 Okay, I'm ready. Thank you Dave. Good morning. This is a convening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. And we are holding this meeting virtually so we'll do a roll call. Good morning commissioner Brian. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning. And morning, Commissioner Maynard. Good morning, Madam chair. Right, we'll get started today is May 22. We're starting early on a Monday. And it is public meeting number 454 today we don't have minutes really are focusing a lot on our community affairs division will start off with Chief Delaney. Good morning, Joe. Good morning. Thank you madam chair and commissioners. So first up today we have MGM's first quarter report. We have with us from MGM. We have Chris Kelly, Gus Kim, Harlan Carvalho, Beth Ward and Dan Miller. And with that I will turn it over to the MGM Springfield team for their presentation. Thank you, Joe. Good morning, Commissioner. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, MGM staff. Thank you for the opportunity to present our Q one 2023 report to the commissioners. You already know all of us here at the table but let me go out and introduce anyway for the public record. Good morning, Vice President and legal counsel for MGM Springfield sitting with me starting with across from me, Beth Ward, our director of community affairs. Dan Miller director of compliance. Chris Kelly, our president and chief operating officer and to my right is our newly promoted vice president of finance. I want to publicly acknowledge her promotion and congratulations, Arla, on a well deserved and well earned promotion and a job well done. So wanted to make that public announcement. Thank you for that opportunity. Starting with our Q one 2023 giving revenues and taxes. You'll see that in Q one. We generated $17 and a half million in taxes to Massachusetts. Here set in a different way again if you look at the numbers, our Q one 2023 report represents a 11.7% increase in taxes from same quarter of the 2022 so of course we're very pleased with how the property is progressing financially. This is just some photos of the great events that we had on January 31 when our retail sports wagering book went live. Thank you to the commissioners thank you to the chair, thank you to the staff who came out to MGM Springfield to celebrate that momentous event with us. And the photographs, of course, that that highlight, you know, everybody's participation including Mayor Sarno and our state elected representatives. Turning to our sports wagering revenue, we put up here side by side, the brick and mortar engine springfield results, as well as our partner better MGM springfield better MGM. We're going to do this because from the get go our thought was always that because of the convenience factor with mobile betting that better MGM would get most of the action and that has proven to be true. In fact better MGM is doing phenomenally well it's third in the state only behind two well established mobile platforms that have been in existence for years and years. And so we're very pleased with the way things are progressing. However, I do want to know anecdotally that when I walk through the sports book. I do note that when the games are on, we have a large presence in our sports lounge people coming to the property to watch the games to watch the events. And yeah when I see them they're making their bets on their phones which kind of makes sense they don't have to get up to go to the cage window. The phone availability is a really big convenience factor, and but we are so pleased how well better MGM is doing and then just bring up, of course, together, we're doing in the state of Massachusetts on sports wagering in lottery. MGM quarter over quarter 2022 to 2023, we have increased our lottery sales by 14% so of course again we're very pleased with that result. So here in the diversity spend I want to spend a little bit of time to discuss this particular slide. A little note in Q4 of 2022, we reported a diversity spend of 9% and here in Q1 of 2023, the report shows a 19% spend 10% increase. So in terms of actual dollars in Q4 2022, MGM did spend a million dollars in actual absolute diversity spent. And then in Q1 of 2023, that figure went up by 10% to about $1.1 million. But the 10% increase in the actual absolute value of the diversity spend doesn't fully explain the 90%, the 10% increase. So I just want to take a little bit of time here to discuss what happened. So, prior to the reporting of this quarter, we use MGM's corporate standards to figure determine the billable spend, which will be the denominator of the fraction so the numerator the diversity spend itself has never changed number stage the same but the denominator we use the corporate standards. So for this report, we use the American gaming association standards, which we should have used all along because that is the standard that that is set forth in the in the diversity spend report that we found with with the MGC. The AGA standard excludes certain types of payments for example, gaming vendors, there are only a certain number of gaming vendors available out there, none of which I believe are certified diverse. So, if you subtract some of the diversity, some of the exclusions that are allowed under the AGA standards, the numerator of course then becomes the state of the denominator becomes smaller. Combined the increase of $100,000 of spend in 2023 q1 combined with the reduction of the denominator using the AGA standards exclusions, we get a 19% diversity spent for this quarter. I'll stop here and pause and to see if the commissioners and the chair may have any questions about this. I'm going to go back to the last comparison. Are you all set. Any questions commissioners commissioner Skinner. I do have a question. Thank you madam chair. Good morning. That's an MGM. So just the standard the difference in the standards could you explain not just a little bit more. And, you know, how you got how you determined that you were using the AGA, excuse me the MGM corporate standard versus the AGA standard and how that reconciles with your diversity and affirmative marketing plan with the MGM. I think the latest date here is January 22 2020. Excuse me 2015 is when it was approved by MGC. Thank you for the question. In fact, yes, that is the report that the following that we made in 2020 in 2015 is the standard that we should have applied and pursuant to that standard. We should have been using the AGA exclusions in reporting our diversity spent to the MGC. We went back over our reporting, and we determined that we were in fact not using the exclusions that were permitted to be used. In fact required to be used under that standard in our reporting with the MGC. We did a look at why why that happened and we determined that we were using typically based on what MGM corporate standards are which is, you know, look at your spend, and then look at your diversity spent. There was no carve out for the exclusions that were allowed under the AGA standards when we were looking at the corporate reporting requirements. As a result, we went back and looked at it and we reconfigured we recalculated what we had spent in Q1 of 2023 with the exclusions. And of course, as a result, taking out the various exclusions that were permitted to take out the gain vendors, the utilities, the fees and other types of expenses that are allowed under the AGA exclusions. The numerator stays the same denominator becomes smaller and as a result, you see a larger increase in the percentage of diversity spent. And in the diversity plan that you filed in with the commission in the commission approved back in 2015. Does it reference the AGA standard. Yeah, that's exhibit D to our client with the commit with the MGC. Okay, so can you talk to me then a little bit about the design and construction phase, spending for diversity versus the operations spending because when I'm looking at the operations spending I don't see any reference to the AGA standard. And so I'm just trying to understand what you're thinking is there how how that exhibit D, which speaks to design and construction. So what I understand the commissioner Skinner is that that person personal diversities that spend filing with the MGC is for our reporting to the MGC. I did not read it as as the the lineating between construction and operations. And so just there's no narrative whatsoever in the diversity spend section of this report here and just can you connect the dots for me. I mean, I'm assuming you understood that that you communicated or MGM communicated that it would be using the AGA standard. And so where have you done that. Because I don't see it in this document at least with respect to operations. This is of course a snapshot of the spend. This is what we disclose on our slide deck to to the commission that that becomes a public document. We can certainly drill down and provide the information to you in a report that is not made public but I guess I'm a little confused about your question commissioner Skinner we are allowed to take the doc exclusions per the AGA standards and for us to identify what exclusions we took I don't believe that that was necessarily what we've done in the past, in terms of of our slide presentation to the MGC in a public setting. So we can certainly drill down on that and give that to the agency, you know, supplemental filing. I would appreciate that I just again I need to connect the dots I'm trying to understand the difference in reporting between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023. I just needed a little help doing that just in terms of what I'm looking at here in the diversity in marketing plan. Absolutely. Thank you. Can we just just go back please God so I just want to make sure everyone's questions are answered. Commissioner Brian, I can't see everyone so I'll just call in your all set commissioner Brian how about you. Thank you commissioner Brian commissioner hill. I'm all set madam chair thank you. Thank you commissioner Maynard. All set. Okay, excellent thank you. Thanks Gus. Thank you chair. Here we have a local spend. We're happy to report that we're spending 40% on local local vendors here within the greater Springfield community and 49% of our spend is within the state of Massachusetts so we're you know we're happy with with the way we're spending locally here in compliance so here we are showing our compliance report for Q1. And I want to point out to the column on the left of the in January we had 57 minors intercepted, and you'll see that in February, and in March, that number reduced by just about half to 28 and 30. And I wanted to focus a little bit on the 57 commissioners when you came out to visit the property, you noted the additional hand railings that went across the restrooms in front of the south end market. So when we saw the 57 we identified where the areas were where there was most access, and that the restrooms in front of the south end market was an area of opportunity for MGM. So as you, as you may remember we installed an additional 50 feet of railing in front of that and as a result I think partially as a result of that. You see that the numbers in February and March came down dramatically to 28 and 30. Also want to point out that there was one consumption of alcohol in March. I wanted to note that that particular incident was a 19 year old female standing outside of the gaming area on the tile. The person that she was with, who was of age, had ordered a drink, was standing inside the gaming area, passed that drink across the railing to the underage standing on the tile and the person took a sip. So I want to extend my congratulations to our security and surveillance team, they identified this transaction at 1245 am, and by 1246 and within a minute the security guard was there to, to, to, to intercept this event. Again, something that you know that was that happened across a boundary, but I'm so curious surveillance teams were on it and they responded within a minute of this incident. Because this is Commissioner Brian, can you speak to the 19 year old that hour and a half or so, who was on their gaming. You go back to the other, the other slide please guys. No, here we are. Sure. So the 19 year old of the hour and a half. The 19 year old entered the casino floor with her parents through a non checkpoint, not through a podium area but through one of the open areas around the casino. She and her parents were at at the island bar, woke up, I'm sorry, the walk up bar, where the parents played at the games that were on the bar. The 19 year old stood behind and watched her parents play. And then I believe at the end, did she, she just cashed out the ticket of her father. Right. So she, she did not actually game at all. She was standing behind her parents watching a game her parents play. And then at the end when the father was done she hit the button to cash out. So that was what the 19 year old, the 19 year old for nine hour and a half was she did she did not game she just hit the cash out. Okay, so can you describe for me more how you have an area where someone can simply walk on without getting carted. Commissioner, as you know, we have an open floor plan. Several several podiums at checkpoints. And the 19 year old and her parents walked through an area where which result which as you know, there are many points of entry and they entered through one of the points of entry that which would not have a security guard. Okay, so how much square footage linear footage do you have of unsecured access into onto the gaming floor at this point. It's difficult to determine without knowing the exact perimeter length around the floor. What I can add to what Gus is saying is it was actually the area by the south in bar, the south in market bathrooms before we put that hand rail in. So this was back in January that occurred. So you blocked this access point by the guard. Yeah, so subsequently this is now, you know, got a rail up at where that is. Okay. Yes. That's helpful. Thank you. I just throw out there as well, Commissioner Brian that within the next few days there will be some additional hand rail going up in that area around the south end market, as well as close to our Chandler Chandler restaurant and restrooms as as further kind of areas that we designated as thoughts thoughts for this. All right. Good to hear. Thank you. Yes, Commissioner Hill, please go right ahead. Thank you. I think you just answered one of my questions is what are you planning on doing to bring these numbers down but I want to be very clear these numbers are pretty disturbing still to me as one individual commissioner. I think the numbers are still pretty high. And even though I'm happy to see that the number has gone down. It's still pretty high in my hand. So when I, when I hear you're putting up new railings and things of that sort is there anything else that you're doing to try and get these numbers even lower. Commissioner Hill. Thank you for that question. In addition to the digital handrails that are going up. We are actually we are, we have ordered and we're expecting delivery of a podiums security podiums, couple of which are to replace the old ones that are not already have been used for a number of years and looking at it. But one of the podiums is going to be a brand new location right by the south end market. We're going to have a podium place there with a security guard to be present at peak hours of operation. So in addition to additional railings we're creating an additional entry point manned by a security officer. So as I believe that we had previously discussed we have a quote unquote ambassadors who are not on the game floor itself but who are stationed by the engine entry points from the from the outside into the casino. And they remind our parents are underage that they whoever is underage should stay on the top floor and walk up around the casino floor and cut through. So looking at that, of course, we are looking at all of the other options that are available. But we believe that installing the additional handrails that what we have identified as sort of the soft points will certainly enhance our measures that we were in place, Commissioner Hill. And Madam Chair, the other red flag that I saw in the report and being shown on the screen right now is that 69 underaged were under underage were under 18 years old. What was the average age. That's a lot of people under 18 years old to be getting in. If I may give some context when you when you see that the larger numbers under 18 years of age. That'll be parents that are trying to cross the floor as soon as possible to get to somewhere quickly, as opposed to walking all the way around the perimeter. So as an example, when we've had, you know, hockey games going on for the Thunderbirds across the street, a family will come, grab food in the south end market and then possibly recognize that the time is close to no puppy and dropped. They'll then, you know, no, they could get across the floor a lot quicker to go out our salon entrance to the mass neutral center, then walking all the way around. So, you know, these are not as it were opportunist under 18 year old teenagers or anything of that regard. These are parents trying to get from A to B, and in doing so, sort of drag their children with them. Just piggybacking on what that said, I just wanted to make it clear that the number of access is not necessarily those looking to game it's really parents trying to, you know, use the convenience of the open floor plan to cut from point A to point B in a straight line, as opposed to walking the circumference of the casino floor. Just a second, Commissioner Hill, you're all set and then I'll turn to Commissioner Skinner. I was going to say thank you and thank you Madam Chair, that's it for now. Yeah, thank you, Commissioner Skinner, follow up. So I, your numbers are declining since 2019. I think I might have asked this before, but can you tell me again what the significance of the year 2019 that is that pre COVID, is that the idea there. Commissioner Skinner, that is correct. 2019 was the last time that the casino was open without any COVID restrictions. And in fact, even through Q1 of 2022, we had at least engine springfield was operating under local COVID restrictions. Also, as a result of that, we did not fully open the South End market to our families, including underage until Q1 of 2022. So we, we, so we even even 2023 we went to Q1 of 2019 as our best point of comparison, apples to apples. Because 2022, as I said, was likewise impacted by COVID restrictions here at least that's engine springfield. I think you're attributing the decline month to month this quarter to the enhancements that you made with the additional railings around some of the perimeter, where there's, as you say, soft access. So with those changes, and the changes that are upcoming. Does that effectively hit all of those access points that that where there is not a security officer manning the location. The additional railings that we are looking at installing in the next in a few days, so a week or so, does not completely seal off the perimeter of the casino floor. We are actively looking at that opportunity. But as I believe that we might have mentioned in a prior meeting and report to the commissioners. In particular, completing closure raises questions about life safety about fire exits about occupancy. So those questions are being addressed right now with our consultants with our architects but we are actively looking at the possibility of enclosing the entire casino floor. Or if not that stationing a security officer at those, those remaining entrances to further mitigate access by persons under 21. So that's something that we can start to look at commissioners get. Just one. One thing I'd note, if in fact you can anticipate that after the events at the hockey games that those, those families are taking the, the beeline across the diagonal that you mentioned to Commissioner Hill. I suspect that that might be kind of a single path of choice, but in any case if you can anticipate that if you could perhaps have security ready to divert so that folks start to understand they can't be on the gaming floor. I think it's just having more personnel there to capture those folks as a empty out from the convention center. Lady chair that's that's exactly one the point of the ambassadors that we're hiring and then to the new podium that we mentioned that we're going to be receiving is that you know that that will mainly be stationed especially at those high volume occasions and to your point that's why we want to do it the way we want to do it is to anticipate those occasions where it's more likely and then avoid it. I think it's going to be training and signage, you know, I think parents probably will appreciate that guidance as well so they understand that under age or not to be on a gaming floor. So, thank you. I think commissioners will just probably be monitoring this as we have in the past and numbers have have gone up. The good news is that you have a family based facility, you have, you know, families go there for the very different amenities there it just you have the open plan you have more challenges but the good news is that you are working on those mitigation steps and we'll just have to monitor commissioners. Thank you very much. You have any follow up questions. You really hit to what I was going to say which is, I see, I see the, I see the progress and you should be committed on the progress but the goal is always should be zero, right. It sounds like, you know, I'm very confident that you and your team can put together something that that gets this down to zero, eventually, and I think signage, as the chair said, signage is a huge key if if I know what to do and what not to do at anywhere that I am. I typically follow the rules I feel like most people do a lot of times it's just they don't know right and so education and signage is helpful. And let's get the number to zero. So chair, and Commissioner Maynard, I thank you very much for the comments that you just made acknowledging, and I reckon, you know, and appreciating the efforts that our team is making to get this number done. Your goal, as well as ours is to get these numbers down to zero. I don't know how realistic that is. I know that, for example, I was a national Harvard this past Friday, where they have choke points where everybody to access the number has passed through a podium. They don't have an open floor plan like we do they have choke points, even then they don't have necessarily a zero, zero access. But of course that is that is our goal, no matter what our goal is to get to zero. And we are going to do our best to get there as soon as possible, Commissioner Maynard. Thank you. Thank you. So, I know that there were some questions that the commissioners may have had about our efforts to reopen the property. So here we just wanted to highlight some of the things that we've done in the past five or so quarters, starting with Q1 of 2022. In the last few years, you may already be familiar with many of these, these activations and these expanded hours of operation. And I don't know, I don't know what I, I don't want to have to read through every single bullet point. But if you have any questions about this, I'm certainly happy to respond. I believe that we've made significant strides, tremendous strides in reopening our property to the public starting of last, starting at Q1 of last year. All right, can I just put back, I'm so sorry, Gus. I just wasn't, I know you're working on this but I'm just looking. The, the beautiful church you're still looking for a retail or some kind of a use for that. But yes, it is a beautiful space and we are actively looking we were working with a local, local agent to market that we've also had one off inquiries from from those who heard the word of mouth about our cringles space. And I don't want to speak at great length because, of course I don't want to jump the gun, but I do want to let the chair know and the commissioners know that that we are actually, possibly exploring a possible option of getting something done in the next couple of months. Please stay tuned for that but yes, yes cringle opening cringley is one of our highest priorities right now. Well, it is lovely space so good luck. Thank you chair here we just wanted to put up a couple of news clips from our local press here in the Springfield area about the activities that we had done in the last five quarters or so. And of course Mayor Sarno has been instrumental in assisting with us being being at pretty much every press event that we've had to amounts our openings. But we're also immensely grateful for our state elected officials representatives Gonzalez representative Brahmos, Senator Gomez I'm sorry, as well as representative Brian ash and others who've been at most of many of our openings to work and celebrate with us. And of course, Mike Fenton who is a member of the Springfield City Council, as well as the chair of the Springfield City Council's casino oversight committee, we've been talking with them on a regular basis working with them on on activations. So we are immensely grateful for the recognitions that our mayor and our state elected officials are showing our team of the tremendous effort that they've been making over the last four or five quarters. So here are 2023 q1 numbers. Quarter over quarter from 2022 to 2023. We've increased our staffing by 24%, which I believe is a fun. I'm sorry. Well, that was, I thought it was on mute. I'm telling saying goodbye. Also, part of the staff that includes 15 team members who are now working in our sports book. And so, you know, of course, we know we know the challenge to our women numbers that which is below our target of 50%. We are taking all possible measures to try to get those numbers up. There are external challenges that we face. I want to address those to social media advertisements, one of which is this particular presentation will decide I want to speak to you about the key is Scott is a team member works in our FNB. And her story internally here at engines Springfield, as well as in publications in our local press and in our social media posts as well. But the kids Scott came to North came from North Carolina to Massachusetts in 2016 to find a better life for herself and her family. She went to various local training programs here. She got jobs working at the, you know, local establishments where she gets customer experience, and then she joined NGM as a day one employee. And over the course of that time she's been promoted several times now she's our sous chef in our employee dining room. And I wanted to highlight that in 2021, she became a first time homeowner. So this story, we hope will inspire others to other women to look at engines Springfield as an opportunity to grow their careers to support their families to find a better life for themselves. And so, going forward, we expect to more of these types of stories with with women, highlighting, you know, the women, you know, who have had opportunities shared in Springfield and made a better life for themselves. And of course, I can refer to my, my peer and colleague and friend to my right, all in Karbala, who as I mentioned just just been promoted to become vice president of finance. And so we, you know, we look forward to trying to grow our, our female employee work staff. As I said, there are some external challenges that we're working through, but we're doing everything we can. For example, we've just allied with a Puerto Rican cultural center in terms of additional recruiting efforts for for women, particularly but not team members in general. So we're looking at other alliances, other coalitions other groups that we can partner with to try to get the message out that we are looking for and we're very interested in hiring women team members to our property. So, Gus actually, before you move on, this is Commissioner Brian. Yes, you are the third licensee to come in front of us where the women's numbers don't quite hit the goal. And so I'm going to ask you the question that I asked them which is, can you be more specific with what you're doing in terms of trying to get the numbers up. And then also thinking about where those numbers are coming from I know traditionally a lot of those will come into food and beverage. I'm just wondering about you know you're talking about adding these post positions etc insecurity maybe getting more security. And I know there's a push at EDBH at least to try to make what is traditionally a male dominated area of employment within these within the licensees recruiting more women. So I'd like to speak in general a little more specifics when you say we have challenges and we're doing stuff. So what if anything you're doing in terms of security in particular. Thank you Commissioner Brian so I can't speak with actual knowledge because I personally have not gone and done the research so I can only speak sort of a hearsay information. I've heard others other employers within the area who've also identified to me, just by way of background, I had these conversations with other other businesses in the area because I sit on several boards of directors here in the area including the Business Improvement District, the Economic Development Council, and the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau. So I often have conversations with my four fellow board members about employment, and to up to a person they've all expressed the challenges that they have faced in terms of hiring in terms of hiring general in terms of hiring women in particular. It's not a unique MGM Springfield issue. It's a challenge that appears to be facing at least here in Western Massachusetts, most of the employers. In terms of specific activities that we're looking at, as I said, we have targeted marketing and advertising to attract women. We have hiring events that go on and, and what, again, speaking anecdotally, because I can't speak to my personal first head knowledge is that when we go to these hiring events, for example, not things not events that MGM Springfield or third party organizations are running, of which were parties, it turns out that more than 50% of the applicants or those who show it express interest are met. So there appears to be some challenge that we are facing in terms of women entering the workforce. Again, I don't know why that's the case, but I'm being told anecdotally again by my fellow colleagues on these boards that, and again, by, you know, based upon our own experience that we are having women not showing up for hiring events. That's a challenge that I can't tell you that we have a magic solution for right now. But it's something that we discussed repeatedly here at least in the Springfield. We're looking at other opportunities. Of course, what we're doing right now does not appear to be working very well. So we're looking at other solutions. For example, as I said, engaging with the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, maybe engaging them to help us with marketing at first with trying to recruit women. Again, we're looking at other targets as well other alliances that we can form to drive interest, women's interest in looking at MGM Springfield as an employment site. I can provide you more information as we go along, but right now, our, I think our target is to try to see if we can use third parties to help us get the message out to end in Springfield is looking for women employees. So are there any initiatives at the other institutions where you're on the board. And if there aren't, I guess I would throw out maybe you guys could be the leader in trying to think outside the box in terms of getting down into why it is that you're not getting the applicants. And I think that's what we're looking to do. In fact, I just had a conversation with our executive director of a charges, a little bit earlier this morning for this call. And one of the things that he and I talked about was actually drilling down on the number of seeing you know, you know what what's driving this lower percentage of women and trying to see how we can address that. That's a work in progress. Commissioner Brian, I can, I'm happy to report on the, you know, the efforts we're making, but that is, that isn't that that is certainly a challenge that everybody here appropriate nose and and and acknowledges and trying to find that solution is that's that's a difficulty right now but we're, we're looking at, as you said, trying to think outside the box to see what else we can do here. Yeah, no, I would like to hear back on what's going on because the numbers, they're all low, but this one is a little lower than the other two. Understood commissioner, thank you. Before you move on Gus, Commissioner Hill. If you were to look back at the earlier slide, just wanted you to make sure you noted the vet veterans numbers. I actually did notice the veteran numbers very happy with that but I actually wanted to bring up another issue matter chair. Okay, before we go off on the veteran, because I want to be fair here. Do do really well on your veteran numbers. And so do you have something there that you can explain for your success on that that you know to Commissioner Brian's point we know the challenges on women. We're not asking for your efforts but we wonder to, there's something that you're doing particularly well or on the veteran numbers. I mean, we're, of course, really happy that we're 150% overall target on the veterans. I don't know that we're doing anything, particularly to try to attract veterans. It's probably a part of the demographics we have a large number of veterans who live in this area so of course, our application pool is going to be reflective of the population in general. So we do get large numbers of veterans who are applying for the positions here at Edmond Springfield. That's, that's great and and it's great they're disclosing that status so excellent work. Okay, Commissioner Hill, what's your question. So, just a quick question and you might be able to answer it publicly, and maybe not. But when I see the sport or employees are 15 team members. Go back to the slide that showed us the revenue numbers for the brick and mortar compared to online betting, you know, 445,000 compared to 7.3 million. The 15 team members is that a number that you think's going to stay pretty strong at that number or do you see a decrease happening in that figure because of the online betting piece of this industry. Commissioner Hill, thank you for that question. We do not foresee the 15 team members shrinking in fact we've actually increased our hours of operation at our sportsbook by two hours every day. So no, there is no expectation that we're going to decrease the number of team members at our in our sportsbook. As I said, we fully expected most of the action to be on the on the mobile platform. And so we staff accordingly so there is no expectation of shaking this number. And what are the hours of operation now for the brick and mortar. We are open seven days a week from 10am to midnight. We were at 11am to 11pm, but we've increased that an hour on both ends to 10am to midnight. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Mayer, Commissioner Skinner. I just want to support Michelle Bryant's line of questioning and I would also address it in getting more information. Commissioner Skinner. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Thanks guys want to continue. So in Q1 of 2023, we've had of course our usual plethora of community outreach and special events. Here are some of the events that we've, we've highlighted, which it clearly is not an exhaustive list. In the upper left hand corner just in the cell, you know, patting myself on the back. Chris and I actually went to a square one which is a which is a school program. And we Chris and I read to. We adopted a class and just spring for the had adopted a class and this was a class that we adopted and we were, we had the honor and the pleasure of reading to these little kids. And then children are so, so innocent. When we were done, they came and hugged us, thanked us and you know and then asked us to come back and visit so it's a wonderful opportunity and I believe the other team members since then have had their other chances to go and read to the children. And again, I just want to just underscore that, you know, we're interacting with children is a pleasure that you know this job affords me, and I really really, you know, I'm appreciative of the chance that I had to read to this class. Here are other events, of course, you'll commissioners you'll see yourself in the picture at the bottom. This was our one year anniversary of commencing play my way in celebration of P gam. And we are again, you know, responsible gaming problem gaming is something that's very important to engine springfield and engine resource international as an enterprise. And so in addition to having play my way in addition to having game sense, you know, we, we are, you know, we are always looking for other opportunities to make sure that our patients, we spot game responsibly. And so thank you again for coming out and celebrating this momentous event with us last month couple months ago. We're coming for Q one of course we have our inside free music Fridays that we've done in our ballroom, the war comedy club at the armory continues to happen. We had the Red Sox here for a winter weekend. And we're the home globetrotters and Disney on ice and all of those. And so again, we are immensely proud and grateful that we have a relationship with both Symphony Hall and Mass Mutual Center, where we can host these programs we can. You can, you know, on the right of previous programs to to the springfield area and provide, you know, areas of activations and opportunities for for our fellow residents here in Springfield. Upcoming, of course, we have various events coming up both at Mass Mutual Center and at Symphony Hall, Bill Burr on August 12, and happy to report that Bill Burr has added a second day as well. We have Tina Fey and Amy Polar coming to Mass Mutual Center on June 8. We have Santana coming later this year. And Kevin Hart was was here in April, a tremendous event I was on property after the Kevin Hart show had ended here in Springfield. And it really felt like a Las Vegas casino there were so many people who came in after the after the Kevin Hart show to have a bite to eat to talk. And it was a really wonderful, wonderful experience for me to and really grateful that the things that MGM Springfield is doing is actually working and that our residents are coming and enjoying enjoying themselves with the opportunities that you know that MGM Springfield is fortunate enough to provide to our residents here. Just a couple of communities. One second. Commissioners, I think this is a tremendous lineup. This is exciting as COVID to see this space being activated this way for the benefit of MGM and in Springfield and the region. These are exciting events. I have to say I thought August 5 was going to be a special day and our son's getting married that day but I'm wondering like how do I get to see Santana to first commissioners we can't really so that's really exciting and great work. Thank you very much and in fact, I don't know if you recall but we had the band Chicago play a symphony whole about a year or so ago and I read about it I've never seen any concert. They're actually coming back. That show didn't even make this slide chair. So thank you very much for acknowledging that. Yes, you can always do two slides. Anyway, that's great great news and it's great that they they want to come back that's an indicator in that itself so excellent. Thank you chair. Thank you chair. And we actually want to speak to some of our business people here in the area to see what their impression was of MGM Springfield, and some of our fellow business owners. Louisa, who owns the Plaza of Belly right down the street from us. Nadine who owns the wonderful Mediterranean restaurant Nadine's right on Main Street. You know spoke above us and if you go to the next slide then Ray Berry who is the owner and founder of the White Lion Brewing Company. Wonderful things to say about us as well. So we are really very again very grateful and humbled. There are fellow business owners here in Springfield and knowledge and recognize what engine is doing for the community. And we are very, very happy to have received these cut these these feedback positive feedback from our fellow business owners here. And on this slide, you know, obviously you're talking about entertainment this week this Friday sparks the beginning of our free music Friday concert series, and Ray Berry and you know white line will be there with their beer trailer as well so there's again you know kind of synergy between local companies and MGM bringing together free concert free music and entertainment. I'm very sorry that I forgot about free music Fridays to kick off my mind is a little bit distracted because I have a very large event this weekend. My son is graduating from college. And so you know it's it's you know family and friends are coming in it all hands on deck and I'm very excited about my son's graduation so I was a little bit distracted about this weekend that's top of mind and not the free music Friday You're doing a great job but congratulations to your son. Thank you chair. And just to throw out the one last thing guys is it's just a small college in upstate New York correct your son attends. Yes, yes it is. So, which one, which one I had a couple up there. So my son is graduating from West Point. That's something really upset that is fabulous. I can't imagine what that graduation will be like. I'm very proud to say that Vice President Kamala Harris will be the speaker at commencement. And so I'm very excited and thrilled to be there to hear Vice President Harris speak. Thank you son. I think that's a major good element of what our continuous spectrum hires as well. Yes, yes it is. Excellent. Thank you, Daniel for dating us. And of course, I will be remiss in not announcing as you probably have already heard that we have Bruno Mars coming to NASA neutral center on June 10 and 11. And this was not, you know, weeks or months in the making this was a project that that has been Chris Kelly has led this effort to get Bruno Mars to spring field for years now. And we are finally gratified to announce that Bruno Mars will be playing a mass neutral center on June 10 and 11, and, and we are so immensely proud and thrilled and excited to have an international superstar like Bruno Mars coming to spring field. Amen. So that concludes our presentation and of course if you have any questions chair any questions can issues. We are happy to respond to them. She has questions. Now no questions just throwing in my congratulations to you and your son as well that's great. Thank you commissioner. And my congratulations to Miss Carvalho. Also, your promotion. Thank you very much. That's all around just want to echo that. And I want to co sign the chairs sentiments regarding your live entertainment. Very, very nice. Especially for Mars. I think Daniel did you say amen. I did. I may be a closet Bruno Mars fan without saying you to that. I'm going to be a 42 carat event. Thank you. I have nothing else to add. Madam chair congrats all around as well for me. I have, I have a question but I'm not sure it's something that we can talk about publicly but I would love to know the process of what brings the entertainment. I'm not sure that's something that could be done publicly or not. But I will ask our legal counsel what my steps should be, but I'd like to learn a little bit more about the entertainment piece of MGM. And we can explore whether that would be an appropriate topic for an executive session as you know and he says we can't speak about it publicly we really do all of our work publicly but there are times where we do have the tool of the executive session for the five best matters where it might be something that would add to a competitive disadvantage if matters were discussed publicly so let's look at that as a potential agenda item okay Commissioner Hill. All right. Anything else. I saw Bruno Mars of Madison Square Garden. That's a pretty fun crowd so. Again, we can just imagine how much fun the audience will be having. All right. With that. Thank you to the team for its presentation Chris. I know you were there the whole time I just want to offer you the opportunity to say hello if you'd like. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, thank you to the commissioners as well. Not to spend the entire time talking about gas but he's too humble to tell you that his second son just completed or is about to wait his freshman year also at West Point. Thank you to the the first quarter just as a as a headline. This was really a pretty superlative 90 days if we stop and think about it we had the one year anniversary of play my way, thousands of accounts created we shared in that moment together. We released our workforce by nearly 25%. We opened a sportsbook among the first in the great state of Massachusetts obviously we saw together mobile come online and the property had its highest q1 ggr in history. We think about the rest of 2023 obviously the entertainment lineup informs his statements, but we approach this year with tremendous optimism. We recognize that it won't be without challenges, we spoke to some of them today. We know that there's still work to do, but we very much appreciate the partnership, the collaboration and the hard work that has allowed us collectively to get to this point so thank you to each of you. Thanks. I think then turn it back to Chief Delaney but to the MGM group. Thank you for your presentation this morning. Joe. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you madam chair commissioners so our next item is the community mitigation fund. So we will be looking today at the community planning applications. Projects of regional significance, a couple of our specific impacts and then the new category of gambling harm reduction. So with that I will jump right in the first. So we'll be looking community planning first so the first application is the city of Everett. They're requesting $199,100 to do a feasibility study on the rehabilitation of reuse of the Charlestown pumping station. And also looking to create an underpass under Alfred Street to get to the other side of the road and looking at the feasibility of additional walkways along the water to connect into the on course site. So this is really is interesting because the project is actually lies within the city of Boston. There's this little kind of anomaly and the property law the boundary of the city of Boston where it crosses over the Mystic River and extends up Alfred Street a little ways. But of course it's really surrounded on three sides by Everett. So this application is by the city of Everett and they do have the support of the city of Boston and also the MWRA who is the current owner of this Charlestown pumping station. So the idea is to rehabilitate this property or look at the options to rehabilitate this property and public use space, while also looking at making a protected connection across Alfred Street to the to the on course site. And you know the review team looked very favorably upon this project. You know this particularly with the underpass at the Alfred Street bridge, which provides you know protected connection across the street which would reduce you know pedestrian and bicycle and vehicular costs. So we were fully supportive of this and recommend full funding of the project in the amount of $199,100. So the commission have any questions regarding that application. So commissioners. We have the advantage of two by two is with you going over the facts but we do have the advantage of any questions that were asked among ourselves so commissioners I do encourage you to share anything that you shared, perhaps in your two by two so that we can learn from each other. Okay, so the, the next one is city of Malden. They want to do a transit oriented study around the Malden Center MBTA station. So this, this study will look at some conceptual alternatives for the land around Malden Center. So the city is trying to do here is to to activate that area around the station and also redefine some of where the bus lanes are and some of these other things to try to encourage people to get to the casino to hopefully see what other things more than center has to offer and maybe get some of those folks to linger in the downtown area and potentially live in the downtown area, and so on. So this, this was this application came in last year, really as a transportation planning application but we felt that it was work much better under the community planning category. We did not approve it last year but we are recommending approval of it this year, as it's in the right category and it's looking at. Trying to take advantage of the presence of the casino and their patrons employees to try to attract them to a Malden Center, so we are recommending full funding of this project in the amount of $100,000. Any questions on this application measures. Yeah, this this is really when when we created that community planning category I think this is really the type of thing that we were we were really looking towards. Yes. So the next one is Revere Squire Road so Squire Road is is a section of route 60 that runs for Revere it's located about five and a half miles northeast of Encore Boston Harbor one end of it is at Copeland circle at root one and the other and it meets with route 107 which is another major north south arterial through Revere. You know, in this one again a community planning application. They wanted to conduct a master planning process for Squire Road that promotes alternative land uses. Right now it's kind of a mix of all kinds of uses and the some residential sort of patchwork of different kinds of uses. You know on this and again, we think that you know projects like this are good but we had a real difficult time trying to parse out what the connection of this is to the casino. The application talked a little bit about the traffic that's associated with the casino which is largely using route one. Again, it's not a transportation planning application. And then, you know, we asked the applicant to clarify what the casino related impact or benefit that the project will address. You know, and we really didn't get back what we considered to be a satisfactory answer on this. You know, the way that the road is situated, people coming to and from the casino would be tending to go north south and this is sort of an east west connection between a couple of arterials but we just didn't see really any correlation with the casino itself. So given the distance from the casino and not really seeing any correlation or nexus to the to the casino. We are not recommending funding of this project. So any questions on that one questions commissions. Okay, okay, so the next one is the city of Holyoke a tourism plan. So we a few years ago we gave Holyoke some seed money to help start a tourism plan and this is kind of the next piece of that. If they developed a website that that needs to be expanded. They have some public art program called beyond walls that they like some of these funds to help support that. One of the interesting pieces of this is that they are proposing a shuttle bus between MGM and Holyoke during some large events that they have. And just as an example of that. MGM Springfield this wasn't in conjunction with Holyoke but a group of employees from MGM Springfield took a bus up to Holyoke to go to their St. Patrick's Day Parade which is one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades in the country as I understand it. And they said it was a wonderful time so this idea of having a shuttle bus between MGM and Holyoke will give, you know folks at MGM and opportunity to come up the Holyoke and see what it has to offer and you know MGM themselves really like that idea any you know any effort to bring additional tourism to western Massachusetts will be good for both Holyoke and MGM. So, so yeah we looked at this as you know that they're using these funds to help leverage that presence of MGM Springfield and improving the overall level of tourism to not only to Holyoke but to western Massachusetts. So, again, we were really in favor of this project and are recommending full funding for that effort. Any questions on this one. Madam Chair I don't have a question just a comment. Yes. So, as we were going through the process of looking at these applications this one really stuck out to all of us about the tourism that's going on in the western part of the state. And I am reminded that when we were able to have conversations with MGM regarding some of these applications. Gus had informed us of some of the committees that he is now sitting on in the city. And I believe one of them was a tourism committee that he's now sitting on. And the things that they are doing out there are incredible and this just adds and enhances what they're trying to do in the western part of the state so certainly I'm supportive of it. And I want you to know that tourism in that part of the state has become something that everybody seems to be involved in and I'm thrilled that we are part of that partnership. If this was to move forward. So, the next one is a joint application between Foxboro, Plainville and Rentham. And they are seeking $630,000 to continue and expand the implementation implementation strategies that were outlined in their regional destination marketing plan. And the foods, you know, we've given some grant money to these communities to develop sort of a regional kind of tourism plan there are sort of three draws in that area there's the Plain Ridge Park Casino, but there's also, you know, Gillette Stadium and Plain Ridge Park Casino place and the rent them outlets are sort of the three kind of anchors for that region, you know regional draws. So, we have given them a couple of different grants on on this to start developing that program again helping them build a website and preparing some advertising and things of that nature. The next step in the program involves continuing to develop some of the advertisements and things like that, but then it also includes a large media buy. You know, for both for print digital radio television advertising that's going to target the New England and New York areas. You know, during the last round of funding though where where we had given them. I think it was at least the second round of funding towards their project. You know we asked the communities what they were doing to make this, you know, sort of self sustaining in the future and they gave us a whole laundry list of items that they were that they were going to pursue. But to date those efforts haven't resulted in any financial contributions to this program from from other entities. And so the review team was a little bit concerned about the Community Mitigation Fund providing all of the funding for this effort. Plain Ridge Park Casino was only one of those three regional draws. And, you know, the, the intent of these funds, the use of these funds is to address casino related items. And in this case, you know, again, it's the ability to take advantage of the presence of the casino to try to, you know, create a kind of a regional destination. But given that fact that that really Plain Ridge Park is only sort of one third of this whole project, we didn't feel comfortable providing all of the funding for this effort. So we are recommending that before providing funding provided for the graphic design animation and commercial production, which that totals $105,000. The media buy was proposed at $500,000 and you know being sort of just one third of this region, PPC being just one third of this region. We are recommending providing one third of the funding for the advertising buy. And there was another item in there for trade show participation that the review team did feel was appropriate for these funds. So, we are recommending funding partial funding for this project and the amount of $272,000 again 105,000 to finish their commercial production and design and then $167,000 towards that media. Any questions on this application. Okay. So that that concludes the community planning applications. The applications we have are the projects of regional significance. And again this is a new category for this year. And you know the intent behind this category was to look at projects that were really regional in nature, but that also addressed a casino related impact. So we received three applications in this area one in the east and two out in the West. Our guidelines proposed awarding one project of regional significance in each region. With a maximum value of $3 million for each of them. The first application that we had was from Saugus to install shade trees. When we reviewed this we realized that this was really mischaracterized as a project of regional significance. It really should have been under the specific impact category so we contacted Saugus and they were fine with that being moved to specific impact so I will talk about that. So we will get to the specific impact applications. Now the next one was the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission was requesting $485,600 to develop what they're calling a regional business ecosystem network. What this is attempting to do is help small capacity building within small and micro businesses, especially in underserved communities to improve the capacity of companies in the Pioneer Valley as well as also to help MGM meet its target goals for local spending and minority women and veteran business spending. So, you know, the review team we really like this project as you know it's looking at the entire Pioneer Valley workforce or businesses in the Pioneer Valley, but also trying to target, you know, the help helping MGM spring field as well. And one concern that we had with this, you know, these projects of regional significance are supposed to provide just a small percentage of the overall funding, we could fund up to 15% of a project cost. You know, in this case, the Pioneer Valley has estimated that the total cost of the project would be about $4 million with us providing about 12% of that funding so we certainly work within that framework of the guidelines. But the other, but at this point, Pioneer Valley has not raised any of these additional funds. So, so we were a little bit concerned that ours right now is the only money that is that is, you know, would be earmarked for this particular project. So, Pioneer Valley has indicated that they will continue to fundraise throughout this process, but in order to make sure that this is working appropriately. We are proposing that commission do an initial award of $125,600 to perform the preliminary work that leads up to the implementation. So that would be expected to happen sort of over this coming fall and winter. And that will give Pioneer Valley some opportunity to try to raise some funds towards this. And what we plan on doing is we would then meet with Pioneer Valley to look at the progress that they're making and and see where the project stands. And if we think that everything's going according to plan we would then release the additional $360,000 of implementation funds. So we are recommending this this project with the with those conditions that we just we release the money sort of in two crunches. Any questions on that project. Joe, can you remind me how much was set aside for this particular category of each region. I think it was 3 million in the west and I think it was 4 million in the east. I'd have to go back and look at the guidelines but yeah I was I think it was 3 million in the west. I think Mary's looking right now. We made it a different amount. And I just think that I want to remind everyone that Lily of course has been very involved I think she's having a graduation right now or something right Joe. Yeah, Mary able to put your finger on those numbers. Let me get right back to you just because I'm having some technical issues. No problem. Okay, questions for Joe on the on this particular one. Joe my only question is can you repeat the condition in terms of the 125 600 in the first tranche what were the conditions on that the expectation. Well just that those are the sort of the planning efforts that they're going through, you know they have to develop, you know there's some preliminary work that they need to do before implementation sort of designing what this looks like and that kind of stuff. And that's what that first 125,600 would do in their budget to review by by the CMF team here. The subsequent money. Yeah, yeah. And of course if you know if the commission would like we can certainly come back to the commission before releasing that or you can you can delegate that to staff whichever way you'd like to organize that. That's, oh so that's what I was going to follow up with is to get a report back to us prior to the release of the second tranche in case we have questions or concerns about the status. That's a big, you know a lot of times what is it's under 15 or 10 or something where you guys go ahead but that's a big. Yeah. Adam chair. Yes, go ahead commission. I believe I have an answer for you says for the guidelines that you're looking for the commission will cover up 15% of the total cost. 3 million in region A and 3 million in region B. Yeah, 5 million for a and how much could be 3 million for region. That's on page six of the guidelines. Thank you. Any other questions on that one. Just want to get. I'm sorry, Madam chair. I do want to get it on the record that when we did speak. I'm less concerned about Joe about being a Kickstarter for anything. As long as we're watching the project and it sounds like you've got a plan to do that. So I just wanted that on the record. And could you explain the follow up on the chairs question. I remember the conversation but you know, it was actually why the regions are different. Oh, yeah. So the way that the money is distributed the money that's generated by MGM spring field stays in region B and the money that's generated by on course stays in region A. And you know just in very round numbers. You know, region a generates about $10 million towards the community mitigation fund each year and region B is about four and a half million. So, you know, and there have been some some surpluses over time that have built up so basically there's just not as much capacity in region B for for as much work as there is in region a just due to due to that disparity. And region B has supported that historically correct. Oh, absolutely they they they absolutely have supported that. And even though they they get a smaller amount of money than region a they they have been very vocal about wanting to make sure that that money absolutely stays in region. Thank you. Okay. All set on that one. So moving on the next application was for the city of Springfield for a mixed use parking garage. We're investing $3 million in construction funding for a proposed central mixed use parking garage to solve for area parking deficiencies improve traffic flow and assist new economic develop. So just as a little bit of background the city of Springfield has purchased several buildings on Main Street directly across from MGM spring field. And the intent there those buildings are largely empty few tenants in them here and there but their intent is to market these buildings to developers to redevelop them into, you know, probably mixed use developments retail first floor housing on the upper floors things like that. Very similar to what what what the city is doing right now with the Fort Street building. The city has indicated that in order to attract developers for those projects they really need to provide them some parking. That will, you know, give them, you know, sort of confidence that that the people who are going to live and work there have a place place to park. So, you know, in reviewing this, you know, we looked at this and, you know, we agree that there is an impact from from MGM, you know, in the area. But we looked at this project as well as certainly a regional component to it. The review team basically felt that the primary role of this project was to serve this proposed development on Main Street and while it has a regional component that wasn't its primary purpose. So, in our guidelines. We had a target of awarding making one award in the western region. And when we looked at the two projects in total, the review team felt that the Pioneer Valley project really met the intent of the of the guidelines on on having on being quite regional, but also addressing a casino related impact. I didn't think that this was an okay project. It's just that we felt that the other, the Pioneer Valley application was better and better met with the guidance. So any questions on that one. Questions commissioners. So, I have, I have some follow up on this one. I spent some good amount of time with Joe and Lily and Mary. And that our guidelines did suggest warm regional project and I applaud the Pioneer Valley one I think it's a very strong application. I know that we have given waivers in the past, when sometimes we have some competing project and I do understand that, in this case, the vote on this project was eight, you know, zero eight. In other words, the committee looking at it all supported pioneer one versus this one. Perhaps they may have suggested it was one versus the other. Joe, before I continue, I just want to make sure I understand. We have given grants to Springfield to look at development studies. And is there any connection to any of the grants that we've given them to this proposal is there. Yeah, I mean, this proposal came out of a grant that we gave to the parking authority to look at some options for revenue recovery. And basically with the opening of the MGM Springfield parking garage being free, the pioneer of the, the parking authority saw some, you know, decreases in revenue and we're looking for opportunities to try to find ways to maybe recover some of that. So with that in mind, I, I just, if I can't convince my fellow commissioners to join me I do want to be on the record that I really truly feel this is very regional in nature because this is connecting the work that the Gaming Commission has done in the past that the city of Springfield has supported that the state has supported to activate the Main Street area so that we bring in businesses so that we get put traffic so that we get individuals coming to the shows so that we get individuals going to Springfield and then have it spread out. So I do think that this is very regional in nature and I know that the other was viewed as this was viewed more like what's a parking parking garage but I just want to make sure that we all understand that it does stem from earlier planning grants that we gave them. I also understand the amount, you know, I think Joe, you may want to explain that you think that it could take a while for this to get underway. I want to note that it's a parking garage where they do think it will free up existing surface parking lots in the area for additional development that this will help the businesses thrive in downtown Springfield. We do have the housing underway and that was a coordinated effort with the state, with Springfield, with MGM, with the Gaming Commission to provide that housing piece, and all on Main Street. You're going to have to have little coffee shops and you've got to have little shops bring in that traffic to make that a whole revitalization of the city. So I do see this as a very much a regional proposal. I wasn't part of the group so I don't have the benefit of the group. Well, I do know that even, you know, if it's one or the other, perhaps it makes sense, but I am wondering if there's an opportunity to consider, to give some sort of a waiver to an offer for both in this instance. Well, part of the concern that we have is that, you know, in the original ask for the Western region, we are already oversubscribed, you know, for the total amount of money. Now there are some projects that we're not recommending funding and other things. But until we get through all of them, we would, you know, there may not be enough money available in the region to fully fund this project, if we were to try to add it. But I don't know exactly what that number is today. Michelle Bryan. So I'm wondering. And I'm, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. I know you're part of these conversations too, but I'm on the fence. I mean I remember some of the earlier conversations. But I'm also loath to call something a regional project that's really intended to benefit or resurrect maybe some people that speculated they were going to get more for their buildings than they were. When GM came to town, given that most recent comment, I'm wondering if what the appropriate move on this today is to defer any vote. I'd like to know a little bit more about exactly how much money would be left to put toward this and it may be that consideration of something less than the full ask. Absolutely. I don't think it necessarily has to be fully, but we're not, we're not doing the full ask for the pioneer, right? No, I know. So but I didn't know if Commissioner Heller knew you were part of those conversations to I'm happy to hear what other people have to think but so I'm torn. I remember those conversations early on. I also remember the stories of certain people who, you know, thought they were going to get a windfall and when that didn't come. I don't know, maybe took a loss for tax reasons I don't know what the individual choices were the property owners but doesn't mean it's not regional impact but not to the same level as the first one that's in region B. Commissioner Hill, I guess Commissioner Brown, Commissioner Skinner, you have your audio off perhaps let's go first and then Commissioner Hill if you want to follow up. So I feel similar to Commissioner O'Brien in terms of the individual benefit sort of outweighing the regional significance here. You know, but let me go back. You alluded to the eight member subcommittee that reviewed this application. Joe, I think that, you know, it was less about comparing the two applications that came in under this category, and sort of picking the one that was most viable. There were other concerns I think that you would indicated during the two by two. That concerns the committee. So, you know, I am, you know, not going to stand in the shoes of the committee who had all of the information and data and the application itself in front of it as it reviewed the application so you know, I want to I want to respect that determination, understanding that there is discretion here or at least I think that's what we are trying to determine. But I think ultimately, you know, I think that all of the good things chair that you referenced for the region and sort of revitalizing it and, you know, allowing that economic movement. I think is is really far removed from the individual benefit that we're talking about here. So I would have to, at this point, I would have to really, you know, engage the subcommittee again to try to understand, you know, just kind of have a better understanding of exactly what their other concerns were. I think the committee, the review team, you know, it was primarily the issue about regionality. I mean, some of the people on the review team did not see any regional connections. Others looked at it and saw some regional connection but that was the primary concern was sort of the regionality of this. Is this just for a local project or is it a regional project. So I said some people could see some spin off regionality but that was the primary concern. Madam chair, I don't think I could have said it any better than Joe just did. Though that was the big concern amongst the subcommittee is the regionality of this of this project and we felt the other project really did show a regional. So there would be more regional and I think I said this earlier but one of the things that the subcommittee is really having an issue with last year and this year was addressing what a casino related impact is. And in looking at these two projects we felt the other one really had more of a casino related impact than this one did. And that's, you know, that's the thought process that we put into it. And the other and the other piece just to add on to that was, you know, also on this one I didn't include this in the write up but you know this project is a $30 million project and while other sources of funds were identified there's been, you know, none of those sources of funds have been secured for the project. That was the that was the other piece of it but that was similar to the Pioneer Valley project as well. Can I just add one last time? Commissioner Hill, sorry. Is I do like the idea, you know, if anything we can band a little bit and maybe not address this one today. And let's see where the rest of them lead us and we can revisit this one before we take a final vote, which I would have no issue. Commissioner Hill, the way that you just explained the thinking was what I thought might have been the case where you said, you know, we like one was more regional than the other and so it was a comparison and so that's where I'm wondering and I'm thinking mainly that if we're giving a grant for development and studies on development, and then they actually come back to us on the outcome of the studies to do the next step. I'd like to see our dollars grow with that and, and I have to just say, Commissioner Brian I don't have the same memory that you haven't it's not to in any way say that you're not right. I don't have the same memory and so it must not have made the same impact on terms of the concerns that you raised. So, Commissioner Hill, I understand it is not to take away from the pioneer one. I love that one. It's mainly, geez, this is where I'd like to see if there's any way we can continue to build and even if it messages to the other potential we're behind this, I think it is worth revisiting. And also whether we do grant that waiver because if it's a, if it wasn't either or I understand the conclusion, but if there's any chance of a waiver of some sort with a different amount to back it. That would be where I would come out. Commissioner Maynard, sorry. No, no, Madam Chair, I, this is why I love, we have an opportunity to all meet together because I had, Joe can tell you in our two by two, I had the same amount of heartburn when we got to this one on, on, you know, where are we, you know, what can we do, what does the money look like. Obviously, I want to support Western Mass and every, every way that we can, you know, I, you know, I'm not just, you know, a resident of the Commonwealth. I go there and I vacation myself, right. And so I do see a regional connection, but when viewed upon, you know, a finite amount of money and ability to, to fund certain projects, I looked at it in a certain way. And if we lift that, I'm open to seeing if there's some amount that makes sense to put some dollars behind this and to continue on. So it's funny because a lot of the themes you're bringing up, Madam Chair, I was thinking the same thing in the, in the two by two and really trying to figure out where I was and I still do not feel comfortable voting it down totally. And so maybe we do need a little more time together some more information and see if there's, there's something we can do. Thank you. And this is where it is really important for us to have these full some discussions because we don't participate in the two by twos and so I may not have heard a question that was raised by Commissioner Brian, or you commission me and I was with Commissioner Skinner and I actually like to mention Skinner. I just want to. You know, I'm hearing two different things from Commissioner Helen and Joe. So I want to make sure that I understand whether they are saying the same thing. I think, Chair, you summarize Commissioner Hill's statements as, you know, one project, or the subcommittee, believing that one project was more regional than the other. That isn't, and that may or may not have been what Commissioner Hill stated, but I did not hear that from Joe. So if you know I want to make sure that I understand Joe's perspective here, and the subcommittee's perspective, that's important to me, as is the opinion and comments of my fellow commissioners. I think, you know, just, again, just to summarize, you know, the two issues that we had were the regionality issue. Well, three, you know the connection to the casino we did agree that there is a connection to the casino, although it's not really a straight line connection. We have agreed before with their argument. And then the cost that's associated with it and, you know, cobbling together those other monies for this project were the two issues but what it came down to was, you know, we didn't sort of take a vote saying, you know, vote up or down on this. But, you know, we, we looked at the two projects in total and thought that the Pioneer Valley one was the more appropriate one to fund. But the issues were, you know, as in several of our folks on the review team, so on no regionality associated with this project and others saw some a small amount of regionality. None of us felt that this made a strong case for for being a regional project. So, if this were the only application, I think we would have we would have had to sort of do an up or down vote but because we were only recommending one from the region. We were recommending the Pioneer Valley. I think, you know, if we were to do that, I'd want to reconvene the group and see what, if this were a standalone project, would we recommend that. You know, we never really quite got to that point because we didn't, we didn't feel that we really needed to. Thank you that that insight is helpful and that's exactly where I was going to go next is just to ask generally, you know, based on this discussion, you know what what you would recommend as next steps. Well, and I just want to follow up Commissioner Skinner, I want to make sure that you would know that I would not intend to in any way mischaracterize. What I understood was the decision making process I followed up with I think another hour. Plus, with Joe and, and Mary and and Lily to make sure I understood it, but that's why I started with we would have to think about whether or not we would wave our guideline which was that it should be one, and then wave. Then if we were going to give any money at all, but I am hearing Joe say there's a debate about the degree of regionalization. And I suppose I'm, I'm realizing that guess regionalization is viewed in different ways that's all because I actually see spring field as the activator for the region so that wasn't part of the committee. So Joe, in terms of next steps. I'm hearing that you are concerned that about the amount of funds that might be available for region B down the road should all the other requests that came out of region B be funded is that one is that fair. Yeah, so what we would need to do is look at all of the categories so we haven't done transportation planning transportation construction or public safety. So once we would get through those only at that point can we determine how much we're proposing to award. And then how much you know we know how much money was available in the region, which is what we put out in our guidelines. We know that the ask was more than that. I tried that you know if the number is $7 million the ask was like 9 million. So we were oversubscribed. And if we, you know, basically when we were saying we're not recommending this application. So that knocks $3 million off of that so we're down to $6 million so you know every all of the other projects are good to get in but what we would have to look at is, we're not recommending all of the projects in the West to be funded. So we would have to subtract those out we basically have to do a calculation to see how much money is left based on all the other applications if we wanted to go and add this one back. We can't do that until we can't do that until June 15. Commissioner Hill was recommending Commissioner Skinner that take a look at this near the end of the process. I would, and I think I heard that of Commissioner O'Brien to and here for get feedback. You know my, my hope is that we can take a look and I just of course want to be clear on the record that I am. But this is a follow up application to our earlier, our earlier grants. And I like the idea that it is to continue to revitalize Main Street so that those Bruno Mars fans are happy. And then they go to Springfield happily and then they go and stay at wonderful ends over in Long Metal and Northampton and Amherst and they go over and do a nice some town restaurant and chiquipi. So that's my goal. Just wanted to be on the record. Can I follow that with a technical? I would be interested if this is going back to a subcommittee I would be interested in knowing what the disconnect is between funding the study versus funding the project, because I think a lot of people will wonder, you know, does that make sense, right? And maybe, and maybe the answer is the study show that it wasn't there. I don't know. Commissioner Maynard, you know, the typical process that something like this would go through is that they would do a study. And if they identified a project that will come out of that, you know, on something like this, they could have applied under the transportation construction cat, which does not require any regional component to it. So it's only a maximum of one and a half million dollars so it's not as transformation, you know, it's not as big a project. But I mean that is certainly an avenue that they could have taken. They chose to go towards the project of regional significance and of course just in its title, the project has to be regionally significant and that's where that's where the disconnect there are other categories that they could have filed under but they did not do that. So can I follow up with that please because I do see that we recommended to sagas that they moved to specific impact. Yeah, we didn't we didn't circle back to this group. No, we didn't but but the reality is is that, you know, the transportation construction category. They have only one year to get under construction. You know, I would say there is, there is zero chance that this project would be ready to be built any. The, the project of regional significance gives them two years to get under construction knowing that, you know, a large regionally significant project would typically take, you know, more planning time and so on to get going. But I think under under the transportation construction category, I mean this thing is not ready to go. Well, I hope that our guidelines are causing, you know, unrealistic restrictions now. Right. So answer your question. Sean Maynard. I mean, I rules are rules and they're made for a purpose, but, you know, the rigidness of it, you know, if the answer is the studies great everything's great but this is how they were able to look for more money was to go to this pot versus this pot. I kind of understand that. And if I was sitting on the other side of the table I probably doing the same exact thing. But you know if there's really my question drove the heart of the question was, if there's something in the study that showed that it wasn't good to go period, that's kind of what I would be interested in. I mean, the study that they did identified this particular location where they want to put the parking garage I mean it's, it's, it's following you know the process they looked at at a bunch of locations to, to put a parking garage they chose this one as the preferred alternative and they're pursuing it. You know it's just that it's it's very preliminary in nature, you know they've identified, you know sources of funds, you know bonds this that and the other thing but they, you know, the project isn't designed it's not, you know, it's, they haven't cobbled together the funds I mean it's definitely just not, it's not ready to go. So, which is why you know that this, this project of regional significance gives them a couple of years to get those things in place. Thank you. And you know and with that said, you know, I mean the Commission can wave any one of the requirements in the guidelines that's, that's part of what's in the guidelines you can, if, if, even if the Commission didn't feel that this had a strong regional component you could wave that if you, if you decided that this was the project that you wanted to go with. But, but you know, again, you can wave any particular requirements in the guidelines. Okay, we ready to move on to the next project. Are you all set Commissioner Hill you all set. All right, so just as a executive director wells just to keep track that we want to revisit. We want to revisit this one, and then we also want to revisit the, the one that we just reviewed beforehand the pioneer Valley one that should come back to us before additional funding. We want to come back before we complete the community mitigation process and I invite the public to weigh in if they have any thoughts on this. All right, so we're now moving on to our specific impact grant category. And the first one is the city of Boston, the power center project city is requesting $493,500. For the power center. This project came directly from the Asian cares study that had been done earlier. And this is the effort here is to try to try to offset some of the, you know, issues that lead to problem gambling. You know, in that study, you know, one of the key takeaways was, you know, it's social and cultural loss and isolation due to immigration. You know, as well as unhealthy stress relief, as some of the root causes of problem gambling, and what this proposes to do is to put alternative things for folks to do, and, you know, to hopefully help offset some of those tendencies. So, even though this appears like it's a gambling harm reduction category that category was really just for studies this is actual implementation from an earlier study. So we have it under the specific impact category. The review team really love this project that, you know, this is exactly what we're looking for on things like this. The one concern that we did have was that in the application, the application requested for full time equivalents for program implementation. But those were already three and a half of those were already existing employees of the power center. And, you know, the intent of our funds is not to supplant existing funding but to supplement existing funding. So, there was a half a new FTE communications coordinator that that we propose to fund, and we also decide agree that we should probably fund another half FTE of the existing staff due to the increased workload. So, if you subtract out those three FTEs existing FTEs that we're proposing to not pay for, we're recommending partial funding of this application the amount of 283,000. So any questions on that. Questions commissioners. Okay. The next couple. You're going to see some similarities from previous years. The next one is the Hamden DA's office for personnel assistance. They're requesting $75,000 for continued funding for personnel to handle casino related prosecutions. We've been funding the DA's office in this amount for the last few years. And they did provide us some additional information this year that showed over the last five years that they have handled 674 direct casino related cases. But in addition to that we know that there are indirectly related cases as well but those are certainly harder to quantify but that shows that there's certainly quite a bit of work that the DA's office has to do that as to do with respect to casino related projects. Originally we were giving them $100,000 but they realized that that was that was more than what they needed so back in 2020 they dropped their request to 75,000 which is what we have been funding and what we are again recommending funding for for this year. Any questions associated with that. That's not a question but Joe you know this you've heard me say this repeatedly in terms of Norfolk I think came in as for money once didn't actually do the case tracking that we were looking for so I'm in support of funding the positions. What I'm frustrated with is that there isn't a little more of an effort to track nexus in terms of. Obviously, you know there's an arrest AG's office doesn't take it it goes over to the DA's office for prosecution. There's more in the ones where they determined there's a connection. I'd love for there and I said I've said this before I feel like baby to be more proactive with the MDA, the master is association in terms of getting together the counties that really are either the sightings of these casinos or, you know, surrounding communities so that we can get a better sense in terms of tracking impact. I'm not suggesting we put it as a condition precedent and I'm getting the money, but I am frustrated that there isn't any movement in that regard because I think it would be beneficial to everybody involved. And I'm beating up the messenger Joe it's obviously not meant for you it's a frustration for, for people that are on this ball. Understood. Okay. So let's move along to the next one. This is the Hamden sheriff, Lisa systems. And you will request for $400,000 for continued leases this assistance for the Western mass recovery and wellness center. Just as a refresher, you know, the recovery and wellness center was located in the footprint of MGM Springfield. And they were required to move as part of that building, you know, it's torn down to for the building of MGM Springfield. And that they signed at this new property was a significant increase from what they were paying at the, at the MGM site at MGM they were a tenant at will so they they didn't have a any kind of long term lease. But, you know, the increase costs were with that and utilities, because I guess utilities were part of their original payments. Increases are about over a little over $600,000 a year they've asked for the 400,000 offset that and we have granted that them those funds for the last seven years. This is the eighth year of that of a 10 year lease. You know we've had these discussions with the commission on whether or not we believe that we should continue to fund this project and I will once again when we talk about our policy questions we will bring in back up to the commission. But the reality is here is that they have, you know they demonstrated the casino impact, and they clearly have quantified the costs of that differential. So those being the two things that you need to prove as part of your application, you know we recommend payment of this awarding of this grant questions on that. Mitchers also again this is sort of a. We're going into the way back machine on some of these, just to give historical perspective on it which is the. I know they made the request to get five and then five sort of not have to come back every year they do come back every year I think the money's available this year so you know I'm in support of spending it but at a certain point I do think when you figure it out, we're going to have to have a conversation about continuing nexus and impact. Yeah, absolutely. And just a reminder this is part of the overall total up to the amount again. For the region be. Yeah, this, you know, I think it was roughly 7 million was available right so 400,000. And again, just another good, good portion of the funding. Right. Okay, so the, any other questions on that one. Okay, so we did have an application a small application for Mansfield which has been withdrawn. So we don't need to discuss that. It's August, which is for the planting of shade trees. So they were costing $100,000 for shade tree planting in the public ways along the MBTA bus routes. So this was really, we thought was kind of a novel application, you know the impact that's that's identified here is, you know increases in air pollution due to the increase in traffic from the casino which is approximately 10% of the casino related traffic goes up route one, which goes right through Saugus. And in addition there are, you know, employees, primarily and probably some patrons that you, you know, bus routes go from there over to encore and other things. And this, what this would do. So, you know, there's been many studies that show how, you know, shake trees can reduce heat island effects lower temperatures absorb carbon dioxide supply oxygen. You know those impacts are, you know, directly attributable to to traffic and increases in traffic. So, you know that the nexus to the casino and the solution to the problem are in are in good alignment. So, you know, we agree that that that we should fund this project in the amount of $100,000. Any questions on that one. I think this is an awesome project. And when we were doing our two by two I found it very very interesting and innovative. And what we did want to say is, you know, we did ask Saugus if they would have considered approaching some of their surrounding communities to make this, you know, a more regional type project but apparently, you know, Revere and Chelsea and others they as gateway communities they have another source of funds that they use for street trees other state program. So they, they, they did talk with them and they did. You don't want to say that they had a different source of funds but Saugus doesn't have that source of funds available to them so this is a good, a good way to put it back. Yeah, I know that this is a different, a different innovative use so congratulations to Saugus. I want to just go back to Mansfield. I want to extend at least my appreciation to them for withdrawing their application they were able to find others spending I wanted to make sure that there wasn't any notion that their application was had a deficit or anything they just withdrew because they found funding and a different way. Okay, so now we are on to our new gambling harm reduction category and just as a little refresher we had two types of studies that could be done on this we have the type one study was for a project up to $20,000 and the type two study was to conduct some really community-engaged research of an identified impact for up to $200,000. We only received two applications in this category I guess we were hoping for maybe a little better response but and both of them were for the type one study but you know we'll keep pushing this. So the first one is Springfield. They want to look into young adult gambling and again this is one of the type one projects which is they're asking for $19,600. And they want to engage Springfield youth ages 18 to 24 in a community advisory board to look at gambling related issues that affect young adults. Again this is sort of what we look as kind of a screening level study it's it's it's they haven't identified a particular problem, but they want to look at you know what are the impacts on advertising and other things you know on young adults. So this is exactly the type of thing that we were looking for, and the hope is that this group comes together and does these does this research for what might come out of this is a more detailed study to do the community engage research on a larger level and in a future year. The idea was that you do sort of the screening level study the first year and then you might do a larger study the next year and then go to implementation in the third year. So we really like this project and our recommending funding for that full amount of 19,006. Any questions on this one. No. Okay, and then the last one. Unfortunately, this was submitted. It's called a safe coalition. And this was submitted by a nonprofit organization and they're just simply not eligible for funding as a nonprofit. We require that, even though money can go to nonprofits it has to be sponsored through a city or town for that to happen. So, essentially, you know we're not recommending funding just because it's not eligible. So what we do what we will do. After you know this process we will reach out to them and explain to them, you know, they, you know, want to try to come back in in future years that you know that they have to partner with a community so we'll do some outreach and again we're trying to encourage folks to come in under this category so you know if that can if that can lead to a. Better application or an application that's partnered with some communities in the future would certainly look forward to that. Okay, and that was our last application for for this chunk. Does any final questions before we turn to possible motion. clarifications on anything for sure. So the only thing I wanted to come in on was the very very first one we talked about with ever doing the feasibility study. I like the idea that I did mention on the two by two and I just want to put out for all five of us that, given where it is and crossing over into the city of Boston that any, I would hope and expect that if it is feasible to move forward and an application would be jointly made with the city of Boston. Yeah, certainly. Anything else. Okay. Challenge for me is if we're going forward on dollars. If it comes down to well, we don't have the dollars because we funded these. So there for the springfield is out. But I'm hearing you say Joe that you have at least a million for balance. Yeah, some work somewhere in that in that vicinity. Yeah, I don't know the exact dollar to the penny. Okay. So I'm fine with the sheriff's lease but um, you know, I think that once the lease is up. We should really we think about whether or not we continue to fund. That's where I am too. That's where I am to really as we hit the 10th year after that I'm. Yeah, I don't find out the Nexus is compelling right. Our subcommittee has been talking about that. Yeah. So, and again I'm looking for those little shops and businesses on Main Street I've got them on my mind. So, thanks. Do I have a motion. I think we have consensus that we are withholding a vote on. Sorry, I got to find it. That was going to be my question the pioneer Valley Planning Commission. Not that one so much as springfield mixed use parking. A nod to the restriction that the initial Toronto release is restricted to the 125 six. But it was more the springfield, the springfield parking garage that we're just not going to move on that application today is that what we landed on as a consensus. Do you mean not turn it down at this point. Right, just defer the vote on that one vote on everything else and defer vote on that one is that where we were. I would certainly appreciate that Commissioner O'Brien and, and, you know, I think that was the consensus. Okay, great. Thank you. So I think you wanted to do the honor since you put so much work into it. I'll tell you what I'll do the first one. That's all right. So madam chair with that said, I move that commission approved applications from the following applicants for funding from the community mitigation fund for the purposes described in the submitted applications and materials included in the commissioners packet. And for the reasons described there in and discussed here today. So further that the commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument commemorating these awards and accordance with 205 CMR 153.04. The city of Everett for $191,100. I think you just misspoke isn't it 199 100. Yes. This is an opportunity study to restore the sea wall Charleston pumping station and the extension of the mystic river Harbor Walk. To the city of Malden for $100,000 for the funding for a transit oriented development opportunity study. Malden Center MBTA station, the city of Holyoke for $200,000 that continue support for Holyoke tourism efforts including website update arts program promotions a shuttle between MGM and Holyoke, plan to the town of Saugus for $100,000 for the funding for native shade tree plantings along bus routes to provide shade and improve air quality for patrons and employees and to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission for $485,600 for the funding for the development of the regional business ecosystem network, implement a new capacity building network of regional business coalitions and resources to grow successful small and micro businesses to the Hamden District Attorney for $75,000 for the continued funding for DA personnel to handle casino related prosecutions and to the Hamden County Sheriff Department for $400,000 for the continued lease assistance for the Western Massachusetts Recovery and Wellness Center and to the city of Springfield for $19,600 to study to engage youth 18 to 24 in identifying problem gambling issues that need further investigation. So can I just offer an amendment as to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission grant that the initial amount for distribution is restricted to $125,600 for planning purposes and that the team come back to the commission prior to the release of the balance of the funds? I'll accept that from my amendment. And then with that, I can give you a second. You want to just check with Joe and Mary? Does that look, does that sound right? That's good. What was the amount of that, Chair or Commissioner O'Brien? 125,600. 125,600 you said? Yes. Thank you. And the second was with the friendly amendment for Commissioner O'Brien? Yes, thank you. Any further questions or comments? Okay. Look, Michelle O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes, five zero. Thank you. Thanks, great work. We love, we love the community mitigation program. All right. So Brad, are you looking for somebody else to do the partials? Oh, sure. Yeah, if we're ready to do that, I'm happy to move. That'd be great. Thank you so much. Foxport, Foxborough and Boston. Yes. Yeah. I move that the commission approve in part the city of Foxborough's joint application with the town of Plainville and the town of Rentham for funding from the community mitigation funds for the following amounts of purposes for the reasons described in the memo in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Further, the commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument commemorating these awards in accordance with 205 CMR 153.04, namely $105,000 for graphic design, animation and commercial production and $167,000 for a media buy, for a total grant award of $272,000. That's okay. Thank you. Any questions on that one? Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. So five zero. Thank you. And as to the city of Boston, I move that the commission approve in part the city of Boston's application for funding from the community mitigation fund for funding for one year of cultural and arts programming through the Powell Arts Center in the amount of $283,000 for the reasons described in the memorandum and the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further, the commission staff be authorized to execute a grant instrument commemorating these awards in accordance with 205 CMR 153.04. Second. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. Five zero. That takes care of. Somebody has to be the heavy on the nose, right? On the denial. We need a vote on revere. Yeah. There's a I have no problem given and taking away. Well, if you would like, I can do. I move that the commission deny the application for funding from the community mitigation fund for funding for a master plan planning process for Squire Road to promote economic development and mobility for residents. Small businesses and workforce development partners submitted by the city of Riviera for the reasons described in the memorandum in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Second. With the comment, Madam Chair, that this was a good project. And even though I joked at the beginning of the motion, no, it was it was a very good. Yeah. And we appreciate the application. Okay. Any questions? Mr. Brian. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. And I vote yes. Five, zero. I'm super scrolling, but trying to keep up. Then the next one, I think it's the spring field. Is that the only other one? In the same coalition, we couldn't fund because they were not. And Joe's going to reach out to them. Could you say that one again? Please, Christian Hill. The safe coalition was a nonprofit and under our God. That's right. Right, right, right. And so we have to act on them separately. Or no. I mean, it's just, is it a deficient application? I mean, do we deny them or he's never, you know, if they're not eligible and not eligible, I don't, I don't think it really needs a vote, but I guess I defer to Todd on whether he thinks a vote is necessary. I think it's always helpful to take official action on every application that comes in and if it's being denied, even for procedural issues, that's a good practice with that said, madam chair, I would move that the commission denied the application for funding from the community mitigation fund for peer gambling support group submitted by a safe coalition for reasons described in the memorandum in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Very good. Any comments or questions other than thank you for getting back to them, Joe, and I hope that they are able to find a eligible. Hey, Michelle, Brian. Hi, Mr. Hill. Hi, Mr. Skinner. Hi, Mr. Maynard. All right. I vote yes, five, zero. And do we have to do anything affirmative with respect to Springfield or our discussion is that we're going to hold, right? No, I think that this was that we would just defer that discussion. So I think that's okay. That that's it. Correct. That wraps up for today. Stay tuned next week for same bat time, same bat channel. And thank you for the the memorandum. Always very, very good. We're going to keep up today. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Okay, commissioners, it's about 21. I think I'd like to recommend that we go on to. So I actually need a break, Madam Chair. I'm sorry. Okay. So I was going to just see if we get the finance in, but that's all right. You can start. Yeah, I mean, there's no vote. I'm not going to start without you. I just want to want you to know why I was thinking. Yeah. All right. So why do we want to take our lunch break now? Or just a short break, lunch break, Mr. Skinner, I'm nodding our head. That's fine. Mr. Hill, lunch break. Oh, okay. Excellent. So it's 12, um, about 12, 20. Why don't we, um, we'll come back to it just before one, please. Okay. If we can move things along. Thank you for a really productive morning. Thank you. We'll reconvene at just before one. How's that, Dave? All good. Thank you. One minute, everyone. I'm just, the only thing says my battery is running low. So I've got to. That's happening to me. I'm into. I'm funny. I think I just didn't have it fully in the, um, computer. Mr. Scare, there, because everything else, it seems to be charging all around me. There we go. Okay. So this is a reconvening. Oh, do I have everyone? Yes. We're reconvening of the Massachusetts gaming commission. Good afternoon. We started, um, earlier today with a good amount of community affairs work reporting this meeting virtually. So I will do a roll call. Commissioner O'Brien. I am here. Mr. Hill. I'm here. Mr. Skinner. Good afternoon. And commissioner Maynard. I'm here. Okay. Excellent. So we are turning then. Public meeting 454 and we're on item number three. I'm going to turn to, um, our finance team and commissioner Skinner as treasurer. Good afternoon, madam chair and commissioners. Um, we are joined by Douglas O'Donnell and John Scully, and we are here to provide you with the third quarterly update for fiscal year 2023, which covers a period of January 1, 2023 through March 31st, 2023. The information begins on page 43 of the meeting packet. But before we dive into the update, um, finance team would like to congratulate Arlen Carballo on her promotion at the, at MGM. It's great to see her get recognition and continue to provide stability to the financial operations at MGM, Springfield. Now, moving on to our quarterly update. Uh, after two quarterly updates, the gaming control fund had an approved budget of 35.97 million requiring an assessment of 29.88 million on licensees. In this quarterly update, we are increasing spending projections by 353.7 thousand for the costs of the independent monitor that were paid between January 1 and March 31st because that item is paid for a solely by on co Boston Harbor. We are also increasing revenue projections for the gaming control fund by, uh, that same 353,000 through three quarters of activity, the budget items we were watching, the gaming enforcement overtime and litigation costs are sufficient for this fiscal year and we do not anticipate any additional assessments on the gaming licensees. Moving on to the sports wagering budget through the first two quarterly updates of FY 23, the commission approved a sports wagering budget of 4.75 million, which required an assessment of 2.236 million. Uh, we are decreasing that assessment by 118.5 thousand, um, which is composed of two operators, one who chose to not move forward with their license and one who chose not to not begin operations until FY 24. In addition, the sports wagering budget has recognized an additional one million in licensuring revenue for vendors, which were not initially budgeted. We continue to experience delays and hiring of our sports wagering dedicated staff, whether that's just for the sports wagering or for, um, support operations like an IT legal, um, IEB licensing, um, but the combination of increased revenue and delays and spending results in us not having to, uh, adjust any spending, but we will probably have to give back quite a bit at the end of the year of the assessment that we've collected, um, because we collected a $2 million assessment and now we have a million in revenue that we were not projecting. Something we may want to discuss during the budget process of how we would go about doing that, um, revision, but we'll hold that up to a later date because at this point that is our complete update. We do not have that much, um, by means of variances and adjustments to go over. So at this point, if the commission has any questions, we are here and available to answer any and all of them. Mr. Skinner, do you want to add in? I don't. I think, um, Derek did a fine job. Thank you, Derek and team. Thank you. My first questions for, um, Derek, good to see you, John and Doug, to the whole team. Thank you. Anything else? All right. I'm going to item number four. Thank you. Administrative update. Thank you. Thank you, Derek. Um, an update from second director, well, and if, um, before you go to item, um, a, uh, Karen, if you just want to give an update that would be, thank you so much. Uh, so one update I do have for the commissioners, uh, is the, uh, fact that we are in the process to conduct, uh, uh, an independent audit of the casinos regarding their, um, diversity numbers and their diversity spend and hiring. So the finance team has worked with Joe Delaney, who is works in his role, not only is for the community mitigation fund, you see all that work, but also with external compliance of our licensees. So, uh, we are putting because the amount of work that this would take and for the, uh, credibility of having an independent honor, we are putting out our piece. So we're looking at statewide contracts. So that's going to be hitting the street, I believe, uh, this week. So we will get, uh, two weeks, um, uh, having it out there and then we will get responses and then we will, uh, it's select, uh, a company or individuals to conduct that audit. But it's something the commission, um, has always been very interested in, in the diversity, um, in the diversity reporting of our licensees and it's simply best practices, um, to be checking things that are reported. So, uh, we'll be going forward with that. I know that Joe and I talked a lot about, about going forward and some additional, uh, compliance and audit, uh, operations, uh, as the gaming regulator, um, I know we've been really busy with sports wagering, but we're back into a lot of things that we had planned before that came along and this is one of those things. Um, I don't know, Chair, if you have any other comments, I know you would, uh, definitely, uh, prompted this. So I want to make sure your thoughts are heard here as well. Well, thank you for that, Karen. I'm very appreciative of that, that you were moving right ahead and looking at the statewide contract and I think it's an endeavor. So thank you. Excellent. Okay. The other questions? Well, sorry to commission. I have a question. Is that RFP available for review? Yeah, I can, uh, let me check with Derek and Joe, um, because I think that, uh, Derek and Joe worked with John Scully. So I know they've got it. We want to take a look. Yes, we have to put it together on the specific format for that statewide contract. So it's basically a statement of work. So we could give you one, um, or the other. We can give you just a general three or four paragraphs that say this is what we're looking for, which is what I'd recommend, or we can give you the longer statement of work form, which is going to throw in all the requirements that we have to put under that, um, under that type of bid. I'd like the latter, please. Um, I haven't heard this before, so I'm curious to know how long this has been in the work. I'm glad it's happening, but if I, you know, could you share a little bit more information about what led to the determination? So, um, there, there was some, especially, you know, there've been some litigation out in Springfield that sort of prompted the discussion that we should be checking these kinds of things. Um, and then it made sense. It's not just about one licensee, but best practices. We should be checking all our licensees for different aspects of their regulatory compliance, whether it's diversity or other things. But this seemed like a good thing to start because that has been priority of the commission from day one. And this commission is very, um, interested in that. So that was the impetus for going forward. Yeah. And then I think I did have some conversations with Chief Delaney about resources, and I think he made the determination with Executive Director Wells that rather than using internal resources that they would go out to bid. And I would say that we, um, want to be mindful of the procurement process. Um, uh, I'm not sure, uh, I know that, um, John is, is our specialist, but, uh, I'm trusting that the bid processes is underway and thank you for taking care of it. It's in the future. If, uh, I mean, I'm speaking for myself as one commissioner where we have, um, projects of this nature that are underway. If, if we could be notified in your administrative update in advance, Karen, that would be greatly appreciated. I just, I struggle with hearing things for the first time, um, after they've already been put in the works and, um, essentially executed. So that that's just, I don't like to do business like that where there's a determination made. I think it's only, um, you know, it's more than a courtesy, but commissioners should absolutely be briefed, uh, as soon as practical after that determination, that that decision has been made. So maybe I'm maybe this was in a private conversation that I had. I don't think so, though. I thought this came up in public commission conversation earlier, not the fact that because of resources, we were going to have to proceed by RFP in an external audit, although I had my suspicions early on, we were going to have to do that. But there were definitely conversations about the fact that we wanted to go back and check numbers. Um, because I believe the chair asked what the process had been early on, and there basically had, it had been sort of self reporting in reliance. So, um, I think this might be the first opportunity Karen's had to come to us to say so. So it's, I guess, you know, I see your point about they're already going down that road, as opposed to saying to us, just, we can't do it internally. But, um, I think this is pretty close in time to when the decision was made. And when Karen's telling us, okay, I do remember, you know, without a doubt, we had the discussion as to our desire to see some reporting, some some kind of review, check and review on the number, review process. And so I just, quite frankly, hadn't realized that there was a determination made as to how we were going to do that. So, you know, this isn't, this isn't, you know, necessarily directed at you, Karen, it's just, you know, you know, I, I think all commissioners should be receiving the same information at the same time. And that might be the case here. I just, you know, would hope that if there's already, you've already gone down a path, such such that you're reporting that the RFP is underway, then I would like to know about it as, you know, sooner rather than later, essentially before it's underway, if that's as, as, as soon thereafter, as possible, or even if that's the direction you're headed, headed in, if that's what you're proposing, it would be good to know that. Sure. And I can do a better job of updating you as well, being the treasurer, I should have done this at our, at our weekly updates. So I can do a better job of that as well. No one's, no one's to blame. I'm just, I'm just expressing my, my, my preference for communication. That's just gonna my reason why we put it on today is because I did learn that the status of the, that they had decided to go with a, this way to get the work done. And I brought it to the commissioner's attention today. So it wasn't me learning earlier or anything like that. It was just to bring everybody out to be. So thank you. And I do think one of the things is that we probably, we don't always know in advance about the work that the commission is doing. And under the leadership of executive director Wells, you know, there are other procurements that are going on right now as we speak that we may not know exactly up. If we are expecting that, then to advance notice of every, you know, activity like that, that would be a change. And, you know, I suppose Karen, maybe that's an update that you do, you know, these are procurements are underway, but I might caution that we want to be careful not to interfere with the procurements, you know, there's and Karen, I know you have been working with Derek and team to continue to standardize the procurement process, making sure I know commissioner Skinner, we just have a working group to make sure our procurements that we are very intentional around our goals under our equity and inclusion working group. But if you want to have a standing report on that, I just want to like, I guess I would just say is that we haven't asked for that in the past. Passion against being interfering in a way that would slow everything down. Here and now I'm just is there anything Derek, do you have something like, is there like a running Excel spreadsheet, Eric, or like that way if somebody was curious is to sort of what's out there, you mentioned her could take a look at it or my asking you to create a document that doesn't exist. Can I can I can I be clear I'm not I'm not asking Karen to report back on every single procurement that's happening through the throughout the agency or any project or you know, administrative matter. But where this particular topic has been such a concern for this commission. That's where I'm asking, you know, if there's something that, you know, we have expressed as a body and interested as we did with the DEI matters and the and the recording of them back to the commission. It's that kind of thing that I think elevates, you know, that project just a little bit. And so that's what I'm suggesting where there is clearly concern among the commissioners about a particular thing than where there is movement administratively on that thing. It's certainly reasonable for commissioners to be, you know, in lockstep almost with the decision making. Any other questions? OK, so the next item I have this band here who is helping out with the M.G.C. COVID-19 policy review, as you can see from the memo, we did the executive order was rescinded with respect to the vaccine mandate. We had conversation at the gender setting about bringing this back before the commission for decision making on what this agency wants to do going forward. So I'll turn it over to Tripti. She can give you the information she has about the executive branch. And as I as I was going through this before, it also ties into going back to the public meeting room. And if we're going back to the public meetings, what are we going to do with respect to the agency opening the doors to the public for the floor the 12th floor for those public meetings. So when I turn over to Tripti, she can tell you what she's word. Good afternoon, commissioners. So we had a working group for several years pertaining to COVID and we developed our own M.G.C. policies and then ultimately aligned with the executive offices policy. And then most recently on May 11th, they revoked the requirement, the vaccination requirement to be employed with the Commonwealth. And we also made that a mandate and we also made a mandate for anyone coming into our offices to be vaccinated as well as part of the decision from the working group in something that we brought to the commission, which we are following. All new hires are vaccinated. All guests and visitors must be vaccinated from the offices. And given this change, we wanted to bring this to the commission and address any questions or concerns that you have pertaining to aligning with the policy or how the commission would like to move forward with this change. Can I provide you any other information? Questions? I do have a question, Tripti. Sure. Are we? So we're we're talking about the requirement that employee an employee or visitor be vaccinated. Correct. That's the subject of Executive Order 595. Do we know what the executive branch is doing about? The the actual visitors policy. So in mask wearing, I mean, and we haven't had a masking requirement, I guess, in a while. I don't think other than in situations where you've been exposed. But I think there are, for instance, in school settings, even though the rules have been relaxed and sort of the emergency has been lifted, those institutions still have a requirement that students be vaccinated and in certain circumstances be masked. The hospital that my children go to. They don't require that you be vaccinated. They don't require that you wear a mask. It's optional, except where you've been exposed to COVID. So do we have any guidance from the executive branch that speaks to any of those circumstances? So the executive branch didn't require folks to come into their offices to be vaccinated. That was something additional that the working group decided to include as an extra measure of safety. So that that's the big distinction from the MGC versus the and then requiring any vendors or anyone coming into our offices to be vaccinated. That was that was the big piece. We have this particular one. This order speaks to condition of employment to be employed for the common well. You must be vaccinated. That was an executive order. And then we also had that same order. Does that answer your question? Well, let me try to ask it differently. So are we only in the in the commissions policy? Are we only dealing with the vaccination requirement and we're leaving all of all of the other precautions in place? So two parts. So the first question is that we are asking for the commission to decide if they would want to align with the executive order and revoke the vaccination requirement as a condition of hire. And and also how would they like to move? How would you like to move forward with guests coming into the office for purposes of public meeting and otherwise? But then what about exposure to to COVID in and in the requirement to quarantine and all that? How are we? How are you proposing we deal with that? Or those remain the same. The CDC issued the COVID exposure guidelines back in August of twenty twenty two. And some of those had changed over time and the M.G.C. adopted those alignment, those requirements in October of twenty twenty two. Because the measure were loosened a little bit and when you know, how long someone needed to quarantine when they could return with the mask versus when they can return completely without a mask. Those measures will still remain if anyone, any employee is test positive, they would notify HR. We would, you know, follow our protocols in terms of day of, you know, when they tested positive, if they had interactions with anyone to the appropriate notifications and such. And then ask that they work remotely or not return to office the office for a certain period of time. Can I ask your is right today? We really are getting guidance only on the vaccines. I know Commissioner Skinner is asking beyond this. But today it's centered on the vaccination because I'm not sure we have in front of us, like the the executive branches guidance on mask wearing or exposure to to COVID or what the CDC is recommending now since twenty twenty two. There's been quite a bit of change. It may be exactly what's aligned with this. But today we don't have materials on that, do we? We don't. That's why I was asking that's why I was asking the question because I wanted to be absolutely starting that what we were dealing with was holding the VACS requirement and not all the stuff. Thank you for raising it. I guess I would say that what I would want to say is today we center on what's in front of us and to Commissioner Skinner's questions. What I don't want to do is say that you're just going to agree to what's my place, you know, before I think we need to revisit that in light of the changing policies, because I don't really even know, you know, what the executive branch is doing. I don't have it in front of me. And I haven't studied that Commissioner Skinner. So I mean, I hear me. I don't know. I don't know which way you're you're leaning in terms of what you'd like. But for me, I don't have any information. I don't know how the other questions right there with you. So today can we agree that right now we're just I think there's been some questions about having the public come to our or even having a guest come to our offices and do we need to require them to show proof of vaccination? I certainly would like to understand that our policy is going to be on that. And what you're recommending, truth. Both of you are correct. At this point, this, you know, this memo speaks to the decision by the executive order that does not require vaccination requirement as a condition of employment. And I want to just we want to bring that to your attention and, you know, get your point of view on that and sort of or have a discussion pertaining to that. That is something that we want to do. So that's on and that's vaccination as a status for a condition of employment. So let's look at that first. First is the guest. Then we'll get into the other issues that Commissioner Skinner raised afterwards. And maybe we'll have to just care and I think we'll maybe have to come back. So commissioners, the executive branch has lifted that requirement. And I hear some I'm not hearing from truly an HR recommendation. I don't know if that's the case. Do you have a recommendation? I don't. This is a decision for the commission in terms of how they want to move forward. I mean, one of the things. You know, one of the things that come to mind is we do use other HR services and you know, they have posted on their career sites where we are actively recruiting. We need to be clear about if we have this requirement, vaccination requirement or not. And that's one of the things that the deciding component, but it's up to the commission to decide. That's an implication for hiring. I understand. You have to push that. OK, that's helpful. Commissioner Skinner. Can I can I ask, do you know whether any agencies or other independent agencies are retaining the vaccination requirements, a condition of hire, notwithstanding the executive branch dropping the mandate in that executive order? I actually do not. I don't. But I can look into that and sorry. Yeah, so what what still lingers in my mind is having all of us live through it was in the conversation we have about our lease and shared space and hybrid of people sharing, you know, whatever, I still have a concern about it. So just for what it's worth on mind, I'm not recommending we drop it at this point. And I again, I know I'm the pessimist here, but that's where my gut is at this point. Mr. Maynard, I am just going to maybe you went first. I'm sorry. I'm going to add, you know, I don't think that I'm ready to to decide today. I wonder if. The governor's rescission of the order is tied to something other than some data, perhaps other than the. Lifting of the emergency by the U.S. government. So, you know, if there's any data that, you know, suggests. And supports the you know, the lifting of that, it would be great to know so that we can consider that when we're making the determination. OK. Mr. Maynard. So actually, Commissioner Skinner's comment fits hand in hand with what I was going to say, which is. The governor's office has unlimited amount of resources to tap when it comes to the White House, the CDC, Health and Human Services, both, you know, federal version and state version. Other public health officials. I. Can speak. First hand knowledge that putting the executive order into effect. Was a tough decision, and it was it was well, well thought. And I have no doubt. That this administration has put a lot of thought into what they've done in this new executive order. A little bit emotional thinking about it, actually, about the amount of work that goes into to do in these and making these decisions. For those reasons, I'm going to assume the administration has turned over every rock and looked in every crevice and I would support going in line with them. I will say this, Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Skinner. Personally, I recommend everyone to get the vaccine. I am a huge proponent of it. I think it's a miracle. But I would. I would fall in line with with the administration on this. And I'm sorry. If I could just piggyback on something just, you know, I am I have to upload my my daughter's COVID card for school and I'm just I'm curious as to why that is despite the federal rescission of the COVID emergency. I just, you know, I want to just if there's some other information out there and I don't I don't doubt that. This administration here in Massachusetts conducted due diligence. I just you know, I just did it last week and that was after the lift. So I want to make sure that we're covering all our basis in terms of what information is out there. Yeah, I did the same thing for summer camps, not all of them, but some of them. And so I think each entity institution employer in setting has their own risk tolerance level, right? And I think that's what we're being asked to decide. Like I said, I know I'm more cautious on some of this stuff and I feel like it's not quite time to do that. But I don't know that we're going to get the answer you're looking for. I'm not saying I understand and respect your desire to get to see if it's out there. But my guess is it's really going to be our risk tolerance at the end of the day. That's fair. No. I'll be short and sweet to the point, Madam Chair, I support the administration's order and I support us sending our order. I don't have an issue doing that. Now, I'll follow suit. I've stood by this since day one. I'm going with the science and going with experts. The executive office, it's been, you know, the Department of Public Health, they work with all the experts. I have very similar experience in my professional life. Really, probably the last 25 years of relying on those experts. And like, like Commissioner Maynard, it is a miracle, but also echo Commissioner Maynard's sentiments that I support everyone being fully vaccinated, getting their, their boosters taking advantage of the medical care and the science that has allowed us to be able to resume our travel, are going to conferences, having our commission workers work, you know, in the offices together, we meet in conference rooms. We are going out as families. We are going out socially. We are going to restaurants. We are going to concerts. I also don't know. I'm always very careful about this, but I don't believe I haven't heard what our the casinos are requiring, Karen, we do have employees of gaming commission on those floors. And so for I'm always very careful to say that whatever our employees have to experience on the floors, that the casinos to do their job. I don't feel that our office should have a prevail on this. That should, in any way, be help different standards of of COVID protection. But I would absolutely comply with the executive offices. Recommendations on the vaccination. I am not ready to go on masks or anything else like that, because I don't think I have that. Karen, do you know what the casino floors are doing? Have you heard that? It's interesting because you know, to the commissioners points, it's not this was the narrow issue for today, just about the vaccine requirements that tied into the executive order. But for example, the red had flagged requirement 12 O of the casino requirements, which had the reporting. Basically, there's a link liaison and that safety officer reporting and her recommendations that would be lifted. I said to her that would be it's something for another meeting. So there are a lot of other things, including the requirements of the casinos that my expectation was we would decide on another day. I'm not sure as we sit here today, what the casino requirements, they did have the vaccine requirements. I'm not aware of that being rescinded, and I would have thought they would have told us. But let me check with Loretta because she was running point on that. She's out in the office today. So I think it would be really helpful to have that information again. Yeah, you know, I think maybe maybe commissioner Skinner, you've raised questions that show that we should be looking at this from a holistic point of view. And maybe coming in today with just the vaccine was kind of throwing us a little bit because we don't have a full plate of information in front of us. But I don't know how you want to proceed commissioners. Yeah, I think the point you raised about what the casinos are doing, given that we have staff. Based out of the properties, I think it would be prudent to understand what their protocols are, how they've chosen to revise their policies, if at all, in light of the emergency being rescinded. I'll also add, you know, to Chupi's one point. To the extent that. It impacts our hiring. No, I think that's important for us to think about, but I'm I'm fine. Karen, tabling this for really no more than a week so that we can get, but we should be looking at all of the COVID related policies, perhaps more holistically, so that we can be consistent across the board. Commissioners, I mean, I see Commissioner Brown, I see you nodding your head. Are you you think that's how we should maybe approach it? Yeah, yeah, I was mistakenly assuming there was some sort of time sensitive reason, maybe someone in the queue as to why we had it taken in isolation. But I do think it logically makes sense to look at the entire policy that we have. And then just come back and decide whole cloth, you know, are we lifting all of it, retaining parts of it? What are we doing? Right. And I do need to see like what CDC policy is and and the Department of Public Health is doing because, you know, through the executive branch, because I've that's the only way personally I can think is the, you know, what the scientists are coming up with. Commissioner Hill and Commissioner Maynard, are you good with that? Like if we table it for I know that race may be listening. She's not available right now, but I know we've got Trudy on. So we'll look for the next proper meeting to add this to the you don't need a little bit of time to get it all together, Trudy. So I said like a week that may not be quite enough, but let's do it. We'll do what we can here. OK, thank you so much. All right. Is that helpful? Is that helpful? No, it's good to have this direction. We discussed some of it in the agenda setting meeting, but I think that now that we have everyone there and would be helpful to help you make a decision, it's good to be back. Yeah, because I think it's commissioners can point out it's really all right, excellent. And I think we are moving to IEB and do we have I see Kathleen available and Heather. Good afternoon, counselors. It's nice to see you. Chair and commissioners, thank you. I just want to know that Kathleen Kramer did a lot of work on this matter and with that said, I will turn it over to her and we'll be happy to answer any questions afterwards. Right. And I just want to point out that Grace did hear that she's she has to be out of the office, but everybody's doing their job. So now I can turn right over to IEB. Thank you so much. Thank you, Heather. Good afternoon, chair and commissioners. I'm here today to give you an update on a civil administrative penalty that the IEB issued to MGM and the agreed amount of forty five thousand dollars for permitting underage individuals on the gaming floor. The fine covered the time period of June twenty twenty two through December twenty twenty two and involved twenty two incidents. Twenty one of those incidents involved underage reminders individual scaling. None of the incidents involved alcohol. But the twenty two incidents that were outlined in the assessment, the IEB imposed fines on eight specific incidents in determining whether to assess a fine for a particular incident. The IEB considered a number of factors, including the age of the underage or a minor person, how and where they entered the gaming area, whether they interacted with MGM security personnel prior to entry and what occurred during that interaction, whether they interacted with other staff and what occurred during that interaction, whether they aimed and how long they were on the floor before being approached by staff. Just want to highlight a few things about enforcement action. As the commission is aware, the IEB has previously issued civil administrative penalties to MGM for underage incidents. Those occurred in 2019 and two thousand twenty one. And I'm not able to answer any questions that which has respect to those prior fines. And I also want to acknowledge that MGM has recognized the importance of this issue and taken steps to address it. Some of the steps you heard earlier during the quarterly report. At this point, I'd like to thank members of the IEB team that worked on this, including Chief Enforcement Counsel at all. IEB director Loretta Lilios and enforcement counsel Deandra Franks, as well as the team at MGM for their responsiveness and cooperation. And I'm happy to answer any questions that the commission may have. Kathleen, if you could just go over the twenty nineteen and the twenty one, because I know the fine amount kind of goes up, down, up, not quite as high. So. But are you and I spoke about this when you alerted me to sort of the fact of this? So I do think just that good for public public consumption right now. Yeah, I'm happy to. So the twenty nineteen fine was four hundred thousand dollars. That fine involved fifty two incidents and was over an eight month time period. The incidents of themselves were some of them were different in nature than what we dealt with here and that they involved alcohol and a number of them also involved the individuals gaming at table games versus slots. Then there was a fine that was issued in twenty twenty one. That fine was for the amount of eighteen thousand dollars and it covered three incidents that occurred in a one month time period. So it was a significantly less number of incidents than what we dealt with here over a shorter period of time and that our first one was a greater fine as it dealt with more incidents. Think some of the more of more serious nature, the offense and a longer period of time. And when you specifically talked about what we heard about earlier, I assume some of what you're talking about is them putting in, you know, the pony walls that guard those railings so that it can block some of the access onto the floor that we historically have maintained. Yes, some of the measures that we discussed with MGM include those additional guard rails that they discussed. They added some locations where they noticed just an influx of underage miners having access to the floor includes the additional security podium that's just laid it to go in that south and market area. Additional, I think they're calling the staff ambassadors to that will be on hand during high peak traffic times of families that at the property additional signage. And I think they're likely will get some additional security measures. Great. Thanks. Other questions? OK, Kathleen, thank you very much. Thank you. You have another report for us Heather today. We do, chair. Thank you. We have enforcement counsel, Zach Mercer, who is here to brief the commission on a non-compliance matter with respect to drafting. So with that, I will turn it over to Zach. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and commissioners. On March 23, 2023, Joseph McCann, Dracking. We're getting some feedback. Zach, you have an echo. So I'm not sure where you're sitting, but we are. Do you have a phone going as well? I don't have a phone going. No. Here we go. The echo is still there. Let's try again. We have a group of all of you out of it. Interesting. It sort of sounds heavenly, though, you know? You sound like you're coming to baseball game. Yeah, a little. So it's not bad. It's just a little hard to understand. Zach, if you can come in here, you can certainly, if it doesn't resolve, you can always come in here. I want to make sure we can understand every word. Yeah, can you hear me now? We're still doing the same thing. OK. Maybe I'll go ahead and resolve this one second. Thank you. Jordan, I was trying to think what was familiar about it. Baseball game is exactly it. Now batting. Yeah. But I'm glad about batting. I can't remember the announcer's name, but he was awesome. He was there for like 100 years. He was there when I think the park was built. It's an important report. So we want to make sure we can hear you. And Bruce, we can see you now, but you're still a wetted. I think I'm in witness protection right now. No one's sitting next to Bruce, apparently. Camera issues, what can I say? Pat Todd came in with the that devilish voice one day a couple of times. We haven't had too many audio issues. I don't know. Maybe folks in the IT team can help Zach down the road. There you are. I'm back. Hopefully that's been remedied now. Yeah. And Heather, we know you're there. So I'm here. Thank you so much. OK. OK. So on March 23, 2023, Joseph McCann, Draft King's regulatory incident, senior manager, notified the commission's sports wagering director, Bruce Bann, by email. The Draft King's had made the UTR Pro Series an unapproved tennis league available for wagering in Massachusetts earlier that month. The UTR Pro Series is a series of tennis tournaments with cash prizes. These tournaments are open to tennis players above a certain universal tennis rating, which is a rating system that algorithmically generates a numerical assessment of players based upon their last 30 eligible matches over the preceding 12 months. In addition to this rating, players must meet certain ranking requirements and be 14 years of age or older. The IAB learned the following key facts during its review. The timeframe that the wagering was allowed was from March 10, 2023 to March 22, 2023. As for the events, numbers of wagers and amounts, 68 wagers of the UTR Pro Series event in Barcelona, Spain were made totaling at $965.47. 22 wagers on the UTR Pro Series event in Newport Beach, California totaling $589.41. 774 wagers on the UTR Pro Series event in Tigray, Argentina totaling $6,312.12, bringing the total amount of wagers to $864, and the total hold to $7,867. As for the reported reason for the error, DraftKings reported that their trading support team discovered that the UTR events were enabled for wagering from the period of time from launch until the date of discovery. DraftKings stated that the reason for this error was a miscommunication between the trading team and the trading compliance team. Their usual practice involved a weekly coordination between those teams to confirm authorized tennis wagering markets on a jurisdictional basis. This is done by the submission of a file with the upcoming weeks markets and events from the trading team to the trading compliance team. In this instance, DraftKings' trading team had copied the tennis offerings from a different jurisdiction without verifying Massachusetts approval with their trading compliance team. In regards to remedial or mitigating information, DraftKings self-reported this matter and it was cooperative with the IUD's review. Following this incident of non-compliance, DraftKings voided all wagers on the unapproved events and notified all impacted customers. Once the wagers were voided, any wings were removed from the players' balances and the stakes were returned. And any losing wagers also had their stake returned. Additionally, DraftKings removed the UTR markets upon their discovery, reformed a review of all tennis markets to confirm compliance and relayed to their trading team that all new market requests must be submitted to their trading compliance team prior to being made available. Questions for staff? So you're looking for guidance Heather and Zach on next steps? Yes, Chair. I think in the past, the way we've done it is, you know, we've done the briefing from IEB and then the Commission votes on, you know, the next steps. So the Commissioners, we've had a few of these that we've gone through the adjudicatory process. I understand from Todd that we are expecting the decisions to start coming through now because we have had our our processes have concluded we're looking to be able to issue those decisions. Do we want to take the same route and have an adjudicatory hearing on this matter? Commissioners. Michelle Bryan, you're leaning in. I can go either way on this one in terms of letting IEB take the lead. I am I get a little frustrated when I see what we just copied from somebody else. It didn't check the book in Massachusetts. But I don't know whether that was sort of benign neglect or whether that was something else. And so for me, whether IEB dives into sort of the deeper explanation as to how that happened or whether there's nothing more to be said, I'm fine with IEB taking a lead on this one. Michelle, can you just give me my own recommendation would be that given that we're still early on and I think our goal is to kind of establish our own priorities. I want to one recognize backings for self-disclosure. I appreciate that. I think we've acknowledged that in the past. I want to acknowledge it here. I'm anxious to get our process. I'm not sure if it needs to actually be part of the reg. But there is a document that's underway. I really feel Secretary Director Welles work with Sports Division and the IEB to make sure that we are consistent. But my recommendation would still be given that we haven't issued our decisions on the other non-compliance that were self-disclosed. I'm thinking we can treat this one the same way. And the reason why Commissioner Bryant, like you, I am a little frustrated and I would like to make sure that this practice doesn't continue, you know, that we just really ensure that the operators know that this is something that the commission takes very seriously. And so from my point of view, I'd like to be consistent. But Commissioner Hill. My feeling was the exact same. We stated early on that we wanted to see these come before us at the beginning of this process. And I think we're still at the beginning of that process. So I would agree with you that an adjudicatory hearing probably should take place on this particular issue. OK, thank you, Commissioner Hill. Commissioner Skinner. I would also like to see the process outlined in whatever document or format that legal recommends. I worry that if we defer this to me to review that they won't have any real guidance or an understanding of, you know, the what the commission has has indicated are its priorities and the factors that we deem extremely important in setting a fine or a penalty. So that would be my only hesitation in sending that sending this matter to IEB at this juncture. Thank you, Commissioner. I'm out of the same mind. You know, until we get enough of these kind of through, I agree with Commissioner Skinner and how she she worried that I will caution that I'm worried about prolonging some of these decisions. So whatever we need to do or I need to do as a commissioner, I'm happy to do to make sure that we're turning these around fairly quickly. And then if I understand the process, it would still involve legal writing up the decisions or IEB or not. I mean, I'm wrong. That would just still would be if IEB were to be investigating further as Commissioner Grimes would legal be writing up the decisions or would IEB? Yeah, if it goes to the IEB, you'll recall that they would make a recommendation. They would share that with the commission and the licensee. And if the licensee accepts that, it would come to the commission for final review, at which point you could schedule it for an adjudicatory proceeding if you disliked the agreed upon recommendation. But if you were OK with it, that would end the case and there would be no final decision after that. Not be a decision. I like how Commissioner Skinner framed it. I'm looking for a little bit of a body of work here that we can use to give guidance as this commission as we, you know, Spiderman stood up, Spiderman trained. So do we have enough of a consensus, Commissioner O'Brien? Yeah, no, so I'm in the same spot. I have a concern, as Commissioner Maynter said, about the pace and I feel the lack of bringing these in for a landing also sends its own message. And so this one to me felt discreet enough that we might consider sending it to IEB, but I have no problem taking it on ourselves. Secretary Director Wells, I know during our weekly meetings I've expressed that concern and I understand that you've worked with legal and some kind of a kind frame. That's correct. Yeah, so. I don't want to apply that it's in any way. Anybody shirking off? It's just the nature of, you know, working through this. So we'll get this marked up for another another hearing. And again, commissioners, I think you probably all join me in thanking Dr. King's for self-disclosure and then we'll move on as to our assessment. Anything else, commissioners? Commissioner Skinner, you all sent? Mr. Hill? Hey, Commissioner Maynter? Michelle O'Brien, I think I saw you nodding my head. All right. All right, thank you, Zach. Nicely done. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, commissioners. Heather, to the right. Thank you, everyone. I can't quite see you, but we hear you. So thank you. All right, commissioners, do you have any other business? Is that good, Director Wells? Do you have any other business? I do not. I do not. So with that, I think hearing to adjourn. We can move with adjourn. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Everyone else that? Michelle O'Brien? Hi. Mr. Hill? Hi. Mr. Skinner? Mr. Maynard? Hi. And I vote yes. Thank you, everyone. Great work. Five-zero. Have a great day. Thank you.