 much. Good morning, everyone. Brad, I see that you corrected your technical issue. I'll set. Good, good, good. We'll get started and just confirm, given that we are conducting this meeting virtually, that commissioners are all present and I'll remind you to the public that this meeting is being recorded. Good morning, Commissioner Cameron. Good morning, everyone. I am present. Good morning, Commissioner O'Brien. Good morning. I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, President. Okay, we'll get started today. It's February 10th, 2022. It's public meeting number 370. I want to, before we get started, thank Crystal Howard. This is mostly a long, robust agenda and it took quite a bit of work to get into shape and it came out fabulous. I want to thank those who agreed to present their work and presentations at our next meeting. We had to ask for little flexibility from some, both external guests and some members of our team so that we could accommodate today's long meeting. So thank you, everyone, for that. We appreciate it. I am teased about packing dinner for today's meeting and then I realized it was going to be a second breakfast so we had to do something different. So thank you. All right, we'll get started within the minutes. Commissioner O'Brien. Certainly, there are two sets of minutes in the packet today. The general council group is working on clearing a backlog that's in there. May 6th and November 4th of 21. I have commented, Todd and I have spoken about this, that there are a little light on our commentary in these two drafts. More summary of what staff did. The ones that will be forthcoming will have more detail about our participation and sort of less of an emphasis on staff presentations. But in terms of sufficiency of capturing these meetings and moving forward, I am moving that we approve the two sets that are in the packet today. Unless anyone has questions before I move to start approving the minutes. Okay, I would start with May 6th, 2021. And I would move the commission approve those minutes subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non material matters. Second, everyone had a chance to review them. Any and I think Commissioner Hill, you were not present for this first set. Okay, then we'll go ahead. Commissioner Cameron. I. Commissioner Brian. I. Commissioner Hill. Abstain. Yeah. And I don't. Yes. Thank you so much. And then the second packet is November 4th of 2021. And I would also move we approve those minutes subject to any necessary changes for typographical errors or other non material matters. Sir, sir. Thank you. Any questions or edits on this? All right. Commissioner Cameron. I. Commissioner Brian. I. Commissioner Hill. I. And I vote yes. Porter zero. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. And thanks to the legal team. And thank you to Commissioner Brian. Before you arrived, Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Brian agreed to take on the role of secretary and it's no easy task. So we appreciate her service very, very much. Thank you. Okay. Moving on then to Karen Executive Director Wells. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. So the first item is an update from Bruce Band on what's going on at the casino sites. Good morning, commissioners. I have a short update today. First, from MGM. They wanted me to tell you that they had a day one employee. Retired, which is Randall, one of their canines that's retiring. The Florida with his with his handler. The other thing is is that they will be reopening top golf initially by reservation only. And they're opening it up to their to the Springfield Police and Fire Department initially. The other big thing was the opening of poker at encore, which seems to have lines of players at least when I saw it yesterday. The demand seems to be there and everything seems to be going well. Anybody has any questions? Questions, Commissioner Cameron. Director band. I did have the opportunity to read all about Randall and thank you for mentioning it. A great career and I can't enough about how invaluable our canine partners are to to law enforcement. So that was really a good story to include. So I appreciate it and top golf opening up. So that's a sign of that. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Things to come as well, right? A little more all the time opening. So good report. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for all right. So the next is the COVID-19 update. What I really wanted to focus on this morning was we had the commission voted at a prior meeting to reopen the Boston offices on Monday. That's the 14th. The commission voted at last week. We did know that the numbers weren't quite back to where we were when we reopened in November. We've been looking at that as somewhat of a benchmark. The latest numbers we had for Suffolk County and Massachusetts at large. The positivity rate. For example, on the week of 119 to 122 went from 11.8 percent down to 6.75 percent. And the positivity rate and asset at large that week of 19 to 122 went from 15.33 to 10.06. So there's clearly a precipitous drop. But they're not quite at the numbers we were at in November when we opened, which was more around the 2 percent. The latest information I have from the governor's website and also there were some reports on the news have the positivity rate for an average of the last seven days were more at 4 percent. So you can see the trend is dropping precipitously and inconsistent with the graphs that you can see on the Mass Department of Public Health website. We also recognize that not only the gaming agents, but other businesses have been operating in person. At the time last week, the working group suggested potentially a two week delay in the reopening. So the numbers would match. It looks as if there was a bit of a stall over the last week, but this week the numbers are going down and consistent with that. The latest, pardon me, the extrapolating it out. It appears that the numbers will be consistent with our prior reopening in about a week, maybe two weeks. But the trend is going down and I think you'll note there has been a lot of public information about the approach to going back. I note that the governor lifted the school Mass requirement as of February 28. There's certainly some debate. You can see that in the media reports on the Mass requirements. We do note that our employees are required to be vaccinated. So the folks that are in the Boston office will all be vaccinated. So I'll open it up if either of the commissioners want to comment. The other issue is for masks. The working group spoke about that. The suggestion is that when we do reopen, we have the Mass in the common areas, but not when someone is at their office or a work station. We did look at the size of the cubicle areas. And it seems as if there's enough protection there that folks do not have to wear their masks when they're sitting in their cubicles or working in their offices, but initially they may want to have a Mass requirement for public areas or where people are congregating, at least for a short period of time. We may be able to lift that shortly thereafter. But that's sort of where we are on the reopening. I guess the thought is right now do we wait a week or so or maybe two weeks to reopen the offices so the numbers are consistent with where we were last time. And we could do either, but if we do reopen on Monday, I think we would have to have the Mass requirement at least for a short period of time. So that's where we are right now. Open up to the commissioners if you have any questions or any thoughts going forward. Commissioners. Commissioner Cammie. You know, again, part of the working group. You know, I was, there was some talk about, you know, hesitancy to have the mask on the entire time. And I understand that. So I agree with Karen's thought that in the workspace itself, not having to wear that mask all day long and then getting up for the public makes makes a lot of sense. Also, there was the percentage in Suffolk County still was a bit high. And so there was some concern that maybe two weeks it would be a much, much Suffolk would probably be in line with the rest of the state and be easier to kind of get around Boston and be a little more comfortable with the public transportation. So I thought, and the other thing in the working group that I wasn't aware of that was somewhat persuasive to me is the fact that there's still quite a bit in HR informed us of COVID within our families, within our organization, right? And they're shuffling, you know, isolations around, I guess I didn't realize that that is still pretty prevalent and maybe HR can speak to that, but that was something that was brought up in the in our working group meeting last week that was somewhat persuasive that maybe another week or two made some sense to get everybody really safe and in a better position. And I believe that would be after school vacation as well, which always has created some challenges. So just some thoughts. Sure, Brian. No, that that's a summary. That's an accurate summary of the conversations that we had on sticking hard to the 14th or particularly looking at school vacation week and looking at some travel that might happen, you know, the family issues that are going on, some people have been wrapping this up. It seems like if you go to the end of the month, the numbers will line up with where we were in November close to it, maybe not quite that low, but pretty close to it. The current trajectory holds. So that's the decision we had come to earlier when the numbers were a little higher. So it's great to see the numbers coming down, but it still seems to make sense to me rather than struggle with the masking for a couple of weeks till it's a little more uniform in terms of them dropped everywhere. It would seem to still make sense. I'm in agreement with what I think is being proposed on waiting a couple of weeks. I have to keep reminding myself that although I live in Essex County, I work in Suffolk County and we don't get the statistics that Gail and Eileen just forwarded to us. What's interesting is the mixed signals that we're getting across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. For example, in my neck of the woods, two or three major cities have voted to drop the masks at public places. They're opening up their town halls and city halls immediately. They're not waiting a couple of weeks. So, you know, we're getting a lot of mixed messages when it comes to workplace, but I think I agree with my fellow commissioners that at this time, and especially with school vacation coming up, I can tell you firsthand that the cases that we had where I live and where I work, that the numbers rose right after school vacation. So, I think it's probably prudent for us at this point to wait a couple of more weeks, because things seem to be working fine the way they are and I have no issues with the way things have been working. So, I'd be okay. I'm holding off a couple more weeks. One of the things we mentioned at the working group, there are people that are really looking to get back into the office. There are people that are somewhat isolated at home and there's also people that are just going a little star crazy, not seeing other people and not just being able to get out of the house. So, one thing we had thought about was right now we're saying to people that they should not go into the office unless necessary. We could open the offices on a voluntary basis for the next couple of weeks and then the mandate for coming back to the office under the hybrid model, we could start in a week or two weeks. So, I think everybody's made very compelling statements. You've done good work, Karen, with the working group. You just added a new element. So, I have a couple of little comments, but my ultimate recommendation is we defer to you and you make the decision. But the one thing I would want to remind everybody is that the Gaming Commission has been open for business this entire two-year period. The public has been included in our meetings virtually since March 14, 2020. So, while we haven't had our physical plan open, I feel very, very strongly that we have made sure that our business has been available and accessible. And I'm very proud of our team for that and all the work that we've done. The doors were closed by the pandemic, but this team really worked hard to make sure to accomplish everything that needed to be accomplished. The second is I want to make sure we give everybody permission when the doors do open for our return to hybrid. Because we did start in November that if you're not comfortable, wear your mask. There's permission to do that. Some people are, you know, we're hearing a lot of people aren't comfortable wearing a mask all day and I get that. But you should also, if you feel comfortable and you want to, you wear your mask. That's probably going to be very much part of our culture for a while now. So, I just would encourage that. No one should feel uncomfortable exercising their choice around their help. Okay. So, Karen, what do you think you're going to recommend? So, you know, we could do a week or two weeks. I don't know if the school vacation matters too much because people that are taking vacation off, they're going to be off anyway. So, we could do a week or two weeks. I did note that the 28th is consistent with the governor's change in the mass mandate. And I think he was relying on data for that. So, it may just be easier to do the 28th. Someone also mentioned people that are using public transportation. They may get their monthly pass. So, that may be helpful just to start. So, we're starting right before March. So, I think probably the 28th makes sense. We could certainly do it earlier. The one other thing that I wanted to mention is I know the gaming agents were looking to do some training and Bruce had asked me to mention this. Once we're open, I think that the gaming agents could be able to do their training. If they're in a larger group, as you're probably wearing a mask at least initially. But I just wanted to just confirm that the commission was comfortable with that training started after Boston offices open up. I think there's any objection to that. No Bruce is looking to get going, right Bruce? I'm fine with that. Okay. Okay. I think, Karen, just so you know, the point about the family vacation and correct me, Aileen and Gail, if I misunderstood that. When people go away, and I think Brad was mentioning it, when folks come back. Yeah. This has been happening really all of my life. You get off the plane or you come back from mixing with crowds for vacation or something. You often bring back something. And I think that that was the idea that there could be a little bit of a spike in, again, on the chron at the end of February because of family vacation. But I don't see any real extra days there to measure that. So I think that just, I think what I heard you say Karen, which I think makes a lot of sense is that there's probably some data supporting that February 28th date. Right. And given that there seems to be a little bit back and forth February 28th probably makes good sense. But were you going to add that the lift on the requirement that it volunteer, people can go and volunteer? Right. Right. So for the time being, if you want to go in, you can go in. Do you still need to contact Mary Ann? Yeah, I think that's probably a good idea for this two week period. And then we do have a commission meeting to schedule for March 3rd. So I can get the additional data and where the numbers are because if the numbers really go down the way they're saying we've, you know, we may lift the mass requirement at the office similar to what we had in November. So I think that just is a few days back in the office with the mass and then the commission can reevaluate whether those would be in public spaces or not considering we're all vaccinated. We're different than the rest of the Boston community where they have endure mass mandates because we're all vaccinated. So that may be helpful. Okay. Yeah, that makes great sense. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Very good work. Thanks. Thanks everyone. All right, that concludes the administrative update. Okay. So we're moving on to the commissioner updates. We decided to bring this on the front or early hour to keep things falling and then be ready for the 10 o'clock hour where we have some external guests coming in. Kicking it off as a legislative update. Crystal Howard will lead and Commissioner Hill and Todd Grossman. I'm not sure Todd if you're adding in today, but Commissioner Hill, please add in. Good morning commissioners and chair. I'm a little cold today, so it's one of those days I'd like to be in the office or he isn't working. At least it's not, you know, 15 out. But anyway, I'm going to keep both my segments very brief because of today's very busy agenda. But the primary reason for the brief legislative update today is due to the recent activity we've seen related to the open meeting law and the provision allowing for the use of remote technology as we're doing right now. You probably recall that that current extension was to expire April 1st, but a COVID related bill that bill is HB4345 if you're interested. It's been enacted in the house and the Senate and it would further extend the X-ray date through July 15th of 2022. So that's currently on the governor's desk as we understand it and he does have 10 days to review the bills. So we'll know definitively if that extension will go into effect in a matter of days. In addition to that two racing related bills have received an extension order most notably the Senate bill 2535 which has language in it to create a new state racing board. I know Alex has been watching that one closely as well. I have included details on that in your memo and just continuing to track their status. And although there's no recent movement to report out we do continue to monitor sports betting and you might recall that the house bill that was passed in July does contain an amendment of interest plus it would allow up to five machines for veterans organizations for lots. So we're really interested in what happens there but nothing has taken place in the last few weeks and I know that was quick. Is there anything you'd like me to elaborate on? Great. Kathy's on. Commissioner Hill did you want to add in? The only thing I would add is you're going to start seeing what has been a marathon for the last 13 or 14 months is now going to be turning into a sprint. They have to get all the business done before July 31st and that means all the bills of controversy have to be on the list by July 31st. The house is currently looking at the budget that the governor put forward and there's a lot of action taking place in that particular document so we'll also be keeping an eye on that to make sure that nothing is put in an amendment that might affect us and then they'll debate that in April and then in May the Senate will take it up and then we hope to have something seen by July 1st but Crystal's done an excellent job I just want to let her know that watching these bills is not easy and she just explained to you the extension orders are coming fast and furious which means that the legislative committees were not able to put out their bills in the time allotted by rules and they've asked for extension so these bill veterans on extension could pop up at any time and Crystal and I are trying to keep a good eye on all of them as we can to keep you updated but sports betting I still feel and I'm making an opinion not a fact I think was really going to see something before July 31st and when it comes it's going to come quick and I know the staff is preparing for that and had done a good job of getting ready should that happen. That would be all I would add Madam Chair. Thank you. Questions so Crystal in terms of the slots of the veterans organizations do they address the supervision and the review etc that we do at the casinos is that addressing that? No it's a very brief language that was just added as an amendment because originally this was its own bill and it was added to the House amendment so they would have to develop that further and it's not in the Senate bill at this time but they're in conference on several of these bills so I think they would need to elaborate on that it's pretty slimline I don't know if Michelle wants to add to that at all with that process actually can I just ask the public comes out of conference with that and it's still in the bill but silent as to the monitoring I think that we're probably in a different position involvement it does yeah it directs us to essentially just take care of that so we've been watching that clearly yeah so that's a really interesting bill and of course the reason around that there's a lot of understanding on why there's interest around that but it would have a lot of complexity for the gaming profession so we'll see what happens there and I think it's safe to say Commissioner O'Brien and I don't want to speak for the legislature but because it the language was not as good as it could have been a lot of questions from a lot of legislators on how this would be implemented so although they are talking about it I'm not sure that it's ready for prime time and I would argue that probably when we see a bill come forward it probably will not include the veterans at this time because it is a complicated things and this would really put our staff in a position to oversee that might be difficult for them to do I think that's exactly that's exactly what I was thinking thank you any other questions so the good news is that at least with respect to holding our virtual meetings we have some comfort maybe coming to that extension so yes and I would just add to Commissioner Hill's that the flurry is certainly there are an exhaustive list that I did not include here because we have seen a lot of movement on other bills but primarily to the extent that nothing will happen in this legislation well thank you for keeping us surprised and we'll look for future updates thank you so much moving on then to your second report Crystal's been busy with taking care of some important work for us on our reporting obligations the annual report Crystal this is also pretty quick as you've seen I did forward you the status on where we are with the annual report the content has come together really well we've got it laid out we're just now tweaking some small revisions and just making sure their consistency is well but I'm really excited about the next phase which is design and I wanted to be sure to give you guys a chance to review the draft and give the green light to go forward in that next phase before we send the content to our designer so if there are any specific questions or changes I'd ask you to let me know what you can contact me with questions at any point even once we move past this and just to let you know once we've designed you will receive another draft as well and that visual draft is often some people prefer that to review so modifications still can be made at that point it's just easier for anything substantial such as a section needing to be removed for the order of the report bigger pieces to have that understanding now that you'd like to make changes it saves both time and costs any comments Commissioner Cameron I thought it was very well done I have to tell you I think really apparent how much work went into it and the layout the flow the information it's hard to find that sweet spot where you don't add too much information where people just can't digest and when you add enough that really outlines everything that was done over the past year so just a big thank you really very good work and it's a lot of work Thank you Commissioner O'Brien or Commissioner Hill I know how much work goes into it he used to do the lion's share of that so it's a lot of work yeah and for me I've been hearing all over the office that that's a problem or something just like you guys now I'm enjoying it yeah and Crystal had the team support they made their contributions to you is that how everybody was really great about you know some of the changes we've made and how we weren't working in one document and submitting everything right around the timeline we had looked for so I really couldn't have been this far along without the contributions so I appreciate that Great and I know that Crystal you want to you you inherited this project and you are hoping to start to move the process up in the calendar year for the next one so don't be surprised that she starts right away on yeah so as far as timeline for this I was hoping we could wrap up the design and the edits by the end of February and then get the approval to publish and release after having it in your hands to see the final drafts by early March and then we would be moving just a few short weeks months later but it'll feel like weeks right after the fiscal end this is a fiscal year report and we've been doing it the last few years at the end of the year so I just think getting it started closer to that fiscal end it'll be fresher material and everyone finds it doesn't end up hitting the holidays or bumping into those end-of-year complexities and more importantly it'll align better with our statutes so I think that's the goal we'll be probably diving into this in that July, August time frame so thank you for kind of writing that and it just means that the team will hear from you again for their pieces absolutely thank you so much Crystal excellent work any questions all set okay with that timeline good alright then thank you just a flag Crystal we are ahead I am not sure if Director Robert will be ready and 945 I did ask and it was unclear because of his schedule I'm not sure we rarely are ahead this much in timing I'm not sure if Dr. Lightbound guest would be available earlier Crystal I'm not sure I can call Alex right now and check I don't see her on either yeah commissioners we have to be comfortable to moving things up there she is Dr. Lightbound is always right there I can check with Mr. Barnett and see if he can jump on early I don't see him on right now okay great thank you I think that would be an item that would make sense for that time frame are we all comfortable with that and that would be for the 945 it looks like about 945 okay I think we could also potentially pop I know it's a short item but Loretta is on and we could probably bump that one that's the other one I mean it was one of the two to go ahead Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Cameron, Commissioner Hill could make sense to move on with Director Lillios only because she's here and we wouldn't have to call someone from Alex's team to come on early I was trying to think about length of time Commissioner O'Brien what do you think if Alex was available it's shorter so then we're not seeing him waiting but if she's not available then we can move on to Loretta we know she is no Dr. Lightbound's guest is available I think that would be preferable if we could okay great I'll check again thank you so much just a few minute break to refresh your coffee yeah exactly alright then we're moving on to the independent monitor work plan update you know what Commissioner O'Brien I have to tell you something I don't have my document in front of me right the second Todd or Derek for those numbers I'm I'll see if I have it somewhere here but I can you know what doesn't the exact numbers probably don't matter from the contract but I have a memory under our contract oh you know what Commissioner O'Brien I'm realizing you didn't get notice from Alejandra I did not get no I got the memo from Derek in terms of the numbers but I did not get CC'd and I didn't send a reminder to her but you know what you know what folks I'll tell you where we are and we had such a busy agenda that I didn't I didn't check in on this yesterday when we were speaking it was on the back of my mind I mean I have the numbers from Derek did the numbers for us and a memo on February 3rd so if you want to give the overview I can I'm just going to while we give the overview I just want to double check to make sure nothing went into my spam email because it's not like or to not deliver so I'm checking my email now so Commissioner O'Brien do you just want while I'm searching do you want Derek also brought the up to date the contract with the independent monitor and there were tranches to it in terms of there was an overall estimated cost and then there was the first six months and then an annual thereafter and the contract requires the independent monitor to come back to the commission and alert us if they're going to be I believe greater than 15% over sort of the cycle that they're in in terms of billing and Derek and team were going over the numbers and realized that I believe once we got once we paid either January or February they would fall in that zone so we had a conversation just touching base with Alejandra on that point it doesn't require us to vote to alter the contract it's more they have to come in talk about whether this is going to change their plan going forward for the next phase because then that would be a deeper conversation about well now are we talking about really a change in cost or a change in the product there's really no change in the product they did have discussions about how those numbers came in some of it had to do with they had a number of focus groups when they were allowed to find they go back out in person with people and there were a number of times when because of language barriers you would always have two doing a session and they would have to split up sometimes with the language that they had in-house the language capabilities they had to execute those focus groups so I believe the numbers in the contract would have allowed them to build up to um 7,000 to 1,250 for the first six months and then that same figure for each year thereafter and if you go July 1 of 21 to November 30 they have been paid about 500,000 just shy of that and if you add in all through December they have a little over 100 100,000, about 105,000 left which puts them in that range Kathy I don't know if you want to elaborate more on that's so that really reflects the conversation we called because we have received the latest invoice and we recognize they were coming to that threshold and I just sent a note to her to say have you sent the notice because I want to make sure I didn't miss it somewhere and I guess perhaps we're way ahead now Crystal is that if by the end of the day they do send the notice because I think the notice is a requirement under the I don't think I know it under our contract they are supposed to give notice when they are bumping against that threshold and she was appreciative of that reminder they had done it once in the past as I think you mentioned I am not seeing anything in my box though it just may have been not remembering that today was our public meeting day and perhaps by the end of our long meeting they will have sent that and we can circle back to this item because we don't have to take any formal action unless there is an expansion or if we decide there is an expansion of what really needs to be accomplished in the work the notice that she did before recognized they were coming up against the threshold and then the notice in time I want you to add in the notice requires an explanation for why they would be going in excess and it was done quite simply in both points and I would anticipate that we would see the same notice and forgive me that I had intended to have that ready for today and I just truly slipped my mind as I was preparing for other items on today's busy schedule Todd is that and Derek does that reflect the process that you're expecting to Derek yes it does reflect the process and to just add to Commissioner O'Brien's point it does not require a contract amendment because it's a rate agreement from forward and say they're not changing the work plan it's just that this is the reasoning expenses are what they are Todd that's exactly right they're coming forward just so the Commission can consider whether the work plan needs to be amended based upon what we know to be the actual figures as opposed to the projected figures they offered a couple of years ago that's where we stand right now And that's an important, it's important to point out that probably the reason why there wasn't an approval from us is that this is very much an independent monitor. So it would only be at the scope of work plan really changed that we would get more involved. So again, my apologies, I'm quite confident if I had given a quick check in with her that that would have been right there in my box. When I thought of it on Tuesday, I didn't do that. And so here it is Thursday in Africa. So Dr. Lightbound, we're going to check in with you. Were you able to reach your guests? Yes, he's on right now and we're ready to go whenever you are. Okay, excellent, that works out nicely. And so Karen, just as a marker for today's meeting, don't let me forget to swing back to the independent monitor, especially as we grow tired during the course of the day. Thank you, good morning, Dr. Lightbound. And good morning, Mr. Bennett. Thank you for your flexibility. Today you're going to now, this is item seven for those who are joining us publicly. We are shifting to the racing division and the matter before Dr. Lightbound has to do with the approval of that MGM as an account wagering provider. So thank you. I think just for everyone, if you need to find your packet, it's page 186 is where the document starts for this item number. Thanks. So good morning, commissioners and chair. This morning, as the chair mentioned, we have the item of that MGM as an account wagering provider for Suffolk Downs request. And they are in a partnership with Naira Betz who has been licensed approved by the commission for several years. In the packet, they have a little slideshow basically that shows how they're using the technology of Naira Betz and many of their other functions. And so my recommendation is that the commission approve this request with the note that this is for account wagering purposes only. Good morning, Mr. Bennett. Did you want to add in at all to Dr. Lightbound's report? I think between the thorough memorandum that she prepared and the materials that were submitted by Naira Betz, it covers what I would say for the most part. At least, and I know you've got a busy schedule today, I don't want to take time repeating things that you've already received. I guess the only thing I'll add at this point is to say we see this as very similar to the previously approved arrangement between TVG and FanDuel, where FanDuel offers ADW wagering to its customers but uses the TVG sort of racing infrastructure and processing and things like that. And it's very similar to that structure. And then the other thing I'll say is we see it as a great opportunity to try to expand the base of customers who are wagering on horse racing to include people with an affinity for MGM. And of course, happy to answer any questions. Great, thank you. Commissures, do you have any questions for Dr. Lightbound or Mr. Bennett? It's not, by the way, about Barnett. Sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry. You're right. It's tiny print up there. I feel like I must have, what is it? The saying, get up on the wrong side of the bed so far. Maybe it was that 9 a.m. start. Your name is clear. It's been a while since I've been before you, so. Yeah, and honestly, when I was saying it, it didn't register, but my eyes weren't really correcting. So this is a challenge of monitoring a meeting with lots of little boxes in front of me. So thank you. I can't believe you could tell us. Thank you so much. Questions from Mr. Barnett or Dr. Lightbound? Commissioner Cameron. Yeah. Thank you to both Dr. Lightbound and Mr. Barnett, who we do know from many years testifying before us. I think that was a really good analogy. I think we had concerns that we were not wanting to, as we always want to let the legislature do their work when it comes to sports betting. And we just wanted to make sure this was very separate than that, this approval. And I believe that it is. I believe that this is certainly using the infrastructure for racing, and it is solely related to bets, ADWs, when it comes to racing. So I'm comfortable moving forward with this, understanding that we are really approving racing, which we are fully authorized to do a mechanism to bet another option for the race horse enthusiasts. So I'm comfortable with the explanations. And I appreciate the additional work we did to get me comfortable. So thank you. Other comments or questions? Yeah, and I'm very comfortable moving ahead on the start that I found with your recommendation. And again, you've made it very clear that the purpose is limited to the ADW. So thank you so much. You do need a vote today? Yes. So commissioners, do I have a motion in favor? Madam Chair, I'm happy to move that the commission approved subject down license use of MGM, a bet MGM horse racing as an account wagering service provider as discussed today. Provided, however, that this approval shall be limited solely to provision of horse racing ADW activity and shall not be construed so as to have an effect on any future determinations or approvals that may be required from the commission. Second. Any edits for the questions? Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. And I vote yes, 4-0. Thank you, Dr. Leibbrandt for the additional time. I know you've worked also with legal on this matter. And Mr. Barnett, thank you. And it has been a while. So thank you very much. And I was really looking forward to seeing you in person. I will. Hope that day will come soon. Welcome that soon. Thank you so much. All right. So thank you. That's a good piece of business taken care of. Dr. Leibbrandt, we appreciate, Mr. Barnett, your flexibility of joining us so early in the morning. Maybe it helps your day going forward. It does. Thank you. OK, good. Thank you. So, Crystal, we're a little bit ahead. And I can't tell if Mr. Barnett has joined us or not. I haven't seen him join yet. OK. I do know that they said that they did receive the link. I saw that, too. So thank you. Commissioners, we have about a 10-minute window. We could either take a break or we could proceed with Director Lillios. And then Mr. Barnett, I'm sure, is flexible on the other side. Commissioners, what would you like to do? I'm sure you want to. Commissioner Cameron, sorry. So I'm sorry. I'm prepared to continue on with another item. OK, Commissioner O'Brien. I actually could use two minutes. Can we take a really short break? And then we can hop to Loretta if we need to. But I actually do make just two minutes. I appreciate that. And also, I'll give you an opportunity to check in the independent monitor as well. Commissioner Hill. Fine. OK, then I would actually love to reset the agenda a bit to get it on to Mr. Barnett starting and then just for the purposes of really any public interest to stay on task in terms of the agenda. So when we convene at 10 o'clock, thank you so much. I'm not going to leave. I'm going to just virtual out. Gail, I have six games left. Oh, you're on mute. How are the kids doing? Well, going to be 500, I believe, this year. He told me you were running up against the really strong teams with some height, right? We ended up going three and three in that stretch. OK, well, that's OK. Hey, listen, maybe you could squeeze one more out and have a winning record. That's what I'm hoping. It's been a weird, weird, weird year. Yeah, I'm watching college sports and it's crazy. What teams are out with COVID? You know, it's just where we are right now. Let me see. I've got, well, it's COVID impact is also just. You're muted. It's COVID impacts from illness. But it's also I was speaking with Brad. It's hard to be a student during this time, you know? And and and and even commit to regular practice and regular arriving to school on time. And it's been just such a difficult time for young people and high schoolers, particularly, right? Just as a heads up, guys, even though we have the screen sharing, you're the audio still goes through. Yeah, thank you. We we don't mind having chats about basketball. Thank you. Thank you. Not all of us. That's right. No problem. Just wanted to let everybody. We appreciate it and actually welcome future warnings, too. Thank you so much. Please. Absolutely. I was taught in the radio world every mic is hot. Exactly, exactly. So I think if you could take down the screen, David, I'll see who's in attendance fully. Thank you so much that worked out. And I know I've got Mr. Bob chatting with me, so he's here. But before we get started with Michael, if I think Karen, you just wanted to add to your administrative update. We were so concerned about time. I think I got a little bit. I got focused on the the actual written agenda. I had not looked at my my notes here for this morning. And one thing I wanted to add to the administrative and administrative update is that we have some departures of a couple of very long employees at the gaming commission and we have some exciting new additions at the gaming commission. So I just wanted to publicly acknowledge those. Chris Kazowski, who is a supervising gaming agent, is going to be leaving us. He has been a tremendous asset to our office through the many years working at the casino's onsite. He is just someone that has been such a great addition to that gaming agent team. And while we're sorry to see him go, we know we've got a great opportunity, so we're very happy for him. So I just wanted to acknowledge Chris. And then also Kate Moxie-Hartigan is also leaving us. She has been a tremendous asset to the IEB for many years as she is a supervising senior enforcement counsel. And she really did a great job with the hearings and just having all our licensing decisions be done in really a proper function. So I wanted to say thank you to Kate and just acknowledge all the great work she has done. And we also have some additions to the office that are very exciting. Tom Mills is the new chief of our communications division. So here's Tom. He's on board now, just getting acclimated in the office. So we're really excited to have him on board. And we did want to note for members of the media that are listening in or participating in this meeting that he will be our point of contact going forward. We have updated the website with his contact information. So he will be the point of contact for all media inquiries. Additionally, we have John J. Scully. He is our new finance and budget manager. So there he is here. Hello. And we're excited to have him on board with the finance team. I know Derek was thrilled to get someone with his background on the team. So welcome to John. We also have a new gaming agent, Andrew DiBano. I don't believe he's on the meeting today, but I wanted to acknowledge you the new gaming agent coming on at Encore. And then also Brittany Costello is the new paralegal in IEB. And I know Heather's particularly excited that she's coming on board and they did a great job with that whole process. So with Erica leaving, we're really glad to have Brittany on board again. So we have some new exciting members of our team and wanted to welcome them and also say a big thank you to Chris and Kate for all the work they did at the gaming commission and wish them well in their very exciting new positions. So I just wanted to say that this morning. Thank you. So that's exciting news. And I'm glad that we got to circle back to that. Again, Tom and John, welcome. We're really excited to see you today. And I'm looking forward to meeting you in person. Had the opportunity to meet virtually with both of you. And for the others I look forward to meeting you. Great, exciting news. So I think we are ready now to move on to our next item. I'm very excited about this introduction, but I want to make sure it goes smoothly. Director Bobbit, there you are. Good morning, good morning. You know what? I don't know where you're appearing on other screen, but you're smack in the middle for me. So that really works out so well. Good morning. I'd like to do an introduction because it's such a wonderful file that you have. So I want to introduce Michael J. Bobbit. He's the executive director of the Mass Cultural Council. And Director Bobbit, you just celebrated your one year anniversary this past week, correct? Yeah, the first, the very first. Very first. So we are really lucky in Massachusetts that he has accepted what is really the highest ranking cultural official in Massachusetts. He has dedicated his professional career to arts leadership. He is a theater director. My goodness, choreographer and a playwright. And it's as of February 1st, 2021, he joined Mass Cultural Council as the executive director as an entity created by statute. Upon joining a Mass Cultural Council, Director Bobbit was invited and agreed to serve on the New England Foundation for the Arts Board of Directors. So thank you for that service. Beginning in March of 2019, he served as the artistic director of the New Repertory Theater in Watertown. Immediately before that, he had held the same position at the Adventure Theater MTC in Maryland for 12 years. While in Maryland, Director Bobbit led the organization to be a respected theater training company in the DC region, as well as a nationally influential professional theater for young audiences. He led a merger with Musical Theater Center, increased the organizational budget and audience commission new works by noted playwrights, transferred two shows to Off-Broadway, built an academy, and earned dozens of Helen Hayes award nominations, garnering eight wins. And he makes sure, as you can imagine, some of his professional background to continue to expand his training, most recent Harvard Business Schools, strategic perspectives in nonprofit management, the National Arts Strategy's Chief Executive Program. And notably recently, he received Cornell's University's Diversity and Inclusion as certification program. So he has served also as a professor, associate professor of theater at both the Boston Conservatory at Berkeley and Howard University. And as you would imagine, he volunteers on numerous nonprofit boards. He has directed and choreographed. I'm having trouble with that word this morning, Director Bob at a number of select theaters, Ford's Theater, the Shakespeare Theater Company, the Kennedy Center in the Washington National Opera. His national and international credits include the New York Musical Theater Festival, Mel Tillis 2001, Hoya Playhouse, Children's Theater of Charlotte, Jefferson Performing Arts Center, and the Olympics, which we would love for you to touch on, given where we are in our history right now. Good morning, Director Bob, you are here to give a little bit about your work, but also how the expanded gaming app influences and impacts the work that you do. So thank you. Thank you so much, Kathy, for having me. Every time I hear that bio, I just wanna take a nap, a nice long, long nap. It's great to be here and I'm enjoying the partnership that we have had. I'm gonna share my screen so I can give you a little bit more information about Mass Cultural Council. Make sure I'm in presenter view. All right, can you ever wanna see that? There you go, yes. Fantastic, well that's the Sutton Foster who is currently on Broadway right now Music Man, she's Tony winner and a major TV star. We were lucky to have her here not too long ago. So Mass Cultural Council is the independent state agency supporting the arts, sciences, and humanities to improve the quality of life for Massachusetts and its communities. And it pursues its missions through a number of grants and wraparound services and a lot of advocacy. There'll be pictures of some of our grantees throughout the slides, but that's one of world renowned dance organization out in the Berkshires. We partner with artists, communities, educators, municipalities, and cultural organizations of all sizes to unleash the power of culture across Massachusetts. I'll share our contact information if you wanna know more specifically about which organizations we are supporting. We're doing a lot of recruiting right now so our portfolio is growing and growing and growing. Some of the current things that we've recently done that I'm bragging about is we've developed and launched the agency's first ever racial equity plan which is helping us to assure that our funding is going out in an equitable way. Targeting communities that have been historically underfunded by the organization and by philanthropic efforts elsewhere. Last year we secured $21.4 million from the state, our highest state funding since the 80s or the late 1900s, as I like to call it. We also recently got $60.1 million for pandemic relief. This will go to artists and cultural organizations in the whole state that have been affected by COVID. We're in the process of analyzing data from public input to figure out how to spend that money. And then one of the things I'm super proud of we doubled our investment in our artist fellowship program. We went from 75 grants to 150 grants. I'm hoping to double it again. Couple of things that are coming up for us is that we are furthering our outreach and our visibility specifically through a lot of recruitment in relationship building, rural communities, Native American communities, black, Asian and Latinx communities specifically. We're doing a lot to expand our equity goals. We're gonna be doing an intense review of all of our grant programs from a racial equity lens and also a customer service lens to make sure applying for our grants is as easy as possible. And then next year we'll launch our new strategic plan process with our governing council and stakeholders. The gaming mitigation program, which Kathy mentioned was established by state law. And it aims to mitigate the direct threat to the sustainability of nonprofit and municipal performing arts centers in Massachusetts by providing capital to preserve their ability to compete with resort style casinos and booking touring artists. And this is language right from the statute. So under the act, we received 2% of all gaming tax revenues from the casinos and those funds are deposited into a specific trust fund. The way it breaks down is 75% of the monies that we receive go to the gaming mitigation program to specifically support nonprofit and municipal performing arts centers impacted by gaming facilities that are near them to subsidize their fees that they pay to touring shows or artists through a competitive grant program. 25% of the funds can go to other sort of organizational support programs. So far since this started, January, 2020 up until this past December, we have received $10.87 million in gaming tax revenues and we've reallocated them thusly, just over 7 million to performing arts centers under the gaming mitigation program in two rounds, 3.34 million to 52 organizations in mid 2020, which was a perfect time because that was the height of COVID and everyone was freaking out, of course. And then we just in January allocated $3.68 million just approved by our council last month to 39 organizations. And then we have still in the bank, in the trust fund, we have $577,000 that's still sitting there waiting for our next round of funding. 2.1 million has been spent or committed to be spent on various organizational support programs. So this is how we broke it down. Back in 2020, we created a Safe Harbors Initiative program which was sort of pandemic related operating grants. We had a series of learning. Everyone was at home and people were trying to figure out what to do given COVID. So we created a webinar series called Recover, Rebuild and Renew. And then we founded a social prescription pilot program that we borrowed from a program in London whereby we are working with organizations to help them learn how to work with people that need specific support. And the goal of this program is to one day get medical providers to prescribe arts versus medicine for people that are in certain needs. So like if you need to be physically active instead of prescribing medication, we would prescribe going to a dance class or something like that. And then some general operating support. 300,000 will be collected, we think in the next five months based on the math that we have done. And we have spent on our administrative costs. We have spent $564,000. This is in staffing and hires and all the administrative costs that we have. And then we think there's 196 left to be spent. Basically the statute states that up to 7% of the total revenue that we've received can be spent on our administrative costs. Couple of testimonials. The gaming mitigation award arrived at a critical time when we were facing complete disruption of our business model due to the pandemic. While we are cognizant that the gaming industry has also experienced the negative impact of COVID, the nonprofit performing arts sector in Massachusetts is still experiencing massive revenue shortfalls as we are unable to present in-person events. This was a testimony that came last year. But anyway, the person says we are grateful for the support of the gaming mitigation program and we thank the Mass Culture Council and I would also say the gaming commission for stewarding this valuable resource for the sector as we face an unprecedented economic crisis. And that comes from Sarah at the Celebrity Series of Boston. And then Lori from Rockport Music says, the beauty of this program is that it recognizes a fragile part of the arts ecosystem. That is the process where we're in venues and organizations bid for artists in a highly competitive process. It takes negotiation skills, wisdom and booking artists to obtain audiences as well as branding and destination cognizance. So it's a great program and those that are benefiting from it are very, very happy. And it seems that people are still spending money at Casino. So that makes us happy and we're looking forward to continuing to partner with you. Here's a bunch of information to find out more information about us. And I'll also post in the chat, just posted our blog on our blog, the announcement of all the organizations that received money from this program. So if you wanna know more about that, I will put that in the link. And if you have any questions for me, let's have at it. Michael, thank you so much. This is just, and you can see in the chat if you wanna get that information. The, I see Loretta is chiming in, I can second and attest to that. And Loretta Nalios is our director of IEB. I'm not sure what you were seconding, but it sounds as though you were applauding something that director Bobbitt was saying. Loretta did you wanna chime in on your comment? No, actually, although this is fascinating, what I'm hearing now with the cultural, I did wanna acknowledge Kate Hart again. Okay, thank you. For all the work they've done. So thank you. I thought it was something that maybe because of your, that you had gone to one of the venues. Thank you. So director Bobbitt, we are just so thankful that you came today. I wanna just give, I don't know if Derek is available, RCFAO, but a reminder that it's a 2%. Correct, taxes from the category one, which I think Mr. Robert had said at the beginning. Yeah, which he said at the beginning, and then it's in the total amount since January was 10.8 million, director Bobbitt. Yes, 10.87 million. So what can he, is that calendar year or is that fiscal year? That's total from the program. So January, 2020 to December, 2021. So it didn't start until 2020. That's where I was, that's where I got caught. That's where I have in mind notes. So there were legislative problems of getting the money over to the cultural council. And they took a couple budget cycles for it to get through. So all of it got dumped in at once because they didn't have the authority to actually spend from the trust fund that was set up in the statute form. You know what, now I'm remembering from our earlier, from a director Walker, who was your predecessor. I just wanted to clarify. So it's a cumulative amount since January, 2020 of 10.8 million with a 2% taken out on a fiscal year basis or annual basis calendar year basis. Derek. The 2% is every month. So 2% comes from the gross gaming revenue taxes every single month. Part of Doug's sweep over to the funds get all the gross gaming revenue money is part of the cultural council. That happens on or about the 15th of every month with the state comptroller's office. And that's been going seamlessly for you now. That's been going seamlessly since 2018 when MGM opened up. It's just getting the money to the cultural council is what took some time getting the fund so that they could spend from it. Okay. So I just needed to get the fiscal part. Now we can get to the exciting work that you've been doing. Commissioners, do you have questions or comments? Commissioner Cameron. Chair Judd, I agree with you that this resume is so impressive. And it's certainly nothing to snooze about in Massachusetts is very lucky to have you on board. And what a great job using those funds and really worthy causes. The legislature was certainly wise in their decision making of how to spend this money because this really is such an important element. And I too, the chair mentioned it, but I too when reading your bio was interested in what you did for the Olympics. So I mean, everything you do is impressive but I just was kind of personally interested in what you did for the Olympics. Sure, thank you. I thought you were going to ask about Mel Tillis. Well, that's impressive as well. Mel Tillis actually, that was an interesting thing. It was out in Branson. He has a 3,000 seat theater with a, we call it a proscenium, which is the space at the stage. But the width of the proscenium was three times the size of a Broadway theater. I remember when I choreographed the show for him, he would only enter stage right because stage left was too far from his dressing room to walk. But the Olympics, so it was actually in Amsterdam. I'm not exactly sure why Amsterdam hired me, but they hired me to do a dance, sort of a dance at one of their private, I don't know if it was a fundraising event, but their private sort of kickoff events prior to the Olympics starting. So I flew to Amsterdam for two days to do this thing. And then I came back here, but it was officially out for the Olympics. Wow, excellent. Thank you. Hey, Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Bryan. I've been to the water town that I'm sure they were very happy to get you and sorry, I don't see you go in 21. So that's a very intimate setting compared to what you're talking about, Mel Tillis. One of the questions on the slides, you gave out, I said 52 organizations in 2020 and 39 in 21. Were there any organizations that went under because you couldn't have more money to give to them or struggled in 2020? Or was it just a matter of redoing how you guys are handing them out in 21? Yeah, so my understanding is that the guidelines that we provided grantees in the first round were very broad, partly because we didn't know who was gonna apply for this. I wanna make sure we get them out. And then once we got into it, we realized maybe some organizations didn't really qualify under the statute, sort of under the, not the statute, I would say, they all qualify under the statute, but for the intention of the program, which is really support those organizations that are directly affected by the casino's opening. So we cleaned up the guidelines. There are some organizations that didn't sort of make it through the pandemic. So that could be one of the reasons why things went down, but also some organizations didn't produce. And so since this is a mitigation program, if you didn't produce, you didn't have numbers to compare. To mitigate. Right, and our grant programs are formula-based. So you have to provide us with the number of shows you did, the number of artists, how much you would pay them. So if you didn't do that, it didn't qualify. I'm sure Joe's nodding his head in terms of, yeah, you can hear your mitigation fund that rehandles the same thing. Yeah, we're still doing a lot of recruiting because I think there are a lot of organizations out there that don't know this program exists. So part of our effort is to spread the word that if you are in an area by a casino, there is some money available for you to apply for. Right, Joe, I'm sure you do this already, Joe. I'm just wondering if the MGC can help push that out further, you know, get the word out and help. Yeah, I mean, we could certainly mention that when we do our outreach, saying that there are these other programs out there. That was sort of a little cross-selling, couldn't hurt. Right, right. Yeah, Joe, I'd love to get your information so we can send it to you next time we open up that program. Great. Yeah, and it's a good connection for the two of you because the statutory language and your guidelines that, you know, we encountered the challenges of making sure that our applicants showed the impact. So this is a good connection for you to meet Chief Delaney, Director Bobbitt. We run somewhat similar programs but just different audiences and applicants. Great, thank you. And Commissioner Hill. Hey, Mike, thanks for joining us today and you're doing superb work. And I can tell you that these funds and these infusions of funds into these organizations, not only are helping the organizations, but they're helping the communities where they are. You know, tourism is a big, big issue here in Massachusetts and these funds are helping bring people back to Massachusetts and certainly bringing them back to these areas where you've refused these dollars. I was gonna ask you to give some examples of where the fundings actually went and then you gave us that nice link that showed us all the organizations. And I took a quick look at it and I noticed like Lynn Auditorium, for example, was infused with some funds through this program. And I know through COVID-19 that they really were hurting and they had been doing so well. We've been talking as an agency, you know, about our smaller theaters across the Commonwealth and how this really hit them because people couldn't come to them but they had all just started getting to a point where they were starting to make some money. They were starting to see people on a regular basis. I always use the Cabot Theater in Beverly because that's the closest one to me and how people were starting to go into the Beverly Salem area, which then brought people to the North Shore, which then they got to Ipswich, they got to Rockport, they got to Gloucester, so on, so on, so on. So these funds really, really are important not only to the organizations, but to the community and to the area in which the money's being infused. So thank you for getting those dollars out. And as Joe and Eileen have just said, you know, the mitigation programs are so important and if we can partner together, letting people know where all these dollars are, I think it's gonna be very important. And if you don't mind me touching on a personal issue, I know you just had your one year anniversary at the agency. And as part of that, if I'm not mistaken, we saw some news where I'm an adoptee and I think you have also adopted a son. And what I loved hearing over the past couple of weeks from some of my former colleagues is you put out some information on the Chinese New Year. Yeah. I don't know if you wanna touch upon that for the other commissioners, but it was a great story. And I enjoyed reading what you put out there and congratulate you on, you know, trying to not only adopt the child, but adopt the culture that came with that child, which I thought was awesome. Oh, thank you so much. That's kind of you sitting there, commissioner. Yeah, just to touch on your first point, the cultural sector for Massachusetts accounts for $2.43 billion of impact on the GDP, which is the third largest sector contributing to the GDP in the state. And so I have been ringing the bell of how much more we need to invest in the cultural sector and even in the marketing of the cultural sector because I think we're leaving money on the table and I'm hoping that I can have a lot of influence on those that are allocating resources. You know, and the other part of it, we talk about the economic impact, but when you go to a show or a museum, you may get your hair done or your nails done or buy a new outfit. You are certainly like getting in your car and so you're buying gas, you're parking. Maybe you are using rideshare or public transportation. So there's money going out. You also may go to have a meal beforehand and typically you don't go alone. So you're taking two to five or six other people. So they're spending money. And then after the show, maybe you go to the bar. So there's so much secondary spending that surrounds the consumption of arts and culture that it's an important thing. And I think sort of one of my messages this year that I'll be hitting hard is that for the state to remain competitive and maybe even to grow competitively when it's trying to attract students and tourists and residents and businesses, it is the investment in the cultural sector that helps. When you look at the list that come out to say why people choose to live where they live or build their businesses, up at the top is always sort of the arts and culture sector. So for me, there's so much that we can, so much more that we can do. And the other thing is that it expands everyone's minds to the creative process. So as we look at trying to solve the world's problems, creativity is gonna be the thing that helps. So we have to really invest in a great way to the cultural sector. So I'm so thrilled about this partnership that we have. You speak to my adopted son, I wanted to share with you a photo if you can see it. But this is the day I met my little kid when he was eight months old. He was adopted from Vietnam. He is now 20 and studying marine biology at the University of Florida. He's my heart and soul. But when as we were raising him, we always celebrated his culture and his culture as holidays. So it's a big holiday in my family. The Vietnamese call it Tet, but it falls at the same time as the Chinese lunar new year. And so he got a care package of a lot of goodies. We went out for a nice Vietnamese meal. And then I'll find the blog post before I head out. But my blog post was that February 1st was two very important days. It was the beginning of a lunar new year and my first year anniversary. So I compared the two and how experiencing his culture enriched my life so much and made me remember who I am, where I come from and how the culture that's inherent in who I am is part of what makes me me. So I appreciate you mentioning that. So wonderful. I had seen the same writing and Michael and I spoke briefly yesterday and what I loved is that we're also in Black History Month and I wondered if Michael wanted to touch on that and he said, let's just flip right to my son's culture. And I love that so, so much. You embody in your family and your work the benefits that a multicultural life in world enriches us all. And for that, we are so appreciative as citizens of a Commonwealth. I like that you really pressed on the economic driver aspect of your work. You know, your presentation really touched on the importance of equity. And I think that we have adopted a action plan of anti-racism and in everyday work on making sure that our work doesn't somehow inadvertently, disproportionately affect the lives of people of color, particularly those who want to to gain the benefits of the casino industry. So I love, and I'm not surprised that with your background, your education that you would not be making that a strong piece of your work, Michael. And then it's the arts also, as you mentioned, have that economic benefit, but you've also touched on how it has the benefit of health and mental wellness. And that is such a priority for all of us. As each and every individual comes out of, we hope out of COVID. So the programs that you've touched on, particularly the social prescription one is one that I know I'll be monitoring and to the extent that the casino industry can help with that. I think it's just a very exciting development. So, you know? Yeah, the mental health is part of the common language now and part of the zeitgeist. And so I'm so happy for that because young people are talking about it. Cause I don't remember when I was growing up in the 90s, we didn't talk about mental health. And so the fact that it's being talked about every day and arts and culture have always been a part of that. There are so many degree programs on art therapy. So we're looking at trying to figure out and take it to the next step. And then the racial equity work, I think the growth of the sector, this is inherent because there are so many cultures and so many groups of people who've never got the chance to be in the limelight. There's where the audiences will grow and there's where the donor base will grow. And there's where the different ways that people do art can infuse our creative minds with all kinds of stuff. So take a look at our post on our blog. And again, if you can join our lists, sir, we post often and it'd be great to hear from you all. Well, I'll close with a thank you to the vision of the legislature about 10 years ago. And we have in one of our commissioners, Commissioner Hill was one of those elected officials at that very time for recognizing that at least 2% would support the efforts that you're doing now. And I'm very, very pleased that we have the relationship and hope that in another year, we will see you and have an update, but you're welcome anytime. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Commissioners, are we all set? Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great day. You too. Thanks so much. I'm sorry, I'm just getting a phone call. That was very exciting. That was great. I love that. Wasn't that great? That's exciting, yeah. Yeah, and actually a really important presentation for us to have to remember how thoughtful the legislation was and important as we continue our work even today. So we can get then turned to just a couple of minutes off. Joe, Chief Delaney, you have some guests coming in from Encore Boston Harbor on their proposed development. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. So today the commission will start the review of the proposed development across the street from Encore Boston Harbor. And I emphasize the word start. This is just beginning. So the purpose of this review is to determine if this proposed development should be considered part of the larger gaming establishment and therefore whether or not it should be subject to all rules and regulations of the commission. So that's really the question that is being asked of the commission. But before I turn it over to Encore for the presentation I'd like to just spend a couple of minutes to talk about the process that we will go through to review this application. So today, as I mentioned, today's meeting is the first step in this process. So at this meeting, we will hear a presentation from Encore, then staff will outline some of the issues facing the project and then we will take questions from the commissioners. And I just want to note that we will not be receiving public input at this meeting. But the next step of the process is particularly for a public input. So we will be holding a public hearing. We're scheduling that right now for February 28th, 2022. We're planning on doing that from 1130 in the morning till one in the afternoon. Hopefully the lunch hour will give some people perhaps some additional time to participate. Now the intent of this meeting is to hear public comment on the project. We'll also accept written comments until the close of business on Friday, February 25th. We're closing the written comment period before the meeting so that we can make sure that the commissioners have all the written comments in hand by the time we hold the public hearing on the 28th so that we can say by the end of that meeting we've gotten all the public input that we're gonna get on the project. So then after the public hearing, the plan right now is for the commission to take up this matter again. We've tentatively scheduled it for the March 3rd, 2022 commission meeting. We'll certainly have more discussion about that with our agenda setting meetings and so on. And at that meeting, the commission can either make a decision on this or I mean, if we still need additional information we could defer that to a later date if we need to but I guess the intent right now is to try to make a decision at that meeting. So with that setup, I will turn this over to Jackie Crum and Chris Gordon from Encore and they are also accompanied by Tony Starr from Mintz 11. So with that, Jackie, did you wanna start? Sure, I'm actually going to, good morning everyone. I should start with that. I'm actually gonna turn this right over to our team, Chris Gordon who's the president of One Resorts Development, the development arm of the company and our outside council. We have Tony Starr and Katie Hill, both from Mintz 11. Chris, Tony. Great. Thank you, Jackie. And Katie's gonna walk us through slides so I apologize for prompting Katie every slide but with the technology that's how we worked it out. So Katie, if you can put up the slides that would be great. What we're gonna do first is sort of explain what the project is. There's been a lot talked about and written about and discussions about this. So we thought we would walk you through a little bit of context for the lower Broadway part of Everett and then talk a bit about the proposed project. And then Tony will go on and talk a bit more about some of the issues with the jurisdiction issues. Next one, next two, Katie. There you go. So Everett has been thinking about lower Broadway for a long time. And again, I don't wanna speak for the city but we've been watching this very carefully because obviously we're very vested in lower Broadway. In 2013, the city did a lower Broadway master plan. In that, they talked a lot about what they saw for the future. It has been a collection of small industrial properties, a small amount of residential but mostly industrial commercial properties. And it's no secret we've acquired a fair amount of that property. And the real goal of the master plan as it says here on the screen was a vibrant mixed use neighborhood. They really wanted to create something in lower Broadway that would be good for the community, good for jobs, good for the economy, good for the environment. So that was the original step in 2013. Next one, Katie. As part of that, the city also revised their zoning. So obviously they zoned it that a casino could be there, which as you all know, we've been actively doing but also across the street, they've zoned that for commercial use as well. So there's an ability to do what they've been trying to do in Everett is a vibrant commercial district on the East side of Broadway in Everett. Next one, Katie. The city then went a step further and they worked with the state on an urban renewal plan. If you know how the state structure works, an urban renewal plan allows you to really make some bold steps in a new district. So the city wanted to do that. So in 2015, they did a very detailed urban renewal plan. It had a variety of things in there. But as it says in the quote here, the goal was to create an environment for strong identity that provides riverfront activities, high quality of life, encourages mixed use and on and on. So they were really trying to make sure this district came alive. Because again, it has been primarily a industrial area that the city really wanted to see redeveloped. Next one, Katie. Then in 2021, they did an amendment to that to make sure that the actual area was really pushing forward. And as part of that, it said they wanted anchored by a vibrant and fruitful destination district. So they talked in that amendment, they talked about a variety of things. Next slide, Katie. The biggest things they talked about is they specifically, this is the city's plan, wanted entertainment venues, things like theaters, cinema, concert halls, they talked about hotels, they talked about restaurants, they talked about retail stores and recreational facilities. So they were getting even more prescriptive about trying to make this, you can call it an entertainment district or call it a commercial district, but the intent was let's do something across there that would be better for everyone. And as part of that, the city had talked about taxes, gaining new taxes, new jobs, but also creating an environment that was in this, and this is not a criticism of some of the businesses that were there, but it was just a collection of small businesses over the years, many or most who had left after we acquired their property. So the property has been quite dormant. Next one, Katie. So what is it that the Wynn organization is thinking about this red star obviously covers the whole district. We own approximately four blocks across the street from Encore. There's a few parcels we don't own, but we don't need those. Everything we own, we think we have got, and it's all on the east side of Broadway, as you know it. So we'll zoom in a little bit and show you more of that. Katie. So this is the long, long-term master plan. This is the four blocks that we've acquired. And when I say long-term plan, I don't know exactly how many years that is, but it's a multiple phase project that we think aligns with what the city's trying to do. And again, these are approximate numbers because eventually we'll have to go back to the planning board for each and every phase, but generally we're thinking somewhere around 800 keys. These would be third-party hotels run by independent operators, but would be part of the district. So they'd probably be, that's probably two hotels. It could be three, but it's probably two that would be run by significant hotel operators. Food and beverage, we're saying about 50,000 square feet over time. That's probably five, six, seven restaurants, that kind of stuff and bars. Entertainment, we'll come back to that in a minute, but entertainment is obviously the event center that we're proposing, which we'll talk about in detail. I'm sorry, entertainment in that case also means, I was wrong, I'm sorry. The entertainment line also means things like breweries and pubs and that sort of stuff. The event center itself, we're showing here, and we'll talk about that in the next few slides, but and I wanna say up front, the 999 seats is not meant to be queued. It's not meant to say we're one less than 1,000. That, you know, please don't take that as some sort of an attempt to be just under the line, but it would be up to 999 seats, meaning that as we work through the design process, we're very comfortable at staying below that 1,000 seat level. We looked at that a lot and listening to Mr. Bob in a minute ago talk about culture in Massachusetts, we think that a theater of this size can be a major addition to the cultural scene in Massachusetts. I mean, we think it can accommodate all different kinds of shows, all different days of the week. And so I know in the paper, there's been debates about 1,800, 3,000, 10,000, all different sizes. And of course, we had originally proposed at 1,800. We think this theater at this size can really be a gem for the district and for the area. Retail about 20,000 square feet. We have a little bit of warehousing. You know, these kinds of businesses like hotels, event centers, usually use their warehousing and then parking. The parking, I wanna talk about this because there's also obviously debates about why is there parking garage? If you take the Everett zoning code and you use all those uses, 800 keys, 50,000 square feet of beverage on and on, you get about 2,900 parking spaces would be needed. So over time, over the next decade or whenever this all gets built out, you would need to provide that level of parking based on mode splits and everything else that goes on. In that, we found it was, in working with master planners, it made enormous sense to put the first parking garage where it's shown in phase one for a couple of reasons. First of all, something has to be right up next to the power plant. And even if the power plant gets redeveloped, the switch gear there is not going anywhere. So we thought it was a good place to put the parking garage. It also, by doing that, allows us to go ahead and develop the rest of these parcels and displace any parking that's there today. So the first phase has about 2,300 parking spaces in it. That's meant to support the future phases and it makes all kinds of sense to do that in the first phase. Next slide, Katie. This is a different view on that same thing. You can see there are four blocks, A, B, C and D. These are early bookmarks. Block A, we know and we'll show you in a minute what the detailed plan of that is. The rest of these blocks are really just analysis to make sure they would fit. A hotel fits very nicely on block B. Another hotel fits very nicely on block C. Block D would probably be some form of mixed use, whether it be restaurants, food, retail, that sort of stuff. And then out in back, you can see there's things like garages and warehousing and that sort of stuff. And then on the front, a significant amount of green space. And also we've been working closely with the city of Everett on their desired bus lanes. If you've been reading about their interest in bus rapid transit, we've said along Broadway, we would set the buildings back far enough so that when their plan comes to fruition, which we certainly hope it does, there wouldn't be a problem with where the buildings would be located. Next, Katie. This is the phase one plan that we're proposing now and we're talking, we're accurately talking to the city of Everett, the city of Boston with MEPA and certainly with you today about this, which would be the near term design. There's a couple of components. The event center is in phase one. That's the lighter purple to the upper left of the page. That is the up to 999 seat event center. We think this is a event center with a fixed stage, a back of house, food and beverage intertwined with it. And it would allow us to do events often. In other words, it's the right size. If it was too, too big, you'd book it maybe once a week, a couple of times a month. At this seat level, we think it can get booked on a fairly, on a very frequent basis. It also allows for a variety of uses, some of it's flat floor, so you can move furniture around and do different kinds of events. You can do this tiered seating. There's a variety of things in the event center. The darker purple is back a house to support that, obviously. The gray is the parking garage we spoke about and the orangey color, that is the food and beverage. So that's a separate restaurant probably. We haven't defined exactly what it would be. And these functions would be run by partners. They'd be run by third parties. So for example, the event center, you've probably read in the paper about bringing in some of the top tier event companies that would manage that event center. They'd have a lease on it and run that completely themselves. The food and beverage, just like we've done with other restaurants, an operator would come in and run that restaurant for us. There's a key piece of infrastructure here that we really wanna highlight. We are proposing a pedestrian bridge over Broadway. And as you've seen with a lot of cities around the world, a lot of cities are finding the advantage of this. And there's always a debate about having people in the walkway versus down on the street. Right now, the walkway in front of, Broadway is now a very busy six lane highway. And by the time we add the turning lanes that's shown on this plan and the city has their bus lanes, it goes to nine lanes. Plus it has two bus lanes, excuse me, bike lanes. Plus it has sidewalks. So you've got a nine lane highway, which is a designated truck route. You've got a bike lane that in the peak hour we're seeing, can be 60, 70 bikes an hour that are driving up and down Broadway, which we love, but it's more traffic to maneuver. So a couple of things happen. First of all, if you're a pedestrian, it's not the most comfortable place to cross the road. So you don't have to be going to Encore. You don't have to be going to the event center, but you can just be walking to the river. You can be walking to Charlestown. You can be going to the tea stop. You can be going to Honda. You can go to the MBTA, Mike's roast beef. What you name any of these places, if you want to cross the road, it's not easy, right? Number two is people who cross the road, push a pedestrian signal. And that pedestrian signal stops all traffic in all directions, which is great. It's safe, but we're losing almost 30% of the built-in capacity in Broadway because of those pedestrian signals. And as Joe and other people know, we spent a lot of money improving Broadway, improving Sullivan Square, improving Sweets of Circle. And when those buttons get pushed, traffic just comes to a standstill. So when people say there's traffic on Broadway, a lot of it's sitting still because of those pedestrian signals. So what we would do with the pedestrian bridges, and can you go to the next slide? The pedestrian bridge is open to the public 24-7. It's a public piece of civic infrastructure. It'll be clean and safe and nice. And it's a place, it's almost like a new crosswalk that goes back and forth across Broadway. And we would fence and landscape and corral in such a way that we really want everybody to use the walkway. And again, they don't have to be our customers. They don't have to have anything to do with anything to do with wind. And we really think it's a better way to go. And again, if you look at a lot of cities around the world, this is done all the time. So the two yellow box on this slide, those are public access to the walkway. There are elevators, escalators, stairs, doors, everything you can think of. So if somebody's walking down the sidewalk, it's gonna be crystal clear how we get in the walkway. You go up, over and down. We don't think going up, over and down takes more time. We think it'll actually take less time because today you have to push the button, stop all the traffic, walk across nine lanes and go wherever you're going. So it is a major addition. It does continue as you see on the left, it continues and connects into Encore. That allows you to get across four more lanes of traffic. So now if you happen to be a customer going to Encore, you've to verse 13 lanes of traffic in the walkway, which we think is a very safe way to go. You do not have to be going to Encore. As you enter Encore, there will be a typical security checkpoint just like there is anywhere else going into the casino. As the commission well knows, those are staff. We're checking IDs, we're checking everything. So nobody can just stroll in there. It's gonna be a full blown entrance to a gaming facility as it's done now. When you enter the resort on, excuse me, when you enter the development on the right, there's a, I would call it almost like a lobby. And in that lobby, you can go straight ahead to the garage, you can take a left to the event center, you can take a right to the food and beverage or you can go to the street and exit. So we really think this is an important piece. It is, there's no concessions, there's no gaming, there's no nothing in the bridge. It's considered like an elevated crosswalk. So it's just a safe way to get back and forth across the road. Next, Katie. This is a rendering and always take renderings with a grain of salt, but we think this is very accurate. It shows the bridge going across the road. It shows the event center on the left. It shows the food and beverage on the right. It shows the garage in the back. You might notice the solar panels on the roof. That's not just done for artistic license. We actually are gonna try to fill this thing up with solar panels. And we are really trying to figure out and we think we can do it to make this a carbon neutral building. And that'll be primarily done through solar as well as some other things we're gonna do. But we think we can make this building to have very much of a carbon neutral footprint. Also from a traffic point of view, I mentioned turning lanes. Once you put the pedestrian bridge up in the air and you add a few turning lanes on Broadway and on Mystic, all of the development, not just phase one, but all of the development either makes it most intersections, makes the traffic better than it is today. In a couple, it makes it the same as it is today. So the traffic story we think is very, very good. And actually when we, now we're at under a thousand, it actually gets better because the current traffic study still has a little bit bigger theater. So at that theater level, we're very confident in saying that the traffic will actually be better than it is today after all this gets built out. Next one, Katie. This is driving north on Broadway. So you come over the bridge on the right, you see the power plant and the new screening they put up. You see the new development we're proposing on the right. You see the bridge straight ahead of you. And then you see the still, you have the plant on the left which is part of the Boston Water and Sewer Commission. So we think Broadway continues to get better and better. We're spending a lot of time making the bridge and the garage and the food and beverage and the landscaping attractive. So if you go back to the city's master plan when they were really trying to make this a vibrant neighborhood. And again, this is no criticism of Everett because we're thrilled that we're in Everett but there are parts of Everett that the city would like to see improved and this is one of them. So you go from an industrial zone with small local shops that were maybe not thriving and you come up with something like this which we think would be a big addition. So let me pause there before Tony starts in. Happy to answer any questions or get into any detail on any of that. And we really appreciate the opportunity to show this to you. So we could pause and ask, good morning, Chris. We could pause and ask Chris questions or we could hold our questions and wait to hear from Mr. Starr and Ms. Hill. Just for further context, does that make sense? So you're not gonna go anywhere, right, Chris? I'm not going anywhere, I'm here. So let me turn it over to Tony Starr from Vince Levin who has been with us a very, very long time and he's gonna give you some context on the gaming establishment issue. Good morning. Thanks, Chris. Good morning, commissioners and gaming commission staff. As Chris said, I have been here a long time. I had the pleasure of representing WinMA in 2014 during the original hearings. Today I'm joined by my colleague, Katie Hill and like Chris, I suffer from some technological limitations. So Katie's gonna make sure I get through that PowerPoint safely. Thank you commissioners and staff for the opportunity to speak with you today about the East of Broadway Development, the proposed project. And thank you also for the opportunity on Monday. Katie and I shared with the commission a memorandum summarizing some of our thoughts on this. So Chris has, of course, presented an overview of the proposed development. And Katie, if we go to the next slide, the question that I wanna address, which is, of course, was framed by Mr. Delaney also is to determine whether or not the proposed development is part of the premises of the WinMA gaming establishment. We, of course, believe when you analyze this question through the lens of previous determinations by this commission, the answer will be no. The proposed development is not part of the premises of the WinMA's LLC gaming establishment. Katie, if we could go ahead. As I'm sure the commission is well aware, gaming establishment is defined in the controlling statute, the premises approved under a gaming license, which includes a gaming area and any other non-gaming structure related to the gaming area and may include, but shall not be limited to hotels, restaurants and other amenities. If we turn to the next slide, you'll see in the spring of 2014, the commission determined the premises of the two then applicants gaming establishments, WinMA and that of Mohegan Sun. That was in their May 15th, 2014 decision. And we've included here exhibit C to that decision, which shows you the commission's determination at that time. Chris, Katie, next slide, please. Chris spent some time on this slide just a few minutes ago. Of course, this is their proposed development. It includes restaurants, hotel, retail, and so on. Mr. Delaney shared yesterday in the packet a memo that staff had done and on page 37 of the packet at the top of the memo, Mr. Delaney shared some information about what roles different entities, different win entities might be playing in this proposed development. I want to pause for a minute and address that in the commission memo. He wrote further clarity as to the role of each of the entities and their interrelationship will be required. So here we have a win resorts organization chart. And we'll start with the land. The land where Chris described the proposed development is owned by East Broadway LLC. And as you can see, that's under mass property LLC and then under the parent win resorts limited. The development work itself will be done by win resorts development. You see that? Thanks, Katie. The licensee win MA LLC has no role. East Broadway owns the land, win resorts will be doing the development. And ultimately, and I'll talk about this a little more later East Broadway LLC has the owner of the land will enter into typical commercial leases with the various operators such as the two hotels Chris mentioned, the event space Chris mentioned and the restaurants. So if we could turn back to the PowerPoint, thanks, Katie. Next slide. In the commission's May 15th, 2014 decision, the commission established that there would be a four part test to determine the premises of a gaming establishment. And this was the test to determine whether or not a feature would be part of the gaming establishment the commission would look at whether or not it was a non-gaming structure, whether or not it was related to the gaming area, whether or not it was under common ownership of control of the gaming applicant. And then whether or not the commission has a regulatory interest in including it as part of the gaming establishment. And as I'll, as I'll mention later on in my presentation, you only get to the fourth part of the test if the feature meets the first three parts of the test and the May 2014 decision was clear on that. So Katie, if we could turn to the next slide. So we believe that this project consists of a non-traditional structure and non-gaming structures. Our position is the pedestrian bridge is a non-traditional structure under the May 2014 decision. And you could consider the parking garage, the hotels, the restaurants, the event center and perhaps even the utilities all as non-gaming structures. So let's start by turning first to the pedestrian bridge. As I said before, the pedestrian bridge should be considered a non-traditional structure. As Chris described, it will traverse what is now a six lane truck route on Broadway soon as I understand from Chris's presentation up to 10 mitigating traffic congestion and significantly increasing pedestrian safety. As Chris said, guests entering the Encore Boston Harbor from the footbridge will need to pass through security. And we believe the pedestrian bridge is similar to the internal roadways on the property which the commission expressly excluded from the gaming establishment in 2014. If you go back to that 2014 decision, the commission determined the following elements were non-traditional structures. In other words, not gaming structures. The internal roadways on both the Mohegan site and the wind site, the entrance to the property on the Mohegan site, exterior parking areas on both sites and the Harbor walk on the wind site. In its decision, the commission determined that all of those were not structures in the traditional sense and therefore not part of the gaming establishment. Katie, go ahead. So in particular, I would refer you to page eight of the May 15th, 2014 decision. And that's where the commission explained the difference between a non-gaming structure and a non-traditional structure. And I've quoted the language there. It was actually in the context of talking about the plan Mohegan project because that's the one that was addressed first. So that's where the commission laid out the distinction in its mind between a non-gaming structure and a non-traditional structure. And I won't read it aloud. You can see the quote there for yourself and you can go back to the decision. And we believe that when you look at that decision and you look at the pedestrian bridge as Chris has provided the detail on, it's not a structure in the traditional sense. It has none of the elements of a structure like a hotel or a restaurant. It's nothing more than a covered walkway elevated over the roadway to protect pedestrians. When you apply the analysis, the 2014 vision, we believe it's not a non-gaming structure and thus it's not part of the gaming establishment. Next slide, Katie. Now let's move on to the non-gaming structures. Of course, the proposed project does have non-gaming structures but we don't think we should be part of the gaming establishment because they don't satisfy the commission's four-part test. For a non-gaming structure, the first question to ask is whether it is related to the gaming area. And by definition, as I know the commission knows, the gaming area is the portion of the premises of a gaming establishment in which gaming is conducted. How has the commission decided if a non-gaming structure was related to the gaming area? Well, in the 2014 decision on page eight, and this is in connection with the analysis of the proposed Mohegan project, the commission said a non-gaming structure, they are related in that they are included to support the gaming area by making the entire facility a more attractive destination with regard to the win analysis, which was on page nine, the commission said they are in that they are at least in part for purposes of enhancing the gaming area by making the entire facility a more attractive destination. We think when you apply this analysis to the non-gaming structures in the proposed development, the conclusion is they're not related. The hotels, the restaurants, the event center, the parking garage, they don't enhance the gaming area at Encore by making the entire facility a more attractive destination. They're not in proximity to the entrance to the Encore's gaming area. They're across a nine lane roadway and they're located on a wholly different parcel from the gaming area. So we think that the conclusion is they're not related. Because the non-gaming structures are not related to the gaming area, we think the analysis can end right there. You conclude right there, they're not part of the gaming establishment because as the commission said, you have to pass all three parts of all four parts of the test. But let's move on to the third part of the test, which is really the second part once you've already determined an element is a non-gaming structure. The next factor to consider is whether the non-gaming structure is under common ownership and control of the gaming applicant. And here, we don't think that's the case. As Chris explained, and as I shared also, wind resorts development will oversee the proposed project's construction. But once the construction is complete, the hotels, the restaurant, the event center, they will all be leased by the property owner to an independent entity who will take control of the property, of the premises. The lessee, of course, of the proposed project, each of its elements will be responsible for safety and will make management decisions over the premises without wind developments approval. The lessee will operate the hotels, the restaurant, the event center, the operator, the event center will, of course, make decisions relating to what type of entertainment should be there, pricing, and so forth. Operating decisions will not be made by Encore Boston Harbor, WindMA, Wind Development, or East Broadway LLC. East Broadway LLC will be functioning as a typical commercial landlord. And in Massachusetts, commercial landlords do not have control over the lease premises where the lease provisions give control of the lease premises to the tenant. And that's exactly what's gonna happen here. Katie, there is a caveat that I wanted to make sure to share and we shared it in our written submission. It is possible that as the development plays out, wind development may retain the option to operate the parking garage or manage the utilities. But that doesn't change the analysis. As I'm sure you know from your own experiences, commissioners, this is very typical that a landlord would retain control over common areas like parking lots or utilities to provide maintenance or cleaning services. If you think of all of the office towers in downtown Boston that have parking below ground there, that parking is operated by the landlord or a third party hired by the landlord and are not, of course, by the tenant. If wind development does operate these areas, the parking garage and so forth, it won't affect the less seized control of the hotels, the restaurants and the event centers. In these areas, the parking garage and the utilities that Chris described are plainly not related to the gaming area. I would remind the commission that in the 2014 decision, the commission excluded exterior parking areas from both the WinMA and the Mohegan Gaming Establishment. A parking garage across the street and quite distant from the gaming area seems to me to be no different than the exterior parking areas excluded by the commission in 2014. So even if WD retains the option to operate the parking garage, manage the utilities, we don't think the analysis changes. So at that point, Katie, if we could go to the next slide, as I mentioned before, the fourth commission's regulatory interest, that's the fourth part of the test, but the commission was clear that the fourth component of the test, the regulatory interest only comes into play where the first three parts are satisfied. We don't believe that the first three parts are satisfied here for the reasons I've shared, but nevertheless, let's talk about the regulatory interest. Katie, so because the proposed project doesn't satisfy all three of the prior factors, we don't think, as I said before, the regulatory interest should be reached. However, if we were to consider it, we don't believe the commission's regulatory interest arises for the proposed project. The commission talked about in the decision at page nine that the regulatory interest derives from any interest in regulating and maintaining the integrity of gaming. And it provided some detail later on in the decision. It explained its regulatory interest in considering certain structures to be an amenities to the gaming area. The commission has an interest in, among other things, ensuring all employees working in those areas are licensed or registered and having knowledge of the flow of money through these areas. When you apply those considerations to the proposed project, we don't think the regulatory interest arises. Katie, the proposed project, as we've said before, will not have any regulated gaming activities. The persons working in the proposed project are not employees who would require to be licensed under 205CMR 134.00 with knowledge of the flow of money in Encore Boston Harbor. No money to or from Encore Boston Harbor will flow through the day-to-day operations of the non-gaming structures. As Chris mentioned, the access point to Encore Boston Harbor from the pedestrian bridge will have a full-time security checkpoint to ensure that only eligible guests gain access to Encore Boston Harbor, just like the security at the front entrance to Encore Boston Harbor. This security checkpoint, where the pedestrian bridge provides access to Encore Boston Harbor, is where we believe the gaming establishment begins and ends. And of course, the proposed project will be under the auspices of other government supervision in the normal course, as Chris described, in connection with the permitting, construction, and operation of the proposed project. We don't believe there is any additional benefit in adding these areas to the gaming establishment for additional government oversight through the commission. We believe that the various government entities that will oversee the design, the construction, and the ultimate operation of these various buildings is more than sufficient. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this morning. And like Chris, I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Starr, Tony. Very thorough presentations. Joe, this juncture, does it make sense for us to ask questions directly to our guests? So what I thought I'd like to do, if you'd like to do this, I could go, we submitted a memo to the commission outlining a bunch of the sort of issues surrounding the project. And I thought we would try to go over that at a very high level pretty quickly. But obviously we have Todd here who can certainly get way down into the weeds on a lot of these issues if we wanna go there. But I thought at least I would start with just a high overview of what some of those issues are just to put them sort of generally out on the table. Okay, commissioners, are you comfortable with that? So we'll hold, again, Tony and Katie and Chris, thank you for waiting this through. Go ahead, Joe and Todd. Great, thank you. So I think part of this whole thing is, first of all, as always the commission has been given broad authority regarding these matters. And I think that we've always understood that the commission has quite broad authority in a lot of different areas to use their judgment in how to evaluate some of these things. But starting at the beginning, I guess, sort of the genesis of what we're doing today started with the notice of project change that Encore filed back in 2017. So at that time, as Chris alluded to, Encore was purchasing properties in the area for potential future development. Now, both MEPA is part of the project change and the commission in our revised section 61 findings noted these purchases of land. And essentially we reserve the right to conduct further review and regulate any future development in this area. So that's really why we're here today. And the first major issue that we talked about and is the boundaries of the gaming establishment. And you heard Mr. Starr, he went into quite a bit of depth in this area. So I won't repeat that, but I think, you know, this notion of the four step process is how we have been looking at these things in the past and we expect to continue to do that with this. And again, it's that four part test of whether this is a non-gaming structure, whether it's related to the gaming area, is it under common ownership and control and does the commission have the regulatory interests? And I think, you know, and again, in all of these areas, I think, you know, in Todd and I and putting together the memo, we didn't make a particular recommendation on this because there are certainly arguments to be made on both sides of all of these points. And what seemed to be fairly legitimate arguments on both sides of these points. So again, we aren't making a particular recommendation with respect to that. The other considerations that we have that we've been looking at are, you know, we wanted to look at the host community ballot question. We just wanna make sure that how the folks in Everett voted that that doesn't affect this property in any way, you know, was the gaming establishment particularly limited to that, the one property on which it was built or was it the area? And it seems as though the area was mentioned in some of the materials that the city put out in advance of that ballot question. The size of the entertainment venue, this issue has receded in importance from what the original proposal was, but 23K does specifically limit entertainment venues to less than 1,000 seats or conversely more than 3,500 seats. This seemed to have been a big issue obviously before the size of the venue was changed. Another issue is the impact on the, what are known as the impacted live entertainment venues or as we use in our acronym world, ILEVS. And so Encore has an agreement, an ILEV agreement with the Massachusetts Performing Arts Coalition which covers a number of theaters in Massachusetts including the Lynn Auditorium and the Hanover Theater and a number of others around the Commonwealth. And so one of the questions is what impact, if any, would this project have on the ILEVS and how any impact that it might have could be addressed or mitigated? Then the next issue is the general MEPA status of the project. But this commission's decision could affect how MEPA might weigh in on this project. So as I understand it and correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, that you will be filing an environmental notification form on this project once we have completed this effort. Yeah, we've had a series of very helpful discussions with MEPA and it hasn't been finalized exactly what and how but we're envisioning going through a MEPA process. Okay, so now if this commission determines that this is part of the gaming establishment that may change how MEPA looks at this. If we're saying it's part of the gaming establishment they may wanna do a notice of project change rather than a new environmental notification form. If we say it's not part of the gaming establishment they may look at it the other way. So what this commission does may have some impact on how MEPA acts with respect to this as well. One other issues that came up was talking about the parking garage and the impact on the transportation demand management requirements that were put on the larger the Encore project itself. So when Encore was going through the MEPA process originally the parking garage was reduced in size in order to encourage folks to use public transportation to access property and constructing a 2300 space parking garage on the site could be viewed as circumventing this provision. I don't know if there's a way to solve that. And again, this could be an issue that MEPA looks at as well. I don't know if they will or won't look at that but obviously MEPA was very much involved in the crafting of the transportation demand management piece for the larger project. So that is certainly a consideration here. And then the last issue that we identified was around the pedestrian bridge. As it's currently proposed, the bridge passes over the city of Boston and there would certainly be some permitting that would need to be done with the city. And it raises the question of whether or not if the bridge itself along with the development is considered part of the gaming establishment might that change the city's point of view on how to deal with this particular piece of the project? So with that high level overview, I guess I will turn it back to you, chair, for questions of either us or the development team. Thank you, Joe. And thank you for the clear planning that you set out at the beginning of this conversation. The next meeting would be a public hearing where we received public input on February 28th. So commissioners, do you have questions here? Can I- Commissioner Hill, yes, absolutely. So I'm trying to understand with the bridge connection at the point of egress. So as a layman, can someone explain to me how the bridge is going to end at encore, but on what I believe is the second level of a gaming floor? Right. Katie, can you go back to the slide that shows the two yellow squares, showing the bridge? Yes, one moment to pull it up here. And commissioner Hill, one of your questions maybe, what do we do with miners, right? Well, I'm trying to understand that you're telling me that or at least it's been explained that this is not entering into a gaming facility, but yet we are exiting onto the second floor of the gaming floor. I'm not- And I apologize if we misspoke. It does enter into encore, but there's other ways to get on and off the bridge. So for example, if you look at the plan on the screen to the far right, there's a gateway label. That's the hub on the east side of Broadway where you can have various options. Go down to the street, you can go to the event center, et cetera. Then you go across Broadway from right to left. You'll see the next yellow square. That's a major hub as well. There you can get down to Broadway. You can go anywhere you want. You can go to the river, you can go to the MBTA, whatever you're gonna do. There's also a bus stop. You may remember right there, there's a major bus stop there. And if you choose, you keep going and you enter into encore. Encore, you enter the second level between where the on-deck restaurant is and the memoir nightclub is. So you would enter into that. There's a very large glass area there and then there's escalators that go down. So that's where you would enter in encore. Okay. And the second floor though is a gaming floor. Am I correct about that? Well, there's the only gaming on the second floor of the two mezzanines, but you would have to go, you would have to either, and Jackie, correct me. I believe that you can either exit the bridge there and go down to the street level and not have to be in the gaming floor. But if you're a minor, you're not gonna get in. So to follow up on that, I think Jackie, Commissioner Hill's asking is at the juncture of the bridge to encore. Sort of wall to wall. Are you stepping right on to the gaming floor as defined? And I'll have to double check this, but I think that that particular area is not considered the gaming area. So as you will recall, we went through a process of delineating the actual gaming area within the facility and there is a walkway area that goes around that. So I just need to double check that upstairs part, but I don't believe that that's part of the gaming area where we could actually have slot machines and gaming activity. But I think in that case, you would have to pass through a gaming area to exit that. Not necessarily. How do you go left up? If you came, sorry. So if you came in over the pedestrian bridge and you arrived, let's say on non-gaming area, you would have two choices. One is to show your ID and enter into the gaming area, or two to take an escalator down and exit the building. And the other thing we're looking at is right at that interface for the building as we go through final design, we may add an egress there as well. So you may be able to go down to the street right at that point. So we're still working through all those circulation issues. I'm gonna ask for a little bit more clarity on this. And so we are in agreement. There's gonna be a checkpoint. Is a checkpoint on the bridge or is a checkpoint inside Encore? It would be right at the interface. So in other words, as you get into, as you approach Encore, there'll be a checkpoint right there. The actual, exactly where it mentions. Approach, I mean, honestly, this is kind of an important issue for me anyway. Is it gonna be once you step over a threshold into Encore, Boston Harbor, or is it on as Mr. Starr says, the non-traditional structure of it? I guess we should talk about that together. In other words, we can put it anywhere we want. Our intent has been it would be right at the interface of the building. So in other words, you would have a checkpoint there as you go into the building. And if it's important to the commission that'd be either on the bridge or not on the bridge or in the building, we can locate it, we can build it there in any configuration that satisfies the security and checkpoint requirements of the commission. Okay, so now, okay, let's just assume for the purpose of this discussion that it's inside the building and Brad chimed right in. That it's now on Encore's property. I think we understood that maybe that was the gaming floor, that it was part of the gaming floor. We're hearing maybe that's not, but it's certainly part of the gaming establishment. If I am a 19 year old who parked my car over across the street who was really hopeful to be able to get into memoir. Well, you're not gonna get into memoir. They're not gonna get into memoir because you're gonna check, they have to be 21. You're gonna get checked twice. You're gonna get checked as you into the building and you're gonna get checked as you try to get into memoir. Okay, so twice. So now do I have to go back and then down to the street? No, we're looking at putting a vertical circulation right at the face of the building. In other words, you would either go back to that node right on the other side of the driveway where one of those yellow squares or it looks like we're also gonna be able to add one right at the building. So if you're a minor or let's say you're a family going to dinner and you don't wanna go through the gaming floor, you can either get out at the first node where the yellow area is and walk to the front entrance. You can get in at the node right at the building and go in any of the entrances there. So you would not have to take, you can't take minors through the gaming floor for sure. That's right. Jackie's question is there is a small lobby there between on deck and mystique. Memo, we will double check and see whether or not that's actually part of the gaming floor but there's no gaming equipment there. Then the gaming equipment, you have to go down the escalators across the area and then you're down on the gaming floor itself. Can I enter? Go ahead, Brad. Yes. It was my understanding and maybe I just forgot but when you're on the on deck area, I could walk, I thought I could have walked over to where you had your poker room and there were slot machines up on second floor. On the two mezzanines, you're correct. There's two mezzanines much deeper to the building above where the central bar area is. There's the two mezzanines. One is the, you know, there's the high end on the left and the old poker area and the slot machinery on the right. So wouldn't as a layman, don't I consider the second floor now to be a gaming floor that I'm checking? No, no, the gaming floor is very specifically delineated and we were very careful about this because at some point there was discussion about whether a minor should be allowed to traverse a portion of the gaming area, I should say the gaming floor. And so portions of the pathway are not part of the gaming area. And in that particular location, it's on deck and it's memoir and there are no gaming things. You'd have to walk all the way around the mezzanine to get to the poker area and slot machines. It's, you know, you make it sound like it's a short, a long walk. It's a kind of a short walk. It's sorry? It's kind of a short walk to get from on deck over to this, what I'm gonna call it the poker area for now until we, you know, gonna make some changes possible. Yeah. So the sports bar, we label it that way. It's not your big sports bar downstairs but to the left, burger, burger please. On deck. May, thank you. May a miner go to dinner there with his parents? We have not allowed that yet. And that's more of a security function than anything else because we would have to escort the miner. There's no way to access that area right now without going through the gaming floor, the gaming area. So what I'm wrestling with is we're connecting a bridge and I'm gonna for now say to a gaming area which connects to a facility across the street but it does connect to a gaming area in my view right now that could change but for today's purposes that's what I'm wrestling with. But you can't, but you're correct except that you can exit the bridge before you get to the gaming area. And I was just able to confirm looking at what was actually approved, I think last August that area between on deck and memoir is not considered the gaming area. Can you, I guess back to Commissioner Hill's point once you're in there, and I've been there recently so I just forget the names of the entities, memoirs to the right, on deck is to the left, the escalator takes you right down and that's actually where memoir guests egress right now at the end of the evening they go down those escalators if I'm understanding correctly. If I'm, right now you don't allow minors in that area whatsoever. And that's because- There's no access currently. So- So no access right now. So to Brad's point, I think unlike what you were describing that we wanted to give families an ability to navigate to the hotel upstairs there really isn't any- But you can go, as I mentioned, we wanna put we're going to be putting a either escalator or elevator at the face of the building so they can go down and walk in the other entrance to the resort. Externally. Externally, right. I mean, it would be enclosed but it'd be external to the encore existing space. Can I have one more follow up question? And Joe you may need to help and Chris I wasn't there in 2014, Mr. Starr, so forgive me. Is there any other area of where there's entrance an entryway, a media entryway the steps into the gaming establishment? Do you mean like an exterior entrance? Yes. No. That is not part of that we don't- There's plenty of public spaces that enter into the casino, primarily the main doors but I'm not aware of an- And this wouldn't, this would be similar to that. There's not an exterior door you can just open an exterior door and walk in. So we have the two entrances from the parking garage come right up onto the gaming floor. True, yep. And I know those aren't really external but those are from- You're right. And a family could come that way through the wrong elevator if you will onto the gaming floor, which they don't because we have security to every entrance. But that is part of the gaming establishment, correct? Yep. And what about the area where if I were a guest which of course I've never been a guest and I wanted to take a ride chair or valet my car basically go through the beautiful entryway at the main lobby entrance where you see the beautiful floral arrangements that external part that is on are the steps not under the gaming establishment when does it become part of the gaming establishment? I think the Port Co-Share itself was added into the game we revised the gaming establishment back in shortly before opening I think in 2019 at some point where we added the gazebo and some of those other external areas. And I think the Port Co-Share itself was added to the gaming establishment. That's right. I think probably that ends where those steps go down I'd have to look exactly at the map but I think that's where that ends. You know, as you come out of the Port Co-Share you go down the stairs that take you to the harbor walk I think it sort of ends. And that was added. That's really helpful for me. Thank you. Okay. It's part of the distinction now the map there is no external access so that discrete contained hallway was excised from the boundary but this would be opening up to another public access. I think it's most akin if you think about the entrance to at the East Lobby where you can be dropped off come up the escalators and granted those are internal escalators but you come up the escalators and you have two options at that point you make a right and you go into the casino after you've shown your ID or you just continue straight into the resort. So this would essentially be if somebody arrives there is unable to show an ID that would be directed back downstairs but they wouldn't actually be standing on the gaming area. It would be much like the East Lobby where they're in the lobby to the gaming area before they're told whether they can enter or not. But those escalators are part of the gaming establishment, correct Jack? That is correct. I do have another issue other than the bridge that I'd like to just. Yes, I was just still looking at my notes Commissioner Hill, before we shift to and of course there's gonna be we're gonna get opportunities to discuss this more but before we shift off at least that issue Commissioner Cameron, did you have any questions about that? No, this is an interesting discussion. I don't have anything, any questions at this time. Okay, great. Now Commissioner Hill go right ahead. Thank you. The only other issue that I just wanna bring it up it's not something I'm wrestling with it with the decision we have to make is the parking garage across the street. I'm very concerned about the safety of what may or may not go on over there once it's built. And I would like if you could just articulate a little further on what you're thinking about safety and security protocols. We recently heard a report and some of the discussions we've had internally and we keep bringing this particular example up and it's a tough one to listen to but it does happen, unfortunately it's something that was brought to our attention to report to people internally. Somebody who has a gambling issue they have a son or a daughter, they go to a parking garage, they park in there they leave the child in the car and then they go over and they do their gambling. So can you just articulate a little further? I know you say as a developer you may or may not be in charge of the public safety aspect of this. Did you just, do you wanna take that Jackie? Sure, look, we have a commitment to the public safety of whatever is being run. So certainly there would be security in the garage. We would also work very closely with the city of Everett, the police department to make sure that the garage is a safe place. That's important to us because it's also important to our guests, right? We need to ensure their safety whether they're parking there or parking in the garage below. But just from a practical perspective we do not believe that this garage will be used primarily by visitors to Uncle Boston Harbor. The idea is this garage is to be developed to be used by the two hotels, the event center that's what it's designed for. But just creating that interconnectivity much like the bridge to Assembly Row. We hope that people, we don't anticipate that people will drive to Assembly Row Park there and come over to, just for the purpose of using our facilities but they may wanna have that back and forth connectivity. At this time, Madam Chair I don't have any further questions. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner. I have another question, commissioner O'Brien are you all set right now? Right now I am, I've got some questions. I think I'll reserve for. Either for the end of the, this is, okay. Mr. Starr or Mr. Gordon, in terms of the issue around control and thank you for providing the chart on the organization's control who will be the less which entity will actually be the less sore? Tony? I can answer this. The less sore, sorry, I muted. And I was hoping to get through the one Zoom meeting without somebody telling me you're on mute tonight. We're not living, we're not living if we don't say it. So. I guess I had to say it to myself this time. You're on mute, Tony. The less sore would be East Broadway, LLC. East Broadway, LLC is the property owner. So East Broadway, LLC would enter into, as I said in my presentation, we anticipate typical long-term commercial leases with the various tenants who will run the restaurants, run the hotels, run the commercial space and it will be East Broadway, LLC. They're the legal owner of the fee interest. Okay, that's helpful. That's what I thought. I wanted to confirm that. And then the other, I'm intrigued by your analysis of the bridge being a non-traditional structure. Sure. Two things. When you talk about the roadways that my predecessors deemed not, they deemed not to be subject to, they were not deemed to be structures that would be subject to the analysis. Are you literally talking about roadways? Are you talking, are you speaking about driveways, entrances, but not entrances with steps, but roads? Yes, they were talking about, as I read the decision, they were talking about the internal roadways within the overall site. And as I read the decision, and I'm sure the commissioners will read it very carefully, in both instances, it looked like the applicants thought that some of those roadways ought to be part of the gaming establishment and the commission said, no, the commission actually excluded them. And the commission, as I read the decision, narrowed what they wanted to bring into the definition of the gaming establishment. But that's what I'm talking about, when, as I understand from the decision, that's what was in front of the commission. Some of the internal roadways and exterior parking, and they were excluded from the definition of the gaming establishment. They were deemed to be the non-traditional structures. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. We did deem the gazeba to be a structure subject to the, was it a non-traditional structure? I guess what I'm struggling with, Joe and Todd, is there a different analysis when Mr. Starr says it's a, if we deem it a non-traditional structure, we were to deem it to be that, do we do a different analysis or is it still the more step analysis? Or is there, it's just, they're not subject under the statute. So therefore, we're done. The four-part analysis applies. It's important to just note, and I think this was mentioned before, the four-part analysis, of course, is deeply rooted in Chapter 23K. So it's all tied to a provision of the statute. Some of the applications of the tests that we're talking about, subsequent to the initial 2014 decision, extended to what we considered to be a pertinent areas to the gaming establishment. So it was a similar analysis, but there were some certainly unique challenges and issues that arose along the way. But ultimately, it's the same analysis. It has to be a non-gaming structure. It's not a distinction. That's very helpful. Was it because Z-Belt considered a non-gaming structure or a non-traditional structure? Non-traditional structure is not an actual thing. It's a non-gaming structure is what we're looking at. And I don't know, I'd have to go back and look at that decision and of course we will, but it was, I think it was more the whole area that we were looking at, not necessarily the Geek-Kazebo specifically when that decision was made. Maybe that's right. That could well be, it would extended right down to the end of the Kazebo where it came to the public harbor walk. Okay, that might be why I don't remember that language being attached there. Okay, thanks. Other questions at this time? Very, very helpful presentation and an important one, Chris, because it was, it's revised from what had been put out publicly and we have received some comments based on the earlier version. So very helpful today at this juncture. Sure. And then- Just a process question I guess for Joe, we thought the hearing was the 17th. You said it's the 28th? Yeah, we had originally talked about the 17th but we decided that we would try to do a little bit, give a little bit extra time for folks to put together written comments and so on and just with commission of schedules and all that the 28th works best for us. And obviously if you need anything before then or anticipation, we're very happy to help any way we can. Yeah, I think we're gonna be having the agenda setting meeting next week. I think we'll talk about some of the particulars on exactly how we want that meeting to go. I'm not sure right now whether we're going to be asking any specific questions of you or it's just going to be taking public input. I think we need to have those internal discussions on exactly, obviously we're taking public input. That's the primary purpose of this meeting but whether or not there'll be sort of opportunities to address questions and things like that or it's just simply a matter of, here's my position on this issue and we will take it under advisement. We'll need to talk about those things a little bit. Thank you. The only thing I would add to this discussion and I haven't read the, I read through the agreement, the ILOV that was executed, Jackie. I'm wondering if you folks are in coordination with the impact now? Because I feel as though in section 11, the definition of a camera roll, how the entities were defined, but it looks like the ILOV is still relevant to, even if there's an addition, even regardless of whether it's a part of the gaming establishment or not. Sorry, go ahead. I just wondered, have you reached out to them by meeting it right? No, but we certainly will. Yeah, I would just, I might have been misreading it, but in section 11, in that definition it seemed as though that might be helpful to think about before we start getting public comments. We didn't concentrate on that today, but of course that is an issue for our community members and some, I think we'll view this as an economic driver that will only support other islands and then there'll be others that worry. So I think that that's a fair consideration even though we didn't raise, we're not raising all of our questions or our issues today. Very preliminary discussion, but I didn't want that piece of business to be lost. Is that fair, commissioners? Is that we should be? Todd and Joe, is there anything that another, you've mentioned NEPA. I know that there are discussions with NEPA, which is excellent. Anything else that we can, to be helpful really for this process to enhance it? Well, I think just from the public input that we've received so far has I believe all been around the entertainment venue. So I think that's obviously a critical piece. I imagine on the 28th we will hear from some of those folks in person. But as I said, to this point, the only major concerns that have been raised have been by those entertainment venues and some of their representatives. And we appreciate the outreach. We've already received that and Joe has been in touch with those stakeholders. So we appreciate as always input. And I think it's fair to note that for your sake, so that everybody can be prepared. So thank you. All right. Commissioner, are you all set on this? Okay. All right. Thank you so much. It's good to see all of you. Katie, we didn't hear from you, but I'm looking forward to that. And thank you, Tony. And again, Chris and Jackie, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all. Have a good day. Good. Thank you. All right. So, Crystal, I now have my packet up. I'm turning to you, Crystal. Do you plan on a break now? Or it is 11.53. I'm a little bit over. We are a little over the racing piece has already been taken care of. So technically you have a few minutes for a break. This was just supposed to be a quick break because you have a couple of items before all of the quarterly reports. So you have another break coming up at about 12.30. So I guess that's for you to decide if you guys can make it another half hour and then take a long one. Commissioner, do you want sort of a need for a quick break now or should we go straight through to 12.30? All set. Commissioner O'Brien, how are you doing? You're okay? All right, excellent. Then we'll continue on. Thank you to all the team and to our guests. We did start at nine. So I appreciate this very much. We'll get right now then to item number eight. Good morning again, Loretta. And I'm sorry I caught you off guard. Now please do acknowledge Kate. Yeah, I mean, Kate has been an integral part of our team for I think upwards of four years now. Really helped put our hearing process into order. Just a highly experienced attorney who brought a high degree of professionalism to our team. So I'm really happy for her, for the opportunity that she has. Of course, it's a bittersweet piece for us. I just want to wish her all the luck in the world and acknowledge all the contributions that she made. I know our GEU team has really worked great with her and they depended on her. So want to thank her for everything and wish her good luck. I think we all echo those sentiments. So thank you. So now moving on to item number eight, you have an update that you want to provide. I do. So this is a little bit of a pivot from the cultural and entertainment discussions we've been having, but I'm sure we're all up to the challenge. So I did want to update the commission on some disclosures that Penn National has recently made. They alerted the commission to some media articles about the founder of Barstool Sports, Mr. David Portnoy. Barstool Sports and Mr. Portnoy are relevant to Penn National because Penn National has an ownership stake in Barstool. Barstool is a sports media and entertainment company originally based in Massachusetts. It's based in New York City now. The two companies, Penn and Barstool, have a marketing arrangement where Barstool promotes Penn offerings and licenses to Penn the right to use the Barstool brand for Penn's sports book and for Penn's online wagering offerings. Under our statute and regulations, Barstool is not a qualifier for the Plain Ridge Park Casino license and none of Barstool's owners or executives are qualifiers either. If Barstool or any individual associated with it bought a stake over 5% in Penn, they would be qualifiers. But Barstool is not an owner of Penn and there's no risk that it can exercise control over Penn or control over our licensee. So that's the rationale behind designating qualifiers and that's why Barstool is not a qualifier here in Massachusetts. While I was reviewing this matter, IEB staff brought to my attention that Barstool Sports is registered as a non-gaming vendor with us due to the business that it conducts at Penn in selling some merchandise and the distribution of some promotional materials at PPC. So regarding Barstool's non-gaming vendor status, the NGV status, the IEB did perform a background review on Barstool consistent with the protocol that we use for NGVs as you well know, that's a different protocol than the one we conduct for our primary gaming vendors. And it's a review that's commensurate with the NGV status. These NGVs do not come before the commission for a vote for approval, they are approved by the IEB. The Barstool non-gaming vendor background check did reveal some derogatory media information pertaining to the company's founder but nothing that would lead to a denial of the registration under the criteria established for NGVs by the commission. And the criteria and protocols for the NGV review do not call for a review of any particular individual associated with the applicant company. So the IEB has not performed a background investigation of Mr. Portnoy or any other individual associated with Barstool Sports. So as I mentioned, Penn National did notify the IEB of two media articles in a publication called Business Insider. It's a news website and the articles appeared on November 4th of 2021 and then a second article on February 3rd. And the articles contained assertions by a number of women about sexual activity and conduct involving them and Mr. Portnoy. When Penn notified us, they expressed to us and to other regulators the serious nature of the allegations and the articles and that they were reviewing it. And on that point, I am well aware that the allegations are of concern to all of the commissioners. I heard from all of the commissioners after both the November 4th piece and the more recent piece each of you has reached out to me with concerns and there's been notable expressions of the disturbed by you of the disturbing nature of the content in the article. And it's clear that you wanted to make sure that the IEB is monitoring it and receiving appropriate information and updates from Penn. So as a result, initially of the November 4th article, the IEB has been in communications with Penn since the beginning of November, first by telephone and email and recently earlier this week in a meeting with a number of Penn executives. Penn has expressed that it fully understands the regulatory concerns here and also understands its reputational concerns. They did point out that the conduct asserted in the articles is not workplace conduct, not conduct that allegedly occurred at either the Barstow workplace or the Penn workplace. Penn also noted that no criminal charges have issued at this juncture and Penn has expressed that they have no knowledge of any ongoing criminal investigation. A civil lawsuit was filed this week by Mr. Portnoy in federal court in the district of Massachusetts. It's a defamation lawsuit against the business insider publication and some people associated with it on the basis that aspects of the article are untrue. Penn has continued to express that it understands its obligations to regulators around transparency. Penn is on notice that it must make certain affirmative disclosures here and the IEB is closely monitoring it, but it seems like a good time to have this conversation with you now in this forum while all of you are together and bring you up to date on this status. Thank you, Loretta. Commissioners, Commissioner O'Brien. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Loretta. I know you and I have had a number of conversations since November on this topic and that I reached out to you shortly after that first article and I understand and appreciate the distinction between a non-gaming vendor, the status, the process, et cetera. I'm also appreciative of the status that Barchel is not an automatic qualifier under our statute. They don't have an ownership interest in Penn. It's the other way around, but I do want to continue talking about this and Penn's response because I have commented a lot recently on the fact that they make a point of putting bar stools as well as the My Choice brand on their PowerPoints when they come and report to us quarterly. And so it is part of their brand that they're putting out there and part of their persona that they're putting forward. And there is a component to suitability that encompasses integrity, honesty, and good character of the applicant. So I do think that this bears following as you've been doing as these allegations and lawsuits progress, et cetera. I appreciate that Penn has acknowledged to you their responsibilities under the statute. And I just would want to reiterate that that's, I can't speak for the other commissioners. We've never spoken about it publicly, but in terms of, I'm happy that we're talking about it here today to make it clear the importance of sort of the discretionary component to suitability as well as the strict mandatory qualifier requirements. So thank you for updating us. Yep, no, that's helpful. Commissioner Cameron. Yeah, if I may jump in, I also have spoken numerous times to Director Lilios about this matter and had full briefings on everything that's been done. And I appreciate IEB continuing to monitor and I also appreciate Commissioner O'Brien's comments that there is a bigger umbrella here that we are concerned about and continuing to monitor and make sure we have all the latest information is really important. Commissioner Hill. I was very disturbed by what I saw and what I read. And I want to say thank you to Director Lilios as well. She immediately got back to us and jumped on top of this and Penn obviously on their own sent out information as well. But we certainly got to keep our finger on this one for sure moving forward. Thank you. I just was wondering if I could have a quick timeline Director Lilios, can you? The transaction where Penn National made its purchase happened in January of 2020? It was 2020, that's right. And then I just, they've been a non-gaming vendor since when? Barstool has been a non-gaming vendor since the spring of 2020. Okay, so spring of 2020. So, and again, this is evidence that our work continued notwithstanding the fact that the casinos were probably suspended in their business, right? So they- Exactly. That was when they were not, they weren't operating. Okay, I was having, that makes good sense now. Director Lilios, thank you. I appreciate very much that we don't operate in public on every subject matter, but we also don't get to talk to each other. And we all raised appropriately questions around what is our responsibility and what is our licensees responsibility and what is their parent company's responsibility here. And Loretta, you did act promptly. I was able to get clarification around that back in November. And so, the fact that that wasn't publicized at the time, it does show that we were expressing our desire to understand the matter. Appreciate the fact that Penn National has made two disclosures and our licensees have done that. And I appreciate that they met with you and they took your, this is just this week, your concerns and your questions very seriously. So from my perspective, the monitoring has been going on. And I think at this point, we will stay tuned. But I think that you've heard from all four of us that we do wanna stay apprised on this matter. And I also, like Commissioner O'Brien noted, there was a distinction in these different qualifiers in our review and the process that is used for registering a non-gaming vendor. So there's a lot that goes on and that registration took place during the peak of COVID. At the initial stage. And it's my understanding that process followed all the proper protocols. I think it's one that I'd like to understand better, but I do fully appreciate that it's, that the process was performed correctly and the reviews were done properly. So thank you. Okay. All right. Okay, well, thank you. Well, stay tuned. Thank you. And Director Lillios will certainly keep us surprised and we'll put it on for another public update. I think it's really important for us to hear it together. So thank you. Absolutely. Yeah, and Commissioner O'Brien, I appreciate your framework. Thank you very much. Okay. Then I think we can move on to item on our agenda now, nine, and thank you. See if I know Lenin. You're probably getting a little hungry at this point. No, no, can go for days without eating. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. I'm joined by Doug O'Donnell, Revenue Manager, Agnes Bolier, our Budget and Procurement Office Manager who retired a little over a year ago, but has been helping us while we searched for a Budget and Procurement Office Manager. You notice I didn't say replacement because no one will ever replace Agnes. But I'm also very pleased to officially and publicly introduce John Skelly to you. Karen had already given an overview. He's taking over the full-time responsibilities of the Budget and Procurement Office. He's going to be working with Agnes on a transition process. But collectively, we're here to present to you the FY22 second quarterly budget update, and then Doug will also have a request that came forward from one of our licensees following the budget update. The commission approved an FY22 budget for the Gaming Control Fund of $33.02 million, composed of $27.12 million in regulatory costs and $5.9 million in statutory required costs. The Gaming Control Fund initially required an assessment of $29.3 million on licensees, and after balancing forward money from FY21, the assessment was reduced down to $27.26 million. The commission also annually approved a $5 million assessment required by law for the Public Health Trust Fund, which is spread across the licensees. After first quarter adjustments, the Gaming Control Fund's projected expenditures went up to $33.43 million, and revenues remained the same at $33.02. The second quarterly update, the Finance Office is recommending a net decrease of $348,000 to the Gaming Control Fund spending projections and an increase of $265,000 in revenue projections. The memorandum also includes adjustments to each licensee share of the second half of the FY22 Gaming Control Fund assessment and the assessment to the Public Health Trust Fund based on revised gaming position counts as of January 1, 2022. As a reminder, the commission had approved an initial budget that funded the bare minimum for litigation and flat funded the Massachusetts State Police overtime costs. This is something we wanted to keep an eye on, kept an eye on it through the first quarter, and I'm pleased to say as of the second update, we're not anticipating any additional funds needed for either of those areas. Once again, it's the second quarter, so we'll keep an eye on it, but this is a good thing to report on. The table on page two of your memorandum lists out the adjustments that compose the $348,000 decrease. I'll walk through them briefly. There's a $500,000 reduction in straight pay for FTEs. That's on top of the $250,000 that we had already projected for turnover savings. With that decrease in straight time, we've been using some overtime, especially in the gaming agent division. That's where we see a lot of the turnover savings, so we're recommending increasing that line item by 60,000. Fringe and payroll taxes are going down 173,800 because of the tied to straight time salary. The independent monitor, we increased it by 281,000 for the bills that were paid between 10-1 and 12-31 of this quarter, and our indirect expenses are going down by 15,800 because those are tied to all of the categories above, well, they're tied to the straight time, overtime, and the independent monitor, so the net of that is the 15,000 down. All in, that's a $348,000 decrease in spending projections. We're keeping a close eye on revenues and good news again, in FY22, licensing fees are appearing to stabilize. Last year, if you recall, our licensing fees, we had to revise them down quite a bit due to closures and then just some of the restrictions that COVID put on the staffing levels at the patron levels, which had a reflection on the staffing levels at the casinos. This year, we're seeing those numbers bouncing back. Licensing division is billing for the employees coming in, their IEB and licensing are firing through all of those license applications, so it's good to see people getting back to work and us pulling in the revenues for those licensing fees. We are revising those numbers down slightly by 25,000, which is not that much, seeing that last year, we decreased them by a couple of hundred thousand. This is the 25,000 decrease is offset by a $281,000 increase in revenues for the independent monitor, which is the exact same amount that we are increasing expenses. That's a revenue neutral item on Corbos and Harvard pesos directly. At this point, I will turn over the presentation to Doug O'Donnell to discuss the change in assessments on licensees based on the revised gaming positions as of January 1st. Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon, I should say. On page three of Derek's memo for the mid-year review, you will see spreadsheets and I want to touch on the fiscal year 22 opening gaming positions for first half of the year. This is what the assessment is based on and it is the total gaming position count. And you can see that MGM, for the first half of the year, I had total gaming positions of 2,063, encore 3,786, and PPC 871 for a total of 6,693. What we do at the first of the year is we meet with the licensees right after January 1 and do a physical count with them as to what the updated gaming positions are. And as you can see in the second item, the second half of the assessments, the total gaming positions, MGM actually went down by one, encore increased as well as PPC and the total increased and went from 6,693 to 6,917, which is a minimal increase. But the good news about that is the majority of it were increased table games. As you can see, MGM had 52 table games with 338 positions at the beginning of the year and they went up to 65 table games to 455 positions. On-core only increased by four to 184, but their positions went up to 1,202. So this will have a reflection on what their percentage payments are. At the beginning of the year, MGM was 30.42% and that had a slight decrease to 29.42% for the second half of the year. On-core had a slight increase of 56.57, increased to 56.59 and PPC went from 1,301 to 13.99. So this will reflect in the second half assessment payments in the public health trust fund payment. But it's a very minimal increase to these. It'll change a little bit. We have reviewed these, submitted them to the licensees and they are all in agreement with this increase or decrease at this point. Questions for Derek and Doug and Treasurer Cameron. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just comment not a question because this finance team is very, very good at answering every last question. And when I was new to this role, I asked a lot of questions. So I just wanted to say that I really appreciate everyone's efforts to control spending so that we are responsible regulators and the finance team is really, their dashboard is on top of that, meaning they have a good reason or they understand the reasons why spending goes up, why it goes down, does it make sense? And they ask the appropriate questions always about spending. And the other thing I really appreciate is the transparency as Doug just pointed out with the licensees, our books are open, they understand everything we spend our money on, they don't always agree with everything but they have the ability to comment and their thoughts are certainly taken into consideration. So those are two things that I think are really noteworthy about how this team operates and how impressed I've been with just the knowledge of the spending and the efforts to control it because that's really important. Thank you. Other comments? Commissioner Hill, you're all set, Commissioner O'Brien. I agree with what Commissioner Cameron said. And I also, I appreciate it Doug pointing out that distinction in terms of while the numbers changed, the raw numbers turned into some good jobs which wasn't necessarily obvious on the face of the document. So I appreciated that during the briefing and I'm glad you brought it up now. Very, very helpful. I'm all set. Again, echo my colleagues' comments and observations, Doug and Derek. We can anticipate always that these reports are thorough and thoughtful. And of course, Doug closed with that point about transparency where we knew that you were working closely with the licensees. So I very much appreciate that. Thank you. I think, Doug, we have another item. Yes. Wow. So this is on a ticket payment request. An expired ticket, yeah. Yes. It's an EVH patron request for unclaimed ticket. On back in March 4th, 2020, an encore Boston patron had won $9,347 in a poker tournaments. The citizen was from the UK, the patron and they left the winnings as a pending identification safekeeping deposits. They waited for tax identification to submit so he'd be able to get a full payment rather than having taxes taken out of it. In order to collect the winnings, the casino required him to be in person and provide the tax identification number as well as additional paperwork. Due to the pandemic, the casino had closed 10 days after, closed on March 14th, and the travel restrictions made it virtually impossible for the patron to return back to the property within the timeframe, which normally would have been 365 days but due to the pandemic, we extended that another three months. So it would have been 15 months when he would have been able to get back to collect his winnings. As a result of this, the 15 months passed, so the casino remitted the expired funds to the Mass Gaming Commission. Despite complying with the regulation, the casino was now requesting permission to reduce a future expired gaming fund remittance by $9,347 to disperse to the patron for his winnings. This request was submitted to us by Mr. John Santin, who is the Executive Director of Accounting at Encore and he is with us today. So if you do have any further questions for him, he is available to respond. Questions. I had asked this when I was briefed on this before, but it's correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is that they could pay this monies themselves and have done so in the past in similar circumstances. Is that correct? They are able to pay it. They don't need our approval to pay out of their own funds, I guess is a better way for me to ask that question. No, they do not. Okay. And there's nothing, is anyone aware of any statutes or regulations that mandated that this person appear in person to submit the tax forms? I am not aware of that. Yeah, I'm not aware of that either. I do know that this particular patron did contact the casino after the 15 months had expired, requesting his funds and they let him know that the expired funds followed the regulations and it was submitted to the commission. And it is my understanding that he was going to come to the commission directly, but the casino decided, John decided to come to us and explain the situation to us. Okay. And maybe this is better directed at John Stanton, but am I correct that you have used your own funds to pay out in a circumstance like this in the past about asking for a future remittance? We have an amount that's not as meaningful or it's $9,300. We've already remitted the funds to the commission. So that would essentially be coming out of our own funds. So we've done so at much smaller denominations. Do you have a sense when you say much smaller denominations, what's the ballpark you're talking about? I don't have a great number on hand, but it'd probably be a couple hundred dollars at the most. But it was a similar type hardship. We generally wouldn't bring something like this before the commission. We obviously appreciate everybody hearing us out on it, but given the amount and the patrons kind of extraordinary situation, we thought it was worth bringing your attention. Yeah. I'm sorry, Karen. I'm so sorry, commission. I feel like it's something that, I don't know why it has to be remitted in future, given what seems to be a de minimis amount in the grand scheme of things, but that's where I'm coming from. Given the unusual circumstances of not only the shutdown, the three month extension on the year, but also travel restrictions, particularly those applying to people from Europe and the UK that probably inhibited getting here in person. Commissioner Cameron, did you want to? I had similar thoughts on this, that these were extraordinary situation and the individual is not capable. Our country was shut down to those from Europe. Under the circumstances, I really believe the licensee could have done a better job reaching out to someone like this and kind of talking through the situation or making another arrangement with that individual where he wouldn't have to come in person. And it's my understanding that other licensees have done things a little bit differently when it comes to patrons. And I think to ask for tax money back now, is not something that I think is the right thing for this commission under the circumstances. Commissioner Hill? I agree with my fellow commissioners on this. Derek, are there any fiscal implications here? There are no fiscal implications, I have to say, and I think John's aware, I was hesitant to bring this before you because I thought the statute was pretty clear and the casino does have the ability to pay this. That being said, there are the further considerations that I wanted the commission to have a chance to weigh in on regarding the travel restrictions and ask any questions. But my line of thinking is along the same as the commissioners, I do have sympathy for the patron. I'm hoping that the right thing will be done for the patron, but to ask for the tax dollars back when I think there could have been some other accommodations made, which I'm not aware couldn't be made, is where I was having a hard time, but I did commit to bringing it in front of the commission. So I guess where I'm troubled here is the patron did reach out during the 15 months where the matter was still live at a certain point, John, or no, was it after the 15 months? To my understanding, it was right around that time. I'd have to look back to the exact date. It may have been before. I'd have to check back into it. But the fund said the duration of time had passed and we did, per the CMR, we did have to permit the payment forward to the commission. So you didn't hear from them saying, how can this make this happen? There wasn't any back and forth for the whole full period? Sure. So the full situation was that the patron had their own safekeeping funds on hand, which we were able to handle that and return those funds to the patron because that was their deposited money that they had on, that's their money. And this particular instance, we have people wet sign the tax forms, right? Because it's particular in this case because we're required to withhold for a patron with a foreign passport. And with certain treaty countries, we're able to waive the withholding and pay them in full provided they give us a 10 and sign a W-8 ban, which is basically an attestation saying that their 10 is accurate because we're unable to validate international 10s. So those two forms are really critical for us, for our own documentation purposes to have on hand. And those were the two forms we really wanted the patron to sign in person. And so is that with those forms that you wanted him to sign the back and on March 4th or was it during that interim? Right. So the patron would have had a probably a 10 day window prior to a 10 or 12 day window prior to the closure to do so. And the patrons, my understanding of the patron had left because he didn't have his 10 handy at the time. And so we could have paid, we could have net paid the jackpot net of the tax withholding at the time, but the patron opted not to go that route because they wanted to be paid in full. They wanted to be paid in full. They didn't want to pay the taxes unnecessarily, who does, right? So then was there an opportunity for you guys to circle back to the patron? But you don't do that. It hasn't been our policy to do so for the case of a jackpot to send it because everything electronic, it's a little dicey with the communications and we pay out of the cage for a jackpot or in this case, it was a tournament prize. So then how's it worked? What got remitted to the Commonwealth on the unclaimed? Sure. So the, I believe it was $9,347. That was the patron's winnings from the tournament we were discussing. We just kept those in a deposit and then when the time expired, we remitted that exact amount, along with other unrelated funds for that cycle. But didn't circle back to the patron before doing that? There's a large quantity and number of tickets, not just jackpots are usually a little bit less, but we just, we remit them automatically as they expire. In some cases, the nature of these is that there is no ID. So we need a positive ID to ensure that we know our customer and compliance with all the payment policies. I'll tell you where I'm at. I'm not really sure if I truly understand the back and forth, but I do understand what that in the past licensees will make the customer whole. And that means that the licensees down, right? You don't have any obligation to do that right now. So what I think I'm hearing from my fellow commissioners is, you know, do what we, but because of COVID, the right thing and pay him. But we have no regulatory oversight on that, correct? That's not, Todd, am I right? We're not instructing him to pay the year. No, we're not. Nor do I think we have any legal authority to accuse them from making a future payment here. Wait, could you say that part again, Todd, please? There's no, I mean, the law doesn't address excusing future payments based upon improper payments that were previously made or anything like that. It just, the process has worked as it was supposed to. Yeah. The payment kind of came to us as it should have. And I'm not sure that there's actual legal authority to do what's even being requested here. That's what I wondered. That was kind of like, where are we right now in our authority? So we can't, I don't think we have legal authority to require that you make, you know, reimburse the patron and I'm not sure we can do what you're asking either. And I don't know if commissioners, if that's helpful or not for us to sort of understand what our authority is here. Cause I think we were also asked to take formal action on this today. Where we've done? There was a, you were seeking a motion. Again, it's a, you know, it's a decision that's made by the commission, whether we want to honor that request or not. But as Todd said, we have no legal authority to do one way or the other. I think what came up in one of the conversations was if, so the commission has extended this deadline in the past. So there's some precedent for kind of looking at that statute that the commission has done. This is a whole different precedent as far as making a payment after the fact without, and you want to take a look at our similar circumstances and existence to allow you to kind of extend that and say, well, maybe that money shouldn't have been returned at that time period. That being said, we don't have to make the vote now. You could work with legal to see if we even had the statutory authority to do that. I think, I think Todd's kind of giving you a precursor to the way his mindset is right now. But we put it on for a vote just because we didn't have the authority as staff to make this decision. That authority always laid with the commission, whether they want to take a look at the circumstances and see if this is a circumstance where they would want to kind of consider what the true definition of that 365 days are. I mean, you can take a look at, if there's a requirement that these forms have to be done in wet signature, which I think that's more of John saying they'd prefer it to be done in wet signature, but they could have probably gotten them electronically, then is that deadline extended? Because the patron truly couldn't get back here for travel bans to sign those. So if there's a statutory requirement there, those are some of the things that we were looking at as far as where the commission may have some ability to open up this tax side. I know that those are very narrow circumstances. You would never want to open it up, especially where it's a statute like this, but we're also looking at what's the fairness to the patron as well as what's the fairness to the licensee. I know where I came down initially, it was absolutely not, but I'm not a commissioner, I'm not the decision-making authority. So we wanted to explore all of these options, if that's helpful. So can I assume that you've since been given the documentation electronically, or did he actually come back at any point? I'm sorry, was that, I didn't hear the beginning. Sure, yeah, no, Mr. Stanton. So I'm assuming you've got the necessary documentation electronically ultimately, right? He hasn't come back or she, I don't know what's the moment. To my understanding, I haven't been back in person yet. I'm not sure of that. We did receive a scan of UK passport. That's to my knowledge, that's all we have. So do you have the documentation that you would need to make the payment without withholding taxes? He would still need to provide us a tent. There's, he'd have the sign. He would have to come back to do that? With our current policies, yes. Okay, so this is even premature then, because no matter what we say today, yeah, I don't know, I don't think it's right if the person still hasn't come back or hasn't been able to come back. Interesting, interesting to me with such an international clientele that that's the obligation. But it sounds like there's, if you're a beginner winner, you might not know to bring your papers with you, but if you're a more experienced winner, you might come very prepared for those withholdings. And that works well for under your policies. But also clearly, is there another conversation to do really directly between the patron and EBH about, there's no reason under your policies right now to not pay out on your own funds, the jackpot minus the withholdings. Doug. Yes. Oh, I thought you were leaning in. I do that when I see the box light up, because I think you're leaning in to ask, I'm excited to offer the opportunity for you to speak. Commissioner, as I, I would welcome a motion if you're comfortable making a motion. I'm somewhat with mixed emotions about taking any steps because I'm not really sure what I'm authorized as a commissioner to do. And then to sounds like there's still some issues there. Yeah, I personally think it's premature. I mean, if the fact of the matter is they're asking to get future remittance offset on a total amount where they haven't even satisfied their internal protocols to not withhold the taxes, the dollar amount's not even accurate unless I'm mistaken in that. So to me, this isn't even ripe in terms of adjudicating one way or the other. I don't know that we don't have the authority to do that. There may not be clear authority written out somewhere. I agree. I don't know that I would go so far to say we could never do it. I just think that under these facts, it's not right for coming before us. It sounds like another conversation should probably be had with the patron directly with the licensing. I don't think we've ever had this situation where I think if I'm hearing every, I'm hearing Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Karen, would you like to act or move today or are you... I don't think it's marked up for any kind of a vote first of all. Oh, I thought it was. I don't see that on the agenda. And secondly, I think we've been clear on how we feel about this matter, frankly. And we are not, no matter what the legal authority is, I think my decision was not based on legal authority. It was based on taxpayer money. And the fact that the licensee did not have any kind of thorough conversation and accommodation for something under these circumstances. I think my clarification, Commissioner Cameron was just that I wouldn't want there to be an expectation that we're telling the licensees to pay him. Cause I don't... No, we don't have that authority, but this is a company that is prides themselves on customer experience. I'm actually surprised, that's all. Yeah. There, thank you for pointing it out. I was looking for the motions and didn't note the agenda. So Doug, Commissioner Hill, do you want to add anything? There's nothing mad that hasn't already been said. I think it's before us, before it needs to be. Okay. John, thank you for your time. Not an uncomplicated matter to be fair. This was 10 days before an unprecedented pandemic. So the facts that difficult for the patron and difficult for the licensee, we all appreciate that. To Derek's point, that's why we did extend the deadline. It's just that we hadn't, I confirmed that in speaking to Derek that we hadn't extended it further. So I think back to the drawing board, if there is one, right, Doug? Yes. Okay. Thanks John. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Okay. Thank you, Derek. And Doug, for the first part, an interesting issue on the expired ticket. I think, yeah. We'll follow up with the licensee to see if they want to bring this back in front of you after getting the temperature in the room. I think it just, there's some questions. Yeah. Kind of questions as to even using that, that bringing that money back out. I know that it's would be somehow that we would get it in some kind of a cycle going forward, but it's just a little bit conceptually difficult. All right. So, but we have some different reports to look forward to in the afternoon. Before we take our lunch break, I did want to let the commissioners know that in fact, Commissioner O'Brien, our independent monitor did say that somehow they didn't appreciate today's date. So we may not have been as clear. And that's okay. They're exceptional. And that's what I gathered that perhaps today's date. She did send an email at noon. Yeah. So she has followed up exactly at noon with that notice that I was looking for. And that notice really does take the same structure style of one that we acted on after the first six months baseline. Commissioner Cameron, that was, we extended because of the work there. So if we, if you don't mind, I'd like to start off the afternoon with that matter to take care of it before we go to. And so that's, that's item three or C. And then we'll move immediately to that community's affair and Joe's quarterly reports from our two licensees. Does that make sense? And then of course we are anticipating an executive session at the end of those reports, but that way we won't forget the independent monitors notice. Okay. Yes. All right. So we will, I guess break for lunch. It's 1242 crystal. Probably you gave us a half an hour. So one 15. And if you could just take a look at that, at that noon time, you know, that would be great. I think you have to forward it. Unless it's already been disseminated. It came, it only came to the two and I as the contract managers, but I think you need to disseminate it out. Oh, I saw commissioners and you honestly assumed it was everybody. I will forward it to crystal and crystal and make sure everybody gets it immediately. Okay. Thank you. I am not going to leave the meeting. We're just going to mute ourselves out. I'm so nervous about that and we'll video out and we'll reconvene at one 15. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Gail, I think my French roots were shining through when I tried to get choreography and choreographed out today. Oh yeah, it was fine. I do that all the time. I couldn't figure out. It was impressive, wasn't it? Oh. But an impressive guy. Wow. The commonwealth's very lucky to have his public service, right? Well, he is taking all of kind of his educational experience and his experience and his skillset and really putting it into a great position. So. Yeah, and he also certainly understood the value of fundraising and really just growing the brand kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. I just got off of a quick check in with Karen. I said, how do you say the verb with choreography? Choreograph, I couldn't do it. Where's the syllable that you accept and you emphasize, right? Yeah, right. And last night I was choreographing, right? Choreography is the noun in choreograph. Choreograph is the verb. It's the verb choreograph. Yeah, so it's chess, right? A little bit. Yeah, it's not. It was not blowing at whatever time it was this morning at 10 o'clock. If my mother were alive, she would laugh because she would say, that's my influence on you. Oh, really? She was a very, French was her first language, but she was a great English reader. And then she would take that language that she read, and then she would speak it. And said, French Canadian or French Canadian? And inevitably, we'd look and go, and the classic was one day in Northern Vermont, there was a parade, and she was with her grandchildren, you know, a couple of us adult kids, and she said to all the grandchildren, look, look, it's a limo, and it was a limousine. And she must have read limo, you know, because in Northern Vermont, there weren't a lot of limousines at the time. This was years ago. But we went, limo, huh mom? Yeah, and it didn't occur to her that it would be a short eye, right? Yeah, no, this is not funny. Yeah, yeah. You realize how language is learned. Did you get the, Brad? And I don't know if I can't see everyone, maybe Dave, you can take it down now. Everybody has the email from Alejandra. Crystal did send that to us. Yes, she should. Okay, well, there we are. Excellent, Crystal, thank you so much. Crystal will prep me for long words going forward. The choreography was cracking me up because you're speaking my language, that was like my whole history before. In marketing, I was a dance major, so it's always like, but I was gonna tell you, it's even funnier when you get to the, if they start shortening it. And then the emphasis moves again, because it's Korea, they don't even say. Oh, that's funny. Well, there's a reason maybe, right? Well, and Crystal and I share a little bit of the same heritage, but you must just be much better at it. Last night when I was reading it, sort of allowed to myself and I was stumbling, I said, just remember to say the word arranged, you know? But I didn't think. What a word, we all knew, we knew where you were going. Just wasn't blowing up. Okay, so it looks like we can get started. We need to reconvene David, David, my all set for streaming, are we all set? Yep, we are all back to normal. Okay, great. We're reconvening public meeting of the Massachusetts Game Commission, number 370 after a lunch break. We are, before we turn to item number 10, we want to just go back to item three, four, C. Regarding the independent monitor, we have since this morning received from the independent monitor the notice that is required under contract for giving us notice as to when they're approaching a threshold of over 775,000 plus 15% on billings for the fiscal year. In my email, Eileen, and please jump in because I'm reading off my phone and it's a little bit hard to see that the monitor is requesting an adjusted amount of what they, an estimate of 1.125 million for the fiscal year, is that correct? That's correct. Yeah, you want to just go over, Eileen, by the contract, they do have to give us an explanation for. Sure, you don't just read the six. Yeah, read the overage. Certainly, she left six. One, changes in key leadership roles that result in an additional interviews of personnel in key positions. And by that, she means at the company, not internally. She means the licensee. Number two, a request for additional focus groups at both EVH and Las Vegas, generated by preliminary observations in the lapse of time in the focus group activity due to the pandemic because they did not conduct focus groups into 2020 and threw into the 2021 review cycle. Number three, additional requests for board and compliance committee interviews that were generated based on the preliminary observations for preparation of an interim report and an interim presentation at an MGC public hearing that had not been included in the original budget. Five, a larger than originally anticipated volume of company documentation that was made available for review and testing. And lastly, number six, a larger than originally anticipated number of reports that had come into the company hotline. Number six, not being necessarily a bad thing because it's that hotline being available. So those are clarifications for number two, actually number three, that, or no, I'm sorry, number four, the interim report. We didn't really think about that as an expansion of the work plan, Todd. And I suppose that really was an additional deliverable that we asked for. I mean, is that right? So, Todd, do you just wanna go over what is expected under the contract so that the commission is just making a consideration today if we want to expand the work plan, but we don't have to approve this, correct? That's absolutely right. The contract just set out by way of refresher, I projected costs for the monitor over the course of the contract. And there was a provision built in that said, if they are anticipating exceeding those costs by 15%, that they will let the commission know so that you can go back and determine whether the work plan that was approved should be adjusted in any way. And so if everybody's still comfortable with the work plan and the work that's been being done and the reasons that have been cited, there is no reason to take any action to amend or adjust the work plan in any way. It's just an opportunity to have a look at what's been done, what's going to be done in the cost of it. And, Todd, with this adjustment, it's still our projections would be that the independent monitor is well within the what was anticipated upon selection for the overall costs, correct? For the overall costs? Overall costs at the conclusion of either three to five years. If they went the full five years on these projections, they would still be within what was given to us as an overall estimate on for the, when they were selected. I think Derek was able to confirm that the other day. I can't recall exactly, but that may be a contract. I guess what I can say is that I asked that question and Derek, I don't know if Derek is available now, but I mean, I think that even with this estimate today, they're not outside the realm of reasonableness in terms of what was initially anticipated for a spread when they applied. I think that's accurate. Yeah. Any questions? Commissioner Cameron? No questions. I did have a chance to read it before the meeting and just her Eileen's explanation and her explanation of all the steps. No, I think it's fine. I don't have any concerns or issues. And again, just to remind everyone, the invoices come in monthly and the process that we use is that Todd, Eileen and I look at them with Derek. And so that there's a green light, really the three of us deciding whether they seem reasonable. And then if we green light and they got the Derek processes and it's immediately reimbursed through by Encore. Now that was my understanding of how the process would work and if the three of you are comfortable, then I certainly am. Yeah. So Brad, do you have any questions? Okay, then I think we can move ahead. Commissioner O'Brien, you're all set with these explanations today? Yeah. Okay, good, I'll let them know. Todd and whatever notation you need, I think the commissioners have no further consideration of the work plan, so we're all set. Great. Karen, you did want to do another quick update before. It's just a quick update. I was reminded that I just wanted to make sure the commissioners were all on the same page and aware. We have been going through the process for procurement of the live stream equipment for getting back into the office. The team did review a number of proposals. They have the top proposal. We met with the team that's implementing and reviewing the proposals. And the direction I gave was to go ahead with that first choice. We have briefed the commissioners on that. So I just wanted to let you know that that is going forward. We were pleasantly surprised that we were probably not spending as much money as we thought we may have had to spend, which is always a good thing. So I wanted to say thank you to the communications team, IT and finance. They've all been working on this. And hopefully we will get going and get the equipment as soon as possible. There may be some delays on procurement of certain items just because of the supply chain issues. But we're working on incrementally just getting this up and running as quickly as we can. So I just wanna make sure you're all aware of that. If you have any questions, please let me know. Okay, any questions on that? Thanks for that update. And thanks for the process, very thoughtful. Thank you. Okay, we still have a good amount of work ahead of us for the afternoon. And Joe, thank you for this morning, very informative. And now we're moving on to quarterly reports. Yes, thank you Madam Chair and commissioners. So what we'll have up for you are two quarterly reports. First we'll have Encore and then PPC. And then after that, we anticipate going into executive session to discuss a few items regarding each of our licenses. So with that, I will start with Encore and I'll turn it over to, we have Jackie Crum and Juliana Catanzeridi from Encore to do their presentation. Jackie, take it away. Good afternoon. We've said good morning, so we'll now move on to the afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity to present our quarterly report to you today. I'm gonna turn it over to Juliana to get us started. And I also, well, we'll get there in a second. So go ahead. I'm just gonna share my screen so play up when we all, is everyone able to see? My computer has a. Where's it? Nope, it just slipped away. We started to see it. And now, did we lose Juliana? She may still be there, but she's muted. So I don't know if she's trying to talk, but we can't hear her. I'm gonna text her. And Jackie, if you're having trouble with the presentation, I've got a copy of it ready to pop up if I need to. Okay, great. We might take you up on that. Thank you. She's just trying to join back. I guess it wouldn't be a virtual meeting if we didn't have one or two technical glitches, huh? Yeah. Well, even in the in-person meetings, they've been technical glitches from time to time. Yes, indeed. Joe, would you mind sharing it? It looks like she can't get back on. So she's gonna head over to my office. And if you wouldn't mind. Sure. I appreciate that. Thank you. Sure. There we go. Perfect. There we go. Okay. I guess I'll kick it off until she arrives. To start with gaming revenue taxes and lottery sales. And as you can see from this, we've continued to grow in each month as well as the quarter as well. Do you wanna, there we go. So this is just the year-over-year status. And Joe, if you wouldn't mind just scrolling a little bit lower. Sorry, if you go back one slide. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So on the table games, gross gaming revenue, we're at approximately 280 million on the slots. We're at 353. And on the total GDR, we were 634 million for the, for 2021. And on state tax, state, you come sit here, go ahead. On state taxes collected, $158 million. Now I'm gonna pass it over to Juliana. Sorry about that. I got kicked off and it wouldn't let me join. Apparently my computer was, thought the meeting was running. So I will pick up at lottery sales for the fourth quarter. So our lottery sales for the fourth quarter totaled 908,165, which was a 43.5% increase from the same quarter of 2020. Although as we all know, we were closed for the entire second quarter of 2020 and then portions of the first and third quarters. So all of these comparisons are sort of to be taken with a grain of salt because we're sort of comparing apples and oranges here, but so here are year over year lottery sales. As you can see the Q4 numbers are highlighted in yellow. So moving on to our workforce numbers. So all of the fourth quarter figures provided in this reporter as of January 1st, 2022. Our total number of employees that's the last yellow column there that's sort of in the middle was 3,455 of that number. 56% fell into the minority category, 2% were veterans and 44% were women. 87% of employees live in a surrounding community. So that means a community within 30 miles of Onford, Boston, Harbor and 90% are in Massachusetts. So the next slide details, employment statistics for managerial and supervisory employees. During Q4, we had a total of 222 managers and above and of those 222 employees, 99 or 45% or minorities, 95 or 43% were women and 13 or 6% were veterans. Of our 543 employees in supervisory roles, 314 or 58% were minorities, 230 or 42% were women and 24 or 4% were veterans. We're moving on to the operating spend. So for Q4, our total discretionary spend was 20,681,545 of that total discretionary amount, 10% was spent with minority business enterprises, 4% was spent on veterans business enterprises and 14% was spent on women's business enterprises, sorry. The chart here provides a year over year comparison of the total diverse spend for each quarter during 2021. So our Massachusetts spend, this is our operating spend locally broken down here by city. The last line there, our Massachusetts spend of 10,540,893 for Q4 was actually more than half of our total discretionary spend. Here's also the local community breakdown for Q4. You can see that we spent nearly $3 million with Boston-based businesses and then $2.3 million with Everett-based businesses in addition to those amounts spent in the other communities that are listed here. Juliana, just one quick question, this is a joke. Do we have the numbers for the whole year? Because these are annual goals and we've got the quarter. Would you get that to us? Yeah, sure. That'd be great just to see it all in one place and to see how close we are on that annual goal. I think it may be included in the paper report that we submitted, but if it's not, I'll make sure. Oh, great, great, thank you. And here we have the year over year comparison for the local operating spend. This doesn't include the Massachusetts spend as there's no communities that are listed in the previous slide. And this is the actual Massachusetts spend as a whole. So moving on to compliance. During Q4, we actually did not have any miners that were intercepted gaming. Most of the instances that you'll see here of miners on the gaming floor were for really short periods of time. For the most part, it was due to security either waiting for backup security or the GEU to come. Some of those instances were related to small children that were with adult parents that were quickly escorted off the floor. Can I just ask though the one that was three hours, 56 minutes, almost four hours? Yeah, so that miner had a fake ID and I think almost two or more than two of those hours were spent in memoir. So they use a fake ID to enter the floor and then when they were discovered that it was actually a fake ID and it was a miner, they were escorted off and trespassed. So were they, they got successfully onto the floor and into memoir with the same fake ID? So I think Jackie's gonna take it up from here so I don't know further questions. Thank you. And it's my great pleasure to introduce you to somebody who's joined our team in the last, gosh, it's probably over last, more than just the last quarter. Glenda Swain is our Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion. She's based out of Las Vegas and she is in charge of the company from a corporate level. She's in charge of all of our diversity and inclusion interests. Prior to joining Wynn, Glenda worked in the auto industry for two of the big three automakers where she was responsible for EEO compliance and diversity and inclusion. After moving Detroit, Glenda worked at the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta with responsibilities and diversity recruitment and diversity communications for North America. Very pleased to introduce you to Glenda and have asked her to present briefly on her plan for Wynn Resorts. Glenda. Joe, maybe, Joe, maybe you could take down the presentation briefly. Please. Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you guys for having me and thank you, Jackie, for that introduction. I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity to meet everyone and say hello from Las Vegas and just kind of give you a very high level abbreviated version of our diversity strategy for our North America business, which obviously includes Encore Boston Harbor. And Joe, would you mind putting back the presentation because I think Glenda's gonna speak to that. She's got a couple. Thank you. It's great to see you there. Same here. Thank you. Sorry to disrupt the flow. No problem. Great. Perfect. Thank you. So just to start off, I wanted to make sure you guys understand where we're trying to go with this strategy. The very first thing we wanted to do is create a diversity logo that kind of dovetails into our Wynn branding for Wynn Resorts. And so this is our new logo that is going to accompany all of our brand assets across the North America business. And, you know, just stepping back for a minute before I created this strategy or created all of this, there were some pre-assessments that were done because I thought it was important to kind of understand where we were as a business in this space before I started making recommendations or making changes. And so part of the pre-assessment included talking to all of the senior leaders up into including our CEO and property presidents, Jenny as well, about, you know, where we are or who we're trying to be in this space and what we've done in the past. I also talked with our diversity advisory council about the activities they've done before and the connectivity between activities in Las Vegas and Boston. And I also thought it was important to engage our employees. So I conducted a series of diversity focus groups at both our Las Vegas properties and Encore Boston Harbor. And so all of the information that I received kind of affected how I went about devising this strategy. So I kind of want you guys to understand the context of how all of this came together. It was very collaborative and it took into consideration all the things that were already going on in Boston. And so we created a goal, what we wanted to be. We're already doing great things in the hospitality space. We wanted to do the same thing and replicate that in the diversity inclusion space to make sure we become a leader in this area. The core behavior that this strategy is anchored in was a core behavior that we've already adopted, which is treat everyone with dignity and respect. I thought it was important not to come and add anything or add an appendage to what we already were as a company. So I think it would make it easier and more palatable if it just was an extension of the brand that we've already established. And so our diversity policy, I pulled from this statement when resorts is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture and environment in which all people are valued, respected and welcome. And so in putting this strategy together, it hinged in three pillars. So we wanted to make sure it was holistic and addressed all areas of the business. And so the first pillar is the workplace. We're committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all our employees are valued, respected, and more importantly, given the opportunity to reach their full potential. So it speaks directly to workforce development. And our marketplace statement is we're committed to ensuring that our business reflects the diversity of our guests. We have a very diverse guest composite and we wanna make sure that the business that we do in the marketplace reflects that. And then lastly, in community, we're committed to supporting diverse organizations in the communities in which we do business. And I know my colleague in Las Vegas, Monica Murackin and her extended team in Boston have done a great job in making sure we have a great community footprint. And we just wanna extend that to include more diverse organizations as well as reach more diverse and underrepresented communities. So I think it's important to know that this is a three year strategy. So it's going to be rolled out over three years in three phases. You know, we wanted to make sure that we took our time and course corrected where we needed to, but these are the three phases and these are the different components in each phase. And also I wanted you guys to know that we may move some initiatives up in a phase or we may move some back depending on what the business dictates. But for the most part, for my planning purposes, this is how we've outlined the rollout. And so some of these were actually already done and in place in 2021. For instance, I'll just go through them briefly. For instance, diversity and inclusion advisory council of which Jackie is a member and I am the chair. It was already kind of in place. So I just changed the complexion a little bit to add a couple of more leaders from major organizations that I feel whatever we do we need to make sure that they're on board because it may affect their organization a little differently. So it's a 12 member council made up of senior leaders of all the major divisions in the company at both our properties in Las Vegas and Boston. We have a diversity learning and development curriculum. So we want us to go beyond just diversity training and create a curriculum that could be proactive in helping our employees and particularly our managers build their capacity around diversity and inclusion. We want it to be something that they own that it's not an HR program solely that it's something that can be waterfalled down into the business. Our diversity talent management program speaks to workforce development. One of our challenges, especially here in Las Vegas is making sure we create a diverse talent pipeline for minorities and women into leadership roles. And so we wanted to be very intentional about that and make sure that we develop our mid-level managers to make sure they're ready for leadership roles when they come available. Our diverse meetings and convention strategy is in conjunction with our senior VP of conventions and meetings here in Las Vegas. And I'm also partnering with her counterpart in Boston to make sure that we're extending our solicitation to diverse organizations to come do business with us here in Vegas and in Boston. On the most recent trip I had to Boston last week, I met with a contingency of African American females who were leaders in their respective organizations. And we just had a brief dinner on property but they're very interested in bringing business to Encore Boston Harbor and have committed to going back to their respective organizations to talk about how we can do that. And so my next visit to Boston, which will probably be the end of March, we're gonna have them tour the property and meet with some of our people to see how we can move that plan to action. So we're very intentional about getting more business into our properties. The CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion is a benchmarking platform that is a partnership between the Executive Leadership Council and I'm honestly a PWC with land that charge. And so before mathematics left, he signed on to this action. And it's pretty much the CEO saying we are committing to our, you know, to including and improving diversity and inclusion in our respective organizations. And so it's a great benchmarking and best practice sharing platform that our new CEO Craig Billings has agreed to continue. So I will manage this relationship and continue to have our CEO involved in it. Our Diversity and Inclusion Community Outreach Program is like I said, an extension of what our community relations team is also doing. We wanna be very strategic in where we not only put our dollars, but where we have our employees volunteer to make sure we're having an impactful impact in the communities in which we do business. Cultural commemorations and diversity events, we're really excited about this. And this was one of the things that came out of our diversity focus groups from our employees. They wanted to see more celebrations on property. They wanted to see that their respective cultures and heritage are being celebrated. And so we activated that actually starting last month with the Martin Luther King Jr. day commemoration we had on both properties, Las Vegas and in Boston. We had a fireside chat with someone who was very close to Dr. King. And we made the video because of COVID reasons, we didn't do it live, but we made the video available to all our employees. And so people very much enjoyed that. This month we're celebrating Black History Month and we have an employee driven video that we're launching in conjunction with that month. And then next month, we're starting on Women's History Month as well. And all the subsequent cultural commemorations to include Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month Latino and Hispanic Heritage Month Veterans Day, Native American Heritage Month, we are making sure we're being inclusive with all of our cultural commemorations on properties. And then diversity week is something new that I felt we should implement. It will be held in August. And we took that time mainly because that was one of the few months that didn't already have a cultural commemoration attached to it, where we're gonna have a week long celebration of diversity on both our properties, Boston and Las Vegas. It will include a cultural food fair. It'll include an interactive cultural commemorations. We're gonna have a diversity speaker series where we bring in different cultural speakers to talk to our employees about how to embrace respect of cultures, how to work together. So we're really excited about that. And it'll end with a diversity town hall where our property presidents and hopefully our CEO will be available for this as well, where we just have an open forum where employees can talk about how they feel about diversity and where we are on our journey. In phase two, we're gonna have a diversity recruitment program where we're intentional again about bringing in diverse minorities and women into our organization. The diversity toolkit for managers is meant to be a platform and a resource for our managers to utilize during their pre-shifts or during their meetings in their own respective town halls. The goal in that is to make sure they own their place in our diversity and inclusion journey. They speak to, they work with their employees and we wanna make sure it gets down to the organizational level. The Chamber of Commerce Partnership, I'm excited about, you know, as we think about, especially here in Vegas, engaging minority and women enterprises, the Chambers of Commerce are a great resource for helping us do that. And so we wanna be intentional about engaging those partnerships. And then there's industry related nonprofit alliances such as minorities for minority society for hospitality. It's a college-driven organization of minorities and women who are studying hospitality and tourism. And so we think it's a great kind of pipeline organization to partner with as we try to staff entry-level positions. And then phase three is our supplier diversity program. And I know our partners in Boston are way ahead of us in Vegas in this particular initiative. So we wanna use them as a best practice to kind of extend that to our initiatives here in Las Vegas. And lastly, diversity branding. You know, as we do these great things internally, we wanna make sure that we're intentional about stewarding our successes to our internal and external stakeholders. And so that's what we're gonna do around diversity branding. So this is just a 5,000-foot overview of our diversity strategy. And I just wanna make sure you guys are aware of what we're doing. And as we have some quick wins or something to steward to the commission, I will certainly be happy to do that. Can we pause and just be able to speak with Ms. Swing? First off, congratulations on your appointment. Thank you. It's a really important role. And it appears that they've made a really, really thoughtful choice. So congratulations, commissioners, comments or questions from Ms. Swing, Commissioner Cameron. Yeah, I'd like to congratulate Vice President Swing as well. I think you've earned that title. And secondly, talk a little bit about some of your programs. Very exciting. Funny, before you came on, we were just reviewing the diversity numbers as we do every quarter. And I think what we found as a commission is that if you have to put it in writing and you have to look at it, somehow those numbers improve. And you have to talk about it on a quarterly basis. And one of the things we didn't do early on was talk about the supervisory and above. And since we included that, those numbers have jumped somewhat dramatically when it comes to elevating folks or putting a program in place like you just explained, which is your talent management program, right? Interesting, you said, especially in Vegas. I was wondering if that's because it's already been being done pretty well here in Boston. I mean, if you look at the numbers, they are strong in all of those areas. So I wondered if that's why you said, especially in Vegas. And the other thing I love that you talk about is having managers on it, right? Because if you have managers who you don't realize, really don't buy into this, then they can be harmful in an organization. So just very important and buy in from the top. That's so critical as well to make these kind of systemic changes. So again, congratulations. And already this looks excellent. The program's you're implementing. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Yeah, Boston is in a lot of instances miles ahead of us with regards to certain aspects of management diversity. And so we're gonna get there. And like I said, the hope is that this plan puts us on the right path to get there. And I can't say you are absolutely right. It has to be embraced from the top down. And it needs to get to the manager level as well, because they're the ones who are in front of our frontline employees more so than we are. And we need to make sure that they are on board with what we're doing and understand their role in getting this implemented. We can't do it all ourselves. And so we're being very intentional. I just recently had a platform called Conversations with Leaders where it's all of our managers on a team's call. And I had the pleasure of speaking to them and talking about a couple of the components that impact them directly. And I told them, we need you to own this in order for all of a high tide raises all boats, right? And so in order for us to move the needle on this, we need their participation. And I feel that we're gonna get that. So hopefully we're on the right path. Thank you for the question. Commissioner O'Brien or Commissioner Hill. I can add my congratulations to you as well. And I hope that Boston doesn't come without its challenges either. And so I hope, I'm sure you've seen them already. You'll see more. And I hope that obviously you get the support you need in Boston to keep doing this work. And obviously, we as a commission obviously value it. And so we're very happy to hear that you're here and to hear the progress that you make on this as you go forward. Thank you. Yeah, I told Jenny and Jackie and the leaders here that I'm responsible for diversity and inclusion across all our North America business. And of which Uncle Boston Harbor is a large part. And so my intention, although I sit in Vegas, my office is in Vegas, my goal is to spend a considerable amount of time in Boston. I think it's important to have a presence there. I told Jenny I want to consider me a part of her extended leadership team because I think it's important for the employees to see that we're not just building this strategy in Vegas and tossing it over the wall to Boston. There's nuances in the Boston market that don't occur here in Vegas. And so I need to be, and I am mindful of that. And certain things you just need to be in market to activate. And so I'm committed to doing that with regularity. So thank you for that. Yeah, and I think your presence too in terms of role modeling and particularly when you're talking about management, I'm sure it's impactful to have you on the ground in Boston too. Thank you. Commissioner Hill. And I don't know how much more to add except I can see the excitement in you as being the leader of this goal that you have in the, what you hope to attend. And I can see that it's a very aggressive plan that you will put together. And we are all looking forward in the years to come in the quarters to come to, that those goals are realized that you put forward. But like I said earlier, you show a lot of excitement for this. And I can see it's gonna be very, very successful. You did very well in your presentation. And when you do visit Boston, give us a hello so we can meet you in person. Absolutely, I look forward to that. Thank you. Well, I'll just reiterate again, we're very excited that you've been chosen for this role and very pleased that our licensee parent company has really taken action and to back this important initiative. And quite properly giving you the license to navigate between among the three North American properties. We've always noted, and I've said it with sort of empathy that when resorts has really different properties and you don't have many properties but your jurisdictions are very different. That's gonna be a sweet spot for you with all your talent to navigate that. Boston is different from Las Vegas. And what I love is that you've already met apparently some wonderful leaders in our community and they're capitalizing on your presence. So that's a great first step. I have to say in all of my experience with dealing with different both private non-profit and public organizations, I have never seen a full strategic plan committed to diversity and inclusion. And so this is a prototype, Karen. I know that you're probably thinking that there's some notes for us to take here. We have our own action plan that we adopted. We had a working group convene right after Mr. Floyd's death in June of 2020 and the commission adopted our action plan in September. Swiftly, Swift work, but really purposeful intentional work and we're gonna borrow some of these great details. So I think that there's a great opportunity for Karen for you to share to meet with Vice President Swain and think about some of these tactics and overall strategy. So it's a pleasure, real pleasure to meet you. I was excited to see that you are going to be part of today's presentation. So, Jackie, thank you. Really overall pleased. Thank you very much and thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Glenda. We're very excited to have Glenda on board. As she mentioned, I'm part of the council and at some point we realized that if we're really gonna do this, we need to do it right. And we approached our senior management in Vegas and asked for money. And the very first thing we spent that money on was Glenda. So we're pleased to have her on board. It's really important the company, the company stands behind you, we all do and we look forward to working together with you. Thanks, Jackie. Excellent, thank you. So now we get to brag a little bit. We were named, our spa was named, one of Boston's best by time out. And for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to visit our spa, you really should. I personally feel like it's the most beautiful spa in New England, but if somebody has another spa, be sure to try that out. Other events that we've been doing to program the sports bar, we've had Patriots Watch Party. We've been fortunate enough to have some members of the team stop by and mingle with our guests. We've had some cheerleaders. So it's really been a fun way to activate the sports bar. As special events and volunteerism, we've really repositioned our entire retail department. So a couple of things we've done is we closed our beauty store and instead we opened Windgifts. And Windgifts features beautiful home goods, pillows, candles, clothing for your dogs, really high end, beautiful, beautiful ornaments and stuff. So that's been an exciting new development. And then we have also reopened the drugstore. So for those of you who have seen the drugstore, it used to be about 700 square feet, pretty small. And we were able to double that in size to 1400 square feet. Construction ended, I believe in December and we reopened our brand new drugstore. In terms of volunteerism, we sponsored the Disabled American Veteran Stab 5K Run. And we had about over 70 participants from our property participate in that run. Actually, it was on Veterans Day weekend. And I think our employees really looked forward to the in real life of volunteerism as opposed to some of the online volunteerism that we've been doing since the pandemic hit. In fact, Juliana was one of the runners and I'm gonna embarrass her and let everyone know that she came in 12th in her age group. Every year we partnered with the city of Everett to do a toy drive and this year we had over 500 toys donated by our employees which were delivered to the city for distribution. And that ends our presentation unless anyone has any questions. Juliana, what was your average mile? What was your average mile, eight minutes? I think so. Nice, nice. I haven't done that since seventh grade. That's great. I've run a race around that area but not that course exactly. So that's, I hadn't even heard about it. That's great. So you said 70 volunteers? Yes, from our property. And then of course they brought people as well to run with them. Yeah, I'm sure it was really inspiring. I'm sorry that I hadn't heard about it, that's great. Okay, commissioners, what do we have questions for John Jackie and for Juliana? I just have one question if you're okay, Madam Chair. If during your presentation on page eight you're giving us an update on the employee numbers and the increase in minorities and women but what I continue to see I think in the time that I've been here is that the veterans number seems to continue to be low and I was just wondering if you could maybe let us know what you're doing for outreach to try and get some of these veterans. Cause I work with the, I work with our area veteran organizations and I still see a lot of folks that need jobs. And I just don't know what the outreach is to try and capture that community. Sure. So we work very closely with veterans groups including actually DAV, the disabled care and health group. We reach out to all of our community partners every time we have jobs available which is pretty much all the time at the moment to see if we can bring people and train them in a particular field. So that's a number we continue to work towards. I think our goal was three and we just dipped below the three. One of the things that makes it a little bit more difficult is not everyone identifies as a veteran when they start work with us. So we did an event. It was over Veterans Day as well where we recognized all of our veterans that we knew about and we wrote letters to veterans and employees who are in our building thanking them for their service. So it's something that we are very focused on and we'll continue to reach out to those groups to try to get that number back up. Thank you. Other questions, comments, quick question. So actually quick comment. Overall, I think you've improved your number of women and maybe that's kind of coming off the pandemic and more women able to get back into the workforce. And secondly, always enjoy hearing about what's new at Encore, what you're refreshing and the volunteer work is always strong, the community work. So we're grateful and thank you for advising us about that, Jackie. Thank you. Michelle Bryan? No, nothing really to add. Thank you for the time. And just curious if anybody dissected that really great fake ID that seemed to make it past to do with that supplies. You know what? It probably is an ID that the person borrowed from somebody else who looks like them because otherwise it would have been caught in the machine that really was fake. Any idea how they actually figured out in memoir that it was an underage? You know how they figured out? I think we may have tried to order and train our team after and then someone asked for it again and they realized it was not. So Juliana was just saying that somebody, they were asked for it repeatedly and when somebody saw it, they made the connection that it wasn't the same person. Got it. Commissioner Ryan, I did want to let you know you'd asked about the miners leaving from red eight before and we have implemented new standard operating procedures to identify the miners who are dining there so that we can make sure that one, we inform them that they are not allowed to leave because I think a lot of times the parents just didn't even know and that we're taking their children to the bathroom or whatever and that was increasing the numbers but that went into effect in December. Okay, great, thank you. And to follow up on that, I think today's earlier conversation, Jackie, it might have pointed out to me that we could maybe benefit from a refresher as to where miners actually can travel throughout the property. I realized I probably wasn't as clear on that today. So that would be really helpful. I just want to also commend you. It looks like, again, that you're exceeding all diversity spend goals. And so we focus a lot on employment but we know that it's ramping up and continues to ramp up and we appreciate that you're not just meeting but exceeding goals. And I also want to reiterate what Commissioner Cameron said that intentionality, accountability that we're doing right here is really important but I also know that continued collaboration and commitment from the licensees, you're demonstrating that so much to us in today's presentation from President Swain, really. Just further clarifies that commitment. So thank you. Now, and I think that intentionality is exactly what we needed, right? So having those goals and putting it at the forefront of our procurement team's mind. So every time they're asked about a new vendor, one of the first things they do is go through and look at our list of diverse vendors. They've done a phenomenal job. How Nadia Ballert has done a fantastic job in implementing that. Really pleased. Thank you. I have no more questions. Commissioner, are we all set for this presentation? Jackie, thank you. It's been a long day with the gaming commission but always a pleasure. So thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you all, appreciate it. Thank you, Jackie. We'll be going into the executive session right after we finish with Plain Ridge Parks. So stand by. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. So next up we have Plain Ridge Park Casino's quarterly report. So, looks like North has already started sharing. So take it away, Norah. Good afternoon, Norah. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and good afternoon, commissioners. Plain Ridge Park is pleased to present our Q4-2021 report. I'm joined this afternoon by Cathy Lucas, our Vice President of Human Resources. I'm gonna handle the slides up to and including our slides on compliance and Cathy will take over from there to update you on our employment statistics and community efforts. So with that, I'll jump right into our gaming revenue and taxes for Q4 and that slot revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was 33 million. 762,000, which represents an increase of 26% over the same quarter in 2020. Similarly, total taxes for the quarter were up 3,384,000, which is also a 26% increase over the prior year. As we look at, oops, yes. For the full year of 2021, that slot revenue was 139,347 and total taxes were 68,280,000. Both of these figures represent an increase of 69% compared to prior year. So moving on to lottery sales, Q4 sales were 503,000, which represents an increase of 42% the prior year and sales for the full year of 2021 were 2,124,000. So that was 60% higher than prior year on lottery sales. So that's the revenue side. Moving now to the expense side of the ledger, we get to review our qualified spend. For Q4, 54% of our qualified spend was to entities in the Commonwealth with the remainder split out to the right. These figures very similar to our spend for the full year as shown on the next slide, for the full year total qualified spend with the Commonwealth was 53%. So looking now at our local spend for Q4, 14% of our spend inside the Commonwealth went to our host and surrounding communities. And the breakout there of that is to the right. As you look on slide seven, I do wanna make you aware that as we view the next slide that this differs from what's in your commissioner packet, we discovered that the amount distributed to rent them in 2021 was not included in the full year number there. So the updated slide that you see on the screen now, right now is correct. So those percentages are still the same with roughly the same with 11% going to the host and surrounding communities in the total of 2021. On the vendor diversity side, we had a really strong end to a year in which we exceeded all of our goals related to diverse spend. And in Q4, total diverse spend was 33% on a goal of 21%. WBE spend was 21% on a goal of 12. MBE spend was 8% on a goal of six. And VBE spend was 4% on a goal of three. As we look at the full year of 2021, again, the numbers are similar. Total diverse spend was 28% on a goal of 21. WBE was 16% on a goal of 12. MBE was 8% on a goal of six. And VBE was 4% on a goal of three. As we look at kind of how all of this stacks up, despite total qualified spend being down 18% over the prior quarter, total diverse spend for Q4 exceeded Q3 by 4%. As we go on to the compliance side, we had a total of 165 patrons that were prevented from entering the gaming established, meant 18 of those patrons were minors, 29 were underage, and 118 had expired and valid or no identification. In the month of December, we had an event in our ballroom that permitted underage patron attendance. During that event, there were three minors who accessed the gaming floor and routed the event. In no instance, did these minors gain. So that wraps up my portion of the presentation. I'll hand it off to Kathy, who's gonna talk to you a little bit about our employment statistics. Thank you, North and good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. You'll see that all the employees referenced in this exhibit were current as of Q4 2021. During the quarter, we had 311 team members, which is a decrease of 2019 members from Q3. And that was a result to the closing of live racing in November. We continue to exceed our diversity goal of 15% in Q4, with 23% of our team members being diverse. As well, we exceeded our veterans goal of 2% in Q4, maintaining 6% from Q3. In Q4, we also maintained 40% women team members with a goal of 50%. And as I've shared, this number has been impacted by the closure of our casual restaurant and banquet department. In Q3, nope, go back one side. Thank you, North. In Q3, our local team members were 33%, close to our local goal of 35%. And as you are aware, that includes Attleboro, Foxboro, Mansfield, North Attleboro, Plainville and Rentham. On this slide, you can also see that of the 311 team members, 70% are full-time, 28% are part-time, and 2% are seasonal. Next slide now, North. Right, in Q4, you'll see at the supervisor level and above we had 63 leadership team members of those 25% identify as diverse, 5% are veterans and 33% are women. Next slide. Here's a little bit of information about what we've been doing within the community under PPC CARES. We had a lot of activity. In Q4, we were able to support three organizations that align with our commitment to local diversity and women organizations with Tito box donations along with property donations. So we had Lenore's Pantry, which is local. The Boston Pearl Foundation, which is a diversity organization for young ladies and also college-bound students. And then we supported the American Cancer Society with making strides against breast cancer. And we finally launched our partnership with Real Men with Pink. At the property, we raised funds with our Pink Out campaign. My team participated in the Boston Walk. And then our Slack team members, there's Chef Peter and our manager, Bubba Carr, got in for the Pink Out day. The next picture you'll see is the Chatter for Charity. We did that in partnership with local restaurants to raise funds to support organizations, nonprofit organizations that help incarcerated men coming back into the community get culinary positions. Then on the top, you'll see North over there in the Fluities with the Fluities Foundation, they held their annual fundraiser or annual holiday fundraiser in December with the private event. We were able to showcase Fluities Live and North was able to give them a generous donations to their annual drive. And last but not least on this page is the partnership that we have with our team members and also our community in bringing in toys for toys for cots. And we were able to deliver those right before the holiday. Next slide. Some personal things with team members that I like to share, a couple of things. You'll see we welcome Joe Wenzel and then Charlie Ordele into the Slot's department. Joe is our vice president of operations and Charlie is our Slot operations manager. Adding them increases our level of talent and experience on this team tremendously. Charlie is also a former game sense manager. So he is really familiar with our property and Joe is a transplant from the upstate New York area. So they're blending in very well with our property. On the wellness side, we had some exciting activities. You'll see that we had a wellness fair. We also hosted a COVID-19 vaccine clinic. We hosted a flu shot clinic. We partnered for a blood drive and vision band. A lot of these activities were for team members and also for the community. So our commitment to making sure our team members are safe in this pandemic era has been consistent since we started. And then finally just wanted to share that we have done our first in-person recruitment activity with Johnson & Wales University during Q4 and my team had an opportunity to talk to culinary students that are not only local to the area but from across the country about opportunities here at the property. We actually brought an intern with us who is a JWU intern and working with us in our culinary department now. And at that year, we have secured two interns for the spring semester. And I wanna thank Chef Damien who is also our food and beverage director who helped us with that because the culinary industry has been really hit hard with the pandemic in regards to having a compelling reason to be a place to work at. And he inspired a lot of students to apply for roles with us. So that is what we have to share. I'll turn it back over to North. Thank you, Kathy. So yes, that includes our update. Concludes our update today and we're ready for any questions you may have for us. Mr. Hill, do you wanna go first this time? The only thing I didn't hear and if you mentioned it, I apologize. What's happening with fluties? So we continue to hire for fluties. The employment situation has been challenging, I think for all of us, but we do continue to hire for that outlet and we do hope soon that we'll have an update for you with an opening date for that outlet. And with that said, I also heard any functions are still not happening there? So functions is another area where we are looking at doing some hiring. It's functions have been challenging for a lot of folks with different restrictions that were in place and those types of things, but we are getting a lot more requests on that front lately. There are a few groups that we've been able to accommodate recently. We'll talk about it next quarter, but we were able to have an event this past Sunday where we recognized our team members of the year. So, and that had around 100 participants. So we're getting closer commissioner. We're not completely there yet, but we are making the effort for sure. So when we talk about functions, I think about weddings and things of that sort. I do know in the past, you've had like comedy shows and maybe bringing in a band here or there. Is that you're looking to do that as well? So we did have an event in Q4 on that side of the building that was an entertainment event. I think that you can expect that we'll begin to see some things like that as things become a little bit more normalized and restrictions ease and those types of things. And people feel comfortable coming out. Thank you. Can I have a follow up to that North? So in terms of food and beverage, and I think we all recognize the challenge. Right. But we also are hearing from Kathy that that means that the numbers for female employees are down. Right now, the food and beverage options that are available are all restricted in the food court. Is that right? So we actually have our slacks, which is our oyster bar is open Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh, good. Okay. Thank you. I wasn't sure. So that has opened three days a week. Three nights. And fluidities is coming along. Correct. Yes, ma'am. And then in the food court, there's a few options, right? Yes, that's correct. So there are three options in the food court. One of those is a franchise location, so we don't report those team members, although they are all female. And then we have two other outlets within the food court. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Hill, did you have another question because I added on to yours? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien or Commissioner Cameron? Only question I had going back to the local spend. I know I'm going back and I think this might predate you, North, I don't remember. But I know that there was a shift at one point where I think there were a couple more regional vendors that you guys shifted away from for larger corporate reasons. And I'm just wondering, do you know what the last year was or 19 and 20 local spend numbers were in terms of Massachusetts spend, like you're saying here for 21? Mass or community, Commissioner? Mass. I do not have that at my fingertips, but I'm happy to research it and get it back to you. That'd be great. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. Thank you. I have the same questions that the chair and commissioner Hill talked about is an update on when would we get those hospitality locations open and some of those employees back. But it looks like you had a very successful female-owned company as a vendor because those numbers went sky high, right? We did. So we did have a large capital project that was a woman-owned business. That's great. Thank you for it. Great. Thank you for the report. Thank you. Any other questions? Everyone's looking at their notes. Excellent report. And of course, great community involvement. Kathy, thank you so much for your piece and your pink glasses really supported your report today. North, thank you. Anything else? Everyone all set? I know that we are anticipating going into executive session. I'm not sure. It's only for Encore for both entities, Joe. For both. We have two separate meetings set up. So we're gonna go into the Encore one first. And North, I don't expect this to take more than probably 15 to 20 minutes. Okay. So I'm wondering, Crystal, if you could maybe give North a text or something right when it looks like we're wrapping up with Encore so that they know when to jump on. But there's a separate meeting notice for you guys. So actually you could jump on almost whenever and whenever we join, the meeting starts. Yep, absolutely. The links are both live. So even if you're in there awaiting, that's your link along. Crystal, are you joining us in the executive session or do you want to make sure? Okay, excellent. Okay. Good. Well, thank you. Very thorough report. We appreciate it. And I'll probably see you in a few minutes again. It is 2.31. Commissioner O'Brien, I know that you had a commitment. We're doing okay so far. I am, I've finagled a little extra time. So it looks like we might be able to get everything done just as I jump off, so. Okay. Excellent. Then moving on to item number 10C on the agenda, the statute law requires that I read this language into the record. And then there would be a vote in the event that we decide to go forward with these executive sessions. So the commission anticipates that it will meet in consecutive executive sessions in accordance with GL chapter 30A section 21A7 to comply with GL chapter 23K section 21A7 for the specific purpose of reviewing the proposed multi-year capital expenditure plan. Described in 205CMR139.09 and any corresponding materials submitted relative to Encore Boston Harbor and Plain Ridge Park Casino. As discussion of this matter in public would frustrate the purpose of the statute and associated legal authorities. This matter is further governed by 205CMR139.02 as the information issue is covered by a non-disclosure agreement. So I, we can take a single vote on this. If someone wishes to move on this, I welcome a motion. Madam Chair, please, Commissioner O'Brien, would you like to make that motion? Go ahead. Madam Chair, I move that we go into the consecutive executive sessions or the reasons and exemptions that you stated earlier. Second. Okay. Any questions? We have time. Okay. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. And I vote yes for zero. So just as a note to the public that it's the public session of the commission meeting will not reconvene the conclusion of the executive sessions. So for those of you who are not joining us in the executive session to the team, it's been a long day. I know that many of you kept your ears open and continue to be productive. It's not lost on us that you stayed with us. And most of all, thank you for all the contributions you made today to help us do our job. So thank you. Crystal, we need to leave this meeting and then go to our calendars and we'll find the link there, correct? Good. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.