think I heard you say you didn't hear any negative comments is that an accurate statement. I'm not aware that there have been any negative comments with with respect to having gaming as a component of this proposal. I'm not aware that there is any projects in the city of Everett gathers both positive and negative commentaries, but I am not aware that there is any anti expansion of gaming within the community. Clearly, there was a lot of publicity last week associated with the introduction of sports betting, which admittedly is in the current site, but there hasn't been. There hasn't been a negative commentary about even introducing a new type of of gaming at the current establishment, which I think it's consistent with public sentiment as to why we haven't heard any objection about adding the possible poker room across the street. To the earlier question about the expansion, I was sort of thinking to your questions, Commissioner Hill about where the wind sites are in Vegas. If if Mayor de Maria could have persuaded you know the MBTA to give up that parcel, then obviously they wouldn't have been able to have that so we think having the connection with the pedestrian bridge is probably as close as we can get seeing is they're they're kind of landlocked where they are now so and that would be his perspective on whether or not he's ever tried to introduce, you know, expansion into any option on lower Broadway for for encore. And I know this this issue. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry Commissioner Hill I was just following up on your question I was just going to mention I attend every planning board meeting in the city and earlier iterations of the project when they came before the planning board before there was a proposed expansion of across the street. Just full disclosure, that engendered opposition from some area performance venues. This was before the reduction in size of the performance venue across the street. That's the only negative feedback. I recall any of the planning board hearings regarding this project. So, and then my I know this has not come up yet madam chair and maybe it's something that will come up after our break or not. But for transparency purposes and making sure that we're comfortable with how the Everett citizens truly feel when anybody be against putting another ballot question out there before the citizens. About expansion questions. I don't know what the language would be, but we haven't talked about it yet today. Maybe a condition maybe something we might throw on. Anybody want to. It's a core question because we could. We should ask that directly. What's the problem right of doing another. I can jump in first on that if that's okay. Obviously there's significant expense to an election. If we're going to wait for September or November, there's delay. There's already been obviously a fair amount of discussion. It's also, you know, fundamentally, to my mind, it's a question of respecting the vote of over 86% of the voters back in 2013 who I have and will continue to submit voted in favor of a project that they all anticipated and frankly hope would expand over time to provide more jobs and revenue and other benefits to the city. And so it's an, particularly if we're going to talk about a special election, it's a huge inconvenience to voters to have to come to the polls again. And to city staff who have to run another election. It's not a small undertaking in a city like Everett and I don't know if Miss Devaney wants to wants to speak further to that. I think I would share with the commission. Some of some some of the other issues or concerns in the community. Aside from this, this conversation that we've had today about the 2013 intent of voters. One of the concerns that the mayor would have about about delaying this project is that the city of Everett right now is losing substantial commercial based tax revenue. We have a parcel that's across the street not not part of this project area for the proposed expansion for on core but the constellation energy site, which for all intents and purposes the the city is aware will no longer be supplying energy to the grid in 2024. That's had a dramatic impact on tax revenues in the community. This year alone we lost $6 million in valuation. And so what we've heard from residents in the community is that they expect the mayor to do everything that he can to bring in other types of development into the community. In order to mitigate the loss of dollars which had on average in this tax year, a 21% tax increase for residents of a single residential single family home. So I share that with you because to the point of what what would be the harm. It's, it's the potential that this puts off a project that could help taxpayers and residents of Everett and pushes it out even further. And that I think would be a legitimate concern of residents in this community so I just wanted to sort of share that overlay of other issues in the community that come into factor when considering this this proposed development. Well, follow up for on that issue. I have one follow up. So, I do understand it's expensive and I do understand that the arrangement has been in the past that they're nice to see me and versus the city. I suspect that would not be a reimbursement on the labor that's involved the force that you need in terms of getting our friend I'm done to you. We have I think a, unless you're unless the, and I'm sorry that I don't know the answer to this question, unless your estimates included that to forgive me if I missed that. Yes, the, the estimates of the cost of the election did factor in poll worker poll worker costs I don't believe that we. I don't necessarily know that we factored in our salary employees that we that's what I was wondering yeah the salary of employees right. So we factored in the, the additional costs of having to, to hire individuals to work the polls because that would for doing a separate election specifically for a referendum. That's not currently factored into a into a city budget and those would be additional costs. Thank you. So, the couple of questions that I have I it's my understanding that there are some delays that don't have anything to do with us right MEPA requiring certain studies etc to be done so I'm not really sure what you know the the construction timeline is ultimately, whether we say yes or no today. My question more for Jackie is, you know the building is going forward, assuming it gets all the approvals the MEPA etc you know, whichever way this vote comes out he's either going to have some gaming component or it's not. So, would that pose any delay and you can go forward and construct. So is there anything that would substantially alter the basic infrastructure of this building. You were told that this juncture you don't have authority to put gaming over there at this time. The answer is yes, because we have to redesign the whole building. So we've got to essentially start from scratch again. And we'd have to start the MEPA process over again so we're doing this. We'll, we're essentially dual tracking it right now. If, if the commission says no it can't go forward, we would absolutely have to stop everything. We'll leave it again and and and start the process over. So you already submitted on the, we're not going to put gaming across the street correct. No we've submitted on the basis that we would put gaming across the street that was out. So where, where was the posture when we came in and a year ago and you guys asked us not to consider it to be gaming. We hadn't yet submitted MEPA. Okay, so the first time you went to MEPA was post the statute being passed on sports wagering. So you altered the plans and went forward that way. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. We had had initial discussions with MEPA before them, but we hadn't made an official submission. Got it. Thank you. Commissioner Maynard. Anything you want to add before we maybe take a little bit of a break. So thank you madam chair and I appreciate my fellow commissioners questions. I asked a question last time we met on this. Mr. Silverstein, perhaps. Mr. Laney could also Mr. Laney can weigh in to get to attorney Grossman's point of getting in the mind of the voter. I asked a question about if I took the average voter. Who passed the referendum. I took them to the front of ebh and I turned them around. And I said, is it a problem. If gaming happens there and I point to the site that we're talking about today. Would they, you know, would they have had an issue with it now. The last time I asked that question, it was a little muddled the answer. But today I'm pretty much hearing it that the answer is. They would have been okay with that. Is that the case. I'll jump in commissioner. I think yes, I'm sorry if my response at the last meeting was muddled. I mean what I was trying to convey was that I think the average voter. Before ebh was built. Just knew it was going to be built in lower Broadway. So now they obviously know specifically where it is. It's quite a landmark. If you put their back to the building now and said, do you have any problem with the expansion? I think what you've heard. Miss Devaney say, and certainly from my observations of the meetings I've attended is. All I have heard from residents and public officials is wanting to make sure. That the mayor is going to make sure the city benefits from the expansion. Not any issue with the expansion itself. And certainly not. Oh, we'd be okay with an expansion of the non-gaming portions of the resort. But we don't want. Somehow it's going to impact the city differently. If people walk across the pedestrian bridge over Broadway. And. And that's what I think is really important. Is to engage in gaming. Across the street. I haven't heard anything along those lines. And it sort of wouldn't make much sense. From the logical standpoint. If you're considering the quote unquote objectively reasonable or. Average voter. Thank you, Mr. Silverstein. Mr. Starr appreciated. The. Back in my prior life. I used to. I used to do deep searches as a property attorney. I used to do a lot of. Everything that was put together in that letter. Footnote one. And this really is just a followup on, on the question I just asked Mr. Silverstein. On a packet from my fellow commissioners packet page 13. When, quote, I'm reading now. Quote when directly or through an affiliate. Comma has or will acquire land. And options to acquire land. In the city. In and around. The second sentence also points out that. Some of the land that crossed Broadway. I'm assuming not all of it. Was. Was also included. In the proposed revision. The area depicted in exhibit a. The project site. That's from the HCA. Recital. And then the second sentence also points out. That. Some of the land across Broadway, I'm assuming not all of it. So, really as a follow up to my last question, you know, did the average voter believe that in and around the area would have included that side of Broadway? In your opinion? Sure. And in the reason I say that has nothing to do with attending any of the meetings, because I didn't. I go with the approach that the appellate courts have asked us to take, which is you have to make an assumption that a reasonable voter would have looked into the other information that was available to them. And from what we've heard today from Attorney Silverstein and other other, well, principally from Attorney Silverstein, there were a series of meetings that took place where expansion of the gaming establishment was plainly discussed. And the host community agreement, as I pointed out since our first meeting, I think in a number of places clearly puts the voter on notice that expansion of the resort of the gaming resort, the casino operations was anticipated. And I think for me, the voter who did not want to approve the potential for expansion votes against the ballot initiative on June 22nd and pushes it back for renegotiation with a more constricted gaming establishment, that's the negative vote that would have forced the conversation to go back to the mayor to renegotiate with when a host community agreement that didn't flag and tell the voter wins buying up a lot of other land here. We're already putting in place mechanisms for if they expand beyond the property, you would have removed that if you were a negative vote, if you were opposed to the expansion, you would have voted negative. You would have forced the conversation to come up with a different host community agreement. To answer Todd, Attorney Grossman said the ultimate question. When he posed the ultimate question for me, you can't answer it according to the courts by looking at the ballot alone. You must look at the other information that the voters had in front of them, which included the host community agreement, which I believe a reasonable voter would have understood was authorizing indeed endorsing the future expansion of the resort as we're seeing today. Does that answer your question? Thank you. I guess my last question, Madam Chair, if you'll humor me. Ms. Devaney, you talked about in response to the chair's question about the election, if there were to be a new election. I believe we received some information from the clerks, but the process, a couple of questions. Question A, what was the vote last time, and anybody can answer that has it, the percentage of the vote, and question B, what kind of disruption would this be to the clerks? I think I've worked a lot with the local clerks in my former life and often heard about not just the cost, which I understand will be shifted, but the actual work involved in doing a special election such as this. I can say that I never met a clerk's office that wasn't willing to do it, but oftentimes had very strong opinions about the necessity of it, if it didn't have to be done. So I'm just kicking that question to you. I apologize, I don't have the percentage of voters who came out back in 2013. We can obviously get that information for you. My experience with the clerk's office and the elections department here in Everett is the same as yours, commissioner. They'll do anything that we ask them to do. What I would say to Everett is a very diverse community, and so we take very seriously our obligation to make sure information is available in multiple languages. We're now, because of our census population, any information about votes we have to make available in both English and Spanish. So to be representative of our community, we have additional work that we would have to take on an additional cost to be able to make sure we're giving our residents the type of information and notice that they would have. So it's not a question of will they do it, absolutely they would, but for us to do it effectively and feel that information has been shared with our residents, it would not be a small lift, and it's not one that they've contemplated doing up until this point, so then they would have to start and figure out how to manage this in addition to the work that they would expect to do in a normal election cycle this year. Thank you, Joe. Commissioner Mayer, I just looked up the referendum question according to the Everett independent, it was approved by greater than 86% of the population, of the voters. Thank you. And I think there were about 4,500 people, it was held on a Saturday and 4,500 people came out to vote. And 86% of them? 86.5 voted in favor. Actually it says here 5,320 said yes, with 833 against. Thank you. Other questions before we take a break? Commissioner, I think this is the, we've had such great information in Bade. I'm sure you feel like we could all take a minute to reflect and think about this and do we want to have our lunch break now at 1226 and we convene, I see Commissioner Bryan, yes. Yep. Commissioner Bryan, you all said, any further questions you want, because we hadn't turned back to your initial question, so any clarifier that can be offered right now? I don't think so, maybe when I come back, but I don't think so. Okay. Everybody else, I'll set to take a break. Then we convene at one. Does that sound okay? All right. We just have a few more minutes. Can we do like 105 because I have to run out to get lunch? That's right, why don't we do 110? Commissioner, no running. You can walk and contemplate. So 110 and again, thank you everyone for your time and wisdom. We'll put up a screen saver. Thank you everyone. Okay, Dave? Also? Thanks, Dave. Well, I think that looking, I'm sure I have all the commissioners. There we go. Madam Chair, that one matter, we were looking for those two emails on. Those just came through. Do you want to pause for a moment so you could take your time? I will need to pause everyone. We just have a very time-sensitive communication I got to take care of. So if everyone could just give me five minutes, that would be great. My apologies. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. The timing of that wasn't perfect. My apologies. Commissioners, thank you. I think I see Commissioner Hills there. So this is a reconvening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. And are we all set, Dave? Yep, we are. Good to go. Okay, so it's a reconvening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, and because we're holding this meeting virtually, although that's our next door to each other, we do need to take a roll call. Michelle Bryan. I am here. Michelle Hill. I'm here. Michelle Skinner. I'm here. Michelle. Maynard, there you are. You just shifted on me. Thank you. I'm here. Okay, I need to start pinning more intentionally. And we are reconvening public meeting number 483 after a really full sum discussion on the first item on our agenda regarding the Encore Boston Harbor East of Boston Development. So just to reframe, I'll turn to Chief Delaney. Well, I guess we've taken all of the testimony that we were expecting to take today. So I think we can move to any further discussion that the commission would like to have on the matter. Michelle Bryan, did you have any questions? I did. I have one question still, which is the, and I don't know whether Council Silverstein or Starr or Ms. Devaney can answer, but I'm curious as to why the phrase Lower Broadway District Master Plan Area was not included in the referendum description. If anybody can speak to whether that was discussed and or decided to not be included, that would be helpful to me. I can, I guess, address that by saying it wasn't discussed as a way to identify the property. I think, as I indicated and as Ms. Devaney indicated, the term Monsanto site has always been sort of a shorthand for that dirty area of Lower Broadway. The Lower Broadway Master Plan, though the city had put a lot of work into it and a lot of public outreach. I don't know that every voter would necessarily know what that encompassed any differently from discussing Lower Broadway in general. And again, I think the presumption was that since every voter received a copy of the host community agreement, it was published, it was posted on the website. There was so much outreach and it specifically talked about expansion that it didn't necessarily need to reference the entire Lower Broadway Master Plan area, which again, is much larger than what we're talking about in that and what was ever really contemplated in terms of potential expansion. So that's the best I can say in terms of why that particular phrase wasn't used. I don't recall that ever being suggested as the way to refer to the project site. If I could make one other point that occurred to me during the break, the question was posed as to what potential impact and what the issues would be with having another ballot vote. And we talked about sort of the disruptive nature of having an unnecessary election in the community and the impacts to town staff and city staff, et cetera. It also occurred to me that there really isn't provision for it in the law. The statute, Section 15, prescribes the exact language that's to be used for a ballot question. And that question is whether shall the city of Everett permit the operation of a gaming establishment licensed by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to be located at? And it says description of site. So that's really the only language we could use. And I have a concern that that would be extremely confusing to voters who already voted to authorize a gaming establishment and might be led to believe that they're authorizing the operation of a second gaming establishment. And there simply isn't any provision for alternative ballot question language in the statute. So I just thought I would throw that out there for the commission's consideration as well. Other questions, commissioners? Thank you for that. Sports wagering is still pretty easy, huh, commissioners? So, really interesting discussion and we've been the beneficiaries up now, really a couple of meetings on this topic. And then of course the earlier discussions with when the first proposal came to us. I guess what I'm saying is perhaps thinking, perhaps you're asking this, when did you first come to us about the development proposal? I believe it was about a year ago. Yeah. And then after it was what's wagering, I think you mentioned that that it shifted to exclude. And we were getting a lot of demands on poker at the same time, if I remember correctly. So we've been thinking about this topic for a while. And what I just want to confirm, what I haven't heard is any real outpouring against this from the residents of Everett, this project. Is that fair? I think we've just to confirm that. Mr. Hill, I know that you've asked that. It's on our minds. Well, but to be clear, we haven't also conducted any public hearing specifically on this question. So yeah, but I'm wondering for again, turning to the city and back you because there have been so many public hearings. We certainly have had our public meetings at length. So we have in front of us the agenda, it was there's not a, we have not marked it for vote, but that's really done as a practice. It's not required for us to put vote on the agenda. I think it was perhaps because you've done you thought we might want to chew on this for a bit. And, but I think our council anticipated that we might in fact want to go proceed with a vote today. So the discussion was framed in that way for us. Commissioners, I'd like to get, take your temperature to all back on a familiar phrase. How are we feeling? And I see you're cheap. Dylan, are you leaning in? No, I just must have made a noise in the background. Commissioners, thoughts? So the only thing I have to say, and I hate to, you know, be the person that throws a wrench in this, but the last comment made by attorney Silverstein in terms of if the finding were to be, you need to do another referendum to further define the boundaries. Can you comment at all, Todd, on the issue that was raised by attorney Silverstein in terms of the language that would be required under 23K? Sure. Well, it seems to me that chapter 23K section 15 does not really apply to this situation. That section applied to the initial application. You could, using your, let's say, plenary authority to oversee casino gaming, require a vote of sorts. And I think you would have discretion to craft the language in any form you wanted. It wouldn't, I don't think, have to be tied to this specific language. I take Mr. Silverstein's point that we certainly don't want to confuse the electorate out there. So you may want to craft language that's entirely different from this and just be very precise as to what question would be asked. And further, I think you could make it binding or non-binding. It may just be that you want to get a flavor of how the voters feel about this issue. So I think you have more discretion than just looking at this paragraph because a case could certainly be made that this doesn't really apply anymore. It puts me right back where I am. Then what was the purpose of doing that? Is there supposed to be an outer boundary or not? So that's what I'm still struggling with, Madam Chair. Well, I'm having a little trouble following that advice. If the commission were to vote today and to not green light, to say we think another referendum is necessary, are you saying a lot doesn't actually require that in this case? Well, I think the commission has broad discretion to interpret these statutes however you wish. So you could find that Section 15 still applies and that another vote is required. You would have to be able to do that in light of the introductory language that talks about an applicant being eligible to submit an application for a gaming license and then goes through all these criteria. That's not the situation we find ourselves in here. You would have to frame it as some type of redo or retake of that vote, I suppose, in some way. But on its face, this statute doesn't apply to the present situation, other than to give you context as to what happened in the past. But if you were to do it again, you could use this language. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm saying you could craft whatever language you want. You have authority to do that. Commissioner Hill, what are you thinking? So, Madam Chair, I will share with you my thoughts on this whole issue. Thank you. I, my view at this point, after hearing all the testimony and hearing the thoughts from my fellow commissioners, who I always respect and love hearing from, I think I may be in a different view than they are. As a former... I don't think you should make any conclusions right now, Commissioner Hill, about any of our positions. That's the one thing I'm going to say. Okay. No, understood. Okay, great. Go right ahead. So, as a former local official, I'm looking at it through that lens, and I'm also looking at it from this lens. My view at this point is that the citizens of Everett knew exactly what they were voting on and that there was a very good chance that there would be a possible expansion at some point from the casino in this area, not just on the property that it now sits. When I think about my little town, we often use not addresses, but we have names for locations that everybody in town knows about. So, for example, in Ipswich, I live in what's known as the Caponelli's development, which was built like in the 60s. Everybody knows where the Caponelli development in Ipswich is. So, all they say is, I live at the Caponelli's. Everybody knows exactly where I live. We have this beautiful peninsula outside of Ipswich called Great Neck and Little Neck. And we always say, hey, I'll meet you out at the Neck. Everybody knows exactly where I'm talking about. In Wenham, we have this little intersection called Four Corners. Whenever there's an accident at Four Corners, we say, oh, there was an accident at Four Corners last night. We know exactly where that accident took place. In Hamilton, we have a place called the Asbury Grove. Everybody calls it the Grove. Everybody knows where the Grove is in Hamilton. And in Gloucester, they have a beautiful area that overlooks the ocean that all they say is the back shore. And everybody knows where the back shore is in the city of Gloucester. So I have no problem thinking that the citizens of Everett knew exactly where this area was going to be when they voted on it and the language that they had in the ballot, that there would be some expansion in that area. And then when I heard testimony about the impact fee on expansion, clearly the city and Encore, and through them, the citizens of Everett, because they all got to see the HCA before they voted, before they voted, they expected that there would be some type of expansion in that area, not specific to the location that they are currently in. And when people think about a casino, I shouldn't say all people, but me personally, if I was to think of the word casino, if I shut my eyes and I said, someone told me, well, there's going to be an expansion at a casino. I would think most people, not all, but most people would think, well, there's an expansion at a gaming facility, there's probably going to be expansion of gaming as well. I think that's what they think. I'm almost sure they do. My father had a little clothing store in Ipswich. When he expanded his clothing operation, there's nobody in Ipswich that thought it was going to be anything other than clothing in that expansion. So I think most people in Everett who voted, I think they truly understood what they were voting for. And the fact that 86% of the people voted for it, which is huge, huge. I wish I had those numbers back there. I would have been happy with those votes. And the amount of people that came in, we talked about it briefly. I think Commissioner Maynard asked the question about how many turned out 43% of the people showed up on a Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon, I shouldn't say exactly what I want to vote on this issue. That's a huge amount of people for a city the size of Everett. So my two thoughts, Madam Chair. One, I don't think we need to ask the city to go back and have another vote. I really don't. I truly believe through the process for public hearings that are going to be taking place, that took place with the planning board, MEPA, there's going to be plenty of opportunity for people to get up and say they're against this. And I think I asked the question, I didn't hear a lot of negativity from the hearings that have already taken place local. In fact, I heard nothing but optimistic and positive comments made that they want to see. And I actually did a little bit of digging and I hope you folks will just bear with me for one moment. There was a few articles that were written after the vote. And again, just please bear with me. This was a, we were asking, well, I wonder what the people of Everett are thinking and why did they vote the way they voted? Well, in one particular instance, the one of the constituents says, it's a wasteland down there. There hasn't been any development, said this person. Speaking of the former Monsanto chemical site where Wynn has proposed placing this project, maybe we can get beyond the image of being an industrial city and become more of a happening place. So we got from the mouth of one of the citizens at least and there was a few more positive and negative remarks, but getting back to where they think the location was supposed to be and what they were talking about and what they voted on, I think he pretty much put it out there for us that it was that area, not a specific place that they were voting on. So one, I do not believe we need to ask for another a valid question. I think it's pretty clear what the people voted for. And I think I heard a cost of 150,000 and that was on the downside because we didn't include the workers who are salaried. So that amount would go up even more. And of course we heard testimony about it could be confusing to other people. And I, if we want to get into the specifics of whether we want to have gaming across the street or not, Madam Chair, I don't know if this is the time for that discussion. But there have been some issues that this commission has brought up that I think this development would alleviate. Should we allow it? And by connecting that bridge, and that's been the key for me through this entire discussion a year ago, even when you and I, Madam Chair, went and looked at where the bridge would be, that's been the issue for me. And I believe by connecting it with some conditions. And we can talk about that. I would be okay moving forward with the development that's been proposed more importantly also not needing another vote. I think the city of Everett has been very clear what they want to see now. Sorry for the long witness. Excellent. That's where I stand today. Very helpful. And I think on the latter point, Joe, that would be marked up, that discussion would be marked up for another day as to the actual proposal should we determine that the local authorization issues resolve today? Exactly. We would, we still need to consider the entire project. Today, what we do today does not in any way approve that project. And Brad, if I, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is that you believe that the commission could allow gaming over there if you chose to without an additional referendum. That's an accurate statement. Is that okay? Right. Yeah. So very helpful. Commissioner Maynard, I saw you nodding your head. So I'm going to turn to you next. That's, did I put yours on? You know, no, that's fine. I, I think Commissioner Hill really captured the way I feel too. And, you know, I try to make decisions in the best way that I can, right? With the understanding that I can. And like Commissioner Hill, you know, I've been a part of a few elections in my life and including referendums and seeing them. And I think that the average voter when they walked that day to vote on that Saturday probably did contemplate an expansion, given the letter we got from Mr. Starr and that they probably did think of that parcel as being part of the, the colloquial Monsanto site. So I, I tend to agree with Commissioner Hill and I think that that's, that's the way I'm going to vote if there's one call. Turn to either Commissioner O'Brien, Mr. Skinner, Mr. Skinner. I'm grateful not having gone directly after Commissioner Hill. I am not going to be as colorful as he was. Very entertaining for sure. But I also agree with Commissioner Hill and Commissioner Maynard. I said back in November that my decision would hinge on what I was able to deduce as voter intent. And I heard Attorney Starr today when he talked about not looking at the ballot in a vacuum, and I think he's right. And I heard Council Grossman's suggestion of a broader read of section 15, subsection 13, as more general to the gaming license itself as the purpose of the referendum under 23K. And I think he's right. And so based on the totality of the documentation and information presented at both the November 16th meeting and today's meeting, I think it's reasonable to conclude that ever voters casted their votes with sufficient information, including their own understanding of the lower Broadway District and the Monsanto site about what when in the city contemplated on behalf of the community under the terms of the HCA. That is that the gaming establishment may be expanded at some point in the future beyond the specific site on which the Encore property is currently located under Encore's existing license. So I'm satisfied with what has been presented by both Encore and the city, which by the way, through Mayor de Maria in his November 15th letter, enthusiastically supports the project, that the expansion site is sufficiently tied to the existing gaming site, that 86% of the people of Everett, excuse me, voted in favor of. So for me, there is definitely a level of practicality and reasonableness to interpreting all of this. And the counter arguments, I just don't think outweigh that. So I am also of the mind that Encore may be allowed to expand to the East of Broadway site without requiring an additional referendum. Very good. Commissioner O'Brien. So I know with more certainty that I am the one who is not in line with my other commissioners. I believe the statute inherently gives us the right to redraw the boundaries of the gaming establishment. I think that was absolutely contemplated. I think it's contemplated also in the HCA and in the ballot referendum. What I am not convinced of, however, is where the boundaries lie. And nothing that I have seen has given me the level of confidence that I need. That what is being presented actually falls within what was presented in that ballot. I pointedly asked the question in November whether the properties across the street would have been colloquially understood to be included in the Monsanto chemical site. And the answer was no. That was on the other side of the street. That the description mandated by the statute references Horizon Way, off lower Broadway the street. There is no reference to the district. If there was a reference to that lower Broadway district master plan, I would be in a completely different frame of mind. Because when I view 23K, and I forget who brought this up, this is not the cannabis statute. The municipality does not vote to authorize the entirety of the municipality to then decide where to put these establishments. It was site-specific. Plainville takes the same view in their submission. Not that that is any dispositive weight on this, but it was something that was informative to me. If evidence had been put before me that established for me that that was in fact part of the description that was in that back when this vote was taken, I would have absolutely no issue. I'm not opining on the appropriateness of the proposed expansion, what it would do. I think the plans for revitalization are fantastic for that area. What I am not satisfied with is any request that we say you can expand, but I still can't tell you where the end of the expansion can go. I am not comfortable with the, I know it when I see it response. And so for that reason, I do not feel that I've been given enough information to say that this is in fact included in the referendum. But more importantly, I still don't know where the outer boundaries of this are. And I don't think that what we're doing today is the end of the discussion, because I feel like this is going to continue to happen. So for me, the fact that that question can't be answered other than restricting to the Mancanto site, as the D transfers happen, and as outlined in the application to me, unless and until someone can give me the outer boundaries in the other discussion, I'm just not satisfied. Attorney Starr, do you want to respond to Commissioner O'Brien's concern without more definition? I know that it was Attorney Silverstein who did say, no, when you see it, how do we respond to that? Sure, when we when we look at the HCA preamble, there's some language there. I don't know if that helps. That I think is the best evidence you would have in terms of what information was in front of the voter, the recital that says in and around the project site. So I think that those terms in and around the project site are capable of reasonable understanding across the street is in and around the project site. As we've mentioned before, the description of the project site, the very, very rudimentary map that was attached does show a little bit of what's across the street. As I pointed out, it didn't it didn't mark the boundaries, but it does show the street. So Commissioner O'Brien, I hear you completely. I understand exactly what you're saying, and I have great respect for the questions you raised on November 16. I think I wrote down your four questions. I said it came from the commission, but they came from you. I did my best to answer them. I'm with the record as we could find it in and around the project site. Madam Chair is about the best I could offer. The commissioner, the ballot does say at one point, I know you mentioned in the top, it doesn't say lower Broadway master plan, but down in down on the face page of the ballot, not agreed, not up in the first sentence, but one of the bullet points down below where it's win commitment to Everett. It does make reference to the city's lower Broadway master plan. So the terms were there, and I agree with you, Commissioner O'Brien. I'm not suggesting those four words appear up in the top of the sheet. My job today would have been a lot easier had they been up there, but that's where they are. Yeah, and I thank you very much for the diligence and the supplemental information. This is in no way implying that anyone didn't give me information or withholding anything. I was struck by the answer to one of the questions, which was that entire area was not contemplated necessarily, that it is some sort of subset to that area that was contemplated. The conundrum I have is that the line is fuzzy. People that know me know I don't like the fuzzy areas necessarily, and I tend to err on the side of what is more solid, and that's where I come down on this, but again, not for lack of information that was provided by either the licensee or the city or yourself. Thank you, Commissioner. Well, I'm just adding my very quick thoughts and I appreciate Commissioner Hill your, as tomorrow, Commissioner Skinner's term, your colorful summary. Reflected very much my thinking. I have to say that I was quite convinced back in November. I do think that the post-community agreement was very, very much part of the education of the voter at the time, and it was a prerequisite to the referendum. I think Everett showed a great deal of diligence to provide the information at that time, and as we noted, the response was self-allowing. Since that time, there hasn't been any kind of demonstration from the public of any level of discomfort with the potential expansion here. I asked the question around gaming today because I thought it was important for us to reflect on that. I don't think it's a practical read to suggest that this was only with respect to a development that wouldn't include gaming. So I'm really quite comfortable with this. I wish I could be totally comfortable, but we operate sometimes without perfection. And so this isn't a perfect discussion, but it has been a fulsome discussion and we don't have all the answers. But the practical gal that I am just says I think it would be an unfortunate use of resources, anyone's resources, to require the additional referendum. And so I would really agree with Commissioner Hill, Maynard, and Skinner, but I have great respect for Commissioner O'Brien's observation because it would be much easier. I also know when these things are under way, everybody is really working hard to get right. And sometimes it just isn't perfectly right. But I really am relying on all of those who were there and it's fabulous that we've got a couple of those folks representing us, presenting to us today. And I appreciate that background. So to move forward, you were looking for some kind of a vote from us today or in the future. Why don't I get some guidance from our team on this now? Yes, I'll defer to Todd on this matter on what we need for a motion. And just if I can be in right before, Todd, I know that you gave some draft language or your team did and we always appreciate that. And of course it can always be tweaked. As I mentioned, I feel like these were informed voters. And I just am wondering about where the word general gets placed here. So I don't know if you've had some time. I mentioned it earlier. I don't know if you had any time to think about it. And if you can correct me if I'm just not understanding how we should move on this. Yeah, I think that it is important to try to tie the vote to the statute. And that's where the draft motion language came from. And voter intent is not specifically discussed anywhere. And that's why it's important to understand how it applies. And I think it is relevant to interpreting the statute. But the suggestion was that, and you can remove the word general, but you could find that paragraph 13 really just required that the ballot question be presented so that the voters can determine whether they were in favor of the license. As opposed to approving of an application to move forward at a specific parcel. And there's a difference between the two. So what I'm hearing is that the majority of the commissioners at the moment are essentially saying that the vote that was taken in 2013 by the voters was not to tie the license or the gaming establishment to a specific parcel. Is that right? Isn't there a distinction, though, between a parcel and a site? I mean, and I don't want to speak for the majority, but it's it sounded like my fellow commissioners felt that it was a vote on a site, but that the site was broadly enough defined to include what they're asking to do, which I think is very different than saying there was a general vote to just approve it for the city. And to add to that, I feel the voters quite properly didn't have to just rely on that language in the ballot, that specific site. They could take all the information, I think Commissioner Skinner, you acknowledges too, all the information that was made available to them through meetings, through the HCA, all the information, the ballot itself, which included the language below, and they would be informed to vote in a way that they would not disagree, that they would would would not be surprised or think that the proposal before that was not included and contemplated by their vote. So it's not general in terms of location. It's taking all the information to inform their vote that would permit this particular proposal to go forward. That in my break, I'm not being very articulate here. Yes, I mean, I guess I always conceptualize the question before us on this agenda item as is the proposal that was put forward included in the site description that was successfully approved by referendum back in 2013. I mean, that's kind of how I've been conceptualizing it. So there's no, it's sort of redrawing at La Boundary at this point to at least include that parcel without necessarily saying carte blanche or that there was sort of just a general, you know, come on into the city with no boundaries. Because I don't think that's what the referendum said. I don't think anybody's saying that that's what the referendum said. It could be even be more general. And this is probably far too general. But I think I suggested earlier, is there the proper local authorization here? I know that we keep on tying it to the site and the parcel in the language. But bottom line is that there had to be a proper local authorization. So is it to say that the suggested the proposed expansion falls within the approval, the referendum approval? I mean, can it be language as simple as that? I think that's probably the best approach at this juncture, just to say that, as you said, the approval under section 15 included what is being proposed here. Right. All right. So I have a proposed motion, Madam Chair, that that might make sense if you're ready for that. Sure. Do you are you moving on? Are you just right now, like everybody else adding some? I would like to move on it. And I think it will address the current discussion as to wording. I hope anyway. I move that the commission find that pursuant to general laws, chapter 23 K, section 15, subsection 13. And as outlined in the commissioners packet and discussed here today, in June of 2013, the voters of Everett voted in favor of the gaming license awarded to win. M.A. LLC in and around the specific parcel formally known as the Monsanto chemical site, including the expansion site as proposed by when M.A. LLC accordingly subject to further evaluation and approval by the commission at a future meeting, the gaming establishment may be expanded to the site of the east of Broadway development across the street from Encore Boston Harbor. Second, I think I do have a, Madam Chair, I think I would have one friend for the amendment Commissioner Skinner, and that would just be to switch the word parcel to site. But that would be my own amendment. Yeah, I accept that amendment. I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm following. I'm afraid I want to make sure we don't cause more confusion because of the language around even how naming the site. But I'm appreciating what everyone's trying to accomplish here. Commissioner O'Brien. My first comment really was a friendly in terms of also referencing the information and discussion on November 16 of 22, which was part of this conversation. Madam Chair, if there's anything else in terms of the verbiage remove, if you want to remove the Monsanto chemical site, it would really be to restrict it to the, yeah, as Commissioner Maynard said, the location of the site referenced in the 2013 referendum. I'm obviously voting contrary to what everybody else is, but happy to help with the language if it gets this across the finish line. Happy to accept it. Thank you. I don't know if that addresses or whether you sort of need it read back to you, Madam Chair. I do need it read back because what I want to really avoid is any, there's been so much discussion around what these words mean and the fact that now we're saying, including on and around, I know where that's coming from clearly, Commissioner Skinner. You know, I, I was going more general for the respect to just the local authorization overall, and now we're going in where, which could work according to Council Grossman, but we want to make sure that whatever language we're using now, we don't add to future confusion in any way. So, so the voters, if we could get back to in June of 2013, I think, and discuss here today and in earlier in our prior, so that would be a friendly amendment prior conversations. So in June of 2013, Commissioner Skinner, the voters have ever voted if you could continue there so I can just read along with it. So I did not capture Commissioner O'Brien's reference. I thought Commissioner O'Brien, you were asking to remove the reference to Monsanto Chemical Site that my suggestion was to remove the reference to the Monsanto Chemical Site and tie the description to the referendum itself and to say that the proposal, the proposed expansion falls within the referendum approval of June 2013 in the city of Everett. So it was, it was to take out the Monsanto Chemical Site and around it to stick with as Commissioner Maynard said, the site term of art that was used in the referendum. Because it's really all we're saying is that the approval from June of 2013 that was obtained consistent with 23K15 sub-13 is being interpreted to include the land at issue. Making clear that local authorization. And Commissioner Skinner, just so you know, I don't quite have it. I don't have it either. So we're also working on it. But I think that rather than trying to take all that we learned today, maybe that is the best way to go. Just to clarify, Commissioner O'Brien, are you, I'm looking at the ballot right now and it specifies property located on Horizon Way. Okay. But I don't know that we need to get into that so much as referencing back to if you say move the commission find that the referendum passed by the voters in Everett in June 2013, that the land and the proposal presented to us today and on November 16th was included in the local authorization that was required under the statute. I think if we leave it like that, and again goes back to the referendum language, because all we're doing is interpreting it to say we believe this geographic site falls within what the voters approved. Because I think going beyond that, maybe opens the boundaries up way broader than I think what the four of you are intending to vote today. Todd, can you give some assistance here? Because everybody's writing notes and speaking, but this is hard to follow. So if you want to read back, maybe what Commissioner O'Brien is suggesting so that Commissioner Skinner can decide if she wants to accept a friendly amendment. Absolutely. We can have a motion and we have a second. If I think the proposed motion would essentially read that the commission find that the vote taken in June of 2013 in the city of Everett under section 15 paragraph 13 of chapter 23K included the location of the proposed expansion at issue here today. Commissioner Skinner, that's more than a friendly amendment. That's almost a redo, my motion. I mean, I just want to make sure that the motion that's offered in the vote taken is what this commission intends, does what the commission intends it to do. So it sounds like Council Grossman is okay with that amendment. And so I accept the amendment. And with the language starting accordingly subject to further evaluation approval by the gaming establishment expanded, do we include that now too as well? I see. I would think so, yes. I would think so, yeah. Yeah. So with that, you would accept a friendly amendment that's offered via Commissioner Grossman. Is this a friendly amendment? Commissioner Maynard, are you accepting that? I was going to say I submit Council Grossman language for Commissioner Skinner to accept as a friendly amendment. Commissioner Skinner? Yeah, I just wonder if we should just read it so that we are all clear on exactly what this we're voting on. I think that's right because we spend a little bit tricky. So we want to make it as clear as possible. So thank you. Okay. Commissioner Skinner, are you preparing the language? I just needed just like a minute. Oh, sure. Of course. Well, that's certainly fine with me. I think I just got it. Okay, here goes. I move that the commission find that the vote taken in June 2013 in Everett under General Law Chapter 23K, Section 15, subsection 13, included the proposed expansion site as proposed by Wind, MA, LLC and outlined in the commissioners packet and discussed on November 16. I'm going to start over. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Sorry. No, that was good, but go right ahead. I moved that the commission find that the vote taken in June 2013 in Everett under General Law Chapter 23K, Section 15, subsection 13, included the expansion site as proposed by Wind, MA, LLC and outlined in the commissioners packet today and discussed on November 16, 2022 and today. Accordingly, subject to further evaluation and approval by the commission at a future meeting, the gaming establishment may be expanded to the site of the east of Broadway development across the street from Encore Boston Harbor. Second. Any further questions or edits from Councilor Grossman? Are we okay? I think if anyone were trying to figure out what happened, they could watch the video and see, but I think that gets it. Yes. It's not easy for anybody other than Commissioner O'Brien. Okay. Hearing no further edits or questions, Commissioner O'Brien. Not to detract at all from the effort it took, but I am nay. Thank you. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. I vote yes for one. Thank you, everyone, and thank you to those who have contributed today. We appreciate the efforts and appreciate everyone's thoughtfulness, truly. Anything that we hear from you in terms of Mr. Starr, Ms. Crumb? Thank you very much for your consideration today. I know it was not an easy discussion and not an easy analysis, but we very much appreciate it and look forward to next steps. Right. Thank you. And Ms. Devaney, too. I don't want to forget you, Mr. Starr. Thank you for your time, commissioners. I appreciated the opportunity to work through this difficult issue with you. Thanks very much. And Mayor DeMaria would like to extend his thanks and appreciation, and particularly for the emphasis that the commissioners have given through both of these proceedings to the wishes and the views of what's in the best interest of the community. So the mayor is grateful to you for that. Thank you. All right. So I think that concludes our first item on our agenda today. Only 17 more to go. So we're going to turn now to something that we always enjoy, the casino licensee reports. And I'm turning back to Joe. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. So we will have for you all three of our licensees doing their quarterly reports this afternoon, starting off with Encore and then into PPC and then to MGM. Just a couple of things. We will also be talking about capital expenditures, which we will do in executive session. But one of the other things is back in December, I sent a memo out to our licensees clarifying a couple of pieces of our regulations and have asked them to report on these items. And those items are the utilization of minority women and veteran business enterprises on capital expenditure projects. This is an item that Todd and I discussed at some length, trying to determine whether or not capital expenditures fell within that section of the regulations that required the use and reporting on MW and VBEs. And we determined that it does. And now the thing is, in the past, we have not asked for this information. And of course, we're only asking for it towards the very end of the year. So we fully understand if our licensees may not have a full report on the matter. But we did want to start this process and make sure that that gets added into our end of the year report. And then the second item is reporting on the impacted live entertainment venues. This really, I guess, kind of came to the fore. Back when Encore came in last year with this initial East to Broadway proposal, and the Commission was interested in getting some updates on the status of those. And in fact, there is a section in our regulations that does require annual reporting on iLabs. So we again have asked our licensees to include that in their report to the Commission today. And again, it was sort of late in the year that we asked for this. So some of the reporting may not be as maybe as in depth as we would like in the future. But with that said, we've asked for those two additional items from all of our licensees that we'll discuss at the appropriate points in their presentations. And so with that, I will turn it over to Jackie from and Giuliana Catanzariti with Encore for their quarterly report presentation. Good afternoon again. Giuliana, do you want to be able to share? Is everyone able to see them? Yes, we're all set. Perfect. So I'll be starting out. So good afternoon, Madam Chair, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity for us to present our quarterly report today. We will begin with gaming revenue. So during Q4, our gross gaming revenue for table games was about $88.5 million dollars. The gross gaming revenue for slots was about $101.5 million dollars for a total gross gaming revenue of about $190 million dollars. This resulted in about $47.5 million dollars in state taxes being collected. Here we have a year over year comparison. There was an increase in each column, both quarter over quarter and year over year, if you look at the bottom of each section of the table. Moving on to lottery sales. During Q4, for the first time, our lottery sales exceeded $1 million dollars, which was an approximately 22 percent increase over the same quarter of 2021. And here's the year over year comparison, which again shows both a quarter over quarter and a year over year increase. So as for workforce, at the end of Q4, Uncle Watson Harbor had 3,555 employees. 57 percent of those employees were minorities, 2 percent were veterans, 45 percent were women, and 88 percent were local. I'm going to go through some of our hiring efforts in a few slides just for a heads up. But here are the numbers. Juliana, before you get into that, I did want to let Commissioner O'Brien know that we have hired a new chef for our signature restaurant, Rare. And I'm very proud to say that she is a woman, which as you know, is more difficult in this particular field, particularly at the high end of the culinary arts. That's great. And here we have the breakdown of supervisory and above employees. So this is not something that we've mentioned before, but as we continue to focus on hiring, we have always had ongoing career fairs and hiring events in order to be able to hire, focus on hiring more individuals in all departments. So during Q4, just for sort of a snapshot of what is the standard, we held or attended more than 35 hiring events. So our recruitment team spoke with hundreds of students and employment candidates for almost every department on property. And we made more than 130 hires as a result of these events. Some of them are regularly occurring on premise events for departments like food and beverage or security. We have those all the time. And then others were large off property events, including a job there at BU, a job there at Suffolk, one at Johnson & Wales, and one at Southern New Hampshire University. So that's sort of speaking to the future employees, I suppose, and then also hiring for our current needs. So Juliana, this is Commissioner O'Brien. So in addition to the chef hire that Jackie just mentioned, what success, what efforts are you guys putting into getting that 45% women number up? So one of the successes, I think we had this past quarter. And as you know, these numbers change a little so they go up and down in percentages. But kind of a fun one that happened was we issued a test to our employees to see we were looking for sports book writers. And we issued a test to our employees on basic sports 101. What do you know? What are the major leagues whatnot? And the woman in our organization passed that far and away above the men. So as a result, we've got a large, a large percentage of the sports writers who are actually in the cage right now, are women, which was which was kind of fun. So we're going to keep doing that and training, and hopefully get more women in there. So just trying to move, I think what our goals shifted a little bit now, which is to try to move women into the jobs that are not traditionally open to women, because we also know that once you expand the number of women in those departments, it'll make recruiting and hiring in those departments easier. So that's kind of our focus right now. We keep working with the public areas department. The engineering department is another one. You know, housekeeping has always been traditionally women. So that's one that we sort of will keep our efforts up there, but really focus on these cashiers that are not traditional paths. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? So moving on to operating spend. During Q4, our total discretionary spend was about $23 million. 8% of that was spent with minority business enterprises, 2% with veterans and 12% with women. Here is the year over year comparison. As you can see, the total diversity spent for 2022 increased by about $3 million over 2021. And here is the local spend breakdown of that discretionary spend amount. And here, again, as a year over year comparison, message usage as a whole is excluded from these numbers, I'll go over them in the next slide. But there was also year over year increase here of more than $3 million. Juliana, could you go back to the discretionary spending? Sure. This one or? So is this, was there a drop in the spend percentage over 23? Over, so this was the year, so the year over year compared, we compared the entire year. I can find out about Q3 specifically, but there was an annual increase over the entire year. Over the entire year. Okay. I did look at the Q3 numbers yesterday and I think that's what I have in my head. And so I want to say there is a decrease from Q3 before. I mean, it's, you know, I guess you're on target for your annual goal for 2022, right? Is that what you're saying? So this comparison is the overall diversity spend from 2021 versus the overall diversity spend from 2022. So look at, yes. So it did overall increase, the addition of all four quarters. Honestly, it depends, sort of it may be what we purchased for each quarter. So at the end of the year, sort of evens out. So if we needed something or there was a larger promotion where we spent more with one vendor during one quarter over another, the year sort of flattens out the whole thing, but quarter over quarter gets sort of depend, depending on what we purchased, obviously. But you've met your annual goal for 2020. Is that right? For 2022, I don't think, actually, I think so we only did the Q4. I don't think that annual goal was part of the chart, but I will make sure that we get that to you. It was just like four as compared to the annual. Okay. Yeah. If you could add, if we could add the end, I mean, just get back to us with that information. I'd appreciate that. Yeah, I can do that for sure. Thank you. Other questions? So this is Massachusetts year-over-year comparisons. So this is in Massachusetts as a whole. So this includes all of the local communities plus outside of local that were still in Massachusetts. And as you can see, there was also a very large increase there from 2021 over 2022. So moving on to compliance, here we have the numbers for minors on the gaming floor during Q4. So something that we did notice is that in many cases, we talk a lot about the issue with fake IDs. But fake ID, what normally is meant by that is that someone's using the valid ID of another person. So something that we notice recurring is in a lot of those instances, the fake ID is essentially someone's passport. So if you think about being in college, someone might use their own legitimate license and then give someone else their passport as an alternate form of identification. We've noticed that becoming an issue. So what we've done is our security department has now been made aware of that. And in cases where they are presented with a passport as a form of identification, they've been instructed to give that a much closer look and then ask for a second form if there's any issue with that. Hopefully that would help reduce some of the fake ID issues, because that's what we've been seeing as an overall trend there. And Juliana is not giving you a self credit. She's actually the one who identified this trend after reviewing all the reports to prepare for this report. And so she was able to go back to our security department to alert them to this and have them start requesting multiple forms of identification. So if any of the mine is on listening, that's not going to work anymore. So can I ask the four and a half hour minor on the floor what the circumstances of that were? That was exactly that circumstance. They have that even on the person. And then the under 18s in November were those? Those were all small children that were mistakenly brought on by their parents, like infant children. Thanks. Any other questions? I think we're going to turn it over to Jackie now. So we've continued our program where patrons are able to designate a nonprofit to donate to instead of claiming their change from the cage. And for 2022, our patrons donated over $150,000 to local nonprofits. As you can see back from this chart, DAV or Disabled American Veterans proved to be the most popular choice. We do rotate these organizations and try to bring in new organizations to give different nonprofits the ability to claim some of this money. And in December, we held our, I believe it was our second, maybe our third Feed the Funnel event, second in 2022, third overall. And this is a really fun event. We packed more than 400,000 meals. And it's, Juliana was very specific on this one because we had a very friendly and completely legal competition with our sister property in Las Vegas. And despite the fact that they have substantially more employees than we have, we managed to pack more meals than they did. So also a very special thank you to our friends and colleagues at Game Sense. They came out, they volunteered their time and helped us achieve the goal. During the last quarter of 2022, our employees continued their volunteer efforts. It was really nice to be able to go back to in-person volunteering. And I think we saw a difference in numbers because of that. We were able to donate more than 4,000 hours of local nonprofits. And one of the little benefits that our company provides is that when employees volunteer over 25 hours, the company will make a monetary donation to a nonprofit on their behalf. So it's an added incentive for people to get out there. We also collected over 400 toys for ABCD, which is our daycare center provider, and the city of Everett and more than 3,400 pounds of food for greater life. And as you, as you well know, on January 31st, we were very proud to take the first legal sports best in the Commonwealth. We know how hard the commissioners and the commission staff all worked to meet the deadline. And we're very appreciative of everyone's efforts. Launching something new is always a challenge. And we could not have done it without the support we received. We had a number of events to celebrate the day. The first event, which is the bottom, the bottom slide to the right. We had the first bets placed at our kiosks. And this we actually worked with. It's a Facebook group called Everything Uncle Boston Harbor. These are individuals who spend a lot of time here and are very loyal and devoted to us. They also give us feedback in real time, which we very much appreciate. So when we do mess up from time to time, they let us know and we can correct things. But what we did was we worked with this group and they selected a number of individuals to place the first bets at the kiosks. Then also we were very privileged at about 10.30 a.m. We were joined by Speaker Mariano, Representative Paracella, Representative Michael Witz, Angela Rugerio, Johnny Damon, Cedric Maxwell, Matt Light, Tyler and Sean Thornton who placed the first bets for us at our wickets. And then because we wanted to keep the celebration going later that day in early evening, we had Julian Edelman, Mayor de Maria and Representative Meridian join us to place additional bets at the wickets and to start our celebratory party. A couple of observations now that we've launched sports betting and all of this of course is quite a week and a day old. So we're kind of gathering information in real time. What we've noticed that the most used kiosks are the kiosks that flank the sportsbook and the ones in the express betting area. We know that we have a new group of customers coming into the building now, customers who've never been here. And we can tell by the signups for our win rewards program they've increased by 30% compared to the same period last year. We're seeing that these new customers are also interested in not just sports wagering but they are going over to the tables and to the slot machines as well. So we're getting ready for this weekend and looking forward to welcoming even more new customers. So that is it for our quarterly report. Unless there are any questions. Questions? Could you give us the update on the iWave? Sure. As you know, I mean in accordance with 205CMR 126.012, in January 2013 we entered into a live entertainment venue agreement with, oh gosh, now can I write down the name of this? The Massachusetts Performing Arts Coalition, which is a number of different organizations that come together under that umbrella. So when we actually around a year ago when we were contemplating the development across the street, we did reach out to the president and CEO of the Hanover Theater and Conservatory who was overseeing this organization to see what we could do collaboratively. Obviously our design for the theater has changed dramatically over there so and we also haven't built or opened anything and we haven't had any events here so there wasn't much to do at the time but we do look forward to working with them as we move forward with the project across the street and I've reached out to him again more recently to see if he has any ideas for collaboration and then also while not a live in impacted live entertainment venue we've spoken with some of our local theaters here as well but again since we haven't had any events or haven't moved forward with a theater there's really not too much to do under that agreement. Madam chair? Yes. So I guess my question because even though I've been here a couple of years now I'm new to the process what happens when we have to reopen and I leave for further discussion or changes? How does that work? So what ends up happening if there is sort of I think if the term that's used in the rags I don't have the rags in front of me right now it's sort of a qualifying event you know if a new venue were open the the the the group that the iLev is with can then petition the the licensee to reopen that that agreement and there's a whole list of what constitutes like a qualifying event in the regulations and then in that case if if the licensee agrees to reopen it they reopen it renegotiated and come up with a new agreement we're not party to that agreement that is simply between the licensees and the iLev's and then of course if there is if they come to you know an impasse on that on those discussions we can we can then intervene or if the licensee does not agree to reopen the the iLev the iLev could come to the commission and ask us to to to have the licensee reopen that so there is a process that is in that's in the regulations on on what to do with that um but that sort of hasn't happened yet that answers my question thank you joe thank you madam chair have any questions kichers all right thank you to on corn now do we think now to move to consider the um capital expenditures yeah so i guess we need to move into well executive session on that i get christa will work her magic on no not yet we have to do a little bit of a process so before we can move into an executive session we have to have a vote so commissioners you know that i have to read this into the into the record madam chair i'm sorry to interrupt you i just want to make sure you i sent you some updated language to take a look at the the language on the agenda is not exactly accurate my understanding is that on court doesn't have a multi-year capital expenditure plan so you won't be reviewing that you'll be reviewing their capital expenditures to determine whether they're in compliance with the rule that they expend 3.5 percent of their net annual gaming revenue so it's slightly different i do believe just for the record that the agenda language adequately puts everyone on notice as to the substance of what will be discussed it's just the legal correction that i'm suggesting right and it's still the same provision right yes okay so the commission anticipates that it will meet an executive session in accordance with general laws chapter 38 section 21 a7 to comply with general laws chapter 23k section 21 a7 for the specific purpose of determining whether um court boston harvard has complied with its capital expenditure obligations as described in section 139.09 i really should say 205 bmr 139.09 including a review of the sub-state of material as the exception of this matter in public discretion purpose of the statute this matter is further governed by 205 cmr 139.02 as the information issue is covered by a non-disclosure agreement does that work all right so with that language do and and just to point out that should we vote to go into executive session the public session of the commission meeting will reconvene we'll have a few more matters before us so commissioners do i have a motion madam chair i move that we go into executive session for the matters and reasons stated by the chair sorry good all right any questions at it's on this matter all right commissioner brian i commissioner hill hi mr. skinner hi the maynard hi i vote yes now we will have that magic take place everybody can just join thanks crystal and we will reconvene in the public one briefly after this executive session okay we're all set dave sub-commissioners we're all back everybody here okay jackie again i see her in the other section okay so that session is closed so everyone should be back in just a second you know what we'll continue we are just exiting an executive session relevant to item three b1 on our agenda for today i'm meeting public meeting under 433 commissioners we just had a presentation on the capital expenditures and if you wish someone could move for acceptance of that report i'm i can do that madam chair if you're ready i'm ready i move that the commission find that on core boston harbour is in compliance with their obligations under g l chapter 23 k and 205 cmr 139 for the calendar year 2022 subject to further audits being necessary for compliance purposes second any questions or edits i'll set mr ryan hi mr hill hi mr skinner hi mr maynard hi i vote yes five zero thank you all right now we are looking at i'm chair can i just take five minutes before we go into the next two quarterly absolutely absolutely so it's um 309 and we'll come back at to be 15 thank you thank you okay all right thank you Dave so this is a reconvening of coming to get you finished after a very brief break it is um we're holding this virtually we'll do a report called commissioner ryan good afternoon i am here good afternoon sure hill i'm here there you are commissioner skitter good afternoon and commissioner maynard good afternoon all right we're all set to go now we're turning to are you going to park casino right joe yes so we should i see north here with us and and some of his other folks so i will turn it over to north for ppcs what do we report great if you'll give me just one second to get set then i think we should be good to go as long as you can all see my presentation i think we're ready yeah we can see it yeah okay wonderful good afternoon madam chair and good afternoon commissioners uh plane rich park is pleased to present our q4 2023 update joining me today are heidi yates akbaba our vice president of finance and kathy lucas our vice president of human resources please be aware that our updates on in-state spend local spend and diverse spend will include our numbers for q4 along with a separate slide showing our year-to-date performance so you will see two slides on each of these items the first will address the q4 numbers and the second will address the year-to-date numbers now i'm going to pass it to heidi who will walk you through the financials good afternoon madam chair and fellow commissioners uh fellow commissioners other commissioners uh it's nice to see you again uh it was nice to have you here at our property last week in person uh enjoying our sports book launch so it's nice to be with you again um so you can see for q4 our total slot revenue was at 36 million this is uh up over our q4 in 2021 of 33 million our state taxes were spent of 14 000 four of our over prior year of 13 five and uh race is at 3.2 prior year was at 3.3 uh total in q4 for 2021 was 16.5 we ended q4 of 2022 at 17.6 so what this does for the entire year is this puts us 3.7 million ahead of uh total slot revenue um an additional 1.4 million paid in state taxes 334 000 in race and 1.8 million in total slots uh total taxes combined lottery sales so you can see that uh q4 2022 ended at 532 000 uh 2021 was 503 this is an increase of 28 000 total for the year is at 2 million 54 prior year was 2 million 124 this is down 69 000 over prior year and this is largely due to the decrease in q2 and we have spoken about that previously that that quarter was reduced um by the lottery intentionally as they were asking us to deplete our inventory so they could swap in and out new games our qualified spend by state in q4 is 698 000 uh in this commonwealth and 499 000 in state spend and spend outside this uh the state in q4 of 2021 this number was 412 000 from massachusetts so we are increasing year over year our spend of uh 286 000 our total spend for this um quarter was 1 million 198 000 in prior year this was 765 000 so we have increased uh quarter over quarter year over year by 433 000 and this is our full year data so um as you can see uh we've spent in the state of massachusetts 3 million uh instead spend outside the state of massachusetts 203 total spend uh combined is 5.3 5.3 million in 2021 this number was 3 million so we have increased our year over year spend for total qualified spend by 2.3 million q4 uh for our hosted surrounding committees of that 698 000 i spoke about before 32 000 of that was spent uh in our host and surrounding communities being plainville rentham north adelborough foxborough and mansfield respectively our full year so the 3 million also that i mentioned before that we had spent in the state of massachusetts 256 000 of that was spent in our host and surrounding communities this is an increase of 68 000 over where we ended the year in 2021 uh which was at a total spend of 188 and you can see now we're at a total spend of 256 000 our q4 diversity goal uh you can see we have surpassed that by 11 percent um the women by three percent the minority by seven and vbe spend by one percent and this is going to lead directly into our our next slide which talks about our full year so um we we're always happy to present on our our quarter but where we in the year is really what's important and the the annual goal is 21 percent and we surpassed that goal by 26 by 5 percent at 26 percent coming in right even uh on our our women's spend our minority spend was an increase of three percent and increasing our veteran spend by two percent over goal and then this is just a little bit how the numbers break down in the quarter over quarter you can see that um uh women uh wins it down a little bit uh over q3 of 2022 as was the veteran this is relating to um project and some spend that did not repeat quarter over quarter the total diverse spend for the quarter was 378 000 prior quarter was 459 000 and then the 1 million 198 is what i had alluded to earlier in terms of total qualified spend for the quarter thanks Heidi um i'll cover the compliance section now so in q4 of 2022 ppc prevented a total of 191 guests from entering the gaming establishment of that group 12 were minors 44 were underage and 135 five had expired invalid or no identification we had one underage person escorted from the gaming area there were no instances of underage gambling and no instances of underage alcohol service in the quarter uh with that i'm going to pass to kathy who will walk you through the employment and community relations information thank you good afternoon madam chair and commissioners uh during q4 of 22 ppc had 393 team members we continue to exceed our diversity goal of 15 in q4 with 23 percent of our team members being diverse as well as exceeding our veterans goal of two percent in q4 with four percent of our team members serving as veterans in q4 45 percent of our team members were women under our goal of 50 percent but just wanted to reflect where we came back from covid when we talked about initially being at that that lower number of 39 percent we are climbing our way back to um our our number which was 53 in q4 of 2020 so with that uh in q no go back one more in q4 our local team members were 33 slightly under our goal of 35 percent and then with the addition of sportsbook we hired quite a few team members from road island which impacted that we hired folks that had the experience to help us get off to a great start um of the 393 team members in q4 uh 65 percent were full-time 35 percent were part-time next slide um kathy before you move on from that one this is commissioner brian so i asked on core the same thing in terms of this challenge in getting the women percentage up and whether you've had any local like recent successes or whatever it's you guys are continuing to put in to try to get back to absolutely and i'll share a similar story that um was shared by anchor earlier this morning uh with when we opened up sportsbook we actually interviewed a lot of the team members that were already on property um specifically we had folks that were cashiers either in racing or on the food court side were in our cage that had preference in regards to us bringing those over so we were very successful with bringing some of our females that were in positions already on property into those properties along with hiring you know folks from uh twin that had the experience which kind of shifted a little bit of our our local number so we've had some success with that also um we've had some success with obtaining um some some female managers at that level and you see that on the next slide in that um our team is specifically looking for for talent that reflects um you know the success that we want but also you know with a mindset of ensuring that we're bringing women who can lead a pet so from a development standpoint i'll share a little bit in another upcoming slide some of the things that we're working for engagement and aces that are helping um women able to grow and then i'm you know we're super excited because we're getting ready to do construction on um our full service uh restaurant and with that we know that we're going to be able to bring back um you know some of the female population that we lost when we closed down fleets so we're excited we've got hopefully i think in my numbers i i think in q2 of 2023 when we present those in q3 those numbers um we're going to be well back to where we were before closing down okay great thank you all right so in this slide you'll see with our supervisors and above we had 69 leadership team members of those 23 identify as diverse 2 2 percent are veterans and 28 percent are women which was also a little bit of that a tick we saw on the bottom of the slide you'll notice um oh those are um north i think those are the old those those are old slides that's from q3 so i will just tell you those slides don't reflect what norse doing in q4 he's challenged our leadership team to focus on the engagement survey results along um with the new customer base that we have with sportsbook north thought it was important for the leadership team to focus on the team members needs to ensure they would delight and engage our guests um we also rolled out aces 2.0 training which focuses on making our customers feel like a list players every time they play with us our goal is to make again our customers feel happy about being here with simple steps including you know friendly and timely greetings um and also you know providing an amazing and clean experience so with with those two areas of focus for the leaders it's able to kind of trickle down to the team members that impacts the guest next slide so you know on that slide all the data seems to say just the bottom portion yeah and what's missing is the picture of north yeah so we that in that picture is so so important so if you guys have it in your um in your deck in the in your packet um that picture is of north having a slice of cake um when when we were happy to move forward with um opening sportsbook so that's why he's got that brilliant smile that's for the celebration yeah then your leadership training and engagement survey yeah thank you so much of course and then the the final two slides so the next slide really speaks to what what we're doing um here at the casino and in pen around the community initiatives and the team member initiatives so next slide north give me just one second i'm sorry it's a good slide okay i want to display it just one moment i apologize just one second no apologies there's a bunch of pictures of north in this slide so we definitely got to make sure we said show those so take pictures a good picture i apologize i i think this is the only one that i have left gap yeah i'm sorry hold on i let's see if i have the ability to share actually there's somebody um joe do you have a chance that you could share it as an audience oh here it is good yeah okay so that's the picture of north okay so now i just need to um share a little bit about what we did for ppc here's in our community um in q4 we had the opportunity to host toys for tots um our toy drive with our guest and also our team members we had the opportunity to have the drop off spot here on property and those toys were then delivered by dom and lisa over to the plain bill town library for gift giving during the holidays we also have the opportunity to support the standard bread retirement foundation with tito box donations from our our guest um you'll also see in q4 the property made donations to new hope new hope organization and then also the american cancer society for making strides against rents press cancer and actually north and joe wenzel our vp of operations have now decided to lead the real men wear pink team for acs here in the southern mass region so we're super excited you'll see stuff with that coming up probably in q2 when we host some events for them and then finally a couple of things that we did around the holidays in q4 north had the opportunity to celebrate veterans day with our local veterans that work here on property we hosted the missing soldier and then prisoner of war ceremony for the missing person right over there at slacks and then north also had the opportunity to celebrate our aces of pen quarterly winners you'll see those folks pictured there and then for the holidays we just kind of went wild for halloween and christmas with the team members being engaged here on property with halloween costumes and we held um ugly sweater um event and as you can see i think the ugliest sweater that north could find was this gray sweater but um that's okay and i'll turn it back over to noy thanks katie so that concludes our presentation aside from the mix ups that is all that we have to present to you today we'll take your questions thank you um if you want to bring down the question thank you commission do you have questions could i'm trying to get my meeting controls to stop sharing that's okay they also have the um north you have your island agreement okay yeah so with regards to the isle of um at this point we reviewed that agreement and we remain in compliance with our isle of agreement um we do work with our local businesses to promote products and services i mean obviously we don't necessarily have the facility size to compete with some of the local venues um with regards to entertainment destinations um but in reviewing that document we are compliant with the agreements that we made with isle of thank you questions commissioners comments i'm katie you led with um our visiting on launch day i want to acknowledge um the gratitude your um very generous weight to launch that first that at one o'clock so that the commissioners could be there and we didn't intend for that to happen but it made it very special so thank you it was a great day we're glad that you could be there for uh with us to celebrate thank you haven't you i don't have a question but just a comment uh excellent report this is exactly the kind of thing we would like to see um in each of our licensees and um your uh diversity numbers on spending um outstanding um i i think um that is to be commended i know on the uh employment numbers you're also struggling as the other licensees are with your um women uh employees and so you've acknowledged that and look forward to uh those numbers increasing as as well but overall i think it was a great report thank you thank you madam chair yes never know never knowing what's an executive session question and what's a public session question but um to get through the pipe situation okay we did we did yes um we we were able to get through that i mean it caused a brief disruption to to the floor um luckily the thing i would say is that there were um you know no reported injuries as a result and that really is the most important thing uh through all of that i mean the safety of our guests and our team members is foremost in our mind so um we were able to get through that relatively quickly and um you know there were no injuries and nobody i don't believe that anybody was in any danger at any point but never can be too cautious so this this was in reference to the very the very cold day correct yes to be clear commissioner hill yes and happy to give you a little bit more info when we go into exactly the other item thank you kindly yep so my morris my only question you guys have great numbers as usual in terms of the minors and the underage um just curious how the one got on the floor yep so this was a person who was on for less than five minutes they went to the cashier cage um not knowing that they needed to be 21 um they went to sign up for a player card we immediately identified them we escorted them off the floor okay okay thank you you're welcome any further questions anisa okay so um now commissioners just as we did with uncle boston however we have the pants to get the update on um capital expenditures and i'm going to take council grossman's advice do i go back to the earlier email yes i would if you if you can go back to the email in the case of ppc they actually do have a multi-year capital expenditure plan uh but the language you have before you madam chair will still work so the email or do you want me to use someone on the agenda no that one's not exactly right either so i would use the email thank you okay all right the commission anticipates commissioners as you know i must read this into the record uh anticipates that it will meet in executive session according to gl chapter 38 section 21 a seven component gl chapter 23 k section 28 a seven specific purpose of determining whether Cambridge park casino has complied with its capital expenditure obligations as described in section 205 c mr 139.09 including a review of associated materials as discussed discussion of this matter in public would frustrate the purpose of the statute this matter is further governed by 205 c mr 139.02 as the information act issue is covered by a non-disclosure agreement and as i indicated before we will have another report from mgm springfield so this we will return to the public session of this meeting after we conclude the exact recession should we vote go into it with that do i have a motion mr ryan madam chair i move that we go into executive session for the matters presided by you and the reasons cited by you on the record second thank you and for the discussion mr ryan hi mr hill hi mr skinner hi mr maynard all right i vote yes so five zero we will magically be transferred and then we will convene in the public session thank you everyone thank you we can take down the screen okay and we are just reconvening an ongoing master's gaming commission and we just came out of our executive session um note that it to item number three um b two or b item three b three but before the executive session and now we are turning to whether or not we want to move on the capital expenditure issue madam chair i move that the commission find that plain rich park casino is in compliance with the multi-year capital expenditure plan previously approved in accordance with 205 cmr 139.09 to subject to further audits deemed necessary for compliance thank you any questions or edits right commissioner brian hi mr hill hi hi commissioner skinner hi commissioner maynard hi and i vote yes so there we go five zero on that uh thank you for the excellent reporting uh before this and at the executive session thank you mr's are we all set to okay so we're going to move on to the next item on our agenda thank you nor thank you very much thank you so much have a good day congratulations on your mention last tuesday thank you thank you all right um now we're moving to item three b five and mgm springfields quarterly report joe i'll let you set the stage yes thank you so um we have with us uh folks from mgm springfield uh we'll be presenting their quarterly report and again as we did with the other licensees um for this round we we did ask for an update on their impacted live entertainment venue agreements as well as um their um use of uh minority women and veteran businesses in their capex which we will discuss in their in the um executive session but with that i will turn it over to mgm springfield uh for the quarterly report good afternoon commissioners good afternoon chair uh first of all thank you very much for visiting us last week for our sports wager launch it was wonderful to see all of you on property uh i hope uh you enjoyed your stay with us or your stay at mgm springfield as well as springfield in general and we look forward to an opportunity to host you again hopefully not in the near future as well uh so thank you again to you to your your staff for coming in and gracing us with your presence and i hope that you enjoyed our launch as much as we did turn it to our uh 2022 q4 uh report um here we have yes thank you so we have our revenue tax and lottery and spend update to start with in q4 uh our gaming revenues total a little over 67 million dollars generating taxes of nearly 17 million dollars as you will see from uh same quarter year over year our gaming revenues did increase by about two million dollars uh and then year over year again our gaming revenues did increase by 12 million dollars again resulting in higher taxes for the state so we are very pleased with the trends that we are seeing year over year in terms of lottery sales as you will note there was a 16 increase in in q4 from uh this year from last year and then go to the next slide you'll see that again year over year total the the lottery spend actually increased by 20 from 2021 so again we're very pleased with the results in terms of diversity spent um as you know western mass the the pool of uh of certified spent the very diverse uh vendors that we had is not as deep as in other parts of the state we are working through the challenge we actually have hired or engaged consultant to help vendors go through the the consult the certification process so we hope that we'll see dividends pay off in the next couple of quarters having said that we all we have also identified a women vendor um that we will start to engage with uh in a significant way of probably starting in q1 so you will see these numbers increase significantly i think when we do our q3 i'm sorry i'm sorry 2023 q1 report so i think we're very hopeful and we expect these numbers to move north very very quickly in a very significant and meaningful way and this is just uh as you know our local spend uh is just 30 percent of our budget or what we spend in in massachusetts we spend 46 percent of our spend on massachusetts vendors turn the next compliance you will note and i i think that it's fair to say that um that we were all surprised a little surprised by the jump uh in the december numbers of miners on the gaming floor uh went from 16 in october to 76 in december this concerned us quite a bit as well we immediately took um a look at why and how this this number came about we identified several factors i think that contributed to this number uh primarily as you know we started our winter activities our tree lighting ceremony our skating rink out there and those factors clearly contributed to um to we believe to this number uh one of the additional factor that i think that we um we want to make sure we highlight is that if you recall there is a parking garage across from mass mutual center that that came down about a few months ago and so that took about 800 or so parking spaces away from people who would access natural mutual center and the city in general and of course with our parking garage uh being free and being the closest available to mass mutual center all of that overflow parking uh i think we have absorbed if not all of it a significant portion of it and so we think that that is also a factor that that may have driven up the numbers in in december however i want to point out one thing um if you look at so that we there are two factors there are just two different factors here played one is the number of miners who actually accessed the gaming floor and the other number we look at is how many actually actually gained on the gaming floor if you look at our numbers even though 76 actually accessed the floor only four actually gained and if you drill it down even further up those four three were not even on the gaming floor they were actually standing on the nine gaming area reached across uh and hit a slot machine button and we reported that as gaming because clearly it is so if you look at that take away the three of the other age who are standing on the on the on the non gaming floor of the 76 only one actually gained and the one person who gained in much the way the on-court talked about using a fake ID this one person gained the floor by using a presumably neighbors or a relatives passport to gain access so um again i am not under on discounting the number of gaming the underage access but if you look at the actual number of people who actually wound up gaming that number is quite low and then if you look at the miners intercepted consuming alcohol that number is one the one in october was actually not even on the casino floor that was actually in our tap sports bar where a parent or somebody who's an older slipped across the table to somebody who should not have been drinking took a sip our surveillance identified it and we reported that as uh as a consumption so i believe that you know again looking at the access the access is a little high but i in terms in terms of intercepting our the time for our security officers to intercept somebody in the gaming floor is a minute so of the 76 in most instances we've got to them in a minute and we've got them off the floor so um i think that um i think that focusing on the numbers of access may be uh the service to the efforts that our surveillance team that are security team that every member of our staff actively looks to make sure that no one is actually gaining uh and if you do look at the uh the sort of the numbers of whose access in the gaming floor a large percent of of our families parents with children who either don't know that they should not be on the gaming floor or who may know but they're just trying to get to point from point a to point b the quickest way possible and just crossing the gaming floor would not intent of wanting to gain but nevertheless using the gaming floor as as a shortest means to an end um so i do want to let the commissioners know that we are mindful of this this number in addition to the interception that we're doing we're actually looking at ways that we can prevent access uh initially so then you go to next slide again so here is an example case in point in november we opened roasted bee our mjm branded uh coffee shop and we it's where the old um game sense office used to be and we were aware that people who are looking to uh get coffee or maybe breakfast maybe loitering around this area and may inadvertently access our course we put that the red bar across these 24 feet of additional new railing that we put up across from roasted bean so that make to make sure that people waiting for roasted bean not inadvertently wander into the gaming area i spoke to you about the december numbers so after 76 surveillance identified this particular spot as we're 50 gained access if you see the bottom right bottom left that's a south end market and then adjacent adjacent to the south end market these are the bathrooms and what surveillance determined was that people would use those bathrooms next to the south end market and then just walk right into the gaming area so we again we put 50 feet of new railing there to prevent that from happening and you were out here last week you saw our sportsbook um you've seen the middle of the screen the security podium and directly across the street podium is our main street entrance um so we expect that most of our our patients who may be interested in in placing a sports wager would come through the main street entrance um even though we have a security podium standing right there to the left you'll see that we put up additional railing uh it's at the sportsbook area so that people who are you know if there's a lot of traffic our security officers are busy they may not be able to you know see it's everything that is going on so to prevent again even in that very access we put up additional railing by the sportsbook area to prevent uh you know unintended exact access to uh to our gaming floor so here is the photographs of what we did on the left by the 50 feet of railing that we put in front of the bathrooms by the south end market and on the right are the railings by our sportsbook here is a diagram of the entire floor as you recall when we first opened this casino in 2018 all the the floor around the casino had nothing no barriers whatsoever it was open floor plan and since then the red areas that you see here are railings that we have put up uh as a result to try to combat unintended access or you never access to the floor we are actively looking at the possibility of addition of placing more railings around the perimeter but we have determined that there may be some life safety issues some access issues some permitting issues some occupancy issues that may come into play to try to wall off entire casino so we are looking at we're starting that now we're trying to see what our options are but in the meantime when we know there are there are high volume activities that will happen where we have underage we have children with monitors in the building we are going to use stanchions you'll see on the left that will go to stanchions right by our channel or steakhouse we're going to use stanchions as a temporary at least a visual cue that you should not be entering this area and also you'll see on the left on the floor um in the photographic self and on the right we're using directional signage on the floor to direct underage to walk around the perimeter so we are actively taking steps and efforts to make sure that we message out that we understand we're welcoming you in the building but if you're not 21 you must stay away from a casino floor. Can I have time on that um then I know Christian will probably have questions but I'm hearing that there are parents who are bringing children do we need more signage that says uh that children can't accompany people who are over 21 uh this there's some there's some misunderstanding that folks are just bringing their small children to the gaming floor so chair as you know our casino our building is not restricted in age anyone can access for example as you know we have the regal cinema so we have children in the buildings at all times um and you know they typically speaking for example when we have games the thunderbirds play at national center uh families will combine in one of our either in path or the south end market and then go to the game or vice versa so we do have uh underage the signage well and I was going to add in there that we do have additional signage as well here um we have uh dynamic signage on our display like digital displays that show families and asking them to remain on on the tile um we also have 21 plus signs dotted at all the main entrances to the casino area both on our podiums and on sort of lollipop style signs um and then you know one other method if we know it's a family that is staying in the hotel we provide them what is relatively a map that shows you know the green pathway is being the allowed area versus the red casino area being you know the no-go area as it were so you know we we have tried to invest in many different methods of notifying guests um and of course some some slip through uh and some guests choose uh to still use the shortest available route as it were thanks yeah thanks for that my apologies chair I listened to see your question so again the directional signage we're placing on the floor just one more level of added uh you know signage that we want to you know remind our guests if you're not 21 you need to stay on the perimeter of the casino floor yeah so if we can we just go back to the chart so the commissioners can ask any questions they have right now they may have not uh but if we go back to the compliance numbers uh the report shows a lot of good mitigation uh were there any questions there was three of the five found gaming did so well remaining on the non-gaming walkway and leaning across parents or guardians to hit a button so I have a question like my standard one which is the longest one you have there about two hours how can you describe to me how that happened and how they identified the person I'll turn that over to that for a year's better knowledge about that that I do yes commissioner that that was the one person that gained access with the passport so it was it was a real ID that was scanned um and and to some degree must have looked somewhat like the person but at the end of the day uh they used that you know deception to get onto the gaming floor um and then moved around but we then obviously detected them and they got them off as soon as we could okay and I'm trying to figure out I know that I've asked before for the breakdown of the under 18 versus under 21 and I'm just not clear where that is so are you asking that so that you we can understand how old yeah because I'm I'm more troubled by the under 18 and I realize that you have a unique setup and I'm glad to see the railings go up I'd be interested to see um what an impact that has I think it'll help but I'm curious on these numbers how many of these are under 18 and how many of them are 18 to 20 understood don't have that number right here to provide to you I would actually say that there's probably more that are under 18 with based on families and and I only say that from a perspective of there'll be a group sort of be parents with two children or three children and that's what from an access perspective uh sort of makes that 76 number look the way that it does as opposed to one or two 18 to 21 year olds who are trying to gain access to the floor thinking that you know they can try to be as it were an opportunist but others are just trying to as we've said cross the floor without any real intention to gain more or consume alcohol can I offer an opportunity to see President Kelly there people who are not familiar with your you know facility may not may wonder well what the heck are these parents doing bringing kids to a casino anyway and so maybe you want to expand on the amenities that make this a more of a family destination than perhaps your average casino Chris yeah I would would be happy to do that Madam Chair and and I would echo um guests's earlier comments just thank you again for all of the hard work that went into creating our our launch on January 31st and of equal importance thank you for sharing it with us met a tremendous amount to our team members and a tremendous amount to me to be able to share that moment with each of us there something I won't ever forget um relative to my career so thank you for that um so when you think about MGM Springfield there are a couple of elements that are fairly unique about it within the context of of gaming establishments and integrated resorts first the design of the floor itself you know to guests's earlier point the entire property was built with an open floor plan every property I have ever worked at usually has you know walled areas around the gaming floor with very controlled points of access usually you know one or two or maybe three the design of MGM Springfield is is unlike any other in our fleet where the entire floor was built open so you could essentially walk onto any area of the gaming floor from any portion of the building that has changed to speak to guests's earlier comments post COVID all of the rail that you saw in that in one of the illustrations with the red lines on it all of the rail that exists on this property has gone in post COVID so that's a process that's only begun in the last few years and we look at the footnote on the bottom left that really is the biggest driver of the improvement that we've seen since 2019 80 plus percent reductions in access to the floor so we know that's effective unfortunately does work slightly against the concept of an inside out open floor plan to answer your question directly this property exists with a an eye towards families we have regular movie theaters that are open seven days a week we have a tap sports bar with a bowling center attached to it that is a wonderful family experience that is also open seven days a week recently expanding hours in the bowling center to match that seven days a week we have a top golf golf facility that has simulators that allow for not just golf but baseball soccer and all sorts of other games for both kids and adults to play together we have our south end market which is really a our family designated eating space before Thunderbirds games of which we are the prime sponsor that is a very popular place for kids and their families up until February 22 February 2022 we were not allowing families to eat there given our COVID restrictions on the property and through the city of Springfield it was February 22 and beyond that we reintroduced families to those areas that's driving some of the the growth that Gus mentioned earlier and then of course adding roasted bean to our front door that allows for kids to have a hot chocolate before the game you know parents to have a cup of coffee a sandwich a small bite so we really do aim for our our families to have things to do here the skating rink is a great example of that activation in the holiday time period certainly in Q4 we pride ourselves on that and we know the the importance of the role that we play in the city and in the community to be able to offer entertainment options not just for adults but for families as well really helpful thank you but Chris your questions on this other questions on this compliance yeah good afternoon um what is the significance of the 2019 comparison and it might be laid out in the last bullet on the left hand side of the slide what could someone interpret that for me sure the 2019 we used that as the benchmark because that was the first year and the only year I believe where the casino operated without any COVID restrictions whatsoever so of course COVID became prevalent and the entire property shut down in 2020 and then the restrictions even though the casino may have been open the property may have been opened there were plexiglass restrictions there were occupancy restrictions mask mandates and so on and so forth not just by the state but sometimes by the city itself so we use 2019 as the basis of comparison because that is the first first and only full year where we can compare apples to apples thank you that's very helpful um I have another question it's um relative to well it's not a question it's a it's just a comment good call on the consultant to assist with increasing your your diversity spend and I look forward to um the impact learning about the impact of that I know um Attorney Kim you indicated that you expect to see significant uh increase in the spending um for quarter one so we'll be looking I'll be looking forward to to that thank you hi I just wanted to circle back before on the under 18 under 21 I've I've been asking for that breakdown for a while under the other licensees that have been given it to us so if going forward you guys could have those numbers in the quarter lease um I would appreciate it we can add that for you Commissioner Brown great thank you now turning to our q4 employment numbers uh you will see that we are right on target with our minorities and veterans but as with the other licensees we still are finding it challenging to meet our women percentage numbers you will note that in terms of the raw hires we in q1 we have 489 women and then in q4 we have 561 women so we do see an increase in women hires but of course we're also then hiring additional men as well so that that percentage is a percentage that we are you know we are targeting to increase but we are finding it a bit of a challenge in terms of the efforts that we do make to drive up the women percentage in addition to the career fairs that we have on property every week we also go to off-site recruiting efforts as well we are working on a targeted marketing right now where we want to target specifically women uh uh the the marketing efforts will be geared specifically towards women we are also engaged with our local schools whether they are secondary schools or our institutions of higher learning again uh describing workforce in general but all specifically trying to express to the women um that you know that the casino gaming industry is something that they should seriously consider as a career choice um so we are we are attacking this on multiple fronts but as as i've said i mean the number is is is um is is what they are we keep increasing on the raw numbers of the women hires but the percentage we are struggling to get it above uh where we are at this point in time but we are making efforts and we hope that these additional efforts that we're going to make going forward will have some uh some some show some incremental improvement in our percentage hires going forward so again are just under the restainment of our hiring offer q4 and then in terms of our community outreach this is something that i'm very proud of um if you'll see the sort of the the news highlight the words at the the end of that message to kick it off with one of the city's annual traditions the tree lighting ceremony in a short four years that we've been here we've become an annual event and we are extremely proud of of the fact that that our community looks forward to our tree lighting ceremony looks forward to our ice skating rink opening and as i said it's become an annual event for the for the community and we we hope that we will be here for you know indefinitely to make sure that we present that to the community year after year uh one thing i do want to point out is that uh we have actually engaged with mgc staff on property uh to see if we could have have them get involved in some of our community outreach efforts and we've got positive responses from the mgc staff so going forward we look forward to to uh our our community outreach efforts being not just an mgm effort but a combined mgm mgc effort so we are very excited to to uh to uh announce that and we hope that we can report on that in the in the in the you know future uh reports to to you um we've touched upon this in prior discussions uh with the commission but food insecurity as you know is is a top of mind for many people especially following covid and so this past year that past quarter we've engaged with two very influential and very uh established organizations the mayflower marathon which has the largest i believe the largest uh food insecurity a cherry event in at least in sprinkler maybe in that western massachusetts uh mgm took over the role of sponsoring that and i believe that with our our involvement with the incredible enthusiasm with the incredible energy that our team members uh put into the make make make make sure that the mayflower marathon is a success i think that we broke all kinds of records in terms of of of food donations in terms of how much we were able to to generate we're immensely proud of that and of course rachel's table is another local institution that we partnered with where we donate our surplus food the unused food to rachel's table so to address um the food insecurity that you know that occurs in our community i spoke to you about the roasted bean we opened roasted bean uh in in late november this is as i said this is an mgm branded uh coffee shop but and as chris had earlier pointed out of course we have hot chocolate as frescoes cappuccinos and the wife and some breakfast food as well uh this has been extremely well received and just to follow up on what chris had said about about the you know activations uh we've increased the hours of operations at roasted bean now to to go from the morning till to 10 p.m every day in addition to the roasted bean um we have looked at other things that we can do to to make our property more family friendly more of a family resort destination we're adding we've added sunday operations to costa our our italian food concept we've added lunch on thursdays and fridays so so now we have lunch in addition to dinner we have lunch thursday friday saturday on sunday at half uh we've eliminated the needs to well we are working on eliminating the need to have make a reservation to access our top golf well we'll have it open to the public so they can play when they wish to we've opened half bowling seven days a week as chris had earlier said and we're looking to possible to open indian motorcycle uh up and maybe sometime in early march and with the opening of our sports book and again thank you very much commissioners for for attending that meant the world to us the main street entrance is going to be open when the sports book is open so as of course as well as you know the events at national center like the number talking game so we are taking measurable steps to make our our property more accessible we're increasing our men's we're increasing our hours of operation all with the expectation that we will make this as chris had said a family oriented destination in terms of external developments as you know 31 else is an ongoing project we are extremely proud that we were able to contribute 60 million dollars to the project and we see it on a daily basis we see the progress that the that the project is making we're very excited about what you know what this will mean to springfield downtown so entertainment as you know we have our comedy club at war we we run shows at both symphony hall and the mass mutual center um instead of talking about everything that's on here i want to focus on the one thing that's in the upper right hand corner a bronx tail so this was um unlike other activations that we had done in the past this was as you probably know a bronx tail was a movie that starred Robert De Niro back a couple decades ago and chess commentary on whose life the movie was based uh is not even a one-man show a Broadway style one-man show and so we were unsure of how it would be received here on property but we we ran it anyway now i have to tell you that the chess commentary played to a sold out audience in our aria ballroom but i wanted to see the entire show but i was on property and i want to make sure that i you know walk the property went to commonwealth went to you know poker room and everything to make sure everything was okay but i did sit through about 30 to 40 minutes of of his performance and i have to tell that he was mesmerizing it was fascinating it was captivating and we we think that it was a it was a home run and uh we hope that um i think that we you know we'll we'll try to do something like this similar to that we were very pleased and excited that uh concept that we have not really done in the past worked so well here as we're excited to maybe bring shows like that here uh in the future as well uh with that i actually i'm sorry joe let me touch on the our live uh it impacted live entertainment uh agreement as you know we have an agreement with um with the massachusetts performing arts coalition uh with respect to facilities one here in springfield symphony hall and one in wooster at the the handover theater as you probably know symphony hall is now managed by us so um the impact of of our presence here in springfield i don't i don't believe there is as much because we are now running shows through symphony hall uh we had reached out to the handover theater to see if there was any dialogue about ways that we might try to create synergy between wooster and springfield uh we have not yet received a response back from handover but uh so we will see where we were the lands but uh truth be told i think that we're doing really really well here in springfield we put on a number of shows at symphony hall and we're immensely proud of what we've done both there and the mass musical center and in an already war room uh in terms of creating entertainment for our community so uh joe i i'm not sure if there's anything you want to touch based uh specifically the you know touch point on but uh you know we are engaging with the handover theater to see if there is some sort of synergy that we can create between us and wooster yeah i guess i don't think i don't think there was anything in particular uh that we want to touch on this is sort of a um you know this is a requirement of our regulations and i think it we're we're starting to uh roll this into to what sort of becomes an annual report with the uh capital expenditures and so on and i think this being the first year we're sort of just touching on on on what's in there and what and what you're doing and i think as we go forward you know we certainly want you to uh you know throughout the course of the year reach out to these folks and and make sure that you know that all of those commitments that you're that you've made in in those agreements are are being complied with thank you joe any questions everybody's all set for this part of the presentation a very very personal thank you all right then um oh my goodness i put aside i guess i'm supposed to be reading it in any case so right now commissioners as you know um we have the ability to go into executive session to learn more about capital expenditures for mgm springfield and in order to consider that i have to read into the record language that has been updated for me today so the commission anticipates that it will meet in executive session in accordance with gl chapter 30a section 21 a7 component gl chapter 23 k section 21 a7 for the specific purpose of determining whether mgm springfield has complied with its capital expenditure obligations as described in 205 c mr section 139.09 including a review of associated materials as discussion of this matter in public would frustrate the purpose of the statute this matter is further governed by 205 c mr 139.02 as the information at issue is covered by a non-disclosure agreement at this point in time i think it might we would still have to convene in public session should we decide to move for a vote so to the public who's still attending we will reconvene in the public forum after this executive session should we move forward commissioners do i have a motion i'm chairing we'll be going to executive session for the matters and reasons affiliated by the chair second thank you any questions or edits all right commissioner brian hi commissioner hill hi uh commissioner skinner hi commissioner maynard hi i vote yes five zero now we're going to go to the join this room it should say join right in the center don't leave the big room thank you they were back thank you and we are resuming our master's gaming commission we just uh meeting we just exited our executive session and now commissioners we have a business to attend to with respect to mgm springfield's calvex fan or record i should say does anyone wish to make a motion i'm chair i can make a motion i move that the commission find that mgm springfield is in compliance with their obligations under gl chapter 23k and 205 cmr 139 for the calendar year 2022 subject to further audits deemed necessary for compliance purposes any questions or edits okay all right commissioner brian hi commissioner hill hi uh commissioner skinner hi commissioner maynard hi and i vote yes so five zero excellent job and again to mgm springfield congratulations on your launch on last tuesday and as you know i'm speaking on behalf of all the commissioners because it's a late hour but we really enjoyed being part of your festivities thank you so much thank you chair thank you commissioners thank you thank you commissioners do we have any additional business when we started with the joe show i'm mad mad i'm sure we do have one one more item we do have one more right uh an amendment to the revere community uh non-transportation planning group my apologies i sort of find the agenda thinking i've had it memorized thank you joe um very simply uh well i did send you out a link to the video that uh that revere did was i thought was a really nice job so i hope you have a chance if you haven't had a chance to look at it do take a look um so what um what what has happened with the city of embert um they didn't expend all of the money that we gave them for that uh for that video and um what they have done in the interim is they have created a department of tourism in the city of revere and have developed a master plan uh or are in the process of developing a master plan uh for marketing all the outreach for for the community and what they wanted to do was take uh seven thousand dollars of monies that were uh remaining in this budget and move them over to to um to help pay for the development of the travel and tourism master plan and given the fact that um you know they've they've they've created a whole new uh department to do this uh this master plan is going to um outline for them what they should do to distribute this um um that's i just found on my public being this cheche package so we are recommending to transfer those seven thousand dollars of funds um to uh this master planning app sorry to interrupt a lot going on right at the last second did um did i interrupt so that you couldn't hear joe okay thank you so joe is looking for a vote on this map yes unless you want to have hours of discussion on no they're they're made it's pretty straightforward um there may be questions all right did i have a motion madam chair i moved that the commission grant the request from the city of revere as included in the commissioner's packet discussed here today to reallocate seven thousand dollars of its 2019 non-transportation planning grant for development of revere's travel and tourism master plan i can any questions or edits okay commissioner brian hi commissioner hill like he's changed venues commissioner uh skinner hi commissioner maynard hi and i vote yes and i'm sorry about my call that was interrupted it was actually i don't know if you heard siri started talking to i don't know what happened there was a lot going on but somehow siri picked up on something joe said and wanted to correct you joe i think i usually deserve a lot of corrections i don't know how that got triggered but it was very fascinating to me and then i got a call at the same time so thank you so commissioners great work today um we're all set then if there's no commissioner update then we would need a motion to adjourn and it's adjourning the joe show move to adjourn second thank you any edits my only recommended that it would be to thank the chief delaney for an excellent day good great job and thank you well commissioners i know this has been difficult to fit all of these things in with all of your other duties so i do appreciate the time uh for today well it was excellent and you started with very good news about the application numbers so thank you again so with that commissioner brian hi mr hill hi commissioner skinner hi commissioner maynard i just can't get that same echo but i i want a visual of what they they're thinking when he says that no you don't commissioner maynard you did you say i i got everybody and i but yes five zero we're adjourned