 And we're good to go. Okay, good afternoon. Today is Monday, December 11th, and we are convening the fifth meeting of the screening committee for director of the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau. And because we are conducting this meeting virtually, I'll do a roll call, starting with Commissioner Hill, excuse me. I am here. And Chief Muldrew. And our guest today is Attorney Meena Macarius from the law firm of Anderson and Krieger. We'll get started right with agenda item number two. We have two sets of meeting minutes that hopefully the two committee members, other committee members have had a chance to review and we have two additional sets to review potentially in executive sessions should this committee decide to vote to go in the executive session. But for now, we'll take, I'll take a motion and we can do them separately or together unless there's any objection to that. But we have the November 28th, 2023 minutes and we have the December 1st, 2023 minutes. Have you both had a chance to review those? Yeah, I have. Oh yeah. Any proposed edits, comments or concerns on those? None. All right, I'll take a motion, please. Madam Chair, I move that the committee for the hiring of the director of the Investigation and Enforcement Bureau approve the minutes from the November 28th meeting and the November 23rd meeting that are included in our packet subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non-material matters. Friendly amendment, Commissioner Hill. Yeah. Not November 23rd, it should be December 1st. I read the wrong thing, December 1st is fine. That's a friendly amendment. Thank you. And do I have a second Chief Moldrew? I second that motion, that motion, Madam Chair. Okay, I'll do a roll call. Vote, Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Chief Moldrew. Aye. And I'm also an aye. Thank you. Madam Chair, I think committee member Moldrew was sucking that emotion, brought me back to Diana Ross and the Supremes, I believe. I was hoping that that didn't get caught. Well, I certainly didn't catch it. If there's rock and roll involved or music, I will catch it. Always. Oh boy, okay. Okay. Moving on to agenda item number three. We have a set of interview questions before us that was circulated by Dean Ventola last week. Thank you Chief Moldrew for assisting in that. And so I'll just try to set the tone a little bit. The last time we met, we had agreed that we would put forth these initial questions that we are wanting to ask the candidates that we will be interviewing for the IEB director position. I've had a chance to take a look at them. I think that these questions are borrowed from the sports wagering division chief interview process and I think they are a good set of canned questions, if you will, the questions that are designed to get to a person's level of interest and the background that they would bring and skill set and qualifications that they would bring to this position. So I think they are an excellent set of questions. One that I might add is something along the lines of financial experience just in terms of on the investigative side and not to necessarily require financial investigations experience but some financial experience such that they will be able to speak to fluently to our chief financial investigator. That was the only thing that I saw that I felt was missing from this set of questions. Commissioner Hill, any feedback? I know you are a fan of these. I think you indicated you were a part of the interview process for the sports wagering division chief. So you've seen these before for sure. And I think adding what you would like to add is appropriate for sure. So we can add that to our collection of questions. Okay, Chief Mildrew. I agree, Madam Chair. Back on these. With adding, yes. I think it's fine and adding financial question I think is a good idea. Do you want to, I'm not sure who drafted these but do you want to request that be drafted by that team member or should we try to come up with something now? I would prefer that we send this back just with that request for that additional question if you're okay with that. That's fine. That's fine. Okay. All right, so Mina, just a question for you. In terms of process, we don't need to publish these questions right now although they are part of the public meeting packet for this meeting. I would anticipate then because I see you're agreeing that we don't need to post them anywhere else. I would anticipate then that as we move closer to the interview dates that we'd hold another public meeting to not only iron out the process for those interviews but to also determine how we will be divvying up these questions during the interview in terms of who of the three of us will be assigned to each question and really those kind of housekeeping matters such as that. Correct. And then if you have specific additional questions that are relevant to one candidate or another you can reserve a little bit of time at the beginning of an executive session before going into the interview to discuss those in the executive session as well. Okay. So for instance, candidate X is you wanna ask a little bit more about this part of their resume where they did more enforcement and making something up entirely. You can have that conversation about what other issues might be relevant for this candidate in particular in executive session but those other housekeeping items, yes, you should do in a public session. Okay. And so Commissioner Hill and Dave, I think that just with the recent developments in terms of the interim IEB director position I was willing to take a step back from my initial position in that we should wait until January to interview these initial candidates just to give some time for additional applicants to submit. I wavered on that just a little because quite frankly, the news hit suddenly and really it was my reaction that we needed to move more quickly than the first week of January. But since then I think I've come back around to my initial position which is that I think that first week in January really is a good week to start these interviews. We have time held on the calendar two days that first week of January. I'm proposing that we go ahead and reach out to candidates to start scheduling for that timeframe. I think that that doesn't preclude us. The scheduling of those interviews would not preclude us from continuing to receive applications, continuing to review them as they come up. And who knows, we may, as long as this position, this posting will be up, I think you said December 20th, we may get a couple of internal candidates in light of the most recent development. So I think that's a good plan. Dave, I was not aware that the Human Resources Department does not send communication to an applicant once they apply along the lines of we've received your resume and it's up for consideration. Is that correct? No, we do send that. Oh, we do send that. So there has been some outreach to each one of these candidates acknowledging the receipt of their application and resume and letting them know that they're being considered for a further review or that we're... Yeah, to make sure that we confirm that. But I am very positive that we do as a normal standard operating procedure, but I want to confirm that. Okay, I think that would be helpful, but regardless, if the two of you, I'd like to work with Troop D to start getting these interviews scheduled so that they are on the books. And I think Dave, that would eliminate the need for you personally to reach out to these candidates, to acknowledge the receipt of their resume and to gauge their continued interest as we discussed a couple of meetings prior. Madam Chair, I agree. With the changes from a recruiting standpoint that are going on in my department, Annie is going to be taking on that responsibility. Excellent, okay. Okay, and I can reach out to Annie for sure and work with her in getting these scheduled. That's okay with the review. Okay, Commissioner Hill, you're okay with that? Okay. And if I can just interrupt for one moment. Absolutely, you're not interrupting. I believe one of the discussions we had early in our meetings is that we were going to reach out to every applicant and let them know that we had received something. So that for sure, I believe we all agreed on should happen. Yes. And will happen. Yes, and it should be happening now. Yes. Yeah, and so Dave is going to write, you're going to confirm that there is a letter of some kind that goes out to every single applicant upon receipt of their resume. Absolutely. Okay, and if not, then I think that's where Commissioner Hill is saying that we need to carry out what we agreed would happen earlier and that someone from HR should contact those individuals to let them know that we have their resumes and that the review process is pending. Absolutely. Okay. So in addition to those holds that we currently have on the calendar for January, I think we should reserve time for at least a couple of meetings before that. So I'm thinking one next week perhaps, and I know it might be tough with the holidays, but I'm thinking one next week and one the week after so that we can continue to add to the interview schedule if necessary. So that first week, my goal is to have all of the interviews in the first round of interviews for this committee completed. And I think Commissioner Hill, you certainly share that goal, right? So that's a good plan. So we'll put time on the calendar for that, but I do think- So when would we start our interviewers? The first week in January. So we have holds currently for January 2nd and January 5th. And next week and the week after, should we wanna add to the list, we would have a discussion. That's what the meetings are for. That's what the meeting's for, but they're also to discuss the actual interview process. A few of those housekeeping items that Mina and I mentioned earlier in this meeting, just so that we are clear on how these interviews will be conducted and the process by which they will be posted and conducted. So if there's nothing else, or let me ask, is there anything else on this particular agenda item? I think I'm sure, yeah. If anyone, I think between, we have identified the need for a meeting next week and a meeting the following week, if there are any additional questions that come to mind, we have the opportunity to raise them at one of those meetings. And so keep that in mind. I can take a stab at the financial experience question. Dave and Les, did you say you were gonna have a member of your team draft a question? I would take a shot at it, have a member of my team take a shot at it, but if you wish to kind of drill down and there's a lot of different types of questions. So I don't know what, I probably just need a little bit more information as to what you wanna get to, that would help me. Okay, I can give that to you now, I think. Really, it's just understanding what kind of financial background they have, if at all, just it can be very general, not looking to get too specific, but it's just a question designed to elicit, just what their background is, if any in financial industry or financial transactions or just general finance and accounting. Madam Chair, Madam Chair, if I can give an example. So as we're reading the job description during the interviews, there's a piece of it obviously that has to do with financials. We would read that piece of the job interview and we would then say to the perspective person, how does your experience fit into this job, this piece of the job, something like that? I mean, as I've said earlier, Madam Chair, once we start talking to the candidates, these questions are gonna start rolling off because they're gonna say something that's gonna trigger a question that aren't even on the paper that's in front of us. But in this particular case, and this is going to be my intent, so if anybody's listening, I'm going to be reading what our job description is many, many times during the interview and say, how does your experience afford you the opportunity for us to hire you that would help in this job? So, but that's how we would probably ask it, Madam Chair. Yeah, and that makes perfect sense to me. You know, really Chief Mildrew, no heavy lifting here. I think Commissioner Hill is right on the money. Yep. You know, these things will flow in a way that is beneficial to this committee. And as I, from a process standpoint, as the question is created, that's fair to come from Annie directly to the committee, correct me? Yeah, oh, sorry. Okay. All right, thank you. I love your background, Meena. It preserves anonymity, I guess, of where I am. It's, it's, it's... So, so does that. Exactly. I was, I was up on the 20th floor with the AG today and they overlook the MIT Fenway Park and, and Harvard and what a beautiful landscape. And this reminds me of it a little bit. This is, this is my view out of my office when I am there. So that's, I'm pretty lucky. Oh God bless you. I don't see how you wouldn't want to be in there, Meena. Just don't look down. I, I, I, it's why I go in five days a week except today my daughter's sick some, you know, the slight colds on home. But yeah, that's... There is sickness everywhere I go, Meena. Whatever's going around. And I don't know if it's because it's warm out or if it's because it was cold and then warm, but holy Toledo, everywhere I go, everybody's sick, including me. Well, you sound a lot better. And I've managed to escape it and I hope it stays that way. Last week was horrible, but I'm better. I've also escaped it, knock on wood. Knock on wood, exactly. All right, so I think we can move on. We do have a few candidates to review. They, we have a... Yes, I'm sorry. Before we move on. So you're going to have Trukti reach out to, I now have six candidates and start setting up interviews. Is that accurate? Is that what everybody has? It is. I want to make sure we're on the same page. Except it will be Annie and not Trukti. I am. Yeah, that's going to be doing that. Oh, I thought she was doing the other part of it. My mistake. Yeah. I thought it was not clear. Annie will be the HR contact for us regarding this search. Gotcha. Okay. And I'm just going to read the numbers one more time. Yes. So I make sure we're on the same page. 003, 091, 164, 370, 452, 469, and then whatever we may or may not agree to today. Is that everybody's on the same page? Yes. Perfect. Thank you. Absolutely. Okay. Now we can move forward. Okay. So in order to review those candidates, the handful of candidates that we got over the past several days, I'm going to read this language into the record. The committee anticipates that it will meet an executive session in accordance with general laws chapter 30A section 21A8 in conjunction with the initial screening process to consider specific applicants for director of the investigations and enforcement bureau as the chair, that's me, has declared that an open meeting will have a detrimental effect on obtaining qualified applicants for the position. And with that, I'll take a motion. I move that we go into executive session for the reason stated by the chair and that we will not be coming back into public session. Yes. I second the motion. Thank you. Chief Muldrew, and I'll take a roll call vote. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Chief Muldrew? Aye. And I'm also an aye. In addition, as I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, we do have two sets of executive session minutes to review. And I'll read this language into the rest. We lost you. Can you hear me? We can now. Okay, I don't know what happened. Maybe I pressed mute by accident. Apologies, I'll start over. The committee anticipates that it will meet an executive session in accordance with general laws chapter 30A section 21A7 to review minutes from previous executive sessions as their discussion at an open meeting may frustrate the intended purpose for which the executive sessions were convened. Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that we go into an executive sessions for the reason stated not to come back into public session. Chief Muldrew? I second the motion. And roll call vote. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Chief Muldrew? Aye. And I'm also an aye. And I don't know that we have... I don't have. A separate link for executive session. That's something you could do for us now. I would really feel comfortable with that happening. Or if you can do a breakout session for us. Yeah, sure thing. Let me end the stream and then I can put you guys in breakout room. Let me just state for the record, as Commissioner Hill has already said, this body does not anticipate reconvening in public at the conclusion of the executive session. Thank you, everybody. All right. Okay.