 We are calling to order meeting 267 of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission on May 6, 2019 at 10 a.m. at our offices here at 101 Federal Street here in Boston. We will begin today with item two, our administrative update. Executive Director Petrosian, please. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. My update will be quick. As you see reflected in the agenda today, I think as I tried to describe last week, is the culmination of parallel paths getting ready for the opening of Encore, Boston Harbor. But there was only so much staff could do. There were items that demanded, required the commission's attention. And I think you'll see the introduction of those items today. So thank you for your flexibility in taking these up so quickly. And I will just remind the commission that during May and June, we may be required to have what I might call out of cycle or even shorter meetings to get some of these things ultimately addressed. So thank you very much with that. I will turn it back over to our CFO for continuation of the discussion we had the last meeting at which we had neglected to schedule for a vote. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Good morning. On May 1st, Agnes and I presented to you the third quarterly budget update which recommended adjusting the Game and Control Fund to $37.8 million, which is a $1.3 million increase on legal costs. We're not recommending or asking for an increase to the assessment. As the majority of the increased costs are eligible for reimbursement from the wind resource ongoing suitability review. Any amounts that are not reimbursable will be offset by the licensing fees that continue to outpace estimates. The information in the packet is the same information we presented on May 1st. If you have any additional questions, we'd like to take them up now. If not, we're seeking a vote. We address this, of course, at our last meeting. We wanted to make sure it was properly marked up for the vote. We have that now, but do we need any further discussion or any questions answered by Derek or Agnes? Good morning, Agnes. No, I think it's an appropriate recommendation. I think it also reflects the good budgeting that the team does here to try to forecast both revenues and expenses with the exception of all the legal costs associated with the investigation, which is what it is we would cover them from the licensee. Do we have a motion? Madam Chair, I will move that the commission approve the adjustment to the budget as outlined in the packet and discussed here today. Do we have a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Agnes. Good morning. Moving on to item three, Mr. Ziemba and Mr. Delaney. I'm Budsman, John Ziemba and Joe Delaney, our construction project oversight manager. Good morning. Good morning. John, how many notebooks do you have? I know. I know. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. As you're aware, the commission and commission staff have been carefully monitoring the construction of the Encore Boston Harbor facility. In anticipation of the planned June 23rd opening, there are a number of items that are up for consideration by the commission. First, Jackie Crum, Encore Boston Harbor Vice President and General Counsel in Peter Campo, Director of Construction will present an update on the project and answer any questions the commission may have regarding their quarterly reports for the first quarter of 2018 and first quarter of 2019. After the quarterly reports with the assistance of Joe Delaney, construction project manager, we will discuss a number of other updates and requirements. We'll ask for the commission's approval of STV Incorporated as the firm to conduct the baseline monitoring and after-opening transportation monitoring specified in the commission's requirements, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's requirements, and those of the City of Boston. As you're aware, monitoring the potential impacts from the facility has been and continues to be extremely important to the commission. We will also hear a presentation regarding material changes to the project since the time of the commission approval of the final design of the project. As detailed in the memorandum in your packet and as described by Joe, the commission has had a very thorough process to review the design of the Encore Boston Harbor facility. The commission will also hear a presentation regarding the timeline for the remaining items to be constructed before the planned opening. Both the project changes and the timeline will be up for a vote by the commission at a future commission meeting. Following the timeline presentation, the commission will hear a description of a proposed update to the commission's current Section 61 findings, which update memorializes the measures required by the commission to avoid or minimize the project's impact on the environment. We recommend that the commission request comments on the proposed amendment to the findings before taking action. Joe will discuss the potential timing of such request for comments. In general, the proposed update is designed to reflect the latest on the project's permitting and is designed to reference requirements of the project that were made subsequent to the commission's issuance of its Section 61 findings. For example, the document references changes that were made following the project's 2017 Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act notice of project change that was previously presented to the commission. In the draft document, there is a rather lengthy description of the sediment remediation measures that were chosen at the time for a portion of the project site in an adjacent area of the Mystic River. The language of the proposed Section 61 findings will also provide an updated description of the work of the lower Mystic Regional Working Group. The language in the current Section 61 findings was written before the lower Mystic Regional Working Group's final deliberations and Boston's decision regarding its long-term Sullivan Square-Rutherford Ave. project. Encore Boston Harbor will provide and has provided significant funding for such project and is required to pay a proportionate share of such project under the current and the proposed Section 61 findings. New language is included to reflect current plans for Encore Boston Harbor's water shuttles. Included in your packets is also a member we asked Encore Boston Harbor to provide that describes how it plans to meet the passenger levels included in the MEPA filings, despite the fact that the passenger capacity of individual water shuttles is less than anticipated. Mina Macarios from Anderson and Krieger is also here to help with the discussion of the findings. Follow that, we will have a presentation on Encore Boston Harbor's opening period traffic and public safety planning and with that, I will turn it over to Jackie and to Peter if he could join us up in the front. Good morning, commissioners. And thank you so much for having us here. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Good morning. We'll start with our quarterly report for, it's actually two quarters. It's the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019. So I'm going to turn it over to our director of construction, Peter Campo, to take you through the construction update. Good morning. Good morning. We have approximately 35 days to temporary CFO. We expect to receive that no later than June 10th and I'm pleased to report that we're on schedule. We're in the final throes of finishing spaces throughout the facility and I'll run through that on a space-by-space basis as we look at this presentation. These photos are a couple weeks old of the site and if you visit, you'd see that we're actually quite a bit farther along than what you see here even though what you see is very substantial. The site work due to the winter weather and I wish the rain would stop is on schedule but it's one of the items that's got to finish up right to the very end but we don't see any problem. The paving is scheduled to finish paving is scheduled for next week and the turf areas, all the gray areas you see in these photos are turf and that will be installed next week also. So you're going to see like a big, it's almost like the switch is going to turn. It's going to look fantastic out there. There really are no major issues on the site. We planted over 700 lodge trees. To give you an idea, we replaced a lot of the ones that didn't survive the winter, a normal tough winter. So those are in the process of being replaced and we expect to have all those replaced in time for the opening. The marine docks are also 100% complete, minor punch list and we're ready to start testing shuttles mid-May. A few more. Then the garage is 100% complete. We were storing materials on the B1 level and essentially we're just finishing that up. The bottom three levels have been punch listed out 100% done and we expect to have the B1 level done in the next couple of weeks so we don't see any issue with the garage either. The podium, as you know, the north, we turned over the north section. We've been using that since December which has been include the major plants. So that's been a huge benefit. The gaming areas, if not, I think all of the slot machines are on the floor now and I think almost all of them are installed and we're also installing gaming tables throughout. So when you walk through the space right now, it looks, it really looks like a casino which is kind of neat. The convention areas are being punch listed and we're just, it's essentially done. And again, you walk through there, beautiful space that's ready for opening right now. The tower, we've installed furniture all the way up through 27. We had a few lights of glass. We had every place. I think we've got less than a dozen left and there's no essentially just punch list and just finishing it up. But again, it's in really, really good shape. I do want to note that we have fallen behind in some of the punch lists. You've heard me say that word that punch list in a facility of this size is pretty overwhelming. We've fallen a little bit behind in the atrium, the spa, in the gaming areas, but we'll work on the construction manager and we expect to catch that up over the next two to three weeks. What we're essentially trying to do is have it 100% complete by June 1st. That allows operations team enough time to move in and be ready for opening. The other thing that I should note is all the restaurant areas, half the restaurants have been accepted by the health inspector. Almost all the rest of them, except for two will be inspected this week and then we expect to catch the other two up the end of the month, as well as the retail spaces in the promenade of all on schedule to be finished at the end of the month. So overall, we're in, and I should note too that we're testing permanent, we tested permanent power this weekend. National grids doing a great job working with us and we expect to have the permanent power accepted and approved this week, which is another huge milestone. Right now we're testing a lot of the fire alarm systems, that type of thing, but we're essentially on schedule and we expect to be in very good shape by the first of June. It leaves us two to three weeks before opening. Unless you have any further questions from Peter on the construction, we can move to the off-site infrastructure improvements. I actually may have a couple and maybe you were going to get into this later or not, I'll just ask that. Just coming from the experience of MGM, there were a couple of areas, retail, et cetera, that were not open during at the very beginning or they were flexible space that was later going to be determined, which was going to be its final use. Are there any areas as such that you're contemplating for the property? No, we expect to have everything 100% complete. The retail space, we did release late, so they're going to finish right up the end of the month. We have a space for Watches of Switzerland in the main lobby, which we released about two months ago, and they're going to complete the first week of June. We expect to have all that space complete on time. Great. What would you say is in general your critical path? It's just all the testing acceptance. We've got a portion of the elevators have been accepted. We've got approximately 20 more elevators to go that need to be inspected and signed off by the state. A good portion of those get done this week, including escalators, but we just have a lot of testing and that type of thing that's part of the whole turnover process that we need to pull together this month. Great. One of the items, which will tell you a little bit more later, we are trying to install a battery installation, and that is delayed. That won't be part of the opening, but it wasn't anticipated as part of the initial project. It's an add-on, which we're hoping we can hopefully go to the next level of leave certification, but we've run into some issues in terms of the placement, and so we need to look at alternative placement areas for that. So as John alluded to, we have significant off-stride infrastructure improvements. This is just a generalized map. We broke them into four different packages and because Wellington and Sweets of Circle are relatively close in proximity, we put that into one package and then the other three packages are as outlined on the slide. Starting off with the first package, which is Lower Broadway, so that's the area right outside the resort. We are paving some nights this week, depending on the weather. The weather was not kind to us, as we all know in April, so we're a little bit behind on that, but hopefully we can catch up quickly. The landscaping will be done at the end of next week, and we are striping last week of May and testing on signals last week of May, first week of June. That includes the Interconnect, which is the feed to the city of Boston, who's going to be monitoring that so that we can adjust for special events or times of significant traffic congestion. On CP2, which is Route 16, this is the Wellington Circle and the Sweets of Circle projects. We are paving Wellington starting this week. Marking and striping will be the week of May 13th. And on Sweets, we're waiting for MassDOT to finish some of their final bridge work, which has delayed us slightly, but we should still be able to pave the week of May 13. Markings will follow the next week, and we've also agreed with the city of Everett to some additional new curbing, and we're almost complete with that. We've got about another 75 feet of additional curbing to put in. On CP3, which is Malden and Wellington MBTA stations, we are complete. Just waiting for signal from MassDOT and the team, and that that should be forthcoming imminently. And then, of course, on Sullivan Square, we are paving, we are doing the final paving tonight. We start work on the traffic signals, the week of traffic signals on 5.14. Striping will be next week, and with the landscaping, we're clearing this week, and we'll start next week, and I'm told it should be just a few days to get the landscaping installed. Scheduled on that work to be done on the 24th. So moving forward to our diversity goals. Before you do that, I recall there was some paving and work that had to be done around robin and dexter that you were waiting for some of the work from... Ever source. Ever source, yes. Yes. So that worked out, and we are able to complete that paving as part of the lower Broadway package. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. So obviously our design phase is complete at this point, and we're proud to say that we had a goal of 18.9%, and we achieved 22.6% in total MW VBE contracts. As you can see from this, the only one that we fell slightly short of was on the women business enterprises. We worked incredibly hard to try to bring that number to our goal, but we didn't achieve that number on the contract. And that's with respect to design only. That's correct. So we broke it out separately between design and construction contracts. Right. Okay. Thank you. And just to note, a lot of the design that we do is internally done, and so that was part of the issue. That's interesting to me because I know that with respect to design, but WBEs have done quite well in Massachusetts generally, so a lot of that work was internal. Right. We have, and I'll defer to Peter, how many people on the design team internally? Oh, probably 60. That's here. Yeah. Yeah. And more in Vegas as well. So it's a big team. But otherwise with respect to MBEs, you exceeded your goal with respect to that, to more than exceed it. And how many, so four separate veteran awards. That's correct. And with the veteran business enterprises, what was difficult is a lot of veteran business enterprises don't necessarily identify as such. So they had to go through the registration process, certification process in order to be identified. And that's great for the future. Thank you. So on the, whoops, I skipped ahead. On the contracts awarded for the construction phase, we met and exceeded all of the goals. And if you look at the total number of contracts, our goal was 11.4 and we had 19.1. So this took an excessive amount of effort from our team and from our construction manager. And so we're very proud of that work. It's worthy of noting the number of contracts here. Because the project is quite large, but full parking about 280 contracts. Well, what we did was right from the beginning, we broke down the packages into smaller packages, noting that other businesses which normally would not have the opportunity to participate in a project this size would have the opportunity to bid and compete. We also encouraged them to get together with other businesses so that they could grow for future projects. And so you're seeing it as a joint venture as opposed to our subcontract. Some were subcontractors and some were more joint ventures. That's great. And then on the workforce participation. So as you can see on this one too, we were fortunate enough to exceed all of our goals. I think what we're most proud of is the minority participation, which we had a goal of 15% and we hit 25.3%. On women, we had a goal of 6.9% and we hit 7.2%. This too was a pretty big struggle. And right to the very end, we were noticing that the women construction workers were dropping down. So we called a meeting. I say Peter called a meeting and looked at why that was happening and what was happening is as we were cutting back the various trades because we were phasing out of that particular line of work, the first people that they were laying off for the woman. So we made a conscious effort to say you have to keep them on and so we were able to keep our numbers up at the end. Did you ask why that was? So I think it was the more junior, frankly, members of the community. Seniority issue. Yeah. And so they like to have their most senior people work on this. And so it was a directive that we gave that they actually had to keep them on longer. I think it's important to note that the minority and the female goal were almost prescribed in the gaming statute, but throughout in this extends to MGM as well. It was great to see that both of you prescribed this as the floor and not the ceiling. And I know early on we had a lot of encouragement to get you to raise the goal, to kind of reflect the diversity of the region, but to come in almost 10 percentage points above what the goal is, is commendable. Thank you. So just a quick update. I know Peter alluded to this briefly, but the installation of gaming equipment should be completed by the end of May. We have 3,109 of the 3,130 slot machines already installed. We have all non poker tables installed and we're working on the poker table installation as we speak. In terms of hiring, at the time we prepared this late last week, we had 930 employees on board. This week we're up to 1,150. So we're bringing in people very quickly at this point. And the number for, you see, 86% of total hires in the onboarding process. That means they're going through either registration with the gaming commission or an internal background check and onboarding. We're actually at 90%. So we've hired 5,200 of the 5,800 employees. Has that process gone smoothly? Any snags that? Your staff has been fantastic. They have really got people through the registration process quickly and efficiently. It's always a challenge, I think, particularly when you're bringing, particularly now when we're bringing on boards of people, so we're working through that right now, but generally it's gone really smoothly. Will you be updating on the numbers relative to on those people being hired, the number of women or local? Absolutely. So we're preparing that. It's a little bit difficult right now because we don't have completely accurate information about the people who are in the system. So that's the vast majority. You know, we only have the 1,150 right now, but as soon as we get more people through the system, we'll provide you that information. That's great. And also, before you move on, Jackie, you mentioned all of the slot machines are installed, but we are behind them right ahead in terms of testing. Can you speak a little bit to that? Yeah, I think our folks said they're in good shape and the goal was to have them all tested and communicating with our CMS by the end of the month. And so we hope to be completely done with hiring by the end of May, and then the idea would be to get everyone on board and start doing mass orientations and trainings that will take all the way up until opening. Just a few slides on some other projects, even though we've been incredibly busy. We've had amazing volunteerism from our teams. I think the number I received this morning was we've had over 700 hours volunteered this year to date. So a couple of projects that we worked on. We made blankets for the Everett Grace food country. We, 30 volunteers, helped SummerSearch, which is a program that seeks students out with potential but unequal opportunities. And we partnered with them to ensure their success in school, work, and life. And so one of the components of that is a summer camp. So these are preparing bags for them to take to their summer camp experience. On one Boston day, we actually had a different project planned, but of course it poured on that day. So we were going to clean up a park, but that didn't work out so well. So we did that last week. But on one Boston day, we entertained over 100 children for kids only, which is an after-school program, which is very high quality out-of-school programming for school-aged children. The walk for change was last weekend, and we had over 60 employees and friends of those employees participating in the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center walk for change. And then one of the partnerships that we have is with the Wang Theater, and we've been fortunate enough where we've contracted for a certain amount of tickets every year, but they always give us extra if they have them. And so we're able to bring children who would never necessarily have access to some of these programs to the theater. They really do a good job in terms of bringing them in early, giving them food, and letting them speak to the cast. So it's been a fun way to bring in some of the local groups that we work with. And finally, as you know, we partnered with the Museum of Fine Arts. We were sponsoring, and I hope I don't mess up to lose the name of the exhibition. All of the Everett residents and all of our employees get free admission to the MFA for the duration of the exhibition, which we're told they're actually using. And that is it for our focus presentation, but we are, of course, available for any questions. Looks impressive. All the programs that your team got involved with all the community programs, that really looks like really good work being done. So congrats on that. Yeah, it looks like there's quite a bit of progress since we last heard from you and a lot more since we last visited. Definitely a lot more since you last visited. It's been a while, so I really look forward to looking at the progress in real time. We look forward to having you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to the next section, the independent traffic monitoring section. I'm going to turn it over to Joe. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, Ms. Cromman. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm joined here by Jim Folk, who's the executive director of transportation for Hong Kong, Boston Harbor, as well as Paul Tyrell and Dustin Kirksek from STV Incorporated. So the first item we have here is the approval of the independent traffic monitor. So as part of the section 61 findings, both MassDOT and the Gaming Commission must approve of the independent traffic monitor that will initially conduct a baseline traffic study before the project opens, as well as ongoing traffic monitoring that will take place after Encore opens for a period of 10 years, I believe. Now, Encore has selected STV Incorporated as the independent monitor. STV is a multi-disciplinary engineering firm with over 2,200 employees around the country with about 120 here in Boston. STV is on the MassDOT list of approved consultants and has been specifically approved by MassDOT for this monitoring project as well. So as part of their approval, they require that Encore consult with the communities in which the monitoring work is being conducted. We also felt that this outreach was a very important part of that monitoring plan. In your packets is a letter from STV requesting approval by the Gaming Commission. Also, STV's qualifications package, the MassDOT approval of STV and the proposed scope of work for the monitoring project. We are recommending that the Gaming Commission approve STV as the independent traffic monitor. Of course, the Gaming Commission has the authority to rescind this approval at any time if we felt that were necessary. And again, we have Jim Falk, Paul and Dustin here to answer any questions that you might have. And just to clarify, I want to make sure I'm reminded of a process. The licensee was able to choose, correct? And then we did our own due diligence on the proposal, correct? Correct. It wasn't done pursuant to a competitive procurement that we issued? No, it was not. It's on-course choice of who they would like to use and they got MassDOT's buy-in and our buy-in that they were sufficiently independent and qualified to do the work. I just want to make sure everybody understood that. Thank you. So you've done a lot of local work here, correct? Yes. So it's not a new region that you haven't worked before and you've done similar projects, correct? We have, yes. Would you like to expound on that maybe? I'd be happy to. My name is Paul Terrell. I'm a vice president with STV. I've been with STV for about 15 years now. Our footprint is Boston. Our footprint is our primary clients, our MassDOT and the MBTA. Significant projects that we've done, the Green Bush commuter rail line. We just finished the Longfellow Bridge from MassDOT where we mitigated traffic for five years on that project. We're the lead consultant for the Green Line extension. We do an awful lot of work for the state in all aspects of transportation. As you mentioned, although I have not met Mr. Terrell or others in the team, I am quite familiar with the firm STV. They did a lot of work for the school building authority when I was there and I'm sure they continue to do that work. In a similar capacity, they did a lot of assessment of schools on behalf of the state when we were trying to figure out funding decisions and whatnot. We were fortunate enough to receive that contract twice where we worked for the school building authority assessing all of the schools in Massachusetts. So we were proud to have received that once, but we did the job so well. We were successful in being selected to the second time. They draw on a number of engineers and architects that do a lot of the work. Fortunately, we have 120 people in the Boston office alone, full service architectural and engineering firm. We procure the vehicles for the MBTA. So we understand transportation from the footprint of the vehicles all the way to the delivery. Fair collections and everything that the MBTA does as well as MassDOT. Is there anything different or challenging about this particular project that you haven't quite seen before? Is it very... No, nothing. We look forward to being able to validate the numbers that were estimated. It's interesting because of some of the construction work that's ongoing in the area that's not associated with the gaming authority. We have challenged it. We have discussed it. The green line is impacting some of the numbers and so we're going to have to take a good look at those to make sure that we have as we think they should be. I should also probably note that they have not been involved in any prior gaming-related assessment, either for the licensee in the past or other applicants. So I think that's very positive in this case because some of the conditions that we imposed relate to the outcome of these monitoring, of the traffic monitoring. So that there's no question as to any kind of motivation or alternative motives, I think that really is also a very important aspect. If I can just add, if you don't mind. So one of the reasons that we selected STV, I actually, in my past job, I worked at the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority in charge of their transportation. Well, the Deputy Chief Operating Officer at the MBTA and I've had STV do work in the past for a few projects that would directly correlate to something that I was working on. And they've done a fantastic job. So we have had other consultants look at the traffic monitoring, like obviously before the construction started, but this had to be independent. So that's why one of the reasons we selected STV because of their experience in this state, the years of experience in their local company. So we're going to have them obviously check all the turning at all the intersections that we want. They're obviously going to be working with the MBTA to get counts on the MBTA bus routes. And then they're going to, and we're working like Joe said, the cities and getting their point of view and making sure that they're satisfied in everything that we're doing moving forward. Obviously a challenging area with traffic. Just a little. I, the South Boston waterfront, so obviously. Okay. Mr. Delaney or Mr. Ziamidi, you want to add anything? No. I think that's sufficient. So unlike the other items we are asking for the commission's vote on that, there's a number of counts that these folks need to get done over the next couple of weeks. Further discussion, questions from the commissioners? Do we have a motion then? Madam Chair, I'd be happy to move that the commission approve the firm of SDV Incorporated to function as the independent traffic monitoring for the work at the Boston, the anchor Boston Harbor scope. Oh, I'm sorry. I was going off the cuff. There was a selection here. I move that, let me strike that and make a motion again. I move that the commission approve the selection and engagement of SDV Incorporated as the independent transportation monitor as is fully described in the memorandum from Ombudsman Ziemba and oversight manager Delaney. Included in the commission packet and further move that the commission may receive its approval of SDV as the independent transportation monitor at any time in the commission's discretion and require the selection and engagement of a different independent monitor if the commission decided that was necessary. Do we have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Just clarify that the condition of the potential rescission, we don't anticipate that. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so the next item on the agenda is the approval of changes to the Encore Boston Harbor design. So now the gaming commission has reviewed the Encore design a number of times throughout the project's history and voted an approval of the final design in October of 2016. Since that time, a notice of project change was filed that changed the number of hotel rooms and the mix of square footage and so on and so forth. And in addition to that, there's been some other minor project changes that have happened since that time, just refinements to the project that happened in the course of any kind of construction. Just as a matter of a couple of the highlights, I won't go into all of the items that are in the memo, because it's rather extensive. The restaurant program has been finalized. At the notice of project change, the square footages of the food and beverage outlets was increased, but the program had not been fully defined. So there are now 15 food and beverage outlets that are identified in the memo. The square footages that they mentioned were updated at the notice of project change stage and are outlined in the revised section 61 findings that we'll talk about in a little bit. The final sediment remediation alternative was defined. Items related to employee parking and offsite park and ride locations have been secured. And also a daycare facility is being constructed by Encore at Station Landing. There are also a couple of additional items that are related to the project, but that are not part of the Gaming Commission's approval that we just wanted to keep you apprised of. The first one is the river green parking lot. Encore had purchased what was known as the former GE facility on Air Force Road as a location to relocate properties that they had bought out on Broadway. There was some extra space on that site, so they approached the City of Everett about constructing a temporary parking lot on that location. So the city has approved that and that parking lot is now under construction. Also across Broadway from the project site is what's known as the community parking lot. This is a temporary 800 space parking lot that's being constructed across Broadway from the facility, which will be operated by the City of Everett for a period of up to three years. 100 spaces of that will be used for queuing for rideshare services with the remainder for general parking. Also Encore is refining the number of gaming positions as the project approach is opening and I'll turn this over to Jackie Crumb to provide some additional information on this item. Sure, so in our original MEPA filings, what we did was we had to propose a formula for traffic generation. So obviously the state has sufficient information about how much traffic is generated by uses such as restaurants and movie theaters, but they did not have that information for casinos. So they did some research. We did some research on benchmark casinos. We looked at casinos in St. Charles, Missouri, the Hollywood Casino in Ohio, Sugar House in Pennsylvania, Resort World Casino at Aqueduct in Queens, New York, Casino de Montreal in Quebec, and Rivers Casino in Pennsylvania. And ultimately based on the facilities that had the most similar market area and demographic bases, number of gaming positions and resort amenities, and access to public transportation, three of these were selected and we proposed MEPA formula for counting the number of... counting the traffic that would be generated by our casino. Based on that, sorry, this is a long explanation, but based on that, MEPA approved six positions per gaming table and one position per slot machine. So to date, all of our MEPA filings have followed that formula. I believe it was January of this year, the gaming commission proposed a revised formula to calculate the number of gaming positions. And for instance, as opposed to our six per table, CRAPS went up to 14, RELAT went to seven, and POCR, which is somewhat significant for our property, went from six to 10 positions. As a result, if you look at the number of gaming positions that the gaming commission uses, it's quite significantly higher than that which we proposed for MEPA. We intend to address this with MEPA to try to get to an apples-to-apples comparison. Our thought is, although the same word is used, gaming positions, it may be different for purposes of MEPA filings than it is for the gaming commission calculation. Tony, Crom, I just need to understand when you first went to MEPA, you said MEPA adopted six. Was that at your proposal? It was. Initially it was six for all, except was it nine for slots? One for slots, so one to one. Six per table, and then six for tables. That was based on an average, rather than an actual number of seats because they were trying to understand the casino wouldn't be operating at full capacity every day. So that was your proposal to MEPA, MEPA issues its order based on that proposal. And then you said the gaming commission presented others. Was that based on your newly revised proposal from Encore? No, that was done by the gaming commission, I think to reflect, and I'm not going to speak to the gaming, but I think to reflect the actual number of seats. So can I ask maybe the question, just a follow-up, so is it fair to say that you have not changed the number of tables from the MEPA? So if we're looking at apples to apples, we're at about 127 positions, additional gaming positions, which is less than 3% of the number that was proposed in our Notice of Project Change. 127 additional gaming positions. Correct. All together slots and tables. But the difference between the filing and now in terms of gaming positions is then mostly due to the point that you made, which is the recalculation, or rather the fine calculation of seats per table. That's correct. And that's obviously a significantly higher number. I was just looking at the poker tables alone. So under our original formula, we would have had 528 gaming positions. Yeah. And that's increased to 880. 528? To 880. That's just in poker. With no change in the number of tables. Oh, poker tables. Yes. I guess I didn't really realize this was the source. Can I go back to... Are we approving anything on this matter now? No. We are not. It would be a good time for me personally to take a break. And secondly, I'd like to get clarification from Mr. Ziemba on just one point, because I'm not going to be able to clarify that right now. And so if you wouldn't mind, if we could have a 10 minute break. And Mr. Ziemba, if I could just ask a question. Thank you. Will we convene the meeting, please? And thank you for your patience. Attorney Cram, if you'd like to continue. I think, Commissioner Ziemba, did you want to further clarify or you were asking... Well, you know, I actually... I got some background relative to the change that Attorney Cram is referring to that we did back in last January. Is that... Executive Secretary, could you further explain it? I'll put it a little bit perspective, commissioners. I think CFO... CFO Lennon had made a recommendation at the time to, for lack of better term, true up the numbers at some of the tables. They're using an average of six. All tables are not created equally as Attorney Cram articulated. And we were trying to rationalize our assessment across our licensees. So, Derek came in with a recommendation of why don't we use, I don't want to say actual numbers, but potential numbers as a way of truing up that assessment. And I could be clear the law of unintended consequences. It was not a comment on environmental policy or anything like that at the time. It was really for another purpose. So, and I think that was... We've had a bit of this conversation about how much of that reassessment for financial accounting purposes is now affecting this assessment for environmental purposes. And they may be, in the end, I don't know, we may be now talking apples to oranges in terms of potential positions versus environmental assessment positions. So, I apologize for not catching that and giving that commission that information earlier. And just to clarify that that might... the fact that you're using numbers used for the assessment, the methodology that MEPA relied on might not have been clearly exposed. And so that sounds as though there probably needs to be continuing conversations with MEPA to make sure we have a clear understanding. Is that there? That's correct. In the original memo that we submitted to MEPA when this was first proposed, we did say that it was an average and not an actual, but some of these numbers in the new proposal, for instance, poker tables. There's a number of 10 positions per poker table. We don't have 10 positions at our poker tables. We only have nine. And so craps tables obviously don't have any chairs. And so that's a number that is a potential number, certainly, but in terms of actual and average, there may be a difference there. I guess I'm... when we say true up, there's not a true up. These are significant changes in numbers here. And you expect to be able to get that through MEPA in a short period of time? So it's not really a significant change. What it is is... I'll give you an example. Our poker tables have not changed the number at all since we applied to MEPA and since the notice of project change, but the gaming positions based on the proposed formula from the gaming commission has changed that number significantly. So MEPA originally accepted 6 per table as an average and calculated their generation based on that, accepted our generation based on that. And so the question is whether MEPA will continue to use that 6 or whether it will adjust to the gaming commission's proposed formula. I remember that the formula that we came in with was for the purposes of the assessment. Right. Because that assessment is by regulation maybe done on gaming position. But to clarify, it wasn't... it's numbers that perhaps licensee used somehow in line on, but it was for a different purpose as you say apples and oranges. And so it does matter for environmental purposes. Right. So I think... Mr. Siemba, do we know MEPA expecting to meet on this? We have informed MEPA that we've asked our court to go talk to them about this issue. And we're also trying to be in touch with MassDOT as well. And MassDOT needs to be involved as well. Yeah. So do you have a meeting scheduled yet? We do not have a meeting scheduled yet. We've reached out to both and we will obviously report back as soon as we get feedback from them. But I think what you were alluding, Commissioner and you as well, Chair, is that this would be an answer to come from MEPA if they see that they should at a minimum understand the nuances as to why these jump numbers changed when we clarified for our purposes the number of gaming positions per table. Right. And that the number of tables has not changed significantly. There's only been a change in addition of 127 positions. That's correct. Which you just said earlier, which may include slots, whatever the case may be, in terms of refining of those numbers. They need to understand where these discrepancies... Just for a point of clarification, maybe Attorney Trump can give us the number that she's referencing that additional under 27. That is a number based on the six per average. That's not the total difference between the notice project change, gaming positions, and the current, if you count every seat based on this methodology. The 127 is if we continue to use the formula that we've previously used with MEPA. Yes. So, you know, we filed an E and F, a DEIR, and FEIR, and SFER, and SFER. And those numbers were all consistent throughout that process. And actually, the numbers that the commission was using for purposes of the financial... To determine what portion of the budget we paid was also using the 621 until this change. So, we can't anticipate yet MEPA's reaction or decision on this. It's just, I think right now it's something that it's in everyone's interest to move on quickly. Is that fair? That is fair. Absolutely. Commissioner, I didn't mean to cut you... Oh, no, no. I was just trying to understand the changes, the numbers, and the formula. So, it's a little different than I thought it was. Are you ready to move on from that? Do you want to have those questions more precisely answered? We don't need to move on. Well, we are not moving on this matter today. No, you're right. So, I think that there's time to really understand it better. So, I'll take that opportunity. Any further questions on that particular matter? Is that... All right, we're all set. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, well, thankfully we're not asking you to make any vote on that today, but we are recommending that the changes be voted along with the Section 61 approval, which we'll talk about in a little bit. So, the next item is the detailed construction schedule. The Gaming Commission approved an opening date for the facility, but has not yet approved the underlying construction schedule, which is required by 205-CMR-135. In your packet, it's a high-level summary of the schedule showing the completion dates for the major components of the resort and for the off-site improvements. As Peter Campo explained during his quarterly report, Project is on schedule for opening on June 23rd. Encore plans to file with the City of Everett for a Certificate of Occupancy on June 1st with an expected CO on June 10th, and we have no reason right now to believe that that will not happen. We, as the Gaming Commission, continue to coordinate with the appropriate entities on the off-site roadway improvements, those including MassDOT, City of Boston, Everett, some of the other surrounding communities to ensure that all of those portions of the project are satisfactorily completed before the project opens. And the one other item is that the related to schedule is that the Commission also needs to vote the final stage of construction, which allows the construction bond to be returned to Encore. Essentially, what we're proposing in conjunction with Encore is that the final stage of construction will coincide with the issuance of the certificate of operations. So when we issue that certificate, whether it's June 22nd, 1st, 2nd, whatever it is, that would coincide at the same day as the final stage of construction and at that point the bond could be released to Encore. Final stage culmination or... Well, you know, the way that the reg is written is really designed for someone putting up a cash deposit. You know, if someone put up a $50 million cash deposit, they actually need that money towards the end of the project to finish it because this is a bond. Releasing the bond doesn't really do anything. It doesn't free up money to finish the project. So we just said, let's just do it in conjunction with the operation certificate. Sounds good. And then some project is done, ribbon is cut, bond can be released. And again, we're recommending that the final construction schedule be voted along with the vote that you take on Section 61 findings in a couple weeks. Okay, so any questions on the construction schedule? Okay. Just one question. There will be test nights and the sort between the June 10th expected certificate of occupancy and the opening date, I presume. That's right. But we don't have that information yet? That's not the test nights that's not really called for in the construction reg that we're referencing. As part of the opening process, we'll detail, you know, rather significantly all of the various steps including the test nights as we get a little bit closer towards opening. By the later time. We're pretty close. I do have one question around the daycare facility. I think that that's going to come a little bit later, but you've made some temporary arrangements. Is that correct? Are you in the process of doing so? Right. So just to give you a little bit of an update on the daycare facility, we have signed a lease at Wellington Circle, which is where a majority of our employees will be parking. So we think it'll be convenient for families to drop their children there and then take the shuttle into the property because our employees are not entitled to park on property and meet with filings. So we signed the lease. We have partnered with an organization that provides the Head Start program. And just in terms of the construction and getting that done, getting them in there, they've got a pretty hefty process to get through their final approvals that delay to pass the opening. So what we're going to do is we're looking at various alternatives, both with the provided that is going to operate our daycare center to see where they can house children during an interim period. And we're also looking at other options for whether we can supplement in-home care or at other facilities within the area that may be convenient to our employees' residences as well. So it'd be a combination of center-based and family-based centers that the Head Start organization is orchestrating temporarily? That's correct. So we're also looking at other organizations that are not part of the Head Start program to supplement that to make sure that we've got the employees' coverage. And then the site itself, your operator will eventually be ABCD? That's correct. That's great. Thank you. What is the ETA for when they're actually going to open? We were hoping that September would be the date, but we think it's more likely to be November. So we're looking at the first six months after opening to provide the alternative just to give us a little bit of cushion to make sure that the families are covered. Do you have an internal deadline and when you're going to come up with the alternative for that six month period? So Peter had told me September and then I heard because of the additional work that ABCD would need to do after they take over the facility that that's more likely to be a month or a month and a half to get the federal approvals that they need. I mean the interim solution. Do you have an internal deadline for when you kind of come up with your six month coverage? We would definitely need to do that by the end of May. Never. And just to close the loop, do you have an anticipated number of children that you'll be serving? How are you able to estimate that fairly? The facility and Peter, you're correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it accommodates 62 children, which is, they have a toddler program as well as an infant program. Okay, the next section is the revised section 61 findings. So in your packet you will find the second revision to the section 61 findings we had done a revision earlier related to the study of the pedestrian bridge. But what you'll find here are the changes really reflect a lot of the refinements that happened during the notice of change process, square footages and the like, as well as the completion of the lower mystic working group. Some references to that. So some of the project related changes, and we've talked about a couple of these before, the final alternative sediment remediation is identified in there. We did a couple of changes to the water transportation sector that John alluded to earlier. This section reflected some changes due to the boats being constructed for the facility. What we've done is we've changed the section 61 finding to create more of a performance-based standard than a prescriptive standard based on the number of boats and seats. In your packet is a memo that was put together by AECOM that talks about how they're going to meet all of the underlying mode splits and so on for the use of the boats. A couple of other minor things. During some value engineering, there had been a row of skylights that was going all the way down the main corridor from the retail and restaurant spaces all the way down into the convention area. Those were being done primarily for lead purposes and the elimination of those didn't affect the lead certification anyway, so we were fine with that. There was also a requirement to use energy-efficient gaming equipment and we found that there really isn't any equipment of that nature. We ran into the same thing with MGM and changed their section 61 findings to reflect that. You'll see a bunch of other very minor changes in there that reflect the current plans for the site. There's also some minor revisions to the proportional share language that was based on earlier discussions and the completion of the lower mystic working group and nothing in these changes modifies the reopener clause that we have in the section 61 findings. Enclosed in your packet is the environmental monitor schedule. In order to get these changes into the monitor for May 22nd, they would need to be approved by the commission on May 14th with a submission to MEPA by May 15th. This would allow only one week for comments on the changes. There is an ability to go out a little bit further and it sounds like based on the discussions we've had about more about the gaming positions and the further contact of MEPA that may want to be something that the commission considers. I don't have that right in front of me, the schedule, but that pushes everything out two weeks, which still gets us into the environmental monitor before the facility opens. And again, so we're recommending that the commission put these changes out for public comment with the final section 61 findings being voted at time determined by the commission. Just for point of clarification, do we normally put things out for one week or two weeks in this context? Well usually two weeks is the standard or more. And it's doable when we do the traditional two week comment period, it still fits within the timeline, correct? So if we did the two week period we would miss the next environmental monitoring date. The publication schedule would require a filing by the, instead of the 15th of May, would require a filing by the end of May and that would appear in the environmental monitor on June 10th. That's the last date before the proposed opening of June 23rd. So the, if you did a shorter period, you could file by the 15th and then we have a monitor appearance before the end of May. If you miss that and go to the end of May, we still get the final monitor period of the June 10th monitor publication date. And then so it could be completed prior to the anticipated opening? Yes. That given that there's not a significant change to the section 61 findings from the first time that we, probably that we approved them. And in the context of what clearly appears to be a very tight schedule relative to the monitor, I would be comfortable with the one week for comment period. It's rather tight. It's not what we've done in the past necessarily. But I think observers of these items here could really be alerted to it. So Commissioner, the only thing I would add to that is there are a couple other items on the agenda that we might want to put out for public comment also, including the revisions to the game and establishment and the draft on for Boston Harbor alcohol permit. So maybe once we get through all those things, you want to address the date to put all these things out the common. It might be helpful to come back at the same time for all of these items. My preference would be the two weeks. I don't, it's doable and I don't see any reason to shorten the comment period if we can do it. I think it should be two weeks. Well, and I think there are some issues here that are changing. So I do think that makes a difference and this is such a critical issue around this project. And you're referring to the position. I am, yes. And I did hear Mr. Delaney say because we noted this, the need to address this properly with MEPA, how does, I'm not sure if I completely understand how that will be addressed within a one week, how we could go forward with one week? It would be rather difficult to get something addressed with MEPA in a one week period. Even though that they're very capable people. Oh, we want to be fair. To help me understand, our Section 61 findings do not necessarily run counter to a MEPA determination that they, for example, would not require a notice of project change or the gaming positions. There is a reference to the number under the notice of project change of gaming positions that is included within the current draft. So the current, the proposed draft that we would put out for comment reflects the notice of project change of gaming positions. It includes that 4-4-2-1. Not the prior one. The one that might be required by MEPA if they view these numbers to be different from what they were initially given. If they view these numbers as different then it would require more formal filing and all likelihood. And that could, that might carry on well past the opening. But my point is that it's not contingent on our drafting of the Section 62 on findings. Those two are separate events. Approving them a week from now. I do think that they are linked if there's any disagreement regarding the methodology then it's sort of a weird situation. If there's disagreement with the methodology then the draft revisions as they currently set would be fine. They would be able to move forward. If there is disagreement? Yes, because then it would require further filing to make an increase to the number of gaming positions. But the current filing reflects that 4-4-2-1 which is the notice of project change of gaming positions. And what was the 4-4-2-1 again? That's the total number of gaming positions in the notice of project change. In the last one. 2017. Right. And again to be fair to everyone including me but we don't want to put words in Meeba's mouth we don't know how the view is changed. They may say it's within a certain their regular expectations just that they are not here and we can't anticipate their viewpoint at all. So I'm hearing Commissioner O'Brien argue for two weeks. We did anticipate that there was a proposal for one week. I'd like to just hear from you on Batsman Ziemba as to whether you could accommodate of course a longer notice period. Or if we could segment it out. We can accommodate the longer period. The hesitancy is we only have two filing dates left. And so if something unanticipated came up that might be an issue but we can't accommodate the longer period. Two in addition to the one that's coming up or two total. Okay that's right. Okay. Inclusive of the next one. In other words a two week comment period leaves no room for error. That's right. After that. This is such a significant part of this project and it has been from day one that I am comfortable with two weeks. I think it's a really important piece of our project and that we need to give people a chance to weigh in on this. We have not marked this up for a formal vote. I think that it's probably fair that we hope that I think there's three of us who at least are suggesting that two weeks is a better practice. I mean we would love to get more notice always. Right. And if that can be arranged we would and even if it means somehow we have to tighten up on other ends that would be our recommendation. My fellow commissioners to the left would you like to discuss this further? Well you know I think that's a good summary. We do have a scheduled meeting for the next week. Is that there or do we know whether we'll have a meeting? So we had anticipated potentially something as early as the 14th I believe but we could adjust that. I also would maybe take a short break because there's one or two other issues on the other items. I just want to have a discussion with to see if we should put the whole all those three items over for that two week period and I assume so if that were the case I would work with the chair and the rest of the commissioners to determine you know what the meeting would be right after that two week period. Right and I alluded to that we might have to we might have to segment and then do one for the one week provided it's a good practice. Right. Thank you. I'm happy to accommodate another short break. Everybody thank you for your patience. Thank you. We'll convene again at 11.35. Thank you. Everyone for your patience as we deal with some scheduling issues. I think Ambassador Ziemba had the floor but you Sure so I'll just preempt Mr. Ziemba for one second which is I think we can accommodate the desire of the commission and in our past practice our past practice and put most the items if not all the items that we put out for public comment including the section 61 the liquor license and the property delineation for a two week period do it two weeks from today and tentatively I always say tentatively potentially have a meeting on May 20 which is two weeks from today to resolve those issues. May 20. Yes. Does that work? Would mean well I'm not a never mind right now there have been some talk about the 14 we'll we'll see obviously we'll post in compliance with the open meeting if we're going to have one on the 14 as we always do we will accommodate our commissions work and be as nimble as necessary with our meetings giving proper notice and right now there's a tentative plan for May 20 for our next meeting and that will give time for everyone to really sort out these details. Okay. So Mr. Ziemba likes to throw a curveball at me all the time so we will have to consider which he's not which he's correct on whether the comment period can coincide with the with the meeting schedule and let's talk about that behind scenes because we do want to make sure the commission has plenty of time appropriately to yeah right analyze all the comments so we'll work at that so tentatively the 20th but we just want to make sure the commission has enough time so we'll look at the schedule whether we need to move it out a day or two so you can have time for the comments. Mr. Ziemba you asked that? Enough trouble for today. Okay so the last item that we have is the opening day traffic planning I'm going to turn this over to Bob DiSalvio from Encore Boston Harbor for a high level discussion of the opening day, week, month kind of traffic planning activities we expect as the project gets closer to opening we'll have Encore back in front of us to provide a more detailed plan of the opening day activities with that turn it over to you Bob. Good morning Madam Chair and commissioners. Good morning. Good morning. I am actually joined today by Jackie Crum who's up at the front but also I want to acknowledge that the significant portion of the preparation of even this high level summary and of course all the transportation was done under the auspices of two of our really capable team members and I know you heard from Jim Fault who is our Executive Director of Transportation and I'm assuming you know about his background in terms of large movements of folks in and around the BCEC and other projects but also the co-head of this particular effort has been Rich Pryor who as you know is our Executive Director of Security and Investigations and through his extensive background with the state police has had lots of interaction and experience as it relates to whether it's large movements or people and or large gatherings so I want to thank these gentlemen and I'm here to really present the summary of a lot of their effort I will tell you that this particular aspect of the project I stayed very close to I know that this has been a subject for you know now I'm about a little over five years into the project and if this was this was probably the number one topic that we had at all of our public meetings and so I wanted to stay close to this one personally I will tell you that I attended Jim and Rich organized very large scale update meetings with probably upwards of I don't know 40, 50 people at each one through with law enforcement and other transportation professionals the T and DOT I attended every one of their working sessions myself except for one when I was at a town I wanted to make sure that I stayed close to it because I knew there's going to be a lot of questions about this so just to basically reiterate that we take this particular aspect of the project extremely serious the opening slide is really a sort of a combination that shows many of the different methods that we are going to be using to encourage visitors to attend the facility and leave their car at home or leave their car at another location and then use mass transit to come in and so you'll see it's a combination of items that we're going to be talking about whether it's the orange line or the water or premium motor coach or local buses so we'll cover them all as we move to this next slide I want to highlight a couple of the key opportunities for folks to again leave the car at home first and foremost we are right in the final production and commissioning of our Encore premium harbor shuttles we are very excited about this service as you know we're going to have a route that runs from Encore to the seaport and the financial district these are ADA compliant brand new gorgeous water shuttles that were built right in Charlestown and we look forward to them getting out on the water very soon we run early morning into the evening seven days a week weather dependent we've studied this quite a bit we know that there are rare instances when the ice and or the weather is so bad that it doesn't allow for safe passage so of course we'll be operating no different than anyone else who's out on the water and it's always a safety first so there may be a few times when operation is not possible but for the most part we're all year long the next item is interesting could I ask a quick question they look very nice by the way but they're a little smaller than anticipated but you still anticipate getting the same amount of folks there via water that's correct because we actually for we are working with an operator that decided on their own to add a fourth vessel so we had our commitment was for three turns out that you are correct they are slightly less capacity based on working with the coast guard but the operator chose to add a fourth exact same vessel so we'll wind up with the full seating capacity that we had and even though that vessel comes online a little the fourth vessel comes online a little later in the summer we're going to supplement that with other service they're going to be providing so we'll have the capability to do the numbers that we anticipated it just turned out to be pretty much four boats instead of three so frequent more frequent trips with the fourth boat even actually probably is a better setup than where we originally started because folks are very patient in Boston is that your experience extremely patient so we are excited about that the issue and there's been a lot written about this recently about how fares intersect with ridership and so Jim and I had many hours of discussion about how to make this work and we thought that the best approach would be to come out with very aggressive introductory pricing so as you can see we put in there that it's $7 a trip which is actually well below what is current market for even short water taxi legs in the harbor so this is an elevated experience at a very reasonable price the reason you do that for anybody who's been involved in marketing is to get the initial ridership up as quickly as possible so Jim and I chatted about that and then there was there's also been a lot written recently about whether commuters could even jump on segments of our leg and in reality there is a short leg that you go from financial district to the market so we put out there that we're going to have a $5 version of a short leg and again that will help just move people around with the idea of us connecting with the other water transit options in the harbor and the folks that do these kinds of services were pretty excited especially the folks at Mod and the convention center and other businesses in the area so again that service will start we'll do some test runs but it'll be ready for the day that we open the MBTA on-course shuttle so we have multiple routes there they go from Malden station and Wellington we've got brand new 58 passenger ADA compliant vehicles those are going to be free to the general public and our employees so they'll be and they're going to operate basically the T hours so from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. 7 days a week we're also going to have a as part of our commitment an on-course neighborhood shuttle so that's a system that will run with new 26 passenger ADA compliant vehicles as well again free to the general public and to our employees and those pretty much run 24 hours 7 days a week as part of the process and we've got a nice route set up with that where it'll go from on-course to river green over to the city near city hall area in Everett where and then we pick the spot right by the Silverline stop in Chelsea so again another opportunity for people to use different methods of mass transit to get to and from the facility and then the last on this page is what we're calling the premium motor coach service similar to what you think about as a premium parking ride here we're going from Millbury which is out towards Worcester, Rockland and the London Dairy New Hampshire where we know we're going to get a large pocket of business coming from the north those again are new 56 passenger ADA compliant luxury coaches again a very reasonable 7 bucks for that trip so again the whole idea is to get people on these services as quickly as possible to help take the burden off the roads we'll run them for approximately a 12 hour period 7 days a week before you leave this slide so this is mostly preparations for the opening period or what elements will remain mostly both so and I'll talk a little bit more about this further in the presentation but we think of this as not a one day concept because we know that the opening period of any of these resorts extends for quite a while so we think of it as the opening week we also think of it as the opening 90 day period and all the meetings that we had with our in particular our law enforcement partners what they said is a lot of this is going to be a game day call so the police are prepared to provide whatever backup we need in terms of assistance on these roadways or as long as it takes to make sure that we've got this under control and if that means it's the first 7 days straight it's fine if it's the first 14 days straight if it turns out being you know obviously our peak times Friday evening Saturday and Sunday day shift it may be that after the opening day period this might resort more to a weekend type operation until we finally get it to a period where you get some semblance of regularity in terms of what the flow is but there's clearly going to be a new kid on the block syndrome you're going to have a lot of initial trial and all of our partners have said that they will work with us all the way through that and by the way the other agency I want to talk about we've got great cooperation from the MBTA they've even made some shifts in terms of some of their maintenance schedules to make sure that availability would be appropriate during this period because as you know they have a significant amount of work done so I will tell you that every partner has chipped in and said that they will help us all the way through this to make sure that the resources are available because it's almost impossible to say when that opening sort of period starts and stops part of this is going to be that we are going to have to make weekly and or daily game calls. So Mr. DeSalvia you've committed to the law enforcement professionals many of whom are here today in support of this to let them make those calls meaning if they come back to you and say look we're really busy we need to extend this for another couple of days we're all in. And so that's one of the advantages of having Rich on the team he's obviously got longstanding relationships with everyone the state police is going to be setting up one of their mobile command centers again kudos to the T they're going to let us use their facility right next to the property so we can actually set that mobile command center up and you know here's a blessing here's the great thing about being in eastern Massachusetts after I have to tell you even going through some of the first sessions we all have trepidations about making sure that we cover everything but when you hear the law enforcement professionals talk about how they handle major events in and around eastern Massachusetts almost weekly when you think about all the different events that happen here these folks know what they're doing and so they've been a great partner and we're more than happy to take that into account but before again one more question some of the service that you highlighted in this slide is going to be free but has multiple stops at times does that take away from people who ultimately want to get to the property and some might want to just save a little walking in between points for example is that a consideration I mean I'll give you an example we had a long discussion with the city of Everett and they we were debating do we charge do we not charge employees but at the end of the day the whole idea was to get people out of their cars so in a case like that the city was really anxious and didn't really want us to put a charge on that obviously we don't want to charge our employees to get to and from work we're going to evaluate it all and if it turns out that it's highly successful and we have to put another section on we'll certainly consider doing that but the idea in both the areas where it's free meaning the connections from the teastops as well as the neighborhood we went on those we went no charge and if it turns out like I said if we need more service that's something we'll take a look at on the others we put a very reasonable price to encourage their usage and again it's all up for evaluation the next slide really kind of highlights the already existing extensive assets a lot of which are in the hands of the T and by that you think about the fact that there are 750,000 people that live within walking distance of an orange line stop and you've got all the way from Forest Hills to Oak Grove to think about there's a lot of folks that have access to get on the orange line and if they can get on the orange line not only do we have free shuttle service at Wellington and at Malden Center but as a lot of folks are starting to do now you can very easily get off at Sullivan Square and just walk it's a very short walk and as part of our improvement project in Sullivan Square there's now all new sidewalks all new ADA accessible ramps there's a logical pathway to get you from the station the Alfred Street bridge construction is done and so literally you can get off and walk it on nice weather days so it's just another option for folks and so we're going to obviously heavily promote the orange line but then there's also parking we listed here some of the different stations and their parking capabilities but look at Wellington Station Landing out at River Green at Malden Wonderland all these places are where you can either drop a car or you can switch lines and then get over to the facility so we do want to promote that and of course this new connection to the new Chelsea Silver Line stop we think will be a nice add on the next slide this is a interesting method of us connecting to our shuttle stops at Wellington and or at Malden Center by using what's called Mystic View Road so for those of you that don't know but when you get off at Wellington one of the concepts was how do we keep even shuttle buses off of Broadway if possible so when you come out of Wellington and you go onto the parkway normally you would go through and go all the way down to Everett and then down Broadway but there is a way to hang a right at Mystic View Road go down by where the Amelia Earhart Dam is and then turn around we've already talked to the DCR about this because this is really in their bellywack and then once you get off in that location you can just jump on the DCR Harbor Walk connection that we made and literally walk right over towards the front of the property and by doing so we can keep a significant number of shuttle buses from actually ever hitting Broadway so this was an idea that Jim came he talked to law enforcement about it they went to the DCR about this and they've endorsed this as an idea that for now we're using for opening day but in a tour that we did with MEPA just last week one of the DCR folks was on it and said at the end of the day if this turns out to be successful it's something that we can talk about going forward but it was just a clever way to keep the shuttles off of Broadway because we know that first June 23rd day is going to be interesting as we try to navigate through one of those large scale openings so the blue line in this slide would be the shuttle and the red is the pedestrian correct the pedestrian the shuttle is the blue that you've got that correct commissioner and so how much what's the distance of that walk I walked it the other day I just put myself at where you'd get off and walked over to the property it took me about 10 minutes to get to the front door so it's really actually it's much closer than what you think I wasn't sure so I just clocked it so it's really a short walk and a great option to keep some vehicles off of Broadway the next slide is actually a larger blow up of what I just described and it shows you the pathway for both pedestrians and for connection for the shuttles using the DCR connector so where's the entrance when you come let's say from the Amelia Earhart dam where do you enter the property oh you go underneath the dotted line the dotted red is underneath the railroad tracks we are just down there now the pathways done we're doing landscaping lighting so you go underneath the tracks you walk around the harbor walk and then over into the property just like the arrows and that's the arrow actually will take you all the way out to Broadway but you can stop obviously right at the end of where that first arrow is by the Port Keshare the next slide I mentioned earlier about the cooperation of law enforcement as you can see they're willing to put significant resources in terms of making sure that this works and again they've got a plan that they've worked out with both Rich and Jim about where are all the appropriate places they know the road network better than anyone else and will continue to work again with all the different departments and that's not only state police and local police but we got the MBTA, the Coast Guard for the waterways along with the state police and Boston Marine Unit so we've got this covered here land and sea when we talk about details this is significant numbers of public safety professionals how did we go about I mean is this how far out does this stretch and so what this is is for the opening not only the opening day but what we are considering the opening period and again the commitment from law enforcement was as much as it's needed will make it available so we know that first week for sure is going to be a challenge after that we're going to wait and see what the mid weeks are like and so the question is at least after that first week do we have to have this much presence on a mid week day we're not sure yet it could wind up being a modified schedule and if we need the full schedule for a longer period we'll use the full schedule but we got the commitment that they will provide the resources as needed and these are details so these are committed officers yeah they're reimbursable details so they're obviously we're paying for the service right so they will be at a post at an intersection available to assist with whatever happens to get traffic moving thank you great the next slide the use of signage is critical and so we have been working for the better part of a year and a half with AECOM as our partner and then going through all the appropriate state agencies for a combination of highway and local signage and so obviously the key is to make sure the motoring public if they are driving that they know where to go and that cars do not wind up in the wrong place so you can see this particular slide shows a map of where the building packages represented by the various dots and on the next page on the following slide we took this all the way out as far as we could on the major roadway network so this is signs on 93 on 90 that really handled all the major interchanges where somebody would have to go to and from the property and so there is an extensive process of getting approval for these we are right in the final throws of it now after going through MassDOT and the local communities and our contractor will be installing these signs before we open the next slide can I ask one more question and can we go back to the slide and I failed to ask before the on-court opening pedestrian pathways we talked extensively about the walk from the DCR connector we did not talk about the walk across Alfred there sure so in that particular case commissioner we have a commitment to use and we have two different intersections one the main site intersection in front of the property which would be part of the city of Boston and the other part of the city of Boston is in Everett detail and then there is a commitment down by Dexter street that is actually not in Everett but it is in the city of Boston and we have already had I think we brought this up at a previous update meeting with the commission we had communication with the city of Boston's transportation department and they are ready for the crossings so this would be the community parking lot getting those folks across the street to the facility and it is not signaled it is signaled right there is the signal so you are going to ask everyone to come down to the intersection rather than try to cross earlier so what we are doing is the way the community parking lots were set up they were purposely designed for pedestrians to not use the main site drive but to go one intersection south and A it is going to be better for them because it is a better place to cross and B we set up the pathway so it is a shorter walk and so what we tried to do by the use of fencing and landscaping now we are not again we do not prohibit anyone from using the main site drive but you sort of encourage it through the use of landscape design to get the pedestrians to feel like where is my A safest path to go B shortest travel distance shortest travel will attract people safest will not but we are hoping for both and so we designed literally when we designed the pathways out in the front of the property it was done with this in mind so when they get across they actually get to cut out the main site drive so we are hoping that will accommodate that and then you supplement that with police details sure sorry you may have addressed this but most of these are accessible all are accessible yes sure I am going to go to the slide that says opening public relations and communications so we are currently working with our marketing folks and outside agencies to build awareness about the mass transit plan to try to minimize the number of folks that use automobiles and this is going to be story lines on everything that I talked to you about earlier whether it is the premium harbor shuttle bike share, ride share by the way one thing I failed to mention for ride share you know that is something that is kind of intricate in terms of making sure that you get it right in a high volume facility so there is a piece of property across the way where we have a area that the ride share folks can all congregate and then through the use of geofencing and the ride share apps you can have somebody come out of the building they tap for a vehicle the vehicle gets dispatched from the ride share area and then right out to the front door because we don't have storage facility for all the vehicles and you don't want them driving around the streets so this is we are doing a smaller version of what is done at places like airports or Gillette stadium or other places where you have to manage the ride share if you want it to go effectively so that we will be promoting that through the ride share apps and of course using all the media outlets and the next page again we are talking about local advisories we are going to have advisories on radio stations we are going to have real time traffic information we had already set up real time traffic information during our construction period on the win for all app and that has gone over extremely well so we will be able to roll with our communications that were originally for construction so we are going to be looking at all the related issues into guest facing now and let the general public know should they need to for anything that they might need for directions of course using the website we are developing an app that they can use for the premium parking ride so they can actually reserve space again we are trying anything and everything to make this easy for folks to be able to do and this next page talks about at the end of the day you can do everything you want we need except you have to tell people about it so we are going to have to spend money on this to make sure so we have an extensive paid media campaign it will be omnichannel we are going to use direct we are going to use digital we will do print we will do out of home we are going to cover all the bases on this because it is in the future so I think that was those are really the highlights and I know John and Joe wanted us to sort of do the overview I believe there will be some more discussion about this even maybe at a future meeting but just to let you know that we have thought a lot about this and we have taken this plan very seriously and no I am sure we didn't think of everything and I know we will be doing some adjustments after we open but it was interesting to take in planning exercise to get to where we are today thank you. I think it is impressive the commitment from all of the agencies all the planning that has been involved even down to the last detail of landscaping they may accommodate a safer crossing I do think the planning is really apparent in looking at this plan. Thank you commissioner. Any further questions? Thank you. Does that conclude your presentation? That concludes our report. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next item is item four but I think we will take a short break and again my apologies but we have quite an agenda so this will help us stay right on target. Thank you very much. We would like to convene this meeting. Thank you very much. Next on the items is number four IEB Mr. Bann and the director Bann and Todd Grosman thank you. We have Council Todd Grosman here with us Jackie Crum senior vice president of legal and Bob Salvio the president we are here today to talk about the gaming establishment area and an adjustment to a proposed adjustment to that area. Good morning and just for the record I am not the general counsel so I want to refer to deputy general counsel and duly noted. Thank you. General counsel. As Mr. Bann pointed out the licensee has proposed amending the gaming establishment boundary which is a timely request at this point the boundary was first set as you may recall back in 2014 September 2014 when the gaming establishment boundaries for both this project and for the proposed mohegan sun project were established after a hearing where information was presented from all interested parties as to where the boundary should be set obviously the project has changed in scope in some of the dynamics over time so it is certainly a good idea to have a look at the boundary now. The commission did issue a decision back when it first reviewed the project to determine the proper mechanism and analysis for determining where the boundary should be and essentially what it did back there is set out a four part test based upon the statute in which the commission looked at the definition of the term gaming establishment which is outlined in chapter 23k section 2 as well as some of the other definitions including that for gaming area and what have you and essentially it said that there are four things you look at it includes the gaming establishment must include the gaming area itself and the hotel but otherwise when you're looking at which amenities and where exactly the line should be drawn you want to look at whether it's a non gaming structure that is related to the gaming area that is under the common ownership and control of the gaming licensee and the applicant and fourth whether the gaming commission actually has some type of regulatory interest in including that piece of the premises within the boundaries of the gaming establishment with those things in mind the commission has drawn all the boundaries for all the licensees at this point the one nuance that I would add that has kind of evolved over time is that the commission has said as it pertains to determining whether the particular amenity or part of the premises is a structure or not we've looked at the core of the structure and said well that has to be an actual structure but we have extended the line out to areas that are adjacent to actual physical structures that are in essence really an extension of the physical structure and included those areas within the boundaries of the gaming establishment too for example that would include the plaza area at the MGM Springfield property or the racing apron area at Plain Ridge Park casino and that's certainly relevant here today too with the proposal that you have before you so with that the licensee has submitted a proposed map that has the boundary on it as a general matter to say that we support where the boundary is drawn with a couple of exceptions that we would like to point out to you for consideration as I understand there won't be any final vote taken here today but just a couple of things to have a look at in anticipation of your upcoming vote and I don't know if we can flip to the map itself that it's identified as exhibit B in your page 20 that's the original map there and there aren't too many substantial changes to the original boundary I believe it's the next slide there it is there if you look on the far east side of that you'll see there are two cutouts at the far end of the property that appear to be loading docks or something of that nature and we would suggest that those would be proper for inclusion here it's important to remember some of the types of things that are important to ensure that the commission and the IEB and Mr. Band and his team have control over and they include things like not just the service of alcoholic beverages but also surveillance and security and employee licensing and registration with all of those considerations in mind we would submit that those two areas would be beneficial to have within the boundary of the gaming establishment I understand that the armored car drop-offs and pickups may take place in that area as well and that's certainly an area that we want to ensure as part of the gaming establishment so that's the first area we wanted to bring to your attention is on the far west side you'll see that that's the outdoor area and there's like a narrow the narrow pathway that's included that leads all the way to I guess it's a gazebo area and we certainly don't have any objection to including that but it may be beneficial to actually consider including that whole area out to the walkway not including the walkway but out to the walkway though as we understand it all that area will be heavily landscaped and not easily traversable for future consideration in case they decide to ever amend the setup or what have you it may be easier just to include it instead of having this you know line that's difficult to navigate and certainly Mr. Band and his team may have a difficult time on the ground really determining where the line is and whether someone has an alcoholic beverage over the line or next to the line or whatever it's there is a natural boundary there there'll be a fence at the northern side and to the west and the south there is the the walkway area so I'd suggest that might just be an easier way to draw the line instead of having that squiggly line run around the area do they do you know or do you intend to do any kind of regular programming in that area? on the event lawn? certainly and is that the big ellipses at the very front? yes commissioner and you know the reason that we drew the line the way we did was to really encompass the areas where the guest would go it would actually be our preference to kind of leave it because the rest of those areas are really landscaped and if we have a function that has alcohol we will have that area segregated but we were trying to keep it so that it was really just the areas that fall under the criteria and not just include the other areas I do agree though the area back by the full loading dock and all of that should be included it looks like a part of it Todd I think a part of it looks like was cut off at the back end and I totally agree with Todd on that you want to make sure you get the full loading dock in the area where that should be included that looks like a miss on our part but I think out by the event lawn our preference would be to keep it to the areas that are going to be under regulation and where guests are going to be in the landscape areas and that's why they're delineated with those the event lawns those are the sort of the bulb outs off of the ellipse there or the south lawn and commissioners if you get an opportunity to see this I would just say I was over at the property last week it's not just landscape it's heavily landscape so delineation between what is a pathway and what is landscaping is dramatic but it may be something that would make a decision the same actually argument applies all the way down I guess that convention area there's same arguments whether you want to keep the boundary just out to the walkway or you want to I think it's all landscaped in there that's the same exact right we have there are event lawns that are on the east side of the convention space that sort of follow that same pattern and that's why we included them and I really spill out from the convention spaces so we can anticipate having an indoor outdoor event where they may have a gathering at first on the event lawn outside and then move into the room for the meetings you've also included all of the harbour walk piece right so the other the harbour walk is not included in the proposed gaming establishment boundaries that's open public space and there's no alcohol allowed on the harbour walk so that we can't include that nor that would set off all kinds of other bells and whistles and just to clarify commissioners the red line is the red line I was thinking it was the gray anything within the red line is what we're proposing the commission in its last decision explicitly determined that the harbour walk the internal roadways surface parking lots are explicitly excluded from the gaming establishment in that we don't have a specific regulatory interest in overseeing those areas and that the dock area I should add in that they're governed under other laws of the commonwealth and there are other entities that oversee those areas so those areas were out the ones we're talking about now were never specifically adjudicated and the only other area that I would add in that is included here that was never discussed in the past was the port crochet area which makes sense to include and probably should have been in the first map but wasn't so that's included here so it is it is contiguous I guess when I was first looking at only the gray it made no sense to me as to why we were including the ellipsis and only the walkway but looking at the red all of that area is contiguous that was why we suggested that and would allow guests to traverse from one area to another all within the boundaries great thank you and again I think this is one of the items we would additionally put out for public comment and all the floors above right in MGM we have some exceptions because of the nature of the property there is no exceptions when it comes to we may work on that at a later date there may be something in terms of doing the gaming floor I think we might take that up at a later date there is one item related to that but for gaming establishment it's all the floors correct so no further questions on boundary with respect to item 4B draft on-court Boston Harbor alcohol permit is Mr. Curtis here oh there he is thank you thank you Mr. Grossman good morning again Mr. Curtis how are you good afternoon Madam Chair oh it is afternoon thank you okay today I'm joined with Bruce Binn to present you with a draft of consideration and comments Bill is your mic on sorry about that people always tell me I talk too loud the division of licensing in the investigations and enforcement bureau specifically the gaming agents division is not forwarding the application to the commission with the recommendation but rather wanted to provide the commission with ample opportunity to consider the application given the unique nature of the 4AM request the application is substantially complete the change request for 23 alcohol licensed outlets of the 23 requested gaming beverage outlets three of these outlets will be leased to an outside party the 23 outlets will be situated as follows there will be 15 on the ground floor there will be 5 outlets on the second floor and there will be 3 on the third floor for the gaming floor excuse me on-court Boston Harbor has requested alcohol service until 4AM 4AM would like to go through the slide deck right now and I would appreciate it if Jackie Crump could lead the way sure ok so what we try to do on the table of contents was items 6 through 41 are areas and they correspond with the pages are items where beverages would be served start with the draft beer liquor dispensing system and point of sales controls. What we try to do is give a general outline of the process. So for draft beer, in any outlet with draft beers, the taps would be deployed. No later than 2 AM, we are actually going to have a last call at 1 30 AM. And then with respect to the gaming floor, if approved, we would have a last call at 3 30 AM with the taps turned off at 4 AM. For the servicing of alcohol on the gaming floor, if it's approved, that would be for actively gaming guests only. And those would be not guests that are sitting next to someone who's actively gaming, but guests that are actively engaged and not just putting a dollar into the soft machine in order to get a drink. So that would be how servers would be trained with respect to that as well as our security team. On liquor dispensing systems, all buttons with alcoholic beverage functionality, likewise, would be automatically disabled, no later than 2 AM or 4 AM with respect to the casino floor. And this is configured by IT and the system administrators only, and there is no override function on these outlets. Same with the point of sale system, all buttons would be associated with alcoholic beverage distribution would be disabled at that 2 and 4 AM periods. On liquor bottle service, for certain of the venues, as we go through the deck, I can point these out, but would only occur during private events. And with respect to any liquor bottle service, the bottle will remain in the possession of the server, and the server will never leave the table unattended so that the bottle is available to guests. Obviously, this doesn't apply to a bottle of wine, but this is for all spirits. In different locations, the bottle is either physically removed, or we do have someone who is standing there looking at the bottle the entire time. The guests will never be permitted to touch the bottle and serve themselves. In the lounges and nightclubs, same set up in terms of the service. The only difference is we do intend to offer this not only for private events, but for general consumption. An in-room bottle service, just to be clear, I guess, will not be entitled to order a bottle of spirits through in-room dining. However, if there's a private event within the room, what we call the hospitality event within the room, we would have a server follow the same protocols that I've outlined above, where they, the ones touching the bottle at all times. Just to go through the ground level licensed areas, this indicates the gaming floor, the venues on the gaming floor. So we have the buffet, Fratelli, which is one of our least outlets, and Santa Bar in the middle of the casino floor. And then going further along, this is outside the casino floor. We obviously have the meeting and convention space. And then we have, just going from direction wise, west, then south. We have Mystique, which is another least outlet. This is one of the venues that we would, that's a least outlet. Then we have Sinatra, which is our formal Italian outlet. We have Rare, which is a steakhouse. Brew, which is... Grab and go. Grab and go food. We have the Oyster Bar, across from Sinatra's. And we have Red Eight, which leads directly onto the gaming floor. There's access from Red Eight to the gaming floor. And then finally, we have Waterfront. So on Sinatra, this is assorted modern and classic Italian cuisine. It's a very elegant restaurant, and a bar neighboring the garden lobbies. So there is outside patio seating available, but there's no access from the patio itself. The guests will have to go through the main entrance. On all of these, you'll see we proposed what we anticipate the hours of operation to be, but we are asking for extended service periods in case there are private events, or in case those hours are modified to meet the demand of the facility. So for this venue, with respect to bottle service, we would like to make it available, but only for private events. And all liquor and beer and wine will be locked in the venue, which has enclosed walls and a locked door. There's no draft beer in this venue. Turning to Mystique, this is a casual Asian fusion dining. It's Asian inspired cuisine and sushi restaurant and bar adjoining the West Esplanade. This is gonna be run by one of our local partners, Big Night Entertainment Group. Again, we have proposed the normal hours of operation, but do ask for permissiveness in terms of serving alcohol with respect to private events or a change in the times. The alcohol dispensing area, so all alcohol is distributed at the bar by the bartenders for guests sitting at the bar and from the bar by service to guests in the dining room. Again, only bottle service for private events only. Likewise, this venue is completely enclosed and has locked doors and we will also propose the security office in the Esplanade 24 hours a day. Waterfront restaurant concept is shareable plates and snacks, craft beer, and spirits. It's a casual dining restaurant adjoining the West Esplanade. This would be for bottle service. It would be for private events only and for alcohol dispensing, it's distributed at the bar by bartenders and from the bar by service to guests in the dining room. Again, all liquor, beer, and wine will be locked in the venue which has enclosed walls and a locked front door. Our oyster bar is our raw bar which is casual dining adjoining the West Esplanade. And again, alcohol is distributed by bartenders and served by service to guests in the dining room. Bottle service for private events only. And this will also, wine and beer will be locked behind the bar. The venue does not have a locked front door, so it'll be stanchioned off when it's closed and we will have a security officer outside in the Esplanade 24 hours a day. Red Eight is our Chinese casual dining concept adjacent to the casino floor. This does have extended hours where you'll see we're asking for this to be open until three, we intend for this to be open until three a.m., obviously realizing that alcohol service would stop prior to, at two a.m., prior to the closing of the restaurant. The alcohol will be distributed by bartenders and to those at the bar all by service to guests in the private dining room and bottle service again only for private events. There is no guest-facing bar in this venue, so everything will be served from back of the house and the point of sale system, as I explained before, will be disabled at two a.m. The buffet is our all-you-can-eat casual dining, also located right off the casino floor. This one, alcohol dispensing will be done by bartenders or by service to guests in the dining room. Again, private events only for bottle service. There's no guest-facing bar in this venue, so it's all locked back of house and point of sale distribution systems are disabled at two a.m. On Fratelli, this is another lease concept. It's Italian cuisine, casual dining restaurant and a bar adjacent to the casino floor. For the alcohol, it will be distributed at the bar by bartenders and again by the service to guests who are in the dining room. Bottle service will be for private events only. All the taps will be deployed for draft towers and the point of sale system will be disabled at two a.m. Brew is our fast casual dining. It's adjacent, joining the East Esplanade. This will be open 24 hours a day, but obviously alcohol service will be limited to what is to the eight a.m. to two a.m. time range. The alcohol is dispensed by fountain workers at the counter and everything will be deployed, will be removed at two a.m. We also intend to remove all alcoholic beverages from guest view at that two a.m. mark. Sorry, if we didn't have so many venues, this wouldn't be quite so long. The rarest steakhouse, this is a classic steakhouse and bar, very elegant restaurant and bar, joining the East Esplanade. There is also outside patio seating available. Again, no entrance from the outside. The guests must enter through the main entrance. We intend for this to be open. Bar would open at four and then it would go from five to 10. Again, we'd like to have flexibility on those hours for private events or if scheduled demands. So the alcohol is dispensed by bartenders for guests at the bar and again, service to guests in the dining room or on the patio, bottle service for private events only. This restaurant also has enclosed walls and a locked front door. Our center bar is right in the middle of the gaming floor and this would also serve to provide complimentary beverages for actively gaming guests from the two to four a.m. time period. So we would propose operating this 24 hours a day subject to the limitations of the alcohol license with respect to alcohol service. For actively gaming guests, they would be served at their gaming location and those will be delivered by servers. If cash paying guests come up, they will not be entitled to purchase alcoholic beverages after the four a.m. cutoff. However, they would be able to purchase non-alcoholic beverages at that time. Given that this will be serviced 24 hours a day, the alcohol would still be available but the ability to order it would be cut off at the four a.m. mark or at the two a.m. mark. So this just goes into our complimentary policy. I think I've touched on a lot of these but complimentary beverages would not exceed $25 in value. If they do, they would have to be approved by a slot supervisor or above prior to serving them. And then also guests may only receive one complimentary beverage for every 20 minutes of active gaming. And the way that we have thought about how this works is our shifts or the way that the servers, the areas that they have to cover, they physically would not have the capacity to go back to a guest more than once every 20 minutes. So our VIP registration desk and lounge, that would be open 24 hours a day again subject to the limitations of the alcohol service. There would be no bottle service there and everything will be in back-of-house storage. Just to be clear, I know this goes without saying, obviously everything is subject to 24-hour days, seven days a week surveillance. Our retail stores, this wine and champagne only and we would intend for this to be distributed by supervisors and managers all from back-of-house locked storage. Meeting and convention space, also distributed by bartenders and served by service to guests in the dining room, bottle service for private events only. So the service is through portable bars which will never be unattended and they broken down at the conclusion of an event and all liquor, beer and wine would be locked up back of the house when not in use. So on the harbor walk, this is the area that we were just looking at. So it's really the event lawn, we calling it the harbor walk but it's really the event lawn and the gazebo that extends out there. This would be for private events only and we would again serve through portable carts that are never left unattended. These carts will have camera coverage and all liquor and beer would be returned to the back-of-house when they are not in service. We'll also have security stationed around all these events to make sure that the alcohol is not leaving and going on to the harbor walk. So I think we touched on this next slide which is the casino beverage service. What the next slides do is they point out essentially where our back-of-house bars are that would be used for servicing the casino floor. There's a whole bunch of those but we have a lot of back-of-house facilities. So this just goes into a little bit more of the process. So as I said before, when the cocktail servers makes us round on the casino floor, they would take non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverage orders. They go to a designated service bar, they swipe their assigned micro system card and verbalize the drink order to the bartender. The bartender rings in the orders and produces the alcoholic beverages but the server provides the non-alcoholic beverages. So the cocktail server then retrieves the alcoholic beverage from the bartender and delivers it to the guest who is actively gaming. If the guest is no longer actively gaming by the time the server comes back, the server would not be permitted to provide that alcoholic beverage to the guest. Jackie, can I ask a question? Maybe Bruce or Bill or Ed can remind me. I remember from MGM there's a 3.30 a.m. Milestone, if you will. Last call. Last call. In which also to give you enough time for people to finish their last drink, I suppose. But that also enables or disables, rather, the machines at that time. Is that what happens at MGM? Yeah, usually, yes. Because some of the verbiage here, you are suggesting that... So our thought on that is to do a last call and let people know this is your last chance to order, so we would deliver the... We would propose delivering the drink in that 3.30 to 4.00 a.m. range, but that would be the final drink that they can have. So if they order, you know, if it's a 3.35, that drink would still be delivered to the patron. Okay. There's also... There's a final drink, I should say. Yeah, there was also some kind of control around cup. There are different cups to differentiate. We had a discussion about this, and the idea is once a person stops gaming and starts wandering around the casino floor, we would ask them to finish their drink if they no longer actively gaming or remove the drink. We didn't really see the need for distinguishing with the cups because everyone at 2.00 a.m. is either done, they're not gonna get refilled, they're either done and they're getting a new drink because they're actively gaming, or I guess we just didn't see the purpose of changing out the glassware at that point. Well, at least some of it, my recollection at least in MGM had to do at times with the Plaza, but there was also the notion of the closing of the expiration of the time. Is that, am I getting those recollections and stuff? Trying to remember a whole eight months back. I think initially there was some designation they had anticipated using glassware until 2.00 a.m. and then shifting to a frosted plastic cup. It turns out I think they ended up after a week or so going right to plastic, I think it was a different type of plastic. I think the only delineation was it was a distinction to the servers who was supposed to be actively gaming because they are now drinking between two to four with this special frosted glass. I think our concern was if at, let's say 3.00 a.m., someone has an actively gaming glass, when that server comes around again, if that person's no longer actively gaming, they don't get another drink no matter what. It's not, just because you were actively gaming 30 minutes ago, does not mean that you are still actively gaming 30 minutes later. We're worried that the glassware is actually gonna impede the proper oversight of this. We think it's better to either you are gaming or you are not gaming. Again, the whole issue about last call and then ultimately turn the taps off. But the glassware, we couldn't think of a scenario where the glassware makes it any safer. As a matter of fact, it seemed more confusing to all our beverage folks. And so, and again, I think MGM abandoned it after. They still utilize it and stuff, but I think their purpose is more for people that don't leave with the glassware or. I think the other distinction maybe frankly, MGM is self-serving systems where people can get non-alcoholic beverages. We don't have any, there's no self-service on our floor. So we just couldn't find a reason why this would be helpful in the argument. I'm gonna skip ahead to the second level licensed areas. So we have our garden cafe, which is seasonally driven and locally inspired casual dining. It's on the mezzanine of the garden lobby. This again is only distributed by bartenders or servers. Bottle service would be for private events only. There's no guest-facing bar in this facility, so everything is behind the service bar and would be locked up. In-room dining. Again, distributed by bartenders who then deliver to a server who delivers it to the guests in the room. As discussed before, only bottle service for private or hospitality events held in those rooms where there'd be a server constantly in the room. No guest-facing bars in the rooms, so everything would be brought to the room and then taken back of house and locked up. Garden lounge is a upscale craft cocktail lounge located on the mezzanine of the garden lobby. Drinks would be distributed by bartenders or by services to guests in the seating area. We would like to be able to do bottle service in this facility, again, only in the manner that I previously described. And this facility, the only access to the bar is through back of house, and so this would be locked or, sorry, this would be stanchioned off when it's closed, but the alcohol would be locked up back of house. So memoir is our least outlet, which is an ultra lounge. It's a elevated boutique nightclub, which is located in the upper east of the mezzanine, and this one we would like to serve bottle service as part of regular course, and it's a completely enclosed venue that would be locked when it's not in use. The on-deck burger bar is an American sports bar. It's casual dining on the upper east mezzanine. Alcohol would be served by bartenders or to service if they're dining. And bottle service, I don't know why we have two yeses. Maybe we feel emphatic about bottle service for private events here, but bottle service would be for private events only. And this is the only access to the bar is through back of house. This venue does not have locked doors, so we would have to remove all the alcohol and put it back in the house. And then on the third floor, we have our salon, which we would just like to be able to serve wine and champagne by managers and supervisors. No bottle service, and everything would be locked up back of house. Same with the spa. And then I think we talked about the board rooms. It's up on the third floor where the spa is. But same process for, same as the other meeting banquets and convention events that we discussed. And the last few slides just show you where the product would be stored, and as well as our pump room. And these are back of house, obviously. Open for questions. You obviously have a couple of leased operators and they'll chime in. How are they guided in the provision of an alcohol licenses that on, on core is that on you working independently with the individual leased space operators? We work with on core in conjunction with the lesses. And commissioner, if you see in those particular slides, there's someone called a jointly responsible person. Which is from the last C. And they understand that they're subject to the same regulations and controls that, that apply to us. Okay. Their employees have been instructed that they need to register. Certain individuals will need to register the bartenders, the managers, the lounge service. So these folks, they know they have to go throughout process. Can I just ask the public comment period for the two to four for MGM, how long did we put that request out for public comment? Two weeks. Two weeks? We did. Okay. And we also have our police of chief here, chief maize from the city of Everett, if there's any questions for him. I'd like to. And Lieutenant Strong. So I would suggest we coincide both all three items for a two week comment period. And then we'll figure out whether the meeting, how the meeting coincides with that two week comment period. Good. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We're moving, moving to item five. Hello commissioners. Do you have any updates? I do have two updates. And this relates to the decision that the commission issued on April 30th regarding the wind suitability. We issued both fines and conditions. And we just want to clarify the date certain that we have determined for the fine date to be due. Legal has advised that under our statute and regulations would be May 31st. Of course, we welcome any discussion on that if you view it differently, but that's based on our regulation. So that would be the date certain. I also want to note that pursuant to another condition. We have convened a procurement management team to begin the selection process for the independent monitor, the work that we anticipate pursuant to our decision. That's it. Well, and just on that note, we've not heard from the company on these other matters and they have until the date certain that the chair mentioned to either comply or appeal our prior decision. Is that correct? If so, yeah, in fairness, we've heard from the company that they have an internal process to go through and they anticipate going through that relatively quickly. Is there any further discussion? Do I have a motion? So moved. I second. And that would be a motion for adjournment. It would be. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. And those opposed? Five, zero, thank you very much.