Good morning all We are conducting a Massachusetts gaming commission meeting and we're doing so virtually so we'll take a roll call vote. I mean not vote I'm sorry roll call. Good morning commissioner of Ryan Good morning. I'm here Great. Good morning commissioner Hill. Good morning. I am here Good morning commissioner Skinner. Good morning. I'm here. Good morning commissioner mayor morning. I am here Great, thank you, everyone We'll get started of the call to order today is November 29th, and we have Number eight. Good morning, commissioner Hill Good morning, madam chair. I moved at the commission approved the minutes from the September 8th 2022 agenda-setting meeting that are included in the commissioners packet subject any necessary corrections for typographical errors or non-material matters Could I ask for just a tad of discussion, please? Okay the advantage of these really complete minutes is that they do remind us of some of our topics and this is a the meeting where treasurer Goldberg appeared and Todd I just wanted to Check in because I've lost track of a few of the items that he requested. So in those minutes She did of course Indicated desire for us to Replicate the commitment that 23k has to preserving the lottery and we did that in the application I we address that in the application. I believe that's right, right Karen But I'm wondering next about I don't believe we have it in a regulation So that's something for the commissioners to think about and for legal to think about But she also remind this these reminded me of the issue around the unclaimed property and commissioner O'Brien I think you agreed and it's noted here that we should think about the advanced deposit lasering accounts being treated That's abandoned property and I know that Mark William Bracken did say that he might be getting back to us That may not have happened, but I'm wondering if we should follow up with that and would that be a regulation? I see commissioner O'Brien shaking her head Not again. Yeah, definitely. So I raised that question about the The adw's gosh a couple of years ago I think we had a conversation about whether they should be treated as abandoned property or a kid to the lost tickets And I wasn't really satisfied with the answer on that So I do think we would circle back to the regs on that side To make sure that it's treated consistently in 23k and 23m and it looks like there are a couple of states that we could Rely on I remember we were all in agreement at this meeting and I just want to make sure we follow through Todd can we perhaps add that to our regulatory framework and then I Did note that I know that mark is reaching out to the Treasury on the studies So I think we're all covered there at the end of item two and then I just had one Edit and forgive me. I didn't get a chance to go back to the The meeting and I may not have been as articulate as I should have been but on page five It's a lengthy narrative and the minutes are excellent. Thank you at the Next the last paragraph that starts with chair Judd Stein. So it'd be section three three a near the end I Did indicate that there was a public safety issue and I thought I elaborated a little bit more on what that was but just was is that because With waiting have been legalized, but our framework wasn't in place Folks might think that they could place bats and the various companies might take advantage of them during this time and that was So I I wanted to emphasize that there was a public safety and a public health issue through that land I don't know if it could be noted that it that that's what the public safety and welfare issue from my perspective was Madam chair, can you Repeat for me the page and the paragraph you're talking to so I can have that noted. So page five This actually packet page seven page five of the minutes and then it's so that's the end of paragraph 3a And it's just the next the last paragraph. So it says there was a public safety and welfare issue as a result As a result and I think I wrote, you know last night because individuals continue to bet illegally without the benefit of consumer protections in That nefarious companies could attempt to take advantage of those betters during this interim period Got it. Okay. Excellent. Thanks. If folks don't object to that. I'd appreciate that in it. Thank you So I think that you had moved but I I asked for discussion my apologies. I Just have a typographical Correction to a legal citation. It's page four of the minutes page six of the meeting packet The end of the second paragraph it says 30 little a in parentheses. I believe that should be 30 Capital a I'll set with that Commissioner Hill. Yeah So we have a motion with a couple of suggested edits. Is there any further discussion? Oh, I need a second though I guess it was out of order second Okay, I think I've got it from Commissioner O'Brien. So the discussion any further discussion? All right Commissioner Hill The Commissioner O'Brien my apologies, Commissioner O'Brien. Hi Commissioner Hill. Hi Commissioner Skinner. Hi Commissioner Maynard. I Vote yes. Thanks everyone Well done Expensive and very very helpful Well, now we're going to move to our next item on the agenda Ministry of Update. Good morning. Second Director Wells Morning, I am going to turn it right over to assistant director Dan to give you an update on what's going on Morning Madam Chair commissioners. I'm going to start out with my first update on PPC and from November 21st the 23rd MGM To the MGM successfully hosted the Mayflower Marathon It's not a running marathon but a radio marathon for both non-perishable foods and money Donations towards the food bank of western Massachusetts Although the totals are still being calculated It's close to a hundred and seventy five thousand cash and food donations The largest in its 30-year history Then on Friday They hosted an official holiday tree lighting event in the Armory Plaza Along with opening their ice rink for the winter season over 700 people attended with appearances from Patriots Pat Patriots cheerleaders Wally from the Red Sox and Boomer from the Thunderbird hockey team They also began their toys For Tox toy drive for employees and guests to donate towards the 11 9 11 9 when The Marines to get their toys for their new homes At you muted yourself we got most of it. Yeah, all right The at PPC they concluded their horse racing event at Last Friday They are including their last Sweepstakes promotion, which is the 50 plus sweepstakes. We have to be 50 and older to join at Encore They opened up pit 36 in front of the future sports wagering cage, which is six table games and Next week that they will be receiving 50 sports betting kiosks in the casino any questions any questions from Band Could you just repeat the number of kiosks? They'll be receiving 50. It'd be the first 50. I think they'll be receiving. I think it's a hundred and twenty four all together But that will be the first shift Okay commissioners all set Excellent report. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you All right, then we'll move right along Good morning, Dr. Like on to item number four on the agenda Thank you. I'm joined with the Steve O'Toole director of racing for Plain Ridge Park casino today to update the Commission on the rescheduling and cancellations that we had this summer Thursday, July 21st was rescheduled to Friday the 22nd due to extreme heat And I believe there is also a storm coming in later that day Sunday, July 24th, which was the spirit of mass day was rescheduled to the Monday And then the Monday program was moved to Tuesday July 26th again because of extreme heat or casted for the Sunday and then Thursday August 4th was canceled due to extreme heat and then races were added to other race cards the That Friday card we ran 12 races instead of the usual, you know, approximately 10 races and all So what this means is that for this year instead of racing a hundred and ten days of racing That was approved by the Commission the year before for for this year. They raced a hundred and nine days this still is, you know, well above the 100 days of live racing that they need to have in order to simulcast and The In 2013 the Commission delegated some of different items to the director of racing and one of them was approving cancellations and rescheduling of days But that delegation does say that it will come before the Commission Especially considered for a canceled day. So that's why we've got it in front of you today Thank you, Dr. Light down director. Oh, good morning. Would you like to add it? Thank you for your memo Here's another just, you know We tried to take the statute Seriously when it comes to a safe race meet and one of the issues of course is Usually the one thing that is a stumbling block for us is extreme heat Horses Historically have raced in inclement weather Rain even snow sometimes at some of the tracks that raced during the winter months and they you know, that's where the term mutter comes in when it rains but You know, the heat it could be exhausting for some for some animals and we don't like to stress them out. So that's the one stumbling block that usually gets in our way and that we take very seriously and try to protect Not only the the horses, but of course the the drivers who are athletes and the trainers that they are working It can get, you know, it can get kind of oppressive. So we take that very seriously and we always have our eye on the weather At all times of the year, but especially during the summer when the heat index gets up there Thank you. And Dr. Light down you are seeking a vote on this You did provide a recommendation at the end of your memorandum Yes, Todd may wish to expand on that whether we need a vote or not We I did ask for one But I don't know if if Todd would like to Join in here good morning, everybody the The specific language in the delegation says that any permanent change in the length of the racing schedule or amendment to the license granted to A licensee will come before the commission for approval So I think you you could certainly could take a vote Or we could if you're comfortable with the adjustments that were made since they already happened You could just coalesce around that. So I think a vote would be appropriate though It's a long-winded way of saying Right, it's not on the document per se, but you've been advice I've been advised in the past. It's okay vote is not on the agenda per se yes So, uh, you do reference the delegate the delegation document I think that's something that probably all the commissioners need to at some point review because I don't think any of us were actually um part of that Delegation that's right. Dr. Lightman. Yes, and and that's something that we've had on our list of our to-do list There's some things on that The list that I I personally would not Want delegated to me or or I wouldn't act on on them. I would go to the commission instead so It certainly this was something that was done in 2013. So It certainly could be updated. It needs to be updated I remember you mentioning that to me. Dr. Lightman that well, there's a delegation But you knew there are a few items there that you wouldn't want to assume responsibility for so we do need to look at that We have a very busy calendar these next couple of months, but on dr. Lightman I'm going to ask that you hold us accountable and and with commissioner hill If we could bring that forward Perhaps some time before the racing season starts up, which will be a tomorrow Even I were just commenting on how how quickly it'll come around and we'll be getting our steps back on and all that What's the anticipated start date? It's april 10th. Yeah. Yeah So in other words, we don't have a luxury of a lot of time But let's if we can we can get it into a A regular public meeting over the course of the new year And and and look at that delegation to put us in a good position and make sure the commissioners are Does that make sense commissioners? Now do you want to do you want I'm going to take a lead if there's a motion to To vote on this matter and formally Move on start to like bounce recommendation. I'll take that motion. Otherwise We can record that we have some kind of a consensus. Would you like to move? I'm chair I move the commission approved the request of plain-range park casino to amend their 2022 Racing schedule as requested in their november 21st letter and discussed here today Mr. Thank you. Okay. Um, any discussion? All right, uh commissioner bryne Hi Mr. Hill Hi Mr. Skinner. Hi Commissioner Maynard. Hi, and I vote yes. Okay. Five zero. Thank you And thank you, doctor. Um, and uh, congratulations on your your season Thank you Well done. Thank you for the vote. Appreciate it. Thank you All right, so now we're moving on to item number five A topic near and dear to us. We are looking for ways to create efficiencies for you on public records Director wells and and team. Thank you. Exactly. So, um, we have been working diligently And I'd like to give a lot of credit to kary and katelyn for working on this Obviously public records are a really important function of any kind of state agency. It's part of our obligations To be transparent. So we have been looking at solutions to as you said, create some efficiencies and also On integrity because we want to make sure that any Responses to give for public records requests are complete and accurate So i'm going to turn it over to kary just sort of give you an overview where we are Then katelyn will talk about a little bit about where the solution is and i'll wrap up with You know what the recommendation is going forward. I don't think this is something needs a vote for say But we're looking for commission by and this is this is the way to go and just sort of give me the thumbs up to go ahead and Take this approach and move forward with this process So why don't I turn it over to kary first just to give you an overview of where we are Thank you karyn and good morning, madam chair and commissioners Uh, so you'll recall that last spring we had started this conversation about possible it solutions for our public records requests and responses And at the time we had discussed the possibility of using a vendor to essentially serve as our E discovery expert in sort of the same way that eos used to where they would run the searches for us and deliver results to us Since then we look in some into some other options that could Really better serve the legal department's needs and we've found some e discovery tools that would allow us to More efficiently segregate and review potentially responsive documents while also sort of providing us With some of that assistance on narrowing and tailoring searches These would essentially be platforms that that would provide us with What we'd call sort of an over the shoulder assistance to fine-tune searches where we would be performing them ourselves As well as more efficient sorting reviewing and production of those actual results So i'm actually going to turn it over to katelyn to talk in a little bit more detail about these options that we've found Good morning So as kary said, we have been looking into various e discovery tools And so what i'd like to do is just give you a little bit of information about The the types of requests that we get and then the just the tools that we're looking at So as the commission knows the legal department reviews in response to all public records requests that are received by the commission Currently that's about 60 to 70 requests a year Although we do expect that number to increase with the addition of sports wagering and the many sports wagering licensees that we are about to have Um, and these requests are often very very broad And so they require a time consuming review of literally thousands of pages for potentially responsive materials And so what the e discovery tools are designed to do is to allow attorneys to efficiently process very large volumes of material like this And specifically what they let you do is first you can use search terms to identify potentially responsive materials So you're using search terms and search functions to narrow down to just the set that you think is potentially responsive Once you have that set it allows you to Deplicate the potentially responsive materials so that you're not reviewing the same document multiple times So currently if a meeting invite is potentially responsive and a hundred people at the commission got it It shows up a hundred times in search results So things like that create a lot of efficiency with this tool Um, it also allows you to review the documents in an order that makes sense So that's often chronologically so you can sort of see the conversation chain see what's happening Um, for some cases it might be by title by custodian, but right now It's just a mishmash documents just get pulled down You're sort of looking by custodian the time frames are all over the place And that just again doesn't lead to efficiency doesn't help you to sort of understand the chronology of what's going on in any particular case um This tool will also allow you to apply Tags to documents. So every time you look at a document you can just apply tags that say is this responsive? Yes, or no is this privileged? Yes, or no. Um, are there public records? Exemption issues yes or no doesn't need redactions and you apply those tags and it sticks to the document So you have that you can go back you can search by them You're not sort of putting them in different files and trying to keep organized that way Um, it also allows you to redact the materials right in the tool So you just go in you have the set that you need redactions for you apply them in the tool And then when you produce them out of the database they have their redactions on them Um, and then finally it allows you to create a set of documents for production So once you're done everything is reviewed you're comfortable with the set reductions are applied You're able to sort of produce it right out of the tool to give to the requester um So as we've been uh sort of reviewing the different tools out there We've learned that the executive office of technology services and security and the attorney general's office Both use these type of e-discovery tools We also think it's very likely that there are other agencies. We're just not aware of but you know, the long and short of it is that Agencies are adopting these tools given that the the volume of data that we're all dealing with these days And they're also, you know commonly used by law firms, which is um how I have my experience with them from my my prior job Um, so currently what the legal department has access to is the microsoft e-discovery tool It's a great tool But it has limited functionality for attorneys basically limited functionality for searching for and reviewing documents And so what that means is that our current reviews are very very manual You know, we're we're downloading things to different places. We're clicking a lot of times. It's just we're not really able to tag that efficiently it's just It's meant more for the it back ends than for sort of a attorney use And so we do believe that utilizing an enhanced e-discovery tool with a technical partner Who would assist with running searches exporting documents and any other technical matters that come up would Allow the legal department to review and produce documents much more efficiently accurately and quickly So with that I can turn that turn it back over to Karen and obviously take any questions about the tools themselves Katrina Beg would go as well the cio who's been in on this process and advising on this Who's on board with this and she's available for any questions as well Um, and I think the ask at this point, you know, just making sure the commission is comfortable with going in this direction I think this is the more modern approach and we expect a lot of public outreach requests we can do sports wagering and uh, I am certainly advocating for Use of a this uh enhanced tool and also the technical partner I think the plan would be to use the technical partner, which I think Katrina Correct me if I'm wrong. This is sort of an over-the-shoulder assistant So we're not giving it to someone else to run our searches. It's it's assistance with With the searches so we could do a limited contract with that see how that goes that might be part of the training module And then go ahead and evaluate after a period of time to see if we really need that going forward Or if we're all set on our own so that's that's the plan just sort of looking for some feedback that This is the direction that the commission should be going in Um, so the last time this came up. I had talked about this. I've used it in the AG's office and the AG's office I think they're a great tool. So I think it's definitely the way to go to deal with it It's probably going to be more requests coming in I have a comment from commissioners I just want to echo that. I also used a similar tool When I was uh working in the executive office of health and human services So I think it is a good move. I have a question About the technical partner. However Do the AG's office or does the AG's office? And eons, do they use a technical partner and is what you're proposing consistent with it? They are the way they utilize the technical partner I know the answer to that question. I don't know. Caitlin. Do you know the answer to that question? If memory serves, I think The AG's office has someone in house for the technical piece of that But I can allow Katrina to speak about sort of in-house versus sort of a partner So I can't speak about the AG's office, but I can for eons. So eons does have a lot of contracted Contractors that work with them in this capacity and they also do utilize like Caitlin said so eloquently earlier The services that we're looking at. So we're looking at similar services. If not exactly the same ones And so it entirely depends on the agency at that time And I think, you know, I think Karen you might have touched on this and maybe I might have missed it But the goal is to really get the tool in our hands so we can start utilizing and working with it and having When when we say the technical partner, it's really the company itself who actually owns the tool that would be over our shoulder Working with us and if and should the need arise later To have a little bit more in-depth capabilities We would be looking at maybe working with someone from those entities if not on a contract basis or you know, if If uh hiring or or funding allows bringing someone internally But that's not something we really wanted to commit to quite yet since it is a newer tool And we really do need to understand its capabilities and and work with it And we really wanted to see what it's going to look like probably, you know, six months or so As we're moving forward with it Yeah, I'm definitely supportive of the use of the e-discovery tool But would be looking for some additional information on the Arrangement with the technical partner just some specifics about how how that would work and exactly what it is that they Be expected to do what role they would play in the public records So it would be so they wouldn't really have a direct role So the the existing e-discovery tool through microsoft would pull the searches like it does now Where this tool steps in is to really finesse or fine-tune those searches to get you more robust and Accurate results as you're working through the public record searches If and I I think I explained this once before If you remember and and if you don't I totally understand because it was a very convoluted statement There's a lot of compounding if then statement sometimes with our public record searches What makes it really difficult to get the exact results you need because there's so many search terms that are in it The particular partner would really be working with katelin or kary or whomever from the legal team That has access to the tool And and over the shoulder basically working with them to fine-tune the searches to help them With the boolean setup of the language in order to secure the best results with the search criteria established So we have the expression there's hands-on keyboard or over the shoulder They will not be hands-on keyboard our legal team would be hands-on keyboard They would be over the shoulder almost in a consultative role of you know You could set the search up like this and it would yield these results Or you could set it up like this and it would yield x results And that's really their involvement working with the legal team So they'd be the expert essentially on the searches because I think I I do actually now that you that you Refresh my recollection. I do remember the discussion and I I think I remember even saying you know, I utilized this tool But I was not an expert at it. So I think that would be an added Measure so that we can ensure that we are going to Most appropriate searches for whatever is being requested Oh, did I did somebody else on Krishna Hill? Were you starting to somebody else start? I'm sorry I was actually it if Karen is looking for consensus I too would be supportive of moving forward with this and I just clarify For me. This is an addition to what we already do now Yep Yep, thank you Would it be more precise to say it will be a replacement Well, it's on it's on top of it. But that that makes sense. So there is the It's a tool for the attorneys as opposed to a tool for it for it searches Yeah, because what I'm just saying is I'm hoping that whatever we have now doesn't Whatever tool we get isn't complicated by what we have. That's all I'm saying Yeah, I'm sorry just a quick comment Madam chair, they work in they work in tandem with each other So one is the the base if you think of like a house one's the foundation, which is the Microsoft e-discovery tool and the The tool that Caitlin and Karen is referring to That sits on top of it. So they work together. One can't really work without the other one Okay, excellent. So it is going to complement commissioner Maynard. Did you have any thoughts? No, I I agree with commissioner Hill that they're looking for consensus. I I would and I hear the director saying that we need it. Um, I will say that, um I'm assuming the run or my question would be I'm assuming the run of the mill Records requests that could be kind of produced quickly Would still just go through the normal quick process that we wouldn't be bringing To commissioner Skinner's point any kind of outside health except on these larger matters I'm assuming that and in that consensus I think that's I think that's fair enough. I think, you know a small request for a one-off document or a couple of documents That's easy enough for us to go find and reproduce Um, but I think you'd be surprised commissioner. How quickly things get complicated. Um, So you very you know, what can seem like a very small request can actually yield hundreds if not thousands of documents For searching. So, um, we'll use it, you know as needed, but like you said not all the time the smaller requests won't need it I'm going to jump in on commissioner Maynard and defend him because I suspect he's had a lot of experience with very very very extensive fair enough So I just I'm going to just jump in And I want to bring this to a discussion to a close, but I um carry I promised you that we would not leave you alone On good records and I have been an advocate for carry Um, because I have and I've mentioned it to Karen I didn't feel that we needed to send our records out of shop. I did feel we needed to improve our tools And it sounds like with a lot of good concerted research, which I applaud you all on and looking at all the options You've found really what is out there for e-discovery tools Piazz's was transformational right Katrina in terms of state government Came in it's a now a full secretariat and one of their first and I can attest to it One of their first jobs was to make sure e-discovery tools were put throughout the system And um and and uh with mark nunley at the at the helm and and for that He and his team were just terribly transformational in achieving efficiencies in state government The attorney general's office also benefited from e-outs being a secretary as did I think all entities across state government So now, you know, we're we're going to get that benefit for carry And as I said always carry you're never alone on public records And I you know, Caitlyn has been now, you know As she saw From her experience of Wilmer hail what you needed the tools are there and I'm all in And I also just appreciate who the technical expert is I I liken it to When I was doing lexus nexus searches as a young lawyer That phone number I could call um at the lexus nexus to say I need help on the searches. So it really would be I'm assuming that's the kind of technical help we'd be using and it's not as how they look at the productions or even the class so Um, I'm all in so that's excellent caring. Can you have the contract assigned? Not yet, but I will uh, I will work with the team and we will get on it because I'm sure Mary is very excited that this yeah from my perspective it can't happen soon enough. So this is all excellent news Congratulations. So thank you. Uh, Caitlyn and Kerry for your reports. Anything else commissioners on this? Alrighty, um, then they're going to move Right on to sports wagering updates here So, uh, the first item on the agenda is just, um, something before the commission regarding, uh, mgms application there was, uh, I believe a little miscommunication between, uh, mgms springfield and corporate Which resulted in their application. They submitted their fee on the due date of the 21st the monday, but the application did not come in until wednesday. So there is a provision in our regs which allows um, the commission to authorize the The application to still go forward, but i'm just going to turn it over to gust kim just to uh, specifically Ask for that on behalf of them Thank you, karen. Uh, good morning commissioners. Good morning chair. It's always a pleasure to appear before you and uh, and Also again our compliments Executive director wells and director lilios and the entire mgc team on the great Collaboration that we have As an executive director wells mentioned there was a miscommunication That is completely my fault. I apologize. I I am so sorry that it happened Uh, but as soon as we were we we we realized that there was an issue. We quickly corrected the problem Uh, all of the paperwork is in everything is done and all is all of the all of our filings including our redactions have before um the commission uh today so Uh, our executive director wells. We asked that the commissioners approve Uh, the process of our applications. Thank you Madam chair, I think that uh, this requires a vote because it is in the regulations and um The application for springfield is in a different posture for this kind of request than uh, if it was a competitive Application process so given that the way uh, 23 and is structured there's there's a almost presumption of License for the three casinos So mgm springfield is not really competing against another entity In order to receive the license so there therefore the you know, the delay of a couple of days does not impact any other party And no other party would be agreed So can I before I turn to the commissioners Todd could you just go over the regulation and then um and and and Perhaps even build on what uh director wells just mentioned in terms of cat ones being slightly different Um, and then also what it would be helpful perhaps just as a preview What will our role be for cat ones when we do hear them and it's slated on our on our own Our schedule for december 6 7th and 8th If you have that, um, there is an approval that we'll be doing at that process. So maybe just go through the legal the reg Cat ones and then what we'll be doing next week Sure, I'd be happy to jump in um start with the application The mgm application itself I believe the regulation That governs this issue is in the packet for you to take a look at at the very end It's uh 205 cm r 211.01, which is the general regulation Discussing the application and the part of the process in 211.01 paragraph 1 it says That the commission shall have no obligation to accept or review an incomplete application or an application submitted after the established deadline And that is the situation here. So you do have discretion as whether you want to Accept or review that application there's a A provision at the end. So it's a paragraph 10 So it's 211.01 10 that talks about the extension of the time for filing And it says that the commission may in its discretion extend the time for filing a complete application And then there are two Kind of scenarios that are discussed and the one we're looking at here is the second one Which says that the commission can provide reasonable additional time For filing in cases or extraordinary circumstances prevented a timely filing So I guess the question before you is whether The situation just described to you is an extraordinary circumstance Prevented a timely filing and if so you can allow it and take in the application The rigs don't really get into the distinction between the different categories In this particular regard, but it is certainly fair to note that This is a category one Application and Karen just described the distinction between that and the category three untethered in particular So that's the first issue before you as to whether you will accept the MGM application for a category one sportsway during license And should we pause there or do omitted keep going any questions so far commissioners I'll set Thanks, Todd. Okay so the I think the next part of the The question madam chair is as to how applications will be reviewed and and this is something That is is coming up. Is that do I have that right? It's not necessarily the process but ultimately that what is the commission the cat one does It is different than a competitive process, but we still Do something affirmative next week, correct? That's right. Yes. Absolutely. So, you know, the the criteria Are all the same across the categories Regardless of whether it's a competitive process or not. So you still need to evaluate the applications and the quality of the submissions and understand the substance of them and whether The submission has satisfied each of the criteria To the point that you are comfortable awarding a license. So, yeah, I would I certainly agree with Karen's characterization as it being a presumptive award in in some ways, but there is still a requirement that the minimum requirements be satisfied and And that's part of what you need to be looking at The regulations of course set out a number of tools that will allow you to to guide that review, but ultimately You will be applying the criteria that we've discussed. They're set out in section 218 you'll recall including things like the experience and expertise in sports wagering economic impact and other benefits the suitability And the use of technology and things along those lines. So those are the considerations That will be applied to the review of the application that's been submitted. So that's that's kind of the The nature of the analysis that will be performed by the commission though Certainly there there's no competition. So it's just a threshold the type inquiry One follow-up question and I'll turn to my fellow commissioners Will we at that time it would be an awarding of a license if if aren't the standards are met Would the commission have the discretion to assign or impose any conditions to that license? Yes, absolutely. And there's a whole section on The imposition of conditions. Some of them Are going to be absolutely required as for example the Need to abide by any affirmative statements made in the application And things along those lines. I don't have that regulation right in front of me But we did articulate each of the conditions that will become Mandatory and then there may be others that emerge during the review that you'll have the discretion to attach to the award As well. So that is a necessary and critical part of the review process Thanks that for me. I just wanted I hadn't thank you talk because I hadn't asked for that. Um, so you did that Without any warning. So I appreciate your your preparation I thought it was important for us to just Even set the stage for ourselves as to our work next week And we do have this category one issue today in front of us which director wells has presented and thank you counsel Kim for your update commissioners, do you have questions for any member of our team or for gus? Madam chair, I um was having an issue Technology wise with my computer and I didn't hear gus. What the reason was why this was um Not put on on time Could you repeat it for me? Oh, yes, commissioner. Oh So we had filed our scoping Survey our interest in these dimensions. We had um, obviously paid our fees And so in terms of discussions about who I'm supposed to do what I um, I Inadequately communicating to our corporate team about what they were or what what courses they were supposed to do And so again, I the fault was completely with me It was it when we were struggling to do both the bed engine application Are because at the same time and there was a mix-up and it was an extraordinary circumstance where people Many people were doing many things at the same time and so um, I I do ask for you the The commissioners indulgence and and ask that you allow our application to go forward on this one. Thank you Thank you yes Attorney Kim good morning Just to clarify. I just was it The case that you were unaware of the deadline or was it that different folks Thought that they had responsibility for submitting the application Thank you commissioners. Can it was a ladder? Um, there was there was a mix-up about who was who was doing portions of the applications And so we we did we were late in getting the application completely put together And so that that's where the issue rose again As I said, there was bed and gyms application that we weren't working on we're working on this application And there was just a lot of confusion about who was doing what which portions of the application As I said, as soon as we realized that there were pieces missing We worked feverishly to put it together and we filed it About about 48 hours after The deadline Just a reminder of that MGM is the what we're referring to as a category through tethered Atticates that MGM Is proposing to work with Questions for for councillor Kim commissary O'Brien I don't have a question so much as just a comment on the posture which is for me. This is Unique in that the statutory Language and connection with the cat ones the shell versus the may And the fact that we have already Treated the cat twos in a rolling basis and so for me Those are pretty powerful reasons in terms of the request in terms of you know my my willingness to say yes to this I just wanted to make that clear on the record. This is a unique procedural posture to the request Other comments Well, I'm in agreement with commissioner O'Brien But I appreciate you guys coming in and in claiming that responsibility All of us have been there so And so we appreciate the candor And I do see it's a different posture than the competitiveness as You know Applicants or applications as commissioner O'Brien articulated Commissioners any other comments Then I I do think and and you know we anticipated this and I remember the conversation We were all extending the idea of empathy when something can go awry And that's why this This provision was put into the regulation so we have to Make it the same um, so We have to we're not obligated, but we could move to receive the application Madam chair, I would be Commissioner Skinner had her Window open before I did. Okay. We'll go with commissioner Skinner That um commission Skinner it was a it was a tie. He yields to you Thank you commissioner hill Madam chair and commissioners. I move that the commission extend MGM springfields time for filing a complete application in accordance with 205 cmr 211 10 and accepted sportsway during operator license application as of the date submitted and as discussed here today Second Thank you. Any further discussion? All right commissioner o'Brien I Commissioner Hills I commissioner Skinner I Commissioner Maynard I And I vote yes five zero um, thank you, uh I've gots for coming in this morning. It's nice to see you Uh, we've taken care of that business and I think probably my fellow commissioners Would like to say that it was nice to hear from director band today that you had You've opened up the skating rink There have been some good festivities and some wonderful Programming going on at MGM And for that, we know we'll hear more details of the quarterly report, but we thank you for that Anything you want to say commissioners to best before he parts I'll set and uh, so the business of the the day has been taken care of us The commissioner. Thank you chairs appreciate there Again, just just to reiterate the main power matter marathon We were very proud to take that on The hall of fame used to do the marathon the main power marathon and they were unable to do so this year and We were asked and we were more than happy to to assume that responsibility It was uh, it was a fantastic turnout The the participation from our team members was amazing And so I believe that That that their stand is right that we've probably broken some records in terms of how much we've collected on that So we're very proud of their effort and of course the tree lighting And the skating rink, you know, it's it's a signature event for us And we were again, we were very happy with the turnout and the mayor was there Signatories were there and we were really wonderful. It was a wonderful review session Well received by the community. So thank you very much for that Thank you Okay, we're all set then Karen, are you excited about the agenda? The next one I'm going to turn over to uh, loretta for the application processing update on the sports advisory application Karen good morning chair. Good morning commissioners So yes, the applications were received last week in the licensing division Did meet their goal? excuse me of Transferring all of the documents associated with each application from our secure site to the office's share point and They were able to make the materials and the submissions available to the appropriate staff internally There is still work to do around making those files with our document filing system our electronic filing system so that they are more user friendly But the week last week was a successful week in uploading all of the documents and making them available to internal staff The division the licensing division has now turned its attention to performing the deficiency reviews of those materials so that as you know is a Very important part of this process And the division is aligning the ordering of their work to align with the commission's timetable So for instance, there is a focus now on the tethered category threes Because that is you know, what the ieb has on its plate First the ieb is not waiting for the deficiency reviews to be completed before it starts its review for preliminary suitability that is happening on an ongoing basis and The licensing division intends to communicate with the applicants on a rolling basis about their deficiencies That team is working on site now So, uh, you know, I urge you to say hello, but please don't interrupt them too much if you do So they're working really hard and there are some new members of the team and some members of the team are doing this review work Which is not part of their ordinary Work, but it's an all hands-on deck process And they are making head work So That is the process update on the applications Questions for dark millios Can we come by with candy? That's always appreciated for sure Well, thank you to that team and we understand it is growing Um, no questions for loretta all set everyone So that update. Thank you for the excellent work And I know it's on it's ongoing, but you know, you've gotten us to a great place right now and we thank you So for commissioners updates, I just want to take I have a question for us that um, I was going to wait till Our agenda signing meeting, but it might be more pertinent to today. But before I go to that I just want to point out that we have Trudy larty. She's she may be listening. She may not be But she has joined our team as the commissioners executive assistant. We'll have a more formal welcome for trudy um on on thursday But trudy if you're listening welcome. She's sitting outside Commissioners of ryan's commissioners hills office and we are delighted to have her be a member of the team Thank you Trudy, thank you And they'll be a more formal. Um welcome on thursday. Thank you Okay, um my issue caring It's I think it might make sense to bring this up in this public meeting because of timing But yesterday I had the benefit of speaking briefly with karen and then more with commissioners standard about the idea Including public hearings in advance of our review of each category And I I believe that We we actually came up with some Calendar proposals But that the hearings might be and we had the benefit of derrick joining us in that conversation But I thought this could be a chance for us to you know, think about this and in the pros and cons of perhaps putting on the calendar in advance of Our six set up an eight series for cat ones This we have time That has been given back on december 5th And we I think commissioners gonna we were thinking like 10 to 1 or something like that a three hour period And then um karen. What was the next date perhaps the 12 Before the tethered evaluations Then we were considering maybe starting the january 3rd To 19th period for the untethered evaluation the competitive review starting on the third And so this I thought might be a good opportunity for us to decide and then we would be giving the public notice If we do reach a consensus on this that we plan to post for public hearings And oh commissioners can I I don't know if you want to elaborate, but also the idea of written comments Yeah, just we had um identified, you know, just as sort of the overarching Issue is is is the opportunity for the public to give comment both in person And in in writing if they so choose and so while The chair has identified the Proposed dates for the public hearing We would continue to allow The public to submit written comment throughout The application review process So commissioners thoughts on this song We had not brought up public hearings and I think it it was probably more Once we got the applications and Became clear we might want that Commissioner bryan Yeah, no, I I've been asking for that all along Yeah, because we did it in the earlier processes and we do it in the horse racing setting all the time So I think we absolutely have to have them and so if we've got the dates in the calendar Set to go that's great And okay, so I think that the calendar is working crystal on those dates right now but fifth And sorry, I don't have to say the 12th and the third Yes And those were all place holds yesterday 10 to 10 to 1 and For the for the actual comments commissioner Uh commissioner maynard or commissioner hill you've got thumbs up you like that idea. Are you okay with the timing too? Okay Commissioner maynard it's a good plan Then to go Okay, great. So um again Important for the public we can get that started. It only gives more notice commissioner skinner than what we had anticipated. So Todd And crystal and mills you'll be coordinating that posting And we've added to your Yesterday he sent over a draft of the public area posting. So that's been already completed. So thank you Excellent. Excellent. Well, then it's all underway and and now we've actually reached consensus on it so Rather than waiting till tomorrow's a genocide me Is there anything else commissioners that you'd like to address? As a commissioner update Madam chair, it's not a commissioner update but more of a continuation of of the discussion you and I had Did you want to mention? the applications Availability on the website. Oh, you know, that's a good point because that is what they would need I did want to mention that. Thank you. Go ahead commissioner skinner So I I think I don't know how much has been relayed back to mills and crystal and and others but the request is that those applications be uploaded to the website for access by the general public to review in advance of the public hearing and Advance of the written comment. I believe Carrie was working on this yesterday And they might already be available, but I think it's it's important to state that for the public today Those would be redacted. Oh, here she is. Yeah, my understanding is that there would be the redacted versions, right? Yeah, we are oh, I'm sorry They've come in to the secure file transfer site. So just we'll take a bit of time to Pull them out combine them into whatever pdf They need to be combined and share them with mills and dave and get them posted But that is the plan and they'll be the redacted versions that were sent in by the applicant Carrie could we prioritize the three cap ones in light of the fact that the public hearing would be December 5th, I'm sure you're thinking that anyway, and the reactions Um It's what the applicants have redacted Karen subject possible change at some point All right, I think that's important for the public to understand obviously Given the volume that we're dealing with uh in our limited resources There was no way we could have gone through that the entire all of these applications and done The specific redactions that we would normally do ourselves So the process which the commission approved is that we instructed the applicants to do What they believe with the appropriate redactions under the public records law and under 23 n And so that's what's going to be posted if there are issues with their redactions We can deal with that over time, but there would not be a way for us to To do those redactions in this quick turnaround time. We wanted to get the information out to the public if possible Right and in part because it would take a give and take because Our legal team might not know what is in fact Secret or something protected any Yeah, so those might be subject to change. They might not be changed, but The public will see the redacted versions. Okay Anything else? Thanks commissioner skinner for that anything else All right It is 11 06 But um, and we know we covered a lot of material and and uh And it's a pleasure that it's was just about an hour. So thank you commissioners for your your Attention and we'll just need now motion to adjourn Move to adjourn I can Any discussion Commissioner bryne Hi, mr. Skinner. Hi Commissioner maynard. Hi And I vote yes five zero. Thanks everyone Thanks to the whole team


I'm Brian Haley. This is Sean Collins. Welcome, everyone. We're here this afternoon to talk about deploying and operating an IPv6-only OpenStack cloud. So first, a quick agenda. First, we want to talk about what do we mean when we talk about an IPv6-only cloud? There's maybe a couple of interpretations of that. And then second, why did we do this work? Some of the early work with DevStack that Sean and I did with some others. We'll cover some of the issues that we found during this work and then also talk about some of the future things that we're working on now and going to work on hopefully in the rest of the Mataka cycle. But before I do that, I'm going to break the rules and Sean's not happy, but I was going to do a live demo of what we've done. So this is just a VM running Ubuntu. And if you see the highlighted lines up there, basically I'm turning on service version 6 and setting an IPv6 address, and I'm just going to run a stack. And while that's running, we can go back to our presentation. Yeah, it's a live presentation, too. So we'll probably have a blank slide stuffed in there. All right. So I'm sure most of you, when you saw the title and you think of OpenStack and IPv6, you always think of Neutron. Neutron Network's what you're going to present to the tenant, whether it's v4, v6, or dual stack. But there's another side to IPv6 only in OpenStack Cloud, and that is the operation side. Can we deploy an OpenStack Cloud in an IPv6-only environment? And by this, I mean that all our demons are running over IPv6, all the RPC message queues are running over IPv6, all the endpoints in Keystone, or all IPv6 addresses, as well as all the tunnels. So if we're running with OBS and VXLAN, all those tunnels are growing over IPv6, as well. So why would we want to do this? I don't think you're allowed to have an IPv6 presentation without an Aaron slide on it about how long it's going to be before all the IPv4 addresses in North America run out. But on September 24, which is just about a month ago, Aaron ran out of IPv4 addresses for handing out with the caveat that they will hand them out to you if you use them to transition to IPv6. So we're at a critical point in time, at least in North America, I know that most of the rest of the world has already passed this point in time. Of course, there are other reasons, too. There are deployments that don't have any IPv4 addresses. This was actually raised at the last summit by Cisco that they had customers in pure IPv6-only environments. It could be that you maybe only have IPv4 on your external-facing VLANs for floating IP, and you only want to run your core at IPv6. You don't want to consume any addresses. One of the second reasons is people are getting a lot more comfortable deploying and operating with IPv6. For example, there's even customers running IPv6-only VMs. They're using IPv6-only VMs. There's no need to have any IPv4 for floating IPs. Why do we need to run the services over IPv4, either? The third reason is that you might have IPv4 addresses because you're using 1918 space, but you might be consuming it at too big of a rate, and you might want to maybe move that to be running over IPv6 and save it for other things. Of course, one of the most obvious ones is you better find the issues now and not later. For this work, we picked a target configuration that we tried to stick to, and it basically had the normal open stack components, Nova, Neutron, Glance, Keystone, and Horizon. For Neutron, we chose open VSwitch with VXLAN because that's an extremely common configuration, and we also turned on DVR because that's a common configuration for most of our customers. Swift unfortunately dropped down to the like to have components, so if there's any Swift people, I apologize, but we'll go into that later. I'll hand it over to Sean now for a little bit. One of the first things that a lot of people that are in the community are probably chuckling a little bit about is even our demo is using DevStack. DevStack is a set of scripts that will deploy an open stack software onto either a virtual machine or a physical device. What we need to do is in order to actually test IPv6 functionality, we need to add this functionality into DevStack because it is used to drive a lot of the CI systems within the open stack gate, and it is used to deploy all of the infrastructure that then tests a developer's patch. The nice thing about DevStack is that prior to the work that Brian, myself and others did to get V6 working within DevStack is that we already had the prerequisites of installing a cluster, configuring all the services, and everything like that, so the amount of work that we actually had to do was very small. We also wanted to contribute back to the community. It's been really important throughout the IPv6 efforts within Neutron and everywhere else is that it's done in the community and shared with the community to have buy-in from all the developers within the open stack ecosystem that, yes, IPv6 is an important feature to have. There were a couple patches that have been floating around within the community for configuring the services and then also the data plane. Within that, there were these two configuration knobs that were used to set both the IPv6 address that the host will use, and then also an IP version configuration knob for what version of IP will be used for all the services layer. Prior to this work, most of the configuration was it was just the 0.0 v4 address, and then host IP was referenced in other locations. So what the work did was to standardize on the service host, a service local host, and service listen address that would then be referenced throughout the rest of DevStack so that it could be set in one place and then deployed everywhere, so that Keystone, all the components would then correctly have the IP address put in, be it either a IPv4 address or an IPv6 address. So one of the main things that we had difficulty with is that in some configuration files, you can give an IPv6 literal, while other ones, you have to wrap it within brackets. So there was some code to handle those different accepted formats within each daemon and service. There was a really good cross-collaboration between all of the companies that are involved in OpenStack, and it really was through this process that something like this was achievable. So if you're interested in doing this, how do you get to the point where we are, where we're deploying IPv6 within a DevStack context? So within this, you just set the service IP version equal to 6 into your local .comp file, and then you run your actual DevStack stack script, which will then create the cluster, install all the services, and then the source OpenRC line is just to load in your credentials so that when you use the command line clients and everything like this, you have your credential set and you can do further operations like booting a virtual machine onto an IPv6 only network. One other thing for convenience is that we have some logic that we'll try and set the IPv6 address. It will try and auto discover it so that you don't have to go and copy that in, because you may be on a laptop that is getting an address dynamically, and it's a pretty long address and you just would be copying and pasting it in, and you're just repeating yourself. And for the developers in here, you don't repeat yourself. If you know where the source of truth is, go and fetch it from there rather than forcing you to copy it. Still may have? Okay. Well, one of the big things that we ran into first is the fact that we were a little ahead of the curve when it came to using OpenVSwitch as our driver. The local IP address, which is used by OpenVSwitch to link hypervisors together for the tunneling protocol, was not able to and accept a IPv6 address. So for a while, you could have the majority of your OpenStack deployment, V6 only, but then the hypervisors and the networks that built the underlay, unfortunately, had to use IPv4. However, there have been patches, and you'll see it in some of the new slides where this limitation has been lifted. So for the time being, you had to fall back to an IPv4 address. And this is actually, so I linked to the mailing list for development of the OVS project where they're actually undergoing the review for this patch. So things are looking really great on the OpenVSwitch side. Thanks, Sean. So after we got multi-node working using virtual machines, we decided to a bare metal deploy. So as I say here, the first thing to do and worry about in a bare metal deploy is actually acquiring all the hardware you need. Even though I work for HP Cloud and we have plenty of systems in our data center, you still have to justify why you need them and how many and what type. So I'm sure everyone will go through that. And then the second point is don't be disappointed when you don't get what you want. So it's kind of like Christmas, right? You ask for three SO390s and a few of those and they say, well, you can have two. Is that enough? And take what you get, reconfigure the roles that you intended for the systems and move on. I put the big red arrow at network configuration because for this, since we were running IPv6 networking, we had to make sure that the infrastructure was configured correctly. And not every network administrator has dealt with a lot of IPv6. So it might be a little bit of a learning curve there. And we were also deploying some advanced services such as prefix delegation. Some of those things might not be supported in your hardware. They might. So it's kind of a big step. And also we were running multiple VLANs in order to isolate traffic. Again, it's just there can be an extended period of time here. In addition, we actually had to have people go in the data center and plug some cables in. That takes time. It's not like you can file a ticket and have it serviced immediately. Installation is typically pretty painless. Your OS of choice for us, we chose Ubuntu. But then the next step, which was just as important, was to verify that everything was configured correctly. And for this, I don't just mean the systems themselves, such that you could log in as the administrator, as certain accounts, but verifying that all your VLANs were configured correctly. We actually went and configured all the VLANs with addresses, made sure all the nodes in the data center in our little cluster could communicate with each other correctly over all those VLANs. Because trying to chase down one machine, not having a VLAN plumb to it later on is just extremely painful. And then, of course, security. Since we were doing bare metal and this was being hosted in our cloud data center, we were going to be having at least one interface sitting on the live internet. So we had to go and disable services, firewall off ports, and things like that so that the security team wouldn't come running for us. And then finally, we could start doing our deploys. So we took the multi-node deployment just one step further and we turned it into a multi-node, multi-interface dev stack. So in our first round of testing, we decided on three VLANs. And this was the first one, so that we could divide these things up a little bit. So first, we had the management and API, VLAN. And we put those two together because we wanted to have them both behind our firewall so that they were only accessible by employees. So only people with credentials could log into the machine. And then also because our entire control plane was running on that VLAN. Second, we had a separate VLAN purely for the tenant traffic, which was for VXLAN traffic only. And as Sean mentioned before, we had to go to IPv4 for those tunnels. So this was actually the only interface that had IPv4 running on it. And then finally, for our public VLAN, which had direct access to the internet, that was all for floating IPs and for all of our external facing IPv6 traffic. So I have a little diagram kind of explaining what I just talked about. So here, if you look in the yellow, we had our management and API network. And we used a single slash 64 for that configuration. And all of the nodes in this cluster were on that one or using that slash 64. And if you look on the green, that was our tenant network. We had a single IPv4 address on each node. And that was a tagged VLAN. And then finally in red here was our external network. And we had a slash 24 available for floating IP space. And we had a slash 52 prefix for IPv6. So that gave us 4,000 IPv6 prefixes to use for tenants. So first attempt and the first failure. So the first thing we ran into was that since we were using DevStack was that it wants to have an IP configured on your external interface. In our case, we weren't going to be configuring an IP on the interface because all those are living in the neutron routers inside of the namespaces. We didn't want to consume any of those floating IP addresses. And also, we didn't want to expose the system on the internet anyways. So we had to manually add those interfaces to the external bridge. So that was step one. So it should work now, right? Well, it didn't quite get there. We were having problems getting in and out of the external network. And we finally traced the problem to the fact that when the default network was being created by DevStack that it wasn't adding our VLAN ID to it. So none of the packs were being tagged properly. And so we also had to manually do that. So we had to run, for example, these three commands to create the network and then create our two subnets, one for v4 and one for v6 on top of it. And this is actually pretty easy in DevStack to do now that I know the correct setting. There's always a knob for whatever you're looking for in DevStack. Yes. So there's this create initial networks. If you don't want it to create your subnets and networks where they might not be correct, you can turn this set to false in your local .conf. And you should be good. So finally, the third time, and maybe it wasn't the third time or the fourth or fifth time, but the third time it actually worked. So in this case you can see we have an IPv6 address for the host. Horizon is showing it's available over an IPv6 address as is Keystone. So from there, we knew we could crawl. So we decided to walk. So we started adding nodes. And over the next few days that week, we added six more compute nodes to it, all with DVR enabled. And we employed two additional network nodes. And the one thing you should know if you haven't done a DevStack multi-node install is the compute nodes require both the L3 agent and the metadata agent in order to operate properly. If you don't enable those in your local .conf, your VMs will boot and nothing will work. Either DHCP will fail or a metadata will fail. So it's kind of a thing you need to know for DVR. And we're actually currently using this for upstream development. I'm working on both the DVR and IPv6 and I will sometimes take upstream patches and put them in this system to see whether they solve the problems. So it's running close to Liberty Final. So most patches apply cleanly. Eventually we will have to upgrade this to a later version. So let me take a quick look at the demo. Big fail. Oh, it's always the way it works, isn't it? Sean warned me. We'll check in with it later. Let me restart it and we can talk through some slides. I do have screen shots. I know what the problem is, though. Again, we can fail fast with DevStack, right? It takes about five minutes for that to restack itself. Okay, these are still mine. So where are we going from here? One of the things we noticed in this deployment when we were doing the DevStack work is that the knob in DevStack that we added lets the systems change from IPv6 only mode, for example, for all your service endpoints in Keystone, to IPv4 only mode. What about that place in the middle where you might have both V4 clients and V6 clients trying to access this thing? I talked to one of the Keystone people internally and also brought it up in the design summit session around the service catalog. And I think one of the recommended solutions was, well, don't use IP addresses at all in Keystone. Use host names. So in this case, it could purely be a documentation task to say, well, if we return a host name, the client should be able to resolve that to the correct address for what call it's making, and then it should just work. So again, we're hopefully talk about that. I don't know if that session is tomorrow or the next day, but that's kind of the way we're headed because it's going to be the simplest thing to do. And then of course, since we did have a problem running all V6 everywhere, and we now know that there's an upstream patch for the Linux kernel and in the latest, I think 4.2 kernel, we want to go and pull that code even into just a test system and see what happens. So we really want to get that working because we're also going to need to update the OpenV, the Neutron OVS agent code because right now it's hard coded to V4 for that local IP check. It actually passes version equal 4 to Oslo for verifying that it's an IPv4 address. So we'll need, there's a little bit of work there, so the quicker we can get to this, the quicker we can have a patch up to Neutron and then just say, well with this version of kernel, this really should work. One of the other things, we chose VxLan and OVS purely because of our customers, but there's no reason that someone can't take the Linux bridge or some other driver and try that and get this working. So I can throw it out to you guys, if someone has an interest in trying to get this to work with Linux bridge or some other technology, feel free to contact us or try it and let us know on the mailing list or on IRC because we'd be interested in hearing how you did. And then Swift, I mentioned earlier on about Swift and getting back to the disappointment in the hardware is we didn't, Swift really requires I think three disks minimum to set up kind of a very small configuration. Since we didn't get it, we really kind of pushed it aside as well as the fact that DevStack won't configure Swift by itself. DevStack wants to configure everything and you can't tell DevStack to just do Swift. So we just kind of punted that one down the road. And then finally, there's vendor distros out there, both myself and Sean work for vendors that have open stack distros and working on getting support for this into our distros is obviously on future work for both of us. And back to Sean. Sure. So the reason why we've been doing most of this work in DevStack is as again I said it's mostly the CI infrastructure. This is where we need to do the work to uncover any problems. And the last couple of cycles I've been involved with the infra program to make sure that when we do DevStack it would then create all the V4 networking and then also then do the dual stack networking so we could shake out bugs in all the services so that dual stack would work correctly. So this is what we did probably last cycle and to ensure that the work that we had done within the V6 working group would continue and it wouldn't bit rot and that new features if they did affect IPv6 it would be identified quickly and patches could be done to rectify that. So the goal is eventually to have a CI system, I'm sorry, a CI job within the open stack gate that deploys everything with IPv6 only to ensure that all of the components within open stack can operate in these types of environments. Do it quickly now so that we can identify the issues far before any deployers are actually considering such an aggressive change over to IPv6 only. Most of them currently are just evaluating dual stack which is an additive configuration and then obviously the more radical one is taking away V4 only. One of the main challenges of this is in the infra code base where service host has been hard coded to local host. There are some patches that we're doing to remove that and then one of the other difficulties is that only one of the clouds that the infra program runs upon has real IPv6 networking so that makes it difficult to handle that where sometimes it's the V6 that we can rely on from the provider, sometimes we'll just have to use like a unique local address prefix. A lot of the scenario tests assume that the floating IPs are the way that you actually do connectivity into an instance and when you're doing a V6 only tempest run for all the tests there is no floating IPs in IPv6 because that implies NAT currently within the API and the behaviors. So the other thing is that tunnels are then used because a cloud that's running these tests could actually be spawned on one provider's cloud perhaps Rackspace and the other one on HP's cloud or another one they use tunneling to link those so that they look like they're on the same actual L2 broadcast segment so it looks something similar to this. But as you can see this was pulled from the infra documentation and it is primarily IPv4. There is code that already does the dual stack case but it's a lot of just work on our side to just teach the rest of infra about some of the configuration that we've done within DevStack and update the shared knowledge that everybody has. So I think the last thing we want to do is thank some of the other participants within the community that were crucial to getting this work done. If you don't see your name up here please stand up and be acknowledged and actually if you're on this slide as well please do. Yeah Jeremy and Adam were actually my two interns this past summer that did a lot of this heavy lifting here so I told them I'd embarrass them by mentioning them and having them on YouTube and then also because it was done in our data center there were a lot of people from our knock to our dev people and ops people that helped out here getting all the systems together and configured that there's probably more than they bargained for I think when I first asked for them. I think that's it. And that's it so thank you. And if there are any questions we were asked to have people come to the mic so everyone can hear you. I think we're the only thing standing between everybody and their party. Yeah we don't want to stand between you and the beer festival downstairs. Yes. Oh you're right. It's still running. It's still cooking away. I can show you the slide shots while it's working. So Sean was very smart and he had me make two screen shots. So if I ran the demo correctly and I did an open stack endpoint list when it was all done this is the output and I realize it's a little bit teeny tiny but you can see over here that every one of these service endpoints is an IPv6 address neutron at the bottom and even here this is our horizon snapshot looking at the server that was booted and you can see up here at the top that it's it's accessed over the IPv6 address of the system. So it is still it's still stuck so good job Sean for making making me take those snapshots and I did that in my hotel room right before I came down and it worked so that's the any questions you need to come to the mic please. Did you share somehow your local files for this DevStack installation? I'm sorry it was a little difficult to hear you. Your local configuration for DevStack did you put it somewhere that I can download it or what we'll do that's actually a very good point what we'll do is we'll put in the docs.openstack.org or if you go to devstack.org there's already a neutron guide what we'll do is we'll go ahead and start putting in our configurations to help you yes thank you. Yeah and it really was just that one if you put in that one line and you had an IPv6 address on eth0 it's automatic it's all done if you don't then you need an IPv6 address somewhere on the system and then have to specify it in that host IPv6 value so yeah it was that was part of why I think we got good traction was because we simplified that down to that option that you could go back and forth between v4 and v6 very quickly and and not have a lot of impact on anything else so thanks. Anyone else? Thank you very much.


Mr. Vernon, Mr. Rickerman, here, Mr. McGowell, yes, Mr. Gowell, Mr. Vines, Mr. Davis, Mayor Benjamin, from the parking lot of my daughter's dentist, I'm here. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Reverend McGowell, would you bless us with a word, brother? Yes, let us pray. For this day and for all you've done for us, for the possibilities you allowed us to endeavor, we ask that you bless us individually and collectively. Bless this city of ours as we get through and kind of flesh through this thing we call the coronavirus. Bless us and keep us. Bless all who are in the sound of our voice. We ask it in your name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Any changes to the agenda? I think we're going to move item two to the bottom of the agenda. Take that up a little later on, but no any other formal amendments, Mr. Gowell? Yes, sir. Other than moving item two to the bottom of the agenda, we'd like to add, before item two's new position, an executive session under 30-4-78-2 for attorney client privileges prior to discussion of the ordinance number 2020-21-008. In item 13, we would like to amend the name. Mr. Pro Tem, take up a second. I'm going to talk to Congressman Clyburn, please, one second. Yes, go ahead. Go ahead, Mr. Gowell. We'd like to amend item 13 to delete the name that is in there and add TC partnership LLC, and in item 16, we would like to add as an additional discussion item, racial equity index. All right. And I so move. All right, is there a second? Second. All right, they're moving second. Madam Clerk, would you call Roe, please? Yes, sir. Mr. Berman. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Hi. Mr. McGowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Hi. Mr. Vye. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mr. Benjamin. All right. That gets us, we moved, now we moved that, is that right, how we moved that? We moved item two to the bottom of the agenda, and so we're on item three. Item number three, yes. I'm sorry.  Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, if we could approve the minutes of January 19, 2021. All right, that's before you. Are there, are there, I move Roeville at the minutes of January 19. All right, is there a second? Second. All right, we're moving second. Are there questions? If you would approve that, Madam Clerk, would you call Roe? Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Hi. Mr. McGowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Hi. Mr. Vye. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mayor Benjamin. All right. We have COVID-19, Harry. Are you on, you here with us? Can you hear me? Harry. Can you hear me? Harry, give me one second. If possible, Reverend McDowell, I was trying to double-check to see if we had a doctoral student on the line who's doing. Oh, okay. I just wanted to take a minute of personal privilege if that's okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Yes, yes, ma'am. Personal privilege is allowed. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. And I'm not sure she was able to join us today. Ms. Sharonda Jamerson, she's a doctoral student in nursing at the University of South Carolina. And one of her requirements is to shadow and get about 40 hours, actually, with a policymaker or a staff person who works with policymakers like you all. And it's a health policy course, health politics and policy, a political internship. So we're really excited to have Sharonda. Pam and I are going to work with her a little bit over this next few weeks and help her to get her hours in. But she's very, very bright and sharp. And I know she wouldn't want to meet you all if she was not in her class. So I don't see her. So I'm thinking she wasn't able to pull away from the class that she helps to teach. Is that right, Pam? Yes, ma'am. That's right. She wasn't able to attend with us, but we're excited about her coming. Okay. So hopefully we will get her on at another time. So thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, Matt Dowell. And with that, we can move forward with discussion of our COVID-19. Oh, there she is, Sharonda. Can you hear us? Hi. I think they can hear you. And I just gave an introduction of what you're doing. Did you want to say anything regarding your class and what you're hoping to achieve with us for a few weeks? Well, a few weeks. And I was just wanting to learn all first, I want to thank you all for keeping your city safe. Y'all are doing a fabulous job. And I'm going to be following you all just so I can see the things that y'all are doing and learn a little bit more about the process of your policies and how y'all just try to analyze some of the things y'all are doing and the decision making and all of that. I just want to be a part of all of it. Well, we're excited to have you. And it is a unique time with COVID and our COVID update that we're about to do for a doctoral nursing student. We can learn from you too and get some perspective from you. So thanks for joining us, Sharonda. Ms. Jamison, thank you so much for being with us today. I think you said it was a unique opportunity for yourself and of course being around some of us will probably be a unique opportunity for you also. So thank you for joining us in this uniqueness. What do you mean by unique? Thank you. He's speaking for himself. And Ms. Jamison, the young man just spoke, that's unique there. That's his middle name, unique. Thank you, President. Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. Hello, it's going to be Dr. Jamison. Hello, how are you? Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you. We will make sure we get Sharonda busy. We have lots to do that she can help us with over the next few weeks. So thank you, Sharonda. And with that, Mayor Benjamin, we are ready to move into the COVID-19 situational report. Did you have any comments, Mayor Benjamin? No, no. I'm looking forward to taking up the emergency ordinance later and any prospective potential amendments to that. Let's go to Director Tinsen's report. Thank you. Okay. Harry? Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Madam City Manager. Again, thank you for your time. Just a real quick situational report. A lot of this information, being in your inbox and your audience, probably privy to a lot of it as everybody's following you closely. Worldwide now, we're over 103 million global cases of COVID-19 with over 2.4 million deaths globally. That's according to the John Hopkins University data. According to the CDC, as of February 1, US has now over 26 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 with over 439,000 deaths. Here in our state in South Carolina, the latest report out case counts for confirmed cases is just under 400,000. A new number should post here this afternoon in with 398,892 is the last reporting. There have been just under 5 million tests to date conducted. The new cases as of the last reporting were 2,130. That's a 21.6 percent positivity rate. Unfortunately, there were 210 new confirmed deaths at the last reporting. This brings the state total to 6,564. Those date ranges of the 210 were back from October 18, 2020 to January 30, 2021. As far as in Richland County, we stand at our case count now at 32539 with 145 new cases in the last reporting. Over the last 14-day reporting period, Richland County had 3,665 new cases. That was a daily average of around 261 cases each day. Unfortunately, we have 399 confirmed deaths in our county. As far as the last 14-day report period, there were seven zip codes in the county that had over 200 case counts for that reporting period. 2,9229 continues to be the highest with over 413 cases for that report out. Also, as of the January 27th report period, the state's county recent disease activity shows all counties continue to be in a high category. Richland County's rate is 875.5 per 100,000. That gives us a positivity test rate of 23.9 percent. Also, as of January 30th reporting sample, the state recovery rate is estimated at 88.4 percent. That's down slightly. The state case fatality rate is estimated at 1.56 percent. That's down slightly. Then the state has been averaging daily case counts. Our case counts peaked in mid-June, where now on the decline, we're averaging over 3,000 new cases each day in our state. This decline is anticipated to continue to decrease over the next few weeks. You can tell as the last report out, there were 2,130 cases. Statewide hospitalizations remain. They fluctuate high. There's sufficient bed space. The utilization rate is at 78 percent. Right now, the ICU bed utilization rate is at 75 percent. There are over 388,000 total doses administered for that reporting period. That concludes my response to your questions. Thank you. Any questions? Harry, Harry, you had me at 103 million cases worldwide. It's just humbling and makes me thankful. Again, the actions of this council and the leadership of Theresa, you and the whole team, it also highlights the fact we got a long way to go, a long way to go. We encourage everyone. Obviously, you guys may get tired of hearing it, but as soon as the vaccine is available to you, please take it. Keep doing the very basics wash your hands, social distance, wear your mask. Let's figure out how we're going to do our part to get through these incredibly dangerous times. Thank you, Director Tinsley. Any questions for Harry? Harry, let me ask one more question. I think you said that there were seven zip coded areas where there was cases, and I think you said 29229. Is that correct? Yes, sir. 29229 was over 400 to that reporting period. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Thank y'all. Thank you. Thank you, Harry. Theresa? If we will move on to the consideration items four through 12. Fair motion. In discussion, I think everyone's excited. We've got some new playground equipment going to TS Martin Park and a whole bunch of other really cool things on this agenda. Encourage people to take a look at that. We'll move the previous question for Colorado. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. McGowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Hi. Mr. Vines? Mr. Davis? Hi. Hi. Thank you. Item 13 is an ordinance for first reading, ordinance number 2021-002, authorizing the city manager to execute a lease agreement between the city of Columbia and PC partnership, LLC, as amended, for a portion of the northern right of way area of Washington Street at Sumter Street for installation and maintenance of a grease trap. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Move the previous question for Colorado. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McGowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mr. Vines? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benson? Aye. I know that the Environment and Infrastructure Committee met this morning. There may be some other committee referrals and or reports, sir. All right. Any reports or referrals, guys? All right. If y'all will bear with me, I actually have three different reports. I didn't realize we've been so busy recently. But just quickly, one, I wanted to say the Affordable Housing Task Force met and we will be bringing back some interim recommendations very soon. But it did want to report that we had, we used the matrix that a lot of communities are doing to identify the deficit of affordable housing in a community. And based on that data, Dr. Brian Grady from South Carolina State Housing helped us with that. The Richland County alone, which includes the City of Columbia, Richland County, City of Columbia has about 4,500 lack of affordable housing. And then the county added what the county Richland County told is about 16,000 units. That was actually pre-COVID. And so the committee will be making a recommendation to council very soon and asking that counties join with us and making a pledge to look at increasing a certain number of units annually. And so that's bringing forward. But I did want to make sure that everybody knew that because that that number has been reported by some of the media. So I wanted you guys to know where that 16,000 unit number came from that that is actually coming out of our committee based on some some metrics. Sam, did you have anything to add on that? Oh, no, I agree. And I think the one good thing about it is that it is a unified effort now. It's not just the city and it shouldn't be perceived as a city. One of the things I've been telling folks, which comes from the committee also, those numbers are real in terms of the need for housing in the city as well as the county. So we're on the right track. Y'all check that report with us. Can you share it with us? Yeah. Oh, I will. Yeah, I'll email that to you guys this afternoon. It's actually really good. I'll email that. Okay. Second quick. Howard and I, you guys kind of appointed us an ad committee to look at our municipal equality index. And so I just wanted to report that he and I have met with a group of citizens to look at where we are. And actually came forward with some recommendations. We also, Howard and I met with Mayor Steve Williams from Huntington earlier today. He says to Mayor Benjamin and Chief Holbrook, hello. And that Steve, you still owe him two players because you took his picture. You better go talk to Theresa Wilson. But the reason we reached out to Mayor Williams just very interestingly enough, they have for the last two years scored over 100 in the municipal equality index starting from around 60, which is what our 2020 point was. And so some of the things that he gave us to look to, Howard and I will be bringing forward some written recommendations to you guys within the next couple of weeks. But I think that there are certainly things that we can do to improve that index. And so I wanted you guys to know that that was moving forward. And then lastly, and Howard, I mean, Daniel and Will may have something to add. The Environment Infrastructure Committee met this morning from our presentation from CPAC. They are recommending a few updates to the bylaws. And TK, we just need clarification. I think that those updates have to be approved by council. But if we could bring those forward, they they have changed the makeup of the CPAC right now. And it is by district appointed by specific council members, they want to be able to cast a wider net and make sure that they have subject matter expertise. So they're asking that we update the increase the number of seats on CPAC and update them to more at large seats so that we can get the subject matter expertise needed. They also are proposing a change to the to the mission of CPAC. And so those two things I believe need to come forward to council. And so if that is indeed the case, then I've asked Ms. Hammond to make sure that's on our next agenda. We also had a presentation from Dominion regarding the converting street lights from HID to LED. It would be at no cost to us. They have full presentation, which we can give you the PowerPoint for that. But staff is actually looking at the contract right now and will be bringing forward a recommendation. But that is for council to consider the update upgrade of all of our not all but a lot of our lights to LED lights. And those would be in the corridors. Will and Daniel, y'all want to add anything? I would just add that the committee put forth a very wonderful presentation that really hit a lot of notes. And it's a lot of things that we've talked about, you know, gotten us involved by moving forward towards 100% renewable. And they came up with some really, they've done an energy audit, they've really done a CO2 audit and several other things that I think are beneficial and really have are bringing in a lot of guidance and things that we can adapt. I was very impressed with what they presented as a committee today and where they want to move. And I think they're going to be a great resource for the city and really, you know, helping us get to where we all want to be. So I was very impressed and pleased with what they had to work that they had done. I'd like to add there's going to have to be some heavy lifting with the Public Service Commission that the voice of the city of Columbia can really drive home to help us get to that beautiful blueprint of sustainability that they are presenting. So I look forward to talking to staff about how to put our voice as a Columbia as a city of Columbia forward in the Public Service Commission's decision-making process that is as a short timeline from what I understand, Mr. Vaughn. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Tameka. Any other reports or referrals? All right. Erica, who do we have online from Public Input? Or do we have any online from Public Input? Well, at this time, we do not have any callers on the line. Okay. Then I want to note, again, we amended the agenda so that we're going to take up item two after executive session. Two items in Theresa Knox. Let me know if I'm out of school here or speaking out of school. We do have the vacancy up on the comment board. I think Ron Anderson's term has expired. And then we talked previously about this. I think it's our collective intention, in its mind, to appoint Councilman Brennan in that slot. Unless there's some objection, there's no need to get in post-deposition. If in fact, that is our intention. I'd like to get ahead and move the appointment of Will Brennan to the comment board to fill out Ron Anderson's term. All right. Move second. Discussion? Seeing none, with a previous question, Kurt Calderon. I may I was pausing because I think we have to have a motion to amend the agenda to include that item and then move to approve the item. Move. Thank you. All right. The primary motion is Mr. Davis's motion. I'll second that motion, amend agenda to include the appointment to the comment board. The motion to amend agendas before us. With a previous question, Kurt Calderon. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. We state the motion to appoint Will Brennan as a representative to the comment board on replace Ron Anderson, whose term has expired. Is there a second? Second. All right. Any discussion? Move the previous question, Kurt Calderon. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you, Will. I thank you. Thank you, Eric. Appreciate it. Keep it straight. I think we're going to take a motion to go in the executive session before we do that because I know a lot of folks won't be around. Maybe we come back to take up item two. I would be remiss if I didn't harken back to lunch at Liz's Dickey in 1997, sitting down with my friend Sam Davis and a few others. As he made it clear to me and some others that he's been serving the city in so many different ways, just as a citizen activist, protest, a heckraiser, public servant, all the above. And he is still all the above. And we will have time for proper goodbyes at the end of this calendar year. But with your official announcement, Sam, just want to say thank you, brother. We love you. We're thankful for you.  And just wanted to say that on the record before most of the views go offline. We'll have some time to talk about your legacy. But it is indeed you are a senior member of council and we think the world to you. Just wanted to take a moment to say that, brother. With your permission, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just want everybody to know that one it's time and they say it's always good to leave before they send you. But it's been good. Everybody knows how I feel about the city. And I think we've made progress over the years as cohesive groups. And I think the city is better for everybody's service. And I'm not going to go away, but I'm going to, I think, be available whenever I can for folks. But the bottom line is Columbia is good. And I know when I leave, it'll still be in good hands. And I think the people that we are accountable to, I think they appreciate our efforts. And I think everybody's going to continue to give their best on behalf of the city we love. Well, it's an informal thank you have a chance to do a formal thing to you and in the boys, but we appreciate your brother. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Duvall. Mr. Mayor, I might make a motion. We go into executive session for receipt of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to 30-4-78-2 COVID-19, Thindley Park, Owensfield, Stormwater fees, receipt of legal advice relating to a pending threatened or potential claim of South Carolina code 30-40-4-78-2, Sherry San Duvall versus COC and SCDOT, state of South Carolina, Hector Allen Wilson, Attorney General versus city of Columbia discussion of negotiations, isn't it to propose contractual arrangements pursuant to 30-4-78-2 2221 Divine Street economic development partners and racial equity discussion of employment of an employee pursuant to 30-4-78-1 city manager and city attorney. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. And again, I just want to remind all the folks who are normally with us that we will be coming back however online to take up item two. I don't want there to be any confusion. We will be renewing the ordinance. That is unless there's some earth shattering event. We're going to be moving forward with our continued restrictions and rules around COVID-19. I think there's some questions whether or not we amend them even further. So that we'll be coming back in public meeting after executive session. We'll move the previous question, Kurt Colorado. Mr. Vernon? Yes. Mr. Richmond? Hi. Mr. McAllen? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Hi. Mr. Varn? Mr. Davis? Hi. All right, thank you. For those of you who did wait the entire time for us to come back and we had a robust and significant number of issues to discuss in the executive session getting the people's work done. When I go back to emergency ordinances, is there a motion to approve ordinance 2021-008? It's been moved and properly seconded. It's important to note so one of the matters we needed advice from legal counsel on was how we could strengthen the ordinance to address the issue of repeat offenders. Those that frequently and repeatedly violate the letter in spirit of the masking ordinance. This is not meant to be punitive, but meant to be a recognition of the fact that we are still working our way through prayerfully collectively that we've seen it over 100 years. It's caused thousands of South Canadian lives. So we will be endeavoring working with our staff over the next week to come with additional language that we'll see to hold businesses that are repeat offenders and individuals that repeat offenders to much higher levels of sanctions. The letter of the language will be proposed by staff and will be shared publicly for the public but also considered by this council a post-haste. We expect to have this discussion sometime within the next week or so. So be tuned. Understand that it's so important right now that if you have the vaccine available to you, get the vaccine. In the meantime, mask up, follow the law, socially distance as much as possible, sanitize as much as possible, and let's all stay safe so that we can all play our role, do our part, and make our way through this pandemic. We're going to move to the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. Mcdowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mr. Vine? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. Well, thank you everyone for the patience. Is there a non-debatable motion to adjourn? We'll move. We'll move. We'll move in the second discussion with the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. Mcdowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mr. Vine? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. You all have a good evening. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Good night, everybody.