 Here we go Keith Slattery here Justin Sterrett Paul Sheehan here John DePriest He's on the phone, okay Ron or he's I can see his name, okay? Ron Hogan, yeah Richard Caravello. Yeah, Brad Rosson Eric Barrasa. I Am here Vincent Panzini David Bancroft here and Myra Negro Roche here Hello Like to know that John DePriest is here as well. Oh, thank you Okay Sorry just a minute. I have to read something about our virtual meeting Pandemic thing. Sorry just a minute Given the unprecedented Circumstances resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic Governor Charles Baker issued in order to provide limited relief from certain provisions of the open meeting law Protect the health and safety of individuals interested in attending public meetings and keeping with the guidance provided the Commission will conduct a public meeting Utilizing remote collaboration technology Any votes will be taken by a roll call. This meeting is being recorded And I will hand the meeting over to the chair Okay We'll start today Motion to accept the minutes of The last meeting I make the motion second All in favor Opening comments Well, thanks for everybody for being here Don't have anything particular of note to start the meeting off so I think we can move right into Item number three Okay Item number three election of the chair and representative to the sub subcommittee I make a I make a motion to approve to nominate the two individuals who indicated that they would like to serve last week Without raises and mr. Hogan without raises with all the with all the raises you want By Dr. DePriest seconded by Paul Sheehan seconded by Paul Sheehan All in favor Motion passes. Thank you. Congratulations, Ron Okay Number four discussion of policy questions. Do we want to go over them one at a time? Well, I think so last the last meeting we went through them sort of one by one and Let me first let me Let me share those With the group and what I thought we would do there was some particular ones That we were really looking for input on And I think I'll try to try to go to those in particular Let me see if I can blow this up a little bit so I think the The first major item was with the Item number four about our workforce grants and How we should be tailoring those You know due to the due to the covid pandemic and you know issues regarding hospitality And you know food and beverage and things like that sort of that You know that question came up during 2020 where we Essentially had to eliminate those because the casinos were closed down and there was really no impact associated with the casino That that you know the training was addressing. So I'm wondering if anybody has any Sort of particular comments that area Yes, I mean I know in the in ever it's been very helpful to the community. I'm sorry I did miss the last meeting so I don't know what all the comments are I did did give this a read over but I'm fully in support of the workforce initiative here. It's it's helped a lot of students You know not only gain the credentials they need but also prep them for life after education. So Okay, great. Anybody anybody else have Input on on the workforce items I just uh second the comments made by the gentleman's member I would agree. Yeah Okay, all right. Um, so So The next item that we we talked about was on item number five Really items numbers five and six really dealing with the transportation construction funds that we did So last year our guidelines had a three million dollar statewide target with no project receiving more than a million dollars So the the questions that we have for you or whether or not We think that we should sort of either increase those numbers because we did get quite a bit of Quite a bit of requests for that or should we keep them the same? And then the second piece of this is Whether or not we should put a cap On the percentage of construction costs that the community mitigation fund will pay You know, we did have projects last year where The local community was providing as much as a 90 percent almost a 90 percent match And others were proposing zero percent and sort of everything in between And I guess our thoughts on that were that um You know where most of these projects they are addressing a casino impact. There is a lot of sort of ancillary improvements to the community and and I'll just use an example of the project that Chelsea submitted last year, which is the beach and street corridor That's about a 12 million dollar project and in the end we were providing a million dollars towards that Towards that project You know, so it's it's addressing certainly increases in traffic on beach and street But you know that project is also doing drainage improvements and some water and sewer improvements pedestrian improvements and other things that were sort of Well, you know ancillary to the project. There are certainly a benefit to the community, but aren't particularly addressing a casino impact And you know, we're not suggesting necessarily that a community should um Just do The minimum possible to address the impact, but there has to be some sort of realization that um That some of the project in fact, it could be most most of the project is as a benefit to the community rather than just offsetting an impact. So I guess with that I'd like to hear what what some of your thoughts are Anybody have the hand up I can't see Eric um, yeah, I would I would increase the overall amount of construction funds I'm you know considering you've received a lot of requests for them For number six one thing you could consider is Instead of just having like a hard line about what a match might be you could just say Your policy could be that you'll You'll look more favorably upon projects that have a higher percentage of match without necessarily Requiring that a certain percentage of it has to be included David you have a hand up I well, I was just going to comment that I think you know going forward for some of these municipalities Coming up with municipal match may be a problem. Yeah, right No, I mean I think going back to what Eric said maybe You know, I think we should always encourage a match if it's available um Even if it's a small amount But I wouldn't want to knock something out because the community doesn't have the resources With all the other strains going on that they can't match this particular need. Yeah, I agree with that you know Favorably, you know the more match you can put in whether it's from state or federal resources or municipal resources Is better than nothing but I wouldn't kill something just because it couldn't come up with the match If the if the community could demonstrate that it doesn't really have the resources to do it Yeah, I think during this this these current times. I think anybody any uh, any city would be having a You know, if it's tough time coming up with uh extra funds to match anything right now I think this is not over. I think the match is important if the project being proposed It's one of those things where the commission Should look and says well, this is an entirely casino impact It might have they might have some in some of it. It might not and so in that case It's it's certainly reasonable to expect the municipality to But I would say a municipality's ability to be able to make a match should not become an advantage if what's being mitigated Truly is a legitimate casino impact So I I don't know if that makes sense to folks, but I think that is a fairly Bright line between those two things that you know So sometimes it may be an advantage and sometimes it may not matter at all Yeah, I think I think you know the way our Guidelines were written last year on this it said Uh, the commission anticipates that any cmf assistance provided will only be for a percentage of the cost of any such project And that's significant other federal state local private or other funding sources will be available to pay for the cost of such project um That actually should be an end quote there the So I think last year we did say, you know, we did not put any kind of a cap on that and you know, I guess You know, we could leave the language pretty much the same as it was Saying that hey, we're really looking for this and again just just using Using that the chelsea project as an example, you know, they they they ended up getting some federal funds For uh, I can't remember what program those came out of john But there's also some mwra funds and other funds that were and some Uh community funds that were sort of all cobbled together Realizing that this is a I think a much bigger project than just simply addressing a casino impact You know, some of the projects that we had Um You know that we're we're no matching funds were proposed. We're actually rather a bit far afield from The casino one was up on route one in saugus Where, you know, big it certainly is an impact on route one from the casino about You know, nine percent of the the traffic Um Uses route one, but you know the the whole notion there was that You know, this was a project that was pretty far afield and we were already over our cap amount So we couldn't really couldn't really fund that one You know, so so I think there certainly has to be the relation to the casino, but It's sort of like how much of the benefit is a local benefit and how much of it is really to address the impact of The casino and I think that that's kind of a hard Hard thing to to put right on it, you know To to come up with what what's the right number? Thank you Any other questions any other comments any question for eric You and you encouraged the increase of the transportation construction project what the guidelines we established was a three million statewide target Are you uh, saying that we should increase that? Yes, I would and do you have a idea of how much Just so we can you know, it's always good to just have I mean, I think that I could see a lot of Um You know interest in these funds. I think you've already seen you said what is it in 2020 they totaled over Six and a quarter. I forget what a million. Yeah Yeah, I forget what the total amount of the fund is but I could see you increasing that to four or five million Yes, so, um I have done some uh, some calculation. I'll show this to you when we when we talk about the guidelines a little bit um Right now we're we're looking at About 12 and a half million for the program this year Um, so we probably do have a little bit of room to move that target up If we want if we want to do that But Joe, can I ask is it have and we've been challenged by having a cap that's too lower We've been challenged by finding folks submitting projects that truly the commission feels like Can be related back to the casino impact um So in you know in in the case of of chelsea We did we waived our million dollar requirement We gave them a million and a half because it was you know, really only a small part of the project and it was a pretty good size impact um The problem that we were running into in other cases was, um, you know people requested the million dollars because we said the million dollars was the maximum Uh You know, I would well an example in west springfield They had about a three million dollar project and they requested a million and we asked them, you know Sort of how did you get to that number and he said that that's what you're offering as a maximum So that's what we that's what we picked I mean, I will say in transfer transportation project construction projects are very are very expensive. I mean A million dollars doesn't get you that much in a in a sort of a transformative You know construction project if it's if it's signals or something like that that might be less but um, you know in general Capital projects are quite expensive. That's that's why just initially when I look at that number It just seems very low. Now again, if that's considered to be, you know You're only going to provide maybe 20 of the project cost that can stretch the funds Further, but if you're thinking that you would maybe fund a greater percentage of them Then it would make sense to increase that pot But but just keep in mind guys We're talking about the amount that's meant to capture something that wasn't already covered in another agreement where ideally a ribbon covered Right the the host of the surrounding community agreement, right? So this is an unanticipated impact that we're Right, so it's not you know, it's not the realm of construction It is that that despite everybody's best efforts This turned out to be something that couldn't be anticipated and therefore has to be covered by this fund And we have to I'm going to keep bringing us back to that because I think sometimes we're drifting the field And uh, and and this is not intended to be a bucket for folks to go to for things and you know And to try to find a reason to tie it back Yeah, you know and and I think a lot of this comes back to sort of the projects Or the areas where in the environmental impact report You know, you you look at all of these intersections that were studied and On a lot of them, you know mass dot would make the determination In their section 61 findings or in there, you know the EIR decisions that Well, we don't really need to do mitigation at these Intersections when you have the local community saying no no no We think these are really going to be used more than what What mass dot is saying or what the applicant is saying and I think Again, I keep going back to this Chelsea project just because it's one that we have in the region and and And right to the very beginning With our transportation planning funds You know Chelsea we get we gave grants for some transportation planning funds for this corridor Because they felt that this was this corridor was going to be far more heavily utilized After the construction than what was being estimated in the environmental impact report And at least in the traffic study that they submitted along with their application, that's You know proven to bear that out that there's a fairly Significant increase in traffic on that street. So So yeah, it's it may not have be Completely unanticipated, but it certainly wasn't paid for by another source of money You know, I think the same thing happened in west springfield, you know on this this road There's a you know a fair amount of traffic from the you know using that road You know, we agreed that that was um, you know that the impact on that road mass dot was saying It didn't need to be upgraded, but there were safety issues and other things of that nature that Need to be addressed and so on But yeah, Ron, I think to your point You know most of the major stuff Was already addressed as part of the environmental impact report or like for instance wellington circle You know on core had to give mass dot. I think a million and a half dollars to do a study of that What they said, you know, they did do some improvements there But they said there really needs to be you know a longer term fix And obviously same thing with Sullivan square that we're dealing with And so on Okay Um So the next one this item a this this notion of creating an emergency reserve um I think this is this is um Some that we talked with the uh, the western region yesterday about this item and uh LCM a c out there and and a lot of people look favorably on that and the notion here is just to set aside a A fairly nominal sum of money, you know for something that that would come up after the after the deadline I can't predict what that thing might be Um, you know again, I always say but I didn't predict that we were going to have a pandemic and you know Oh, these other things so you just never know what might happen And I think the idea is if we keep it a small amount of money, you know, if nobody comes in and utilizes it It just goes away and we either put it back in next year or what we don't depending on the guidelines um, so anybody have thoughts on on that area An emergency reserve Joe will be the same process that they go through or or is it a less global process? Because it's no what would what would end up happening and I've started crafting it in the guidelines a little bit We can we can talk about but I think the notion here is look if something came up It would if this is not As a way to in any way circumvent the process um You know, this is just if if something And again, I I I don't even know what that thing might be. Um But if something, you know Significant came up something that's sort of an emergency nature there that you know Uh That not addressing it immediately would have some really negative impacts either on the community or whatever that You know, if they if someone were coming to do that they would still have to do an application with us and other things And you know and go through a process to get the money um But you know the first thing I'd want them to do is give me a call and tell me You know, what's the issue and what's happening and you know, we would have to then do some sort of reconnaissance on what they're asking for and You know Was this thing really unexpected? Was it really an emergency? Is this something that can just wait till the next round? um, you know it would be uh Definitely be a process that they would have to go through to get that it seems reasonable to the commission to have that ability, right I'm sorry. I didn't quite get that No, it seems reasonable that they'd have the ability to respond to something like that and not say that The process is so rigid that I'll see you in february, right? You know, it just seems perfectly rational Would it would it be Go ahead would it be for Could it be used for people who already received an award and then an emergency came up also? Or is it for truly foreseen emergencies for someone who you haven't given money to No, I mean, I think if you know, let's let's say it's the you know, the the city of everett comes in and gets a gets a Specific impact grant or a transportation planning grant or any of our other grants and then something happens, you know really uh You know and again, I it's unforeseen so I can't really say what it might the thing might be, you know that um You know then then yeah, they can certainly come in if there's something certainly over and above what was already I would just From our experience with the projects we do we do we do have that ability to sort of go in and Add additional funds to something we've already funded that is unforeseen or if something unforeseen happens and it's So I I would agree that I think you should have the ability to discretion to have a little bit money To to address those issues that you can't see and and you don't have to make someone wait Yeah, this is commissioner stevens. Um, David interesting point. Um For the folks on the call. Is there anybody who's had experience? uh, or could give us a an example of when they Had to provide this type of funding for a certain project in your community You want me to jump in? Who whoever day we can start with you, you know, we we obviously do brownfields primarily in the brown position and someone may get money They get in the ground and they find that the contamination issues are more extensive than originally thought and they clean up Maybe another 50 or 60 thousand or hundred thousand dollars more than we originally awarded them We have the discretion within our guidelines to sort of Address that on a one-off basis that they don't have to come back through a competitive funding round We're not going to stop the cleanup to go on which So it's left up to the the in our case the agency to to Allow some additional funds to go on as needed Rather than stop a project Okay, thank you. Yeah, and and bruce you know in My old program before I came to the gaming commission I was with the state revolving fund loan program and we had an emergency reserve And you know in that case that was what water and sewer projects and you know water and sewer emergencies tend to Arise more frequently water main breaks and things of that nature. But you know an example of that was down in Plymouth um the main trunk line of their sewer that brings basically all of their sewage from the town center to the wastewater treatment plant burst and uh Literally it's shut the whole the whole town down and we were able to um Get them in get them money now on something like that obviously they still need to design it They had to get pumps in place temporarily and we were able to get them some funds to do that and and you know And obviously the town put up some money initially to get things done But we're able to reimburse that and so on so that's the kind of thing You know that that I had experience with Yeah, this is my I think that it's really good to have an emergency reserve It you know always for any project you have contingency Then the question comes down to what percentage so what would be the right amount? right Yeah, and I think so. I mean 200 000 is a is a very uh small small percentage of of the whole program and Again, the the commission has the ability on any of these to waive the amount So we just wanted to put almost like a placeholder amount in there and then look if somebody came in and this emergency whatever it might be Uh wound up You know being 500 000 you know the commission could certainly do that and you'll see when we go into the guidelines a little bit um Right now the way we're looking at funding We're proposing about 12 and a half million dollars in the fund for this year um That would still leave us about 1.7 million In the fund so we're not proposing to drain every penny out for this year um So anyway, so if you know that amount The placeholder amount if that Was determined to not be enough the the commission would certainly have a fair amount of flexibility I think okay Yeah, go ahead. No, I just say I think it makes sense Okay, excellent. Yeah, and I um So let's see, um Again, I don't know if anybody had any thoughts on matching well, we've talked about matching funds a little bit and it sounds like It sounds like most most of the folks here are not really in favor of requiring a particular match For grants but as you can see we have sort of our grants are a little bit All over the board On on what's on what sort of required? I don't know if if you folks had any thoughts in that area I think it looks good what we have at the moment Yes, I agree Okay um And then we talked about um these Communities that still have some of the reserves remaining from back in 2015 and 16 um So we do have several communities who've only used some of their money and I think we are recommending that um sort of my recommendation right now on this is that We give everybody sort of another year to get those funds Maybe not spent but at least earmarked to a project So let's say, you know, most of these monies typically were used um To do studies of some sort of planning studies A lot of them were done by Communities to see how they could take advantage of opportunities Or business opportunities with the casinos and things of that nature And needed to hire a consultant to do that So the way that i'm thinking about this is you know, this fall We're going to reach out to all those communities that still have some money out there because Partly we're afraid that some of the communities might not even know that they have that money You know, you've got turnover and administrations You have you know that the town planner leaves at a new town planner comes in and there's You know a little bucket of money sitting there that nobody You know had really been paying attention to so the first thing I wanted to do is reach out to all these communities and And see what what they need to do But I think we do need to you know that money's five six years old now I think we really either it either has to be spent or it has to has to go away So the thought was we would give them till the end of 2021 calendar year 2021 to You know to get those monies At least applied to a a project So, you know, if they have to do if a community has to go through a Search for a consultant as long as they have that consultant on board and a contract sign You know by the end of the year, they'd probably be good with that So that's kind of what we're thinking Last week you were going to provide a list of the communities who haven't used their funds yet um Okay, I I did not pull that together. I apologize Does Mary do you know that Yeah, let me just look for the document. Give me a minute. Okay So it says that the funds are available for a plan for casinos openings But since all the casinos opening you've been allowed them to use it for augment another program Well, as long as they have, uh, you know, if an impact that that's being mitigated, I think we're fine with that You know my from what I would just I mean while Mary's looking I would say that I think that makes most sense because I think what happens is We see this sometimes people get an award. They just don't use it and at some point you have to pull it back Um, it doesn't mean that they can't reapply For the same funds that you pull back, but if you don't pull it back It just sits there and sits there and sits there and you know um I I would agree with you. I think you should go back find that list go back out talk to them See if they have anything in mind If they do give them to the end of 2021 if they really say, oh, I don't have anything Then I would end it if you don't end it. They will carry it forever well Joe said, you know, um, a lot of cities have had changes in administration and may not even be aware that it's there Right, so that's why I would give them I would give them the here's what here's what you got to play with You got something if you and it's got it. It's legitimate if they don't you've at some point got to end it and Let them think about it again. Yeah And I think, you know, Mary and I actually we have a meeting, uh, tomorrow with one of the communities that that has some money out there Um, you know, so we're going to be talking with them about that tomorrow Okay, so um a couple of the other items Okay, so so the Hamden county sheriff's office, um lease assistance, this is out in western mass. So You know, we talked about this with the with the folks out west yesterday um You know, we gave them this uh, western mass correctional alcohol center Was located in the footprint of mgm springfield And they needed to move and in 2016 we agreed to give them $2 million in total For five years 400 000 per year for lease assistance And you know, they were aware that this year was the last year that they they were Saying to us. Well, how about uh Giving us some more money for that um and I think you know the They are certainly eligible to apply for funds. They're they're an eligible entity that can apply for funds in any given year. Um But i'm not sure that uh, we necessarily want to sort of earmark money particularly for them for a particular amount of time um You know some of the things that we could do here is you know, just say well, you can apply just like anybody else And it's a competitive program and if you're successful, you're successful. Um I don't know if anybody has thoughts on that I think that it sets a reasonable expectation without making it seem like this is intended to go on into perpetuity Yeah, I agree with ron. I do that's that's perfectly stated Yeah, there was one the other thought that I had was that we could um Maybe uh phase it out You know if we did you know if they came in at another point you get 300,000 then 200,000 and 100,000 And then it's gone which would sort of wean them off of the money a little bit or I don't know the sum We have to figure out what kind could you wean them off? But give them the heads up that they're going to be weaned off so that they can prepare Yeah, I think you know I think What ultimately when we when we put the guidelines together the commission will have to make a decision On that and I expect that whatever that decision is I'll I'll need to send them a lot are explaining Uh, you know what the situation is so that they can Plan appropriately Not just uh, not just sort of blindside them with it, but you know, we'll need to Make that decision but again that decision on the actual funding Probably can't be made in the guidelines. I mean that's something that has to be made That's an award decision. So the you know that first year that they came in they asked for two million dollars and um You know Our our maximum was 500,000 or 400,000 I think at that time So we're like well, we can't give you two million dollars. So We'll we'll commit to it But you've got to come back every year and still apply for it because there's no guarantee You know that the money will necessarily be there. So Joe I've got that chart if you want to I don't know how you can unshare yours so I can share this chart Yeah, okay great Okay, so can you see that? Yeah, okay So as you can see, um, there's some communities if you look at the right hand side A number of communities have not even touched it. Some have done 50 percent Foxboro was great. They, um Decided they didn't Need their reserve. So they did a joint project A marketing project for the surround the other communities and use their reserve for that Um And then you know, some of them have most of it left over So the total is close to a million dollars But we still have some other grants as you'll see at the bottom That man's field has has been expending their reserve, but they haven't Um, they've only spent about 12 000 out of their first payment of 25 000 So, uh, we're meeting with them to see if they have a Um, a purpose For the 75 000 Let me just say when when these are done, they're basically a four-year contract and so, um These people who have not spent their funding yet are going to have to revise their state contract with us to hold the money Um And then holy oak two was only used as only requested the first 25 000 out of their hundred thousand But mary, can I just I mean for for the for our region. There's only two communities, right really melrose and cambridge Uh, yeah looks at what cambridge Oh Yeah, a lot a lot of the So in the preliminary years of this, uh fund and it's still the case now If you requested a 200 000 transportation grant and had not expended your reserve 100 000 of your reserve would be used towards that 200 000 transportation grants Yeah, we had that same requirement even with a specific impact grant if you hadn't used your money you had to use at least 50 000 towards the specific impact grant so So yeah, there's there's a fair amount of money out there So yeah, we'll you know, like I said, we'll go through that effort to to contact all of those communities and let them Know and see if they have any Real plans for that or not or whatever Yeah I actually do find it interesting that a couple of communities combine grants to meet a certain need Yes, I would um I would encourage publication of that idea just in case there really isn't a need to use that money But it could be used by a neighboring community. That's that that was a great innovative idea. So yes, yeah Yeah, we love it when one communities work together. It's uh It's such a rarity. Although I guess it's more frequent today where Some towns share, you know health agents and other things are You have regional departments and things but Um, okay. So that was those were all of the key items. I don't know if anybody had any other comments on anything I may not have touched on Okay So I all right. So I think that that concludes that item from the uh agenda And I think was that the next item was um Does she 121 community mitigation fund guidelines? Okay. Yep. Yep. Uh, let me just pull that Again, I'll share that with you So this was sent out, um A few days ago, I think what Mary was it beginning of the week was it sent out It was in the um, yeah, I believe thursday when the agenda was setting. Okay. Okay, so um couple of the things that I did in this I tried to revamp these guidelines Um, just so hopefully they're a little bit more user friendly. Um We had a lot of things these these guidelines kept getting a little bit bigger over the years and sometimes it'd be multiple things in multiple places and I tried to sort of clean them up and in this in yellow when you see yellow highlighting Those are some of the sort of additions and or deletions to the to the um To the guidelines that that were done So let me just walk through a few uh key points here Um, and again, most of these we're not really proposing wholesale changes to these guidelines It's really just those kind of key items that we just talked about that we wanted to Put in there, but here's what we're looking at for 2021 We're looking at a 12.5 million dollar target 6 million in region a 6 million in region b and We always put aside a half a million dollars for the category two facility, you know last year we only Used like 83,000 of that so that sort of increases the amount available in region a and region b And we've we've just been splitting that up equally between the regions um You know, it's basically pretty pretty short money, uh in most years um You know one of the key things is so the region that the reason that we are at 6 million for region a and 6 million for region b um Is basically well, you know, our numbers were down, you know, we have four months of no revenues at the But when I did all the calculations and so on what ends up happening is region b the western region has You know sort of been under utilizing their funds and if you recall we came up with this plan that we would Roll over the funds for a period of three years and hold them within the regions so What that leaves us with This is just a little chart of the funds that have rolled over so the first money that we generated Was in 2008 the calendar everything here's calendar year calendar year 2018 Was the first year that money was generated and that was only generated in region b because on core wasn't open yet And then in 2019 we generated money in both of the regions So on and again money is being spent first in first out um, so From money left over from 2018 So region b still has about seven hundred eighty one thousand of money left over from 2018 They have their entire allotment left over from last year of 4.12 million um So that totals they have 4.9 million dollars in funds that they're rolling over And then on region a there's um 1.2 million that's rolling over from last year that was not spent So last year if you recall the money was some of it was um No, so i'm sorry last year was was the first year where all of the money was just Generated from the casinos in the previous years. It was money that was from that original allotment that was done So anyway, what we have rolling over this year is about 1.2 million And there's 4.9 million rolling over from region b. So as you can see, we're really only adding about 1.1 million in funds to region b But you know in region a has generated more funds from, you know, the casinos so What that does is that still leaves us um About 1.7 million dollars in in the fund If all of that money gets allocated Um, you know joint applications. We're still proposing those and we weren't proposing any changes to that Um on grant categories. This was again, we we we just wanted to identify that You can get grants in more than one category you can apply for specific impact grants and the transportation construction grant But we we want each project to only be included under one grant category And you know, if a community feels like they need more money in that grant category than the cap is They can certainly request a waiver to do that um So this is uh, this right up here the 2015 and 16 reserve grants Um, this is the language that I've I've been working on. It's not This is a rough draft. So I I'd encourage you folks to go through this Uh closely and you know feel free to comment Um, you know when we at our next meeting, I think we want to go through Um, you know sort of where everything is So we say there's several communities who have not fully expended their reserves Since these grants are at least five years old the commission urges communities to consider whether there are any casino related impacts that need to be addressed The commission will give these communities until the end of calendar year 2021 to commit these funds Any funding not committed to a project by that time Will be rolled back into the community mitigation fund and allocated equally between the regions And the reason we were going to Allocated equally between the regions is because this money that for these grants came out of that original Uh License application fee, you know each mgm and encore both put up 85 million dollars and that Piece of that went into the community mitigation fund. So at that time it was equal east and west So the uh specific impact grants we are not proposing any major changes Um, except now this is that hamden county sheriff's department um Right now I have just proposed to Delete that section from the guidelines and you know And basically saying that look they're eligible to apply for that money And the reason I didn't just delete it. I mean we want to obviously have this discussion about this And um, you know the commissioners certainly need to have I'm sure we'll have a robust discussion of this item I made a an executive decision To change the name of our non transportation planning grants to community planning grants I felt it sounded just a little bit less bureaucratic Uh Again, really that's what those have been used for these are some of these planning grants that communities have used for uh um You know to try to maximize opportunities for the community community businesses with the casinos and things of that nature um So transportation planning grants um So in the transportation construction grants again, I just added some language and I threw in a number of 25 percent as a as a cap on that And you know, we've heard from both both east and west You know having some concerns with having a A cap on the amount of money that the commission would provide and I think you know, we'll have that Uh discussion next thursday. We're in front of the commission with these draft guidelines So what we have in those discussions, you know with the commission as well and try to get um You know, there's some consensus on where we want to go with that whether or not we want to do that Um the workforce development grants again, you know, we have a little bit of concern with We we put some explanatory language in here talking about what we had to do in 2020 Uh eliminating the hospitality and culinary programs that that people had proposed um, you know due to covet and um What we are asking Uh of these groups that put together these applications is really to try to be creative in their grant application But they have to keep in mind that these training programs have to have a direct correlation to impacts from the casino so, um This section is still being worked on. Um By jill griffin And crystal howard. They're the people who do our workforce uh stuff. So we'll come back to you with some Additional changes to this section. I haven't worked on that Uh, really Yeah This tribal gaming technical assistance. We're proposing to keep that in but we don't expect anything to happen And uh this section 2.8. This is on the emergency mitigation grants, uh, again proposing a couple hundred thousand in funds and so on, um And we talk in here any impact must be newly identified And be of an emergency nature that will cause significant harm to the community if we're not remedied in an expeditious fashion I don't know if that's the right language yet. I just wanted to get something on paper here I said the intent of this grant is to allow the commission to be more responsive in addressing significant casino related issues That do not fall within the normal cmf timelines This grant is not intended to circumvent the normal, uh, cmf processes Uh any applicant for this grant should contact the community affairs division to discuss the impact and the proper way to proceed So that whole notion here is that this is really outside the norm and you know, we need to have a lot of discussions of how How that would go ahead Um, then Joe. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, just quickly if you go back to that emergency, um How closely does that language kind of mirror your specific impact grant? Just an idea that may be tracking some of the language Oh, yeah, yeah, um, I didn't really look at that but that that that makes sense to make sure that we're being consistent Because it would be a specific impact It just wouldn't have been identified By the by the application deadline And I think the the rest of this remains Pretty much the same. Oh, and then we we added in this section Talking about rescission of grants. Um, I didn't mention that earlier. You know, we do have a couple of other grants that are out there Uh, where we've awarded grants, but the communities haven't Spent the money. So, you know, we do need, um A mechanism to you know to take that money back should they you know not move ahead with it So what we're saying here is if a grantee does not expend the funds in a timely manner The commission may rescind the grant and make those funds available in the next grant round for the region in which the grant originated Um, before any grant is rescinded commission staff will notify the grantee that the expenditures on the grant are not timely And establish a timeline for the grantee to either expend the funds or to have the grant rescinded Um, so I didn't put any real hard deadlines in here. I think it's You know, if we have money that's been sitting around for a couple years You know the first step is give them a call and saying hey, what are you guys doing with this money? Do you actually have plans for this and Sort of at that point say well You know, you got to come up with a schedule to spend this thing or we're going to have to take it back and just sort of Start that conversation. So Again, I didn't get into a whole lot of specifics. I think that leaves us sort of a lot of flexibility Um You know to to to have those discussions and then let let folks know That you know, if need be we can we can take that money back Okay And so that's the gist of it again. You see there aren't really a tremendous number of changes from From what we were doing. So I don't know if anybody had any particular comments now or if you wanted to Hold off on that until our next meeting or Any thoughts I just had a quick question. Do you have grant agreements with these communities? Got into the last point. Do you put dates of performance within them? Which makes it sometimes easier to sort of take the money back That they yeah, we I think the the We have a state contract that they have to sign and Mary is that right is that the dates are in the state contract? And they're like a yes four year four years Yeah, okay But but they can also get an extension on that if they haven't expended the money Yeah, and we can we can amend we've had uh We had one like a workforce or a couple of workforce that Just because of the scheduling of classes and then co of it and everything they need to extend their grants So we can also do amendments to the grant itself in addition to the state contract I just find that we we do and it makes it easier sometimes when you have to pull the money that it's kind of They've already agreed to it before they accepted the funds right Right, and I think we would probably if we Put language in you know if that language is accepted by the commission um I think we will will want to add a clause to so we have two things we have a grant agreement that that Commission writes and then we have the state contract that everybody has to sign So we put in all of our own special conditions in the grant agreements So we would probably add that as a Has a condition Into our grant agreements that say you know you have to expend this money in a timely fashion And maybe we have to define what what timely is whether that's Two or three or four years or whatever the right number is right Okay, and mr. Chairman. That's all that I have on on that item I think so Next steps Mary, what's um, what's our schedule looking like? Okay, so Our next meeting is november 16th Um one 130 to three um By that time we will have received. Um, we're going to be putting the guidelines out for public comment So we'll have public comments um available at that meeting if we get some um And then uh, I think it's pretty much the guidelines um, is there anything that This committee would like to hear about that is going on at the commission Today was a big uh day for our um Not workforce for the uh gaming Joe helped me out here. What's the? Our research our research agenda the sigma research group We can have mark come and give a talk to you on what they're finding through their studies If that is of interest That would be interesting Okay Yeah, and um, I did promise, uh, mr. Chairman at our last meeting Um that I would give a little bit of an update on sort of what's happening at the casinos with covid and so on And I do have a few things To talk about there So You know the casinos closed on And was it march 15th or 16th 16th bruce was it? I think that we'll live an infamy Uh, I think it was um, it was the 14th of the 15th. Yeah, it was like one day We agreed and we came a day or two to close up operations And then um, you know, so and they reopened in a little bit of a staggered fashion I think ppc opened plain red park opened first And then I think it was on core and then I think finally mgm. They were all roughly about the same time um, so What impact has that had So there are there are a few things, you know, one is that the facilities are not completely open yet um Every one of the facilities had to open their gaming floor at a reduced capacity. So they eliminated slot machines Or you know, shut them off completely put a plexiglass between them and you know on the table games they initially there was no poker No, uh craps and no roulette and the commission has just um Started allowing roulette at a much reduced capacity only three people sitting at a roulette table nobody passing Nobody passing over, you know, that's over people's backs onto the table that kind of thing um But so a plain ridge park, you know, they're they're You know slots only so they've got their social distancing together there um And their horse racing is back up and running um No restaurants no sit-down restaurants there slacks and fluties And the revolution lounge are closed their food court is open though and out at mgm Same thing with the gaming floor reduced capacity um Their hotel has not reopened yet. They're just the first floor of their hotel. They're using For just invited guests only so that's presumably, you know, some of their high rollers that are coming in A bunch of the restaurants there are just Haven't reopened at all or are just reopening some of them just on the weekends. Some of them like Thursday, sunday Things like that The regal cinema that's out there that regal, I guess is closed all of their operations nationwide again, I guess it just simply wasn't profitable or whatever at the reduced capacity or they weren't kidding people. I don't know why but um But so some of the retail outlets the indian motorcycle kringle candle top golf Is not open out there and then it um on core so Pretty much the same deal except their hotel is open now thursday through sunday nights. They're not open for a midweek You know, they're just there's just no business travelers coming so They can't fill up the hotels on that sort of monday tuesday and wednesday nights Their restaurants, uh, most of their restaurants are open again. It significantly reduced days or hours Sort of the fine dining kind of stuff is really necessary that thursday through sunday A couple of them are open every day the the red eight which is the uh, Yeah, asian restaurant and so on Uh nightclub is closed completely the you know the um the buffet is closed So again, and some of their um, and you know, nobody's doing nobody's doing conventions So any of that conference business is pretty much gone. Although I do understand that Um on core is now starting to do a couple of weddings But very small weddings. They're calling kind of I guess micro weddings uh, where they I think they can have up to The 25 people indoors at up to 50 people outdoors So they do have that little gazebo out there by the waterfront that they I guess they're gonna they have some small weddings there And they do have the big event lawn with the tent and so on so they do have some ability to to do Events but not but pretty pretty limited But as far as the the hard numbers, this is you know a plane ridge park casino I'm using numbers from the fourth quarter of 2019 as a comparison here plane ridge park had 185 people working there On on At the end of last year and now they're they're about 250 or so at the site So pretty significant reduction on core Had 4400 people working at the end of the calendar year and they're at about 700 now so That's a pretty pretty big drop off and again, it's the You know the those sort of labor intensive operations like the restaurants and things like that where you know lots of waitstaff lots of cooks, you know um Where those facilities aren't back open and you know, they Have a reduced number of slot machines and a reduced number of table games. So there aren't as many dealers and so on um, and then mgm They had just over 2 000 employees at the end of last year and right now they're sort of between eight and nine So You know the the numbers of employees has been obviously drastically affected um But the interesting piece getting to to their numbers On gross gaming revenue um The the the most recent numbers that we have are the august of 2020 numbers And that was the first full month back in operation. So we actually can compare it to something So on core had gross gaming revenues of 42.4 million dollars in august of 2020 In august of 2019 Their gross gaming revenue was 52.5 million which so Their august of 20 numbers are almost 81 percent of their Numbers a year before which was right after they're open. So that's I was just I was just astounded by that That you know that they recaptured that much of their gaming revenue that quickly um Now, of course, we'll see what happens in september At october november and was this a blip was this just people dying to get out? You know, they also can't go to the redsox games or the patriots games or to the movies or to any other thing This is sort of the only game in town Will that be a blip? We don't know And then just comparing that to the month before uh, they closed. It was exactly the same 52.5 million So they're at about 81 mgm Their august numbers was 18.5 million and a year ago was 21 million So they've recaptured 88 percent their pre-covid Gaming revenues and plane rich park is sort of right in between those They had 10.2 million in gross gaming revenue um Which was about 84 percent of where they were Before they before they closed down so, um Those numbers look pretty uh pretty um Pretty robust Yeah, again, I was I was very surprised when when these places were closed and I was trying to figure out how much money um We would have I was saying well, will it be 25 percent? Will it be 50 percent? Well, you know, who knows what it will be? um And you know again the numbers have just bounced back quite quite remarkably Um, okay, and that was that was all that I had on an update on COVID and you know, I think we'll see how things go in the next few months. That's where we are And I think bruce did you have something that you wanted to add on the regs? um, yeah, thanks, show um and Obviously, thanks to all of you for your help and participation and support of the committee's work I know my colleagues and I certainly appreciate it. Uh next thursday. We are having a full commission meeting and I think we've talked in the past about um Creating some regs for the community mitigation fund. I think to joe's point. We might be addressing the emergency use as well as uh utilizing part of the fund to support Uh the folks on the mgc team who are responsible for the administrative tasks of the fund So, uh, we'll make sure again those are coming to us just for the first time. So we're just Starting the reg process and we'll make sure all of you get a copy so you can Way in and offer any public comment you might have but that'll kick off at next thursday's meeting Hey, thank you bruce um Any other new business that we haven't addressed? No, I don't think so Um Other than that, I don't see anything else happening here till um for the next meeting and mary. What's the day of the next meeting again? To set november 16 November 16 130 correct. That's right Uh, seeing no other business, um Do we have a motion to adjourn? motion second Oh beva I um Actually, um, um, mr. Chair. We have to do a roll call tanya. Could you do the roll call, please? Keith slattery. Hi Justin staret. I don't think he's here paul shian. Hi john depraist. Hi ron hogan. Hi richard caravello. Hi I don't think brad rossin is here eric barossa vincent pantzini David bancroft. Hi And mirene ron roche Hi All right. Thank you. That's uh unanimous Uh voting to end it Thanks everybody Bye