I am James Swannick. This is Swannick Live and today we're talking about toxins. And we have a special guest who's known as the toxin terminator.  And maybe you're just curious, what are the toxins that I'm breathing in? What are the toxins around my home? And how do I get them out of me? Or how do I stop them from getting into me? Then the toxin terminator, Ms. Amy Carlson is going to give us her guidance and expertise today. Hello, Amy. Great to have you here. Oh, thank you so much for having me on James. I love spreading the message and really helping people know what choices they have so that they can improve the quality of health they have. Not only for right now, but golly jeepers, you know, we want to age gracefully, right? Yeah. And I'm assuming then that means that if we've got toxins in our system, then we're not aging gracefully. We're probably aging faster than we want to. We sure are. We sure are. And, you know, I look around and I just see how I think so much of our society has decided that this is normal, how we feel. We just have no idea how poorly we feel. We have no idea that it's actually possible for us to age without aches and pains. It's possible for us to age without disease. It's possible for us to age without being on, you know, carrying that little bag of medications around with us, right?  And what are the five pillars of our lives where toxins are inundating our bodies? Sure, you bet. So over the last seven years, I've been living this toxin-free lifestyle and I've had the honor to be able to interview and work with some of the leading industry specialists, some of the highest doctors, healers, practitioners, and as well as all my research I did in writing the book, The Toxin Terminator. And that confirmed that really we have five areas of sources that we have for the toxins to come into our lives within our homes. Now outside of our homes, you know, it's all over the place. But in our homes, we're looking at the air that we're breathing. We're looking at the water, not just that we're drinking them. We're really, we'll dig into that when we get into that pillar. We're talking about food. What type of toxins could we be getting in through our food sources and absorption? You know, our body absorbs what we put on it. So what is happening and being absorbed into the body? And then all of that is physical. We got to deal with the mental aspect of it, too. You know, we've got mental sources of toxins that I deem inside and outside. And we can talk about those. Yeah, great. So we've got air, water, food, absorption, and mental. Is that correct? Yes. All right. Great. Well, let's get into it then. So let's talk about air. Just before we do that, we're talking to Amy Carlson, who's also known as the toxin terminator. She's a public speaker and a published best-selling author and a podcaster. And you can find out more about Amy at amycarlson.com. So let's talk about the first pillar, that being air. Sure. So the scientists now know that the air inside of our home is five times more polluted than what we have outside. And we think, wow, you know, we get outside into nature and, you know, breathe that fresh air. There's a reason for it because so many of us are living in those high efficiency homes and everything is sealed up tight. So there's no breathing happening with our homes today. We keep everything sealed up tight. We've got those humidifiers running, which is, you know, just a petri dish for mold and bacteria and viruses to grow. And so the biggest factor inside of our air is fragrance. You know, we come into fragrance through, what do you think?  Yeah. Perfumes. Yeah. The biggest culprit for fragrance in our everyday use is what we clean with. Did you know that? Wow. Yeah. It's our cleaning products. Yeah. It's crazy. And so I tell my audience all the time, helpful tip in this category is buy products that say fragrance-free. And here's the reason fragrance is a number one toxin is because that word is literally hundreds of ingredients within that one word. And it has a proprietary trade secret that it does not have to disclose what all is included in there. So they can pull from over 3,000 different chemicals to be included in that one word. Now, most of them are just several hundred. But we just don't know what it is that's inside that word. So we want to be purchasing items that are fragrance-free. You know, a lot of people say they have allergies to fragrance, and I believe that they do. Synthetic fragrance are very damaging to our respiratory system and our neurological system. Yeah. So fragrance-free. And I'm assuming then that most cleaning products are marketing and promoting the fact that they have fragrances, right? They're probably saying lavender smelling, kind of, you know, table counter cleaner or something. Or maybe in the toilet, in the bathroom, it's probably got fragrance of stafodils or roses or something like that, right? Yeah. Well, and, you know, you walk into anybody's home virtually and you will find that they have some sort of a spray in their bathroom because, you know, sometimes the fan is just not enough, right? And so we've got a spray to take care of that odor. And, you know, all they're doing is masking the smell and they can be causing issues for us for our respiratory and neurological. I suffered from headaches every single day of my adult life. And towards the end, I had issues with migraines that I had multiple times a week where I actually lost the vision on my left-hand side.  And as soon as I got fragrance out of my home, I do not suffer from headaches and I do not have migraines anymore. So that was a big one for me. Is there something that you would use to replace a fragrance table, cloth cleaner or a bathroom spray or something like that? Is there something that you would use instead? Oh my goodness, there's all kinds of options for us to use that are safe. You know, look for plant-based products that you would be able to use. Simple soap and water, of course, you know, not synthetically fragranced. Vinegar and water, hydrogen peroxide is a good additive to put in there. I personally use a lot of essential oils. So I'll add in, you know, a lot of citrus essential oils or peppermint essential oil to help with the cleaning properties for what I make.  Got it. So yeah, there are lots of options available. Is that the first pill of air with the fragrances? It is. Great. I'm loving it. All right. So we move on to water now. So water, a lot of people think about, wow, you know, I know I need to drink clean water, right? You know, that seems to be becoming a common knowledge, right? Yeah, but I always talk to people, what we're bathing in is actually way more important than what we're drinking. Now I want you to do it all. I would like you to put a whole house filtration system on your home, but I understand there's a lot of people who are in an apartment or they're in temporary housing and they can't do that.  And showering is way more important than what we're drinking because we're standing in that hot water, opening the pores of the body and we're absorbing everything in and usually we're taking a shower for, I don't know, five minutes at least, some people longer. You know, so this is being absorbed in the body. I had a friend of mine, she's actually featured in my book, her name is Bobby Shaben, who had Meniere's disease, which is a chronic disease and changing and putting a shower head filter on her water system actually got rid of 80% of her symptoms. Wow, it's incredible. Yeah, simple changes. Yeah, would it make any difference if people were having cold showers because now the pores aren't opening up as much? Your body absorbs what we put on it. So whatever we're putting on our body can actually be found and detected inside the blood within 30 seconds to two minutes depending on what it is. So even water is still going to be cold water going to be absorbed into our skin and into the body. And with all the heavy metals and the chlorine and the fluoride and the chloramine and the pesticides and herbicides and fungicides that are found in the water, that's just a no-go for me and my home. Yeah, got it. Okay, great. So with water, we're talking about what we're putting on our body and you said that that is more important than what we're drinking. Certainly in our home we have a water filtration system for drinking, for drinking water, but you would suggest that that is not as important, while important, not as important as the shower head filter. Right. Ultimately, again, get a whole house filtration system. If you can't do the whole house filtration system, then get the shower and then also then add in the under sink mount system. If you do that, there's even pictures that you can buy. There's Berkey water filtration devices that just set on the countertop you can fill and they have charcoal devices in there that clear out all of the toxins from the water. So lots of options for us. Okay, great. Just on water as well, let's just say we're driving along, we pull into the gas station or we go into the local 7-Eleven to get some water and the options we have is what you might see in a gas station. Is there a brand of water that is preferable to another brand of water in your experience? No, not really. I try to do my very best and I understand there's always going to be circumstances that come up, but I do my very best not to drink out of plastic. Number one, I want to save the environment. Let's not use the plastic. That's number one. Number two, we don't know that those cases of water could have been sitting outside in the heat. When they are heated up, then the toxins are leached into the water. We just don't know what we're getting. So there's really not a preference in brand with water. Just at all possible costs try to avoid buying it out of the plastic. Just if not for the toxins coming into your body for our environment. Yeah, got it. Okay, great. Now, we're talking to Amy Carlson, also known as the toxin terminator. Her podcast is the toxin terminator. Okay, so we've covered air. We've covered water. Let's let's deal with food now. Absolutely. So lots and lots and lots of things are in our food that I think the big thing I want to talk about is pesticides, herbicides and fungicide. So we find this in all of our food sources because so much of our soil has just been contaminated and we can even find some in our organic foods. However, organic is still the best option to do is purchasing all our produce in the the organics. Now, I know again, a lot of you are going to say, but Amy, I just can't afford to buy everything organic.  Are you having blueberries on your granola every morning?  Then make sure those fruits are vegetables or organic. If you don't have bananas, but maybe once a month, maybe not as important, right? Yeah, we, my partner and I, we shop at an organic market every Sunday morning and we only eat organics. And I get I get mocked and ridiculed by friends going, oh, did you take an extra hundred dollars with you? Or did they charge you a hundred bucks to walk into the organic markets? And I, I kind of look at it this way. It's like, I'm either going to pay for it now, I'm going to pay for it later with, with health issues. And the other way I kind of, the other way I've kind of rewired my brain around it now is I look at it as it's not that organic food is expensive. Organic food just costs what it costs. And everything else that being non-organic food is just cheap and nasty. That's kind of like the way that I, I've refrained my brain. So I just look at it as like organic food is just what food costs. That's just, that's the standard. And then any food that isn't that is cheap and nasty. I mean, it might not be, theoretically speaking, it might not all be nasty stuff, but that's just the kind of way I play a little mind trick in my, in my game to try satisfy myself or reconcile myself with the fact that, you know, I am paying a premium compared to, I mean, I am paying a premium for organic food compared to what most people pay for food. Well, and here's another way to look at it too. And hey, any way that we can look at it to understand it, you know, I love what you say we either pay for it or we pay for it later. That is absolutely 100% true. But the other way to look at it too is that these farmers are actually taking care of our food and making sure that they we're going to have good things coming into our body. And that costs more, you know, being able to just go on to those fields and spray them with whatever is cheaper, you know, to do. So, you know, we're supporting families, we're supporting, you know, good strong businesses and, you know, grow your own garden golly jeepers in my area where we're at, I can hardly find fresh produce. You know, we're starting to run short. So, you know, there's a lot of options. Yeah, we've actually started growing our own produce now. We do kale and spinach and bok choy and dandelion and tomatoes and, yeah, a few other things, a few other things there. That's an investment as well in the beginning because you got to buy some soil and pots and you got to take care of it. So, it's a time investment and a financial investment. But in the long run, it does pay off and it becomes a lot more cost effective than buying your produce every week if you can just grow it. Absolutely.  Let's move on to the fourth pillar, which is absorption. Yeah. So a couple of different things I like to talk about in absorption. Number one, we have parabens. Now, men are affected by this as well because you guys are using shampoos and deodorants and lotions and aftershave and all of those things that you guys use and toothpaste, you know, most of you guys are brushing your teeth as well. But women are highly affected by this one because we as an average use 14 different products and just getting ready in the morning. That gives us an exposure of well over 200 chemicals just as we get ready in the morning. So and parabens are endocrine disrupting. These are affecting our hormones and the studies have shown that they find parabens in every single blood sample that they test and they've also found parabens in every single breast tumor that they have tested. So this is not something that we want to be absorbing in our body. And as women, you might have seen them on your shelves as well. We're starting to see more and more products available out there that say paraben free. And that's a good thing. The consumers are starting to demand it and companies are starting to listen. I've often said to some people moisturizers. Most moisturizers, in my opinion, are just paraben filled creams. And I and I see these these commercials on TV with these celebrities promoting shampoos like L'Oreal and Neutrogena and all this kind of stuff. And I have a look at the ingredients and I like shake my head and I go, man, this is just a chemical plant. And a friend of mine is a big health leader, Ben Greenfield always said to me, he said, never ever put in your mouth what you wouldn't put on your on your on your body. And so they can't always stuck stuck with me. And he said, put extra virgin olive oil on your face as a moisturizer. So I started to do that. I also put a little bit of coconut oil on my time for a place. I now use a brand from a friend of mine named his name is Andy Nylo. He has a company called Alatura and Alatura, the moisturizer has honey, honeybee wax and olive oil and things like that. It's all natural products. And I look at it and I go, oh, I could actually drink this. It might be okay. Because I'm assuming that once you rub something on your skin, it absorbs into the body. And so you're taking on whatever like, yeah, yeah, whatever properties in it. Yep. Absolutely. And that's what I said. There was a test actually done by the environmental working group. Now you're in Australia, correct? Currently, yeah. Okay, so I'm not sure if you guys have access to the ewg.org. It's environmental working group. They did a study where they took samples of, I believe it was 200 samples of blood and tested, they tested positive for well over 40 some chemicals inside of it. And these were umbilical cord samples. These were embryos. They hadn't even been born yet. This is babies in utero. And so what we absorb into the body is staying in our bodies and it's being passed down to our children. So it's really, really important to have clean, safe products. And so many of these companies are doing this, what we call greenwashing. And they're using things like natural, safe plant. And there's nothing plant based about them at all. And they're getting away with that. And so we almost have to become a chemist and a scientist to know how to read those labels, or align ourselves with the company that we know, love and trust, that we can get safe products from. So yeah, if in doubt, look at the ingredients. And if there's anything that you find challenging to spell or pronounce the name of, chances are it probably has something that you shouldn't put on your body. I use Tom's deodorant as well, which is, I think, almost all or if not entirely natural. And Dr. Bonner's shampoo and body lotion. Have you heard of those two brands? Tom's can still have some ingredients that I don't allow into my home. Again, it's all personal preference. There's an app. EWG.org has an app called Healthy Living. And so you can scan your product and it'll give you a safety rating. So to go from one to 10, one being the safest, 10 being, you know, danger, and they'll tell you why. And Dr. Bronner's, many of Dr. Bronner's product is very, very good. And there's some like he's got a like an everyday base for a cleaner that I turned the label around and it had sodium laurel sulfate in it. Now, sodium laurel sulfate is kind of a controversial one. Some people say it's safe. I say it's not.  It is manmade. It is what creates the bubbles and suds in a product. And there are other plant derived ones that are better than sodium laurel sulfate.  I say it's not because it's going to get absorbed into the body. So, you know, you get to decide on that. But there's a lot of Dr. Bronner stuff that is good. Again, we just have to learn to read the, read the labels. Yeah, great. Thank you. And you said the app from EWG. I'm looking here. I've got EWG's food scores and EWG's healthy, healthy living. Is it one of those two? Yep. The healthy living right there at the top. That's the one you want. Okay, great. Thank you. And it gives you exactly what the rating is, and it'll tell you exactly why. And so the more you use that app, the more you're going to get in tune to, oh yeah, I don't want that anymore. So it'll help you train yourself on what to be looking for. The EWG also has within its website, they have a place where you can test your water. So if you're on city water, you can type in your zip code and you'll be able to get your city's testing for the water and what's in it. Wow, great. Okay. And then the last one, last pillar we wanted to talk about was mental. We've talked about air, water, food and absorption. So now let's talk about mental. Absolutely. So mental, I like to go to inside, outside. So outside is stress, right? We have lots of stress out there in the world, in our jobs, and whatever it is, that's not going away. It's always going to be there. And so we have to learn how we can react to it and respond to that stress. And so I give tips on how to do that. And then also on the outside is our like, I kind of call it an energy circle that I surround myself with. So, you know, I like to look at it at about three different energy circles that I have around me. So if it's the outer one, you pretty much an acquaintance and you're not really affecting my everyday life. So if you've got a lot of negative attitudes, negative energy, it's okay, I'm not really associated with you too much. Then you come into another ring and I might have more socialization with you. So I'm going to be a little bit more careful about who you are. And then there's my inner ring. This is the people I'm with daily. And so I'm really protecting that energy and who they are and whether they're allowed into that inner circle with that energy ring. Because that's important to me. We become just like the five people that we surround ourselves with. And I believe that 100% and we have to protect that. Yeah. So just to summarize the mental pillar, what should we avoid and what should we run towards? So that's the outer. And let me just say on the inner, I'm talking about our words, thoughts and actions. We have a choice. Over what we're going to think, which is going to form our words, which is going to form our actions. And so we have to make a, you know, we have to learn how to stop that process if we're in this negative cycle and choose to look into things that are positive. We can do that through things like journaling. I do it through prayer. I'm a Christian woman. So I know that when I'm in a mode of feeling that everything is overwhelming, I'm trying to control people, places and things. And I've got no business trying to do that because I don't have any control over that. And I need to give it back to the guy upstairs that does have that control. Journaling is great. Meditation is wonderful. Getting out into nature and, you know, get those feet on the ground, get the shoes and socks off and just touch that ground and feel the energy of nature. When you go outside, utilize all your senses. What are you seeing? What are you smelling? Sometimes we can taste things. What are we hearing? What are we touching? Get those senses involved and really be able to calm yourself down. And then the last thing is I'm very, very intentional. I do not watch news. I do not scroll social media. I don't have any kind of notification set on my phone. I'm very intentional with my time and what I allow to see and hear so that I can keep in the right mindset. Yeah. I think the earth has an energetic pulse to it called the Shuman Resonance, which is 7.83 hertz. I think it is.  And so at least once a day, I will take my shoes and socks off and just put my feet on the grass and lay down on the grass. If the weather is permitting, obviously. That is actually a form of meditation for me, even if I'm not sitting there doing meditation. It's wonderful. We're energy. The higher our energy level, the better we're going to feel, the more productive we're going to be, the more cognitive thoughts we have. It's all we want to have that high energy level. The lower our energy level goes, the sicker we become until finally we're at death. So anything that we can do to help increase that energy level is fantastic. You mentioned not consuming news. So just if you could just clarify or elaborate on that a little bit, if you would, like what news do you consume or how do you know what's going on in the world? What do you absolutely block off? Yeah. How do you stay aware of certain things but unaware of other things? It's a great question because I get it I don't watch any of it. I don't listen to any of it. People tell you what's happening and what's going on. I own businesses for many, many years and I grew up in that business with the mentality that you had to know exactly what your competitor was doing. When I took over the business, I felt like I don't want to expand so much of my thoughts and energies on what someone else is doing but so much as to what I absolutely have control over. In watching the news, I don't have control over any of that. I don't. Not one iota of it. What I have control over is me and what I choose to do, what I choose to think, what how I choose to live my life and I can make informed decisions. I can go out there and be a part of the process and I can make a difference in my world and my community by what I choose to do which and that's what I focus on is what I have control over which is me and that's it. I ran my businesses very successfully by doing that same thing. I want to have the best teams I can possibly create and we're going to create the best customer experience that we can have. We're focusing on us and what we can do and not what everybody else is doing because what they're doing doesn't really matter to me. Great. So we've got the five pillars there, air, water, food, absorption and mental. I'm wearing a pair of blue light blocking glasses from our company Swannick and we're wearing swannies at the moment and so I'm blocking a lot of the artificial blue light that's coming off from screens. Are there any other things like that that you can suggest other than what we spoke about? Oh they're absolutely in fact they sent me a link because I'm wearing blue light protection glasses as well as I'm on the computer a lot and I'm like I want to try the Swannwick ones out you know see how they are. EMF you know we have all kinds of electronic magnetic fields that we're exposed to. There's actually circuit breakers that you can put on your house apartment you know wherever you are living that can block those EMF frequencies and they can measure the EMF frequencies that are inside your home. I just posted something up on my group I'm doing more exploration on that. Oh my goodness there's you know you could just disconnect the wi-fi at least do it while you're sleeping. You know if you can't disconnect from it I understand but at least shut that off while you're sleeping at night and put your router your wi-fi router at a far distance from where you are and where you congregate within your home. The more distance you have between it the less influence it's going to have on you. Yeah great. Yeah Wonderful well Amy Carlson thank you so much so appreciate you giving us your guidance here on Swannwick Live. If you are listening and watching you can learn more and reach out to Amy at amycarlson.com that's A-I-N-E-E Carlson-C-A-R-L-S-O-N dot com the podcast as well which is the toxin terminator you can follow that you got a pretty cool little icon there you're dressed up in like a protective coat with goggles and everything which looks pretty nice. A hazmat suit. Yeah that's right and you've been helping people restore and renew their health by removing toxins from their homes and their lives. Anywhere else where people should reach out to you? I've got a Facebook group called the toxin free lifestyle I pour into that each and every day that's kind of where I spread my love to you can get the book you can listen to the podcast through that website I've got a summit coming up August 17th it'll be going live so watch the Facebook page we'll really speak a lot about it on there but you know just I'm always happy to connect with people I'm always happy to answer the questions that I do have a free toxic risk assessment that you can get to right through my website if so if you feel like there might be things in your home and you're just not sure it's just 20 questions takes you less than five minutes to answer and and it's free to you and I'm happy to jump on a free call with you as well and help answer your questions. Wonderful well Amy Carlson the toxin terminator thank you so much for your guidance on today's call we so appreciate you. James I'm appreciative of being able to share my message with you all thank you so much.


research manager.  So we're going to talk a little bit about the Community Mitigation Fund. I really want you to give me the next page on that. So we'll just go. Just a little bit of housekeeping. We're recording this meeting. So it will be put up on our website after we're done today. So if anyone does want to review it or if there's anyone else who you think should view it, it will be available. So what we'll do is we'll take a break for questions at the end of each major section of the of the agenda. And but you can also utilize the chat function at any time. So down at the bottom of your screen if you scroll over that you'll see a chat button. Feel free to type in questions there as we go. And we'll keep an eye on that and try to jump in on those as they are, as it makes sense. We see we have a few people on the phone, not too many. But for those folks, we did send out copies of the PowerPoint to folks yesterday and hopefully you have them so you can, if you're on the phone, you can maybe follow along on your computer. But also, we just got a question is the sound coming through garbled or how does it sound Mary on your end. It sounds fine. Okay. So for people on the phone. You need to use the star six function to mute and unmute your phone. And also I guess we just asked everyone to keep their, their, their phones. Their screens muted unless asking questions. Next slide, Lily. So for the agenda today, you know, we've got a bunch of new things for this year and we're really going to try to focus on those as much as possible. We will go through so on the item number one, we have an overview of the community mitigation fund. And we'll talk about the fund itself a little bit and the timeline how that will all work. And then we'll talk about some changes to our budget sheet so we're going to go over that. We'll talk about our waivers a little bit. And then we're going to talk, we'll talk about our grant categories in general, we're not going to go into a tremendous amount of detail on those grant categories that we've been doing for the last number of years we'll talk about them a little bit. And then we will want to talk about the new categories that we have at moral length so the second part of this will be what we're calling our gambling harm reduction category. And, and this is something that came out of last year's grant round we did have an application to try to do some gambling harm reduction and you know as it turns out that it wasn't quite ready for prime time when when it came in and, but it did get us to thinking about maybe that's something that we should think about doing and in fact have proposed it for this year. And then the third major part of this is what we're calling projects of regional significance, which I will present to you on on that a little bit later in the, in the program. So a little bit about the Community Mitigation Fund again we're not going to go into a lot of depth on on the basis of the program we've been doing this now since 2015 so I think most of you folks are familiar with the program, at least a little bit. So of course the, the legislation that established the expanded gaming and the Commonwealth created this Community Mitigation Fund to help support the communities and other governmental entities in offsetting impact costs related to the construction and operation of the gaming facilities. So now obviously we are well into the operations phase of these there really isn't any construction impact per se that's happening at this point. So 6.5% of the taxes on gross gaming revenue from the category one facilities those are the full resort casinos those go into the Community Mitigation Fund. So in 2023, we've identified as available funds $20 million in Region A and just Region A is our eastern region, the communities around the encore facility. We've identified $7 million in Region B, which is the western region around the communities around the MGM facility, and we also do set aside some money for the category two facility which is a Cambridge Park facility. Those communities while, while Cambridge Park doesn't contribute to the Community Mitigation Fund, those communities are still eligible so we set aside a relatively small amount of money for those communities. And you might notice that there's a fairly large disparity between what's available in Region A and Region B. And this is came out of our subcommittee on Community Mitigation and our local Community Mitigation Advisory Committees, where the commission has agreed that funds that are generated by the facility in Region A would stay in Region A, and the funds generated in Region B would stay in Region B. Now, you know, the encore facility right now generates about in the last year generated about 10 and a half million dollars of funds towards the Community Mitigation Fund, while the MGM property generated just a little over 4 million. And you'll see that, you know, regionally, you know, the encore facility is bigger and it is around a much larger population center. So it has higher gaming revenues, which means it has a higher amount of money that goes into the Community Mitigation Fund. So that's why there's this sort of disparity in the funds for the regions. Now you'll also notice that, you know, I said, encore generated about 10 and a half million in the last year. But there's 20 million available. This means that that money's from previous years haven't been completely expended. And same thing in Region B with with MGM generating about 4 million. There's about 7 million available in the region because of some carryover funds from previous. Okay. So now I'm going to turn it over to Lily and she'll go over the timeline of our grant cycle and what you can expect over the next year or so. So, oh, can you hear me. Also, okay. So, as of November our grant round is currently open if you haven't already seen that I think we sent out an email to everyone on this call. So you can currently access all of the applications as well as the guidelines for this year on both our website and combines. These applications are going to be due January 31 at 1159. And you're going to be emailing them directly to the commission at the listed email MGC CMF and Mary will go into that bit of good news a little bit later. So in our process, you know, we accept these grants and by January and starting in February we work with myself Joe Mary and some other members of the commission to review all of the grants that come in and help make some determinations and some suggestions for the commission. And then if we have any questions about your application will be contacting you after our first initial round of review. I'm just asking for supplemental information or if you know we think we need a little bit more explanation will sit down and ask for a meeting. So we will then take our review to the commissioners and they will vote on these. We usually get them done before the end of the fiscal year so they're usually voted on in late spring. And then in June and July will be sending out contracts to anyone that was awarded funding. I think that in fall of 2023 is when your grants should be starting. And just to make it abundantly clear, you should not be applying for funding for things that will occur before a grant is executed so if your grant happens, you know, if we get all of our contracts together. We'll send it out in June you get it back to us in June you'll be eligible to start reimbursing as of the date on your executed contract. Yeah, I just wanted to add on to that. I think that, you know, we can also be flexible a little bit in this in some cases we can move a grant faster if it needs to move faster. I know some in the past some of our work grants we've advanced those quicker because those groups work on on a fiscal year and try to need to have their grants in place, you know by the beginning of July. And also, even if it's under the regular timeframe if, if a community is ready to go, you know, we'll get you out the grant documents as quick as we can we can be, we can be pretty flexible on on how quickly we can move to get some of it. Yeah, but we do ask if you are looking for an expedited timeline that you reach out to us in advance to let us know. Just so that when we're organizing which grants we prioritize in order of review that we can get those grants reviewed earlier. Okay, so I'm going to just talk briefly on the application submission. I want you to know we did listen to you. We're frustrated, trying to submit their application through combines. So this year we're having you send them directly to us at the website MGC CMS at mass gaming.gov. The application is received by us you'll be getting a receipt back. But the applications themselves will not be opened until February 1. So any anyone sending in an application by, you know, 1159 on January 31 will meet the application deadline. Any applicant having difficulty in submitting their application should contact us where we try to be very open and we hope that you will feel free to give us a call about any questions that you may have regarding your applications. A couple of things we'd like people to note is that we would like applicants to be sure that you are applying under the correct category. Now, if you have a say you're applying for a grant that exceeds the, the guidelines recommended amount such as community planning grants which are 200,000. Say you get an estimate and that comes in at 240. You should still file your application under that category, but what we have in place is a waiver process. So what you would need to do would be to fill out the waiver and submit it with your application and the waiver should describe why you feel the commission should give you a waiver on this particular matter. And I think that's it. I think just adding on to that Mary a little bit. Yeah, you know, last year we had, you know, a couple of years ago when we started doing public safety applications they were a subset of our specific impact grant and in some of the ensuing years, folks have applied rather than applying under the new public safety category they were a subset of our specific impact and we had last year we just had a number of applications that came in in really not the right category. So one of the things that we did in the guidelines this year is we reserve the right to, if you know if you apply for something under the wrong category, we can move it into the right category so that it just doesn't get, you know, dismissed out of hand. I just want to just highlight this year we're trying to get more concise applications also. So if you have data that you want to relay to us, we would prefer to get a summary of the data, rather than getting say 50 pages of reports. So you've got to understand if we get 50 applications time 20 pages that's still quite a lot of reading, but and we don't really, we want people to be precise in their applications, if you can. The attachments must be addressed in the application and it would be helpful if you would make sure that on your attachments somewhere on there it has a reference to the applicants. So if you could put at the top, you know this is, you know, town of Western community planning grant. So I put that on there just so and that that's just because we're going to be getting a lot of paperwork and a lot of attachments and we want to make sure that we have everything as complete as possible. Okay, next is we're going to hear from Lily on budget. So on that point of concise applications. This year we're asking that in that you fill out we've we've we've gathered together all of our best budgets that we've had in the previous years and kind of determine what was the easiest way for our review team to actually look at budgets. So we determined that in order to develop a scope budget and timeline we'd like you to actually fill out this sheet this is a screenshot of about half of the sheet where you will outline exactly what you want out of your budget and what your budget is covering as well as a proposed timeline. Previously we just had some applications where they were submitting a budget there was a different number in the narrative so just to make it more concise on our end. So this is basically what we use to review your budget. And you can, as noted here, you'll be to attach any consultant scopes any invoices quotes anything that you have on these pieces, but, and you can also submit if there's a different kind of budget you want to submit but you must fill out this budget. So this is something new for this year and then what will happen is in the fall if there is an update that needs to happen to your budget will just re update this budget form so that we can keep on track of what's happening with everyone's budgets in a little bit more of a concise way. Okay, so, you know, for, you know, we've learned a lot over the last number of years but so you know what does a successful application look like. You know, we do ask that each of you, you know review the community mitigation fund guidelines. Those were attached I believe to all of your invitations to this meeting as well. So, you know, you can also on our website you can look at previously awarded grants that can give you some ideas of things that might want to apply for. Again, we mentioned earlier filing the application under the correct category. You know, I think the guidelines list out a whole bunch of different things that you can file under book if you have a real question about what category you should be filing under would be happy to have a have a chat with you about that. Also to fill out all of the forms thoroughly and completely. And, you know, the two critical things on all of these, all of these items is first is, you know, identifying and documenting the impact of the gaming establishment. You know, in, in the community planning grants we we've made that a little bit simpler. In the way we sort of determined that some there are some impacts of the gaming establishment, but in other areas. The applicant really has to I clearly identify what the impact is and explain how the proposed project will address that very specific impact that you've identified. If you do those two things well. It takes you a long way in getting in getting the grant. You know, I would say that in most of the cases where we have not awarded a grant. It is because of that establishing that connection to the to the gaming establishment. Okay. And this is back to Mary. Yes. We kind of touched on this already, but I'll just, I want to let you know that the commission may in its discretion wave or grant a variance for many of the provisions required in the guidelines. So we would like and these waivers can be used both for money, but it could also be for a time frame so a lot of a lot of people are noticing that the the COVID delay I'm going to call it of getting equipment and other things. And if you are getting a bunch of quotes or having trouble getting quotes. But you want to continue with your application, you know, fill out the waiver form as long as it's well written and explains why you feel that a waiver should be granted. That would be, that's great. Let's see. So we already discussed how some applicants pick categories by funding available when in reality but they really should have done was to fill out a waiver form. We also already mentioned that we were grants taken out of order. But we just would like everyone to communicate with with staff on if you have any questions about waivers or variances or, you know, being taken out of order we try and be open to questions, and you all now have our emails so we hope to hear from you. The next is discussing available grants. All right, let me get my notes. Okay, so the first thing I'd like to suggest everyone do who has not done it yet would be to read the guidelines, the guidelines really are essential because they help you evaluate the criteria for each type of grant. And if you go on our website also and review the previously six previous successful applications. That's a good way to help you maybe shape some of your applications if you're wondering how to go about it. So the first grant we're going to discuss real briefly is the community planning grant. And the, as Joe mentioned the commission has already determined that casinos have both positive and negative impacts. Applicants still need to show the nexus to the casino. But it's not as intensive. Okay, we could. All right, we have I have a question is the cap for a project or the total available in that category. It's the, the caps are the total amounts in that category. No man I think that's that's a that's cap for a particular project. Cap for Oh, is the cap project or the total. Someone came in for a community planning grant you could come in for a grant up to $200,000. Right. Does that answer your question. Chief. Examples of some examples of some great uses for the community planning grants are we've done a lot with tourism, we've done websites, marketing such as branding videos. If you look under the Foxboro Plainville rent them application they they've done a great job with their branding and websites north Hampton and websites to assist travelers that you're trying to attract to your region. That's also another good community planning grants. Okay, can a different project. Let me just one moment. All right, can different projects under community planning total the funding cap. Yes, yes. Yeah, if you add if you add a couple of different types of planning projects that you wanted to do and each was 100,000. But the, you know, the cap would be the 200,000 for the community. Yeah. Okay. Next is the public safety. And we freeze this from 100,000 it was, it was formerly 100,000 now it's 200,000. And it's found in section 2.2 of the guidelines. Next to supplement departmental budgets of the police fire EMS and other public safety agencies that may have been impacted by the casinos examples of uses are for officer training, public safety equipment or supplies, equipment upgrades. There is one with with the public safety comes one additional step. If you're looking for communication equipment. The communication equipment has to go through the statewide interoperability executive committee that's a mouthful. There's a form that has to get filled out and submitted to them. And this agency just make sure that if you're a police department that your equipment is going to match all the other equipment within the state, other state police offices within the state of Massachusetts police offices. Some of the really, the commission is very enthusiastic about deescalation and other types of mandated officer trainings. We also will expand funding for operational costs and supplies such as, you know, traffic cones, things like that. Communities that have been very successful with these type of projects are Foxborough Springfield and Everett, if you want to check out the previous applications submitted by them. Next, we're going to go down to transportation planning. Now that again we've raised that limit from 200 to 250. It's found in section 2.3 of the guidelines. These transportation planning grants, they must have a defined area of issue and a clear plan for implementation. And the planning grants are intended to assist in the gathering of data and include the hiring of consultants. Planning such as Chelsea has been very successful with the transportation planning.  So one just helped feed off the other. The planning is also to assist communities getting into maybe the tip, maybe if you need seed money to assist your community in getting some work into the state's tip fund. That's another good way to use transportation planning. Next we have transportation construction, which is maximum of 1.5 million, and it's found under section 2.4 of the guidelines. And these are mostly intended for construction of transportation related improvements. For the transportation construction, we do try and set a time frame for these transportation construction, and we, the project must start by 6 3024.  We wanted to just commute a recent transportation construction grant was given to Agawam for an intersection read divine. And again, the beach and street Chelsea matter is that transportation section project is is pretty well done. And if anyone has a chance to go to Chelsea. It's amazing the difference visit this, the transportation construction and the whole their whole development of these grants made in that particular area. These can be used for paving we also did quite a ways on down Dwight Street and Springfield. But I do want you to note that the transportation construction grants are not used to cover planning transportation planning those long in the transportation planning these are more construction related. The next grant we have is Mary, if I could just jump in there real quick. And also on the transportation construction side we will only fund up to one third of the total project costs. If you were to get the full $1.5 million it would be on a, you know, four and a half million dollar project. And also just in both transportation planning and construction another category that we've done quite a bit of work in is on multi use trails bike paths and things like that. Oh yes, I forgot about those. Okay, is the funding cat for all public safety departments combined or can each. Yeah, they. That's combined for your community. Yes, yeah. Yep. Yep. So each public safety department within a municipality aside. Yeah, the funding cap is for all they can that you can get a, you know, police could apply for 100,000 fire department could apply for 100,000. All right, next we're in workforce development. And with these, these have been very successful in training persons and getting backlog of workers into the workforce. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that the education and skills training programs are proposed, proposed or in response to an identified need at the casinos, or as a means to provide sufficient supply of workers to backfill jobs being lost to the casino. We want to emphasize to that a regional consortium approach is required. The two major applicants we've gotten Holyoke Community College and Mass higher work with a number of other other educational agencies and develop their grants together. It's really I think that's been a great, great program for really hitting all the different areas of need for education in region A and region B. Next is the specific impacts grants, which are for a maximum of 500,000 is found under section 2.6 of the guidelines. And these are for projects that don't really fit any other category. They must provide a thorough description of the identified impact and a resolution to the impact. And an example of this. Every year for a number of years we've gotten him to County Sheriff's Department, which it was forced to relocate as a result of where their facility was which is right in the middle of the MGM property. And they receive rental assistance in their specific impact. And next we have, I'm going to just barely touch on the next two because we have some experts here. Projects of regional significance. This is a new one with 3 million for region B and 5 for region A. You'll find it under section 2.7 of the guidelines. And it's designed to mitigate identified gaming impacts that affect multiple communities. And this could be the focus. Well, I'll let Joe go into those. And then the next two are the gambling harm reduction, which are brand new this year, and they're really community engaged research projects. And you can see we have two different types, one for 20,000 and one for 200,000. And I will let Mark VanderLinden and Bonnie will fill you in more on those. Great. And just to wrap up, just to wrap up this section. This year we decided to increase our regional incentives. If you're applying for a community planning or transportation planning application. You can combine that application with another community that might be neighboring and impacted by the same thing. For example, Mary had pointed to one that we had three communities down in the Plainville area. And we wanted to apply for something and got a regional incentive. So you can just see outlined here, these are the increases. And again, we really love to see group projects. Okay, I know we got a bunch of questions that we had during the presentation. Does anyone have anything else that they'd like to ask at this point on that sort of the basic program. Before we get into our new types of grants. And all right, well, why don't we go on. So, so for the new for 2023 Mary just touched on this we have those the two in the gambling harm reduction categories. Oh, we just didn't have a question pop in our projects judged against one another. So we have a set of evaluation criteria that we use that are they are outlined in the guidelines. And that's essentially on each one of these projects we we evaluate them against each other in each category. And then, you know, we use the evaluation criteria that's in our guidelines to guide that discussion. Maybe we make recommendations to the commission who then vote on each of the application. Okay, and then the other category is the projects of regional significance. So with that I will turn it over to Mark and to Bonnie to talk about our gambling harm reduction program for this year. Actually, Bonnie, do you want to go ahead and take the lead on this? Yeah, sure. So, I'm Bonnie Andrews I'm the research manager at the gaming commission. And I was just going to go over the gambling harm reduction grants and mark feel free to jump in at any time if there's anything you want to add anything I'm skipping over anything like that. I kind of wanted to give a little bit of a background in terms of the harm reduction grants and say that the commission is seeking the study and mitigate gambling related harms through this new pilot program. And this pilot program will provide funding for a limited number of what we're calling community engaged research projects. And that the objective of community engaged research is to more deeply understand specific negative or unintended impacts of casino gambling at a community level. The specific research topic or question should be developed through a community driven process. So the project should be contextual to their city town and neighborhood, and should highlight unique aspects of the community. So what we're asking is when you're thinking about who you want on your research team, as well as the overall approach to the project, you should consider the principles of community based participatory research. And what community based participatory research is is it focuses on social structural and physical environmental inequities through the active involvement of community members organizational representatives and researchers in all aspects of the research process. So that basically means that all partners working on the project contribute their expertise to enhance understanding of a given phenomenon and integrate the knowledge gained with action to benefit the community involved. So basically it's partners working within the community, working together to more deeply understand specific negative or unintended impacts of casino gambling at a community level. This also means that something important to note is that we cannot fund nonprofits directly. The research is meant to be community driven. So interested nonprofits should work collaboratively with the municipality to apply and that the application must come from the municipality directly. Actually for two levels of assistance. So type one is for the development or planning of a study or project and type two we're thinking of is more for the implementation of a project. So for type one, if the applicant is really going to be developing a plan to engage the community to identify a casino or gambling related topic or issue which warrants further investigation. So type two applicants that have a specific research topic and or question and are prepared to propose a research strategy would be applying for type two funding. Okay, okay. So to go into a little bit more detail is that type one we're seeing as a planning study. And what we're really seeing this as seed funding to shape a research question, and you can use the funding for costs like consultants focus groups, preliminary review of kind of secondary data that's available in your community, conducting a literature review into the background of a project or a project problem. Those are kinds of things that you can use type one funding for to plan your project. And the product of this process should be a research strategy which may be considered for type two funding and subsequent funding cycles. We expect these grants to be a one year term. And so an example of a final product from this funding would be a brief report discussing the question finding and process. So type two. This is actually sort of intended for implementation we're thinking of this as, and this is for applicants that have a specific research topic and or question and are prepared to propose a research strategy. So essentially, the applicants need to have a full research proposal, and that includes these following sections. What we're really looking at is for you to have specific aims, and the specific aims, essentially state concisely the goals of the proposed research and I'll have an example of specific aims for a type two type of project later on in the presentation. You'll be summarizing the gambling related harms and potential impacts that the results of the proposed project will insert on on your community and the research fields involved. This strategy involves providing a detailed research strategy which includes the following so your approach, describing the overall strategy methodology and analysis to be used to accomplish the specific aims of the project, the significance of the project so explaining the importance of the topic or question that the proposed project addresses innovation so any newer novel theoretical concepts approaches or methodologies to be used. There's also protection of human subjects so if you need to summarize the plan to protect human subjects and obtain IRB approval. There's also a section on collaboration and knowledge of the community so describing the organization's relationship with each other and understanding of the community with whom the study will take place, and also knowledge of how to exchange so how an answer to the question or insight on the topic may mitigate gambling related harms in the community. Identify specific activities and or measures which may be supported by the Community Mitigation Fund in subsequent funding cycles and describe a plan to share information with the community and or use it to inform policy or practice. So that's a little bit more about type two funding. And we also have a couple of questions. Why don't we stop here before we get into the Asian care study and address the questions that came in. The question that we go is can we apply to investigate slash research further incidents of DFS a and on core clubs I'm not sure I know what DFS a means. Daily fantasy sports.  I don't, I'm not really sure I think we'd have to we'd have to see what a proposal would be but I mean this is really for for gambling harm reduction and and I don't think it's really dealing with the clubs or not I don't know mark what are your thoughts on that. Honestly, I think it would be. It would be worth exploring and it's, it's a community mitigation funding. It's really not necessarily doesn't necessarily have to be gambling specific but perhaps the effect of the casino within within the community and for category one. And it's the entire gaming established. I'm winging it here. Maybe, please, would that be something that would be more public. Well, you know, we did fund last year under public safety. We funded some money for the city of Boston for their. Their human trafficking unit. Yes. So, so it might be something that could fall under a public safety category potentially or something to that effect so so I think there certainly would be some possibilities around that. But I think obviously we need to see more, more detail on the application of what it would look like. Yeah, I think it's helpful to know that this is a new category for us as well. So if you want to reach out to program staff with your idea. I think we'd be happy to kind of look it over and you know think a little bit more on our end about what that could be. And I think so the other question was can harm reduction funding be used for incentives. I guess that depends what the incentives are I mean if that if that's talking about the payments directly to people for like participating and things like that that's probably not allowable under the program. You know this is this is designed. I guess I'm really I can't say for sure but I'm not exactly gift cards refreshments etc yeah I think we have allowed where people if they're holding a meeting you know they can provide refreshments and things like that. That's probably something that would be allowable.  I think that's something that might be. That might be allowable. I don't think about gift cards though that. Yeah, that's that may be something if you I mean maybe you could go to the casino because the casinos are supposed to be expending funding for things like gift cards and stuff for the public so maybe if someone is thinking about gift cards they're going to on core and maybe ask them about it. Yeah, I think, well, we'd have to think about that a little bit. Yeah. Okay well why don't we why don't we move on by to the Asian care study. So this, the Asian care study is an example of the kind of a project that can be that can be considered for type two funding or the scope of a project that would be a type two kind of project. The Asian cares or the Center for addressing research education and services project is a coalition of ethnic based community based organizations in the greater Boston region providing linguistically and culturally appropriate services. So basically this group conducted in depth qualitative research in partnership with Tufts clinical and translational science Institute to expand understanding of how problem gambling manifests in Asian families, in order to inform the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate tools and community based resources for prevention and early intervention efforts. So I'm not going to read everything on the slide but this basically sort of talks about the study rationale and sort of background and motivation for the study. And again as an example of a study kind of partnership. And that this is an example of specific aims that you would include in a research study. Okay, and actually oh there are. Okay, so there are specific aims, which were, you can see the four specific aims here. And again I'm not going to read all of them but an example of a specific aim aim one would be review the state of the science strategically selecting bodies of literature relevant to gambling problems in Asian communities and family centered approaches to resiliency prevention and harm mitigation. So maybe that kind of like each of the specific aims talks a little bit about what the study aims to do. And they also provided information on the overall objectives of the study, which were to inform the development of tools and resources to support tailored education treatment referral and other harm reduction efforts among at risk and hard to reach Asian American populations. So again you can kind of look over this on the slide in more detail but I just kind of wanted to provide an opportunity to look specifically at what specific aims might look like in this kind of this kind of an application. And this gives more detail about the research process. So what they did was they recruited bilingual and bicultural community field workers conducting 40 in depth qualitative interviews to better understand the nature and impact of problem gambling. And they also reviewed community members from the Cambodian Chinese Korean and Vietnamese communities. And they also reviewed the state of the science relevant to gambling problems in Asian communities and look nationally at a few existing programs. They identified existing resources within a coalition of organizations assisting Asian immigrants and refugees and Asian American families in Boston's China town and surrounding communities that can be leveraged to engage hard to reach an at risk populations. Research findings again I'm not going to go over all of the research findings in detail but the reason that there are different colors on the text on the slides is basically because I wanted to highlight a couple of research findings and then on the next slide it talks about kinds of recommendations for mitigation related to the research findings. So the couple of research findings that I was going to highlight here are one of the research findings was that there is a lack of economic opportunity propels many to turn to gambling as an alternative source or to supplement income. And social and cultural isolation due to immigration results in a lack of social and recreational opportunities often expressed as boredom. So on the next slide. It's, it talks about suggested implementable solutions for the research findings. So, those that are highlighted here are developing programs geared towards helping working class immigrants gain the language and occupational skills needed to acquire meaningful employment with benefits and wages. The best in the neighborhoods where immigrants work live in play by creating spaces of belonging where communities can meet for safe recreational and social opportunities, and develop a steering committee of key community leaders to guide the development of policy practice and services around addressing the root causes of problem gambling. So again what they did is they had a bunch of different research findings, and they also had suggested implementable solutions for recommendations related to those research findings. Questions. Oh, and actually I had a couple of other things I wanted to highlight before getting to the questions, which was to make sure to contact the Community Affairs staff with any questions or if you have questions about your application in advance of the deadline. Definitely recommend that you read the guidelines because there's kind of more detail about each of the components of the application. And also that we have a website. If you go to the map of mass gaming calm and you go to the research agenda, there are examples of community engaged research projects they are cutting to give you some ideas about different things you may want to explore in your community and different kinds of projects that have been done. Great. Thank you body that was great. Mark. Yeah, I just want to say I don't want. So this is a new new line of funding through the Community Mitigation Fund but this funding for community based or community engaged participatory research has been available for quite some time with funding through the public health trust and the same source of revenue, but a different a different fund. And that's where the agent cares study was funded and as you'll see if you go to the research page you'll see a whole host of other research that's been funded out of the public health trust fund including several community engaged research studies so just wanted to kind of provide some clarification. So we did have a couple questions come in. One person I may have missed it but for the gambling harm reduction studies do we need to partner with a university slash research partner. If not, can you talk more about how we engage in IRB process. So, you know, these are these will be driven, you know, initially by the communities the communities have to apply for this. And I think, you know, for the planning study, I'm not sure they necessarily has to be a researcher that's that's directly involved it could be consultants or it could be some of your own research it could be, you know, doing some focus groups, you know, from your local Board of Health or, you know, health agent. But I do think when you get to the larger studies we are talking about partnering with some, some sort of research partner would you agree with that mark. Yeah, I think that's well said. Okay. And I think most of these other questions were, were regarding whether what incentives we could provide and I think we would have to look into that a little bit before say yeah, I think or not that would be eligible. One of, I think it was Brenda made a point that oftentimes incentives of some sort are involved if you're wanting to engage the community. And I, I agree with that wholeheartedly. And I think it's just, we would need to figure out a way that would satisfy Lily's point that's also made in the right. And I think we have to we have to bounce that off our legal department, I think internally to really ask that question. But you know I know in the past and some of our workforce grants we have allowed, you know, bus passes to be provided to folks and things like that, you know, people who couldn't afford to, you know, to didn't have vehicles so they could use public transportation to get to classes and so on. So, you know, you'll get it may or may not be but we'll look into that and, you know, we'll try to get out some some guidance on whether we think that's allowable or not. Oh thanks Rachel that's a UMass has a process of monitoring gift cards other any other questions from folks. Regarding the gambling harm reduction. Okay. So our next new category is project and thanks Mark and Bonnie do appreciate your time and great presentation. So projects of regional significance. This started actually a few years ago we started thinking about this is that is there a way to sort of leverage some of these community mitigation funds to projects that are more transformational. And that picture there I asked Lily to put in a nice picture of the big dig for us so we can see something that's really transformational probably not going to be funding anything like that with these grants. But what we did in this year is we realized that larger scale projects that are already in the pipeline might also address casino related impacts. And, you know, the example that we use as a fictional example in the guidelines was that if if mass dot were proposing to do a project that was going to a congestion mitigation project that's going to increase capacity on the roadway, and it was adjacent to one of the casinos. You know that would also address traffic related impacts associated with the casino. So we could theoretically provide some money towards a project like that. So we took it a little bit further and we met with the regional planning agencies and we met with mass dot and everybody really like this idea so we decided that we would try this as a, at least as a pilot program for this first year. So the basic premise of this is that that this needs to be a project that's regional in nature, but it must also, at the same time, mitigate a casino related impact. So I think in our mind in the back of our minds we were thinking more on the order of transportation or transit projects, but any project that's eligible under the under the expanded gaming act would be would be eligible for these. And some of these things that are identified a transportation infrastructure, housing, education, public safety. We haven't really thought about how, you know, for instance, no one has ever come into the community mitigation fund for housing, because it's, it's hard to make a connection between housing and an impact from the casino, you know, has. And I think even we've done some studies on housing prices and real estate prices and show no real nexus to the casino so it might be difficult to come in under one of those categories but they are certainly eligible. Now the other thing is typically our community mitigation funds go out to municipalities directly. We do allow that government agencies or districts may apply for funds for projects that impact more than one municipality, and that are these these agencies are essentially acting on behalf of those municipalities. Next slide. What we've done now is, again, sort of for this pilot we've targeted one project in Region A and one project in Region B. We didn't do anything for the area around a Plain Ridge Park, because again, so this is sort of a pilot program. And you'll see we've earmarked $5 million for Region A and $3 million for Region B. And again this goes back to what I said earlier where more money is generated out of Region A than is out of Region B. You know, we could have put more money in Region B but with only 7 million available, we didn't want to, you know, wind up being, you know, heavily oversubscribed. So, as we talked about in the transportation construction category, the Game and Commission will only pay about a third, up to a third of those costs. In this case, we're saying that we'll pay up to 15% of the project cost. So, if you know in Region B that means the overall project cost could be up to, you know, $20 million if we were funding the full 15%. And in the East, around Encore, it could be up to $33-$34 million, somewhere in that order of magnitude. And these projects, we realized that projects of this size take a bit longer to develop. So, we're giving you two years to get these done. If you look at on our transportation construction, we basically give you a year to get the project underway. This gives a little bit more flexibility because of some of the difficulty in, you know, getting the final design on big projects like this done. And questions, and I think I saw a couple of things pop up. So, from Pioneer Valley, Eric Weiss says, as an RPA, we appreciate this category, is it only one project per region or will the money be spread amongst various projects. So, our initial thoughts on this are that it would be one project in each region. But if we see, you know, I think that would be sort of our baseline. You know, if multiple projects came in that were smaller in size and we could spread the money further, we might consider doing that. But I would say, for our purposes right now, we would just pursue it with one project per region. And then it says, in the case of housing, could the funding benefit slash assist a private developer. That is a very good question. I would say, you know, our guidelines talk about money going to private entities. And we have to, you know, under the Massachusetts Constitution, we have the, what's known as the anti aid amendment, which means that essentially state funds can't go to a private entity. Unless that private entity is performing a public purpose or it's being done, the money is being used for a public purpose. So if the money were to go to a community, and then it were to go to some other agency. It's possible. But again, we would have to determine that that was being done for a public purpose. And, you know, the application would have to give us a pretty ironclad argument on why it's a public purpose. Okay, any other other questions regarding our projects of regional significance. Okay, I don't see any others. Lily, I think you're going to go through this. Yeah, so I think just to wrap up here some helpful links for folks all of these have been emailed out to you they're also all within the guidelines. They are also all on our website. So the first piece that you can look into is go on to the mass gaming website under the Community Mitigation Fund. You can find lots of application options you can find all the guidelines all the different forms that we've referenced here today. So if we've all mentioned, please review the 2022 guidelines or the 2023 guidelines I apologize that's a typo. Because that is really where you're going to find the meat of what should be in your application. And then the third piece that we really want to try and hit home. I think our public safety applicants are very good at this they frequently referenced a report called the Christopher Bruce study that was done. The gaming commission has done a lot of really great research and has partnered with a lot of really great folks across the state who have done a lot of really great research on the impacts of casinos and on gaming across the state. So if you're looking to do economic development grants if you're looking to do different community planning grants. There's a lot of research out there that could really help benefit your reports and your applications and all of those reports are very easily searchable on our website by category and type. And then the last thing again something we've all referenced, you can see all of our previous grant awards archived on our website throughout the year so you can see what we funded previously. And while previous print rounds do not indicate what we'll fund this time. You know we don't like to say that we're going to fund something just because we funded it last year, but it's a pretty good indicator of things that were successful or arguments that were persuasive to the review team. So we just didn't get another question pop up. Is there a reporting requirement after receiving the grant, and the answer to that is yes. We have a, we have a quarterly report requirement. Sometimes a year you need to submit to us on what your expenditures have been and a little update on where your project stands, and we do occasionally do some outreach to our grantees to sit down with them and talk about their projects and, and where things stand we just had a call yesterday with one of our grantees on the status of their, of their grant. So yes, there is definitely a reporting requirement. We did. Another question was could a copy of the PowerPoint presentation be available, either online or by request.  This is already up on our website. I'm assuming in the Community Mitigation Fund page. And I believe we sent out a copy yesterday to to folks. If you didn't receive it in an email yesterday, you can all and if you can't find it on the website can always email Mary or Lily and they can get you out a copy of it. And speaking of which, there's our contact information. So if you do need anything from us, feel free to reach out. And like I said, we're happy to talk with folks if you have ideas that you want to bounce off us where we're more than willing to listen to what those are obviously we can't tell you absolutely for sure that you'll get a grant or not but we, you know, oftentimes people are thinking outside the box a little bit and, and we appreciate that. We did have a question Joe how much detail do you want on your quarterly reports. We have a lot. We have a quarterly report form which is attached to the grant that gets executed. And it really kind of depends on the type of application. The reporting requirements are because there's some that are have to be more in depth and show quantitative quantitative results. So it all depends on your, your type of grant you have. I can send you if you want I can send you a sample of what the quarterly report looks like. The quarterly report forms are also located on the community mitigation website under the, there's just like it within our stuff it just says form so you can click there for any of our forms. And I think these are mostly typically a couple of pages. I think it's it's just because when you when you submit your quarterly report if you need to request funding you have to do it on that page as well so usually it's the quarterly report form and if you want a distribution the distribution and any backup information. All right, are there any final questions from folks out there. Well, none appearing I guess I guess we will close out. Well thank you all for for attending I do appreciate it for coming. You know, I hope this is helpful for you in in formulating some ideas for for this upcoming round and remember January 31 is our magic date for a submission so so keep that in mind. Happy holidays to everyone. Thank you.


Who is ready for my least favorite past time unhauling some books? Hello my loves, welcome back to my channel. Today I'm doing the booktube favorite, I'm gonna unhaul some books. So I think I've done two unhauls, right? I've done two unhauls in the past where one I had to unhaul 30 books and then I think I upped it to 40 books. Now, those unhauls were made easier by the fact that I'd never unhauled before that. I am not innately an unhauler, I am a hoarder in all senses of life. I find getting rid of things very hard. So yeah it was made easier that I'd never unhauled anything and so I had a lot of books when I'd just started reading that I'd bought in charity shops and stuff that I really had no interest in reading anymore because I bought them in charity shops. I had no qualms about getting rid of them. Now, that's not the case anymore. It makes me want to cry. Ah.  If I've read a book it's fine to unhaul it but I don't really want to unhaul books I've read because I like having books. I'm more likely to actually want to unhaul something from my TBR that I'm no longer interested in reading but I don't like unhauling books I was gifted even by my family especially if it's a book that I didn't ask for that they just gave me. I can't unhaul that even if I'm not interested in reading it because I just can't I can't do that to them. Yeah I don't like unhauling books I spend a lot of money on because then that's always like I there's a limited pool of books I can unhaul. Now of course I've gone 30, 40 and then do you think in the third one I'd go 50? We're going back down to 30. I don't even know if I'm gonna do that. My real goal was like 20 books if I could unhaul that would be great because I need the space basically to cut a long story short. This is all of my bookshelves for the next probably two years. Me and my partner are saving up to buy our own flat at the moment we live with our parents and so this is the space I have for books. I don't have any other space in my room for books. Oh we are running out of space and I'm probably gonna read like another 200 books in the next few minutes. Great I need the space so that's why we're doing this. I'm gonna try my best but I don't like unhauling so let's just see how we do. 30 is the goal. Let's go. Right I have two that I know I'm fine with unhauling. First we have Kings of a Dead World by Jamie Mullet. This was a book that I was sent. I have an arc. I was sent this by a publisher. Nowadays when I get offers from publishers for books I'm immensely grateful but I try to know myself and I try to think if this is not an author I've read from before, a book that I had already been excited for probably not gonna get around to it. So now I do say no a lot of time and that's not me being like I get offers of rude work when I was like no you know it's me trying to do I don't want to waste people's time or money basically but yeah this is from the era where I was just like when I just started getting offers I felt so lucky, so blessed that I was like yeah give me a break. I know this is like Earth's resources are dwindling, the solution is sleep, it's like sci-fi. I don't tend to read a lot of sci-fi and I could hold on to this right? I could be like the noble person not admit my mistakes and be like I don't know if that's noble but and just hold on to it but I'm never gonna read this. I'm never gonna read it so we're unhauling it that's one of the TBR. Hey fancy another one? I'm also gonna unhaul off my TBR Beast of Prey by Ayanna Gray. I thought about holding on to this but again I don't think I'm ever gonna read it.  Think about it there's not that many. I read a lot of it but I don't think I give a lot of it five stars so I'm really trying to be more intentional with the YA fantasy that I do pick up. It's not that I'm not interested in this but it's just one that bites the dust. I've heard really great things about this. Yeah I don't know I'm thinking I'm just reading a little bit less YA fantasy at the moment. Right that's two down. Do I want to unhaul anything off my shelves yet? Not really. I don't know if I can do this.  I can't do this. No absolutely not. Shit. Shit. Okay okay I had those first to remind and I was like oh then I'll find some more. Apparently not. Okay I'm gonna unhaul the Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman. This is one of the last books that I have kept that I read when I was more like 13 14 and I remember enjoying it. It's about like a mermaid in like you know a museum circus kind of thing I don't really know. I remember enjoying this but I don't really remember any thoughts on it and I'm never gonna reread it and I think I would rather going forward my collection mirror my reading since my reading resurgence when I discovered Booktube and stuff. I don't really hold anything to this so that's going bye bye. Right let's look at the TBR again because I think that could be easier especially the books that I'm like hiding away. Do you want another one? I'm gonna unhaul the Dance of Serpents by Oscar de Marielle. This I did get, it cost me $6.99. Okay I feel better about this. It was my Hay on Wyatt book shopping video. I bought this and I still would be excited to read this in some sense the word but this is the sixth in a series. I originally thought this was like an Urquiporo kind of series where you could like pick and choose where you read from but it's not. So I have to read five of the books that I don't own and really have no plans of buying before I read this so I think it was just a mistake that I made in the moment. Like on the back it's like a hugely entertaining Victorian mystery gothic creepy it's the sixth in a series so I'm never gonna read this. Okay four done this I we're not gonna get to 30 I hate to tell you now it's not happening. I actually give up. Let's like try 20 and then see where we are okay nothing there oh god. Next one number five I'm gonna unhaul Theatre of Marvels. I read this earlier this year and it was just very disappointing it was two stars. One of my most disappointing books of the year so far and part of me feels like I should keep this and unhaul it in like January do it like after I've done my end of year videos. Yeah no I have to keep that and unhaul it in January because I need to hold it up in January when I haven't liked the books. I need to really unhaul books off my shelves because yeah I need the space. I am going to unhaul the Empire of Dreams by Ray Carson. I didn't give this a super low rating I think I gave it like a three but I did this read along with Nicole my friend Nicole from Nicole and her books right at the start of When I Started YouTube where we read the there's like an original series Gal of is it Gal of Fire and Thorns I think we read the original series and then this was like a new release it come out and I had the other books in ebook anyway I don't own the other books that we read from the original series and this was my least favorite and so I just don't feel anything towards it and I feel okay unhauling it and it'll go to a better home and someone else will enjoy it. Okay five oh this is terrible 20 I've got to get to 20. I was in pure shock I thought I might have misheard in case you hadn't noticed I'm not very good at this okay we have to be we have to be really harsh I'm getting hot if you can't tell I've been filming for 17 minutes already so we have to be harsh I'm gonna unhaul these three thrillers we have a place to lie we have the guilty one and the good mother and I'm just never gonna read them I'm sad about it but I'm never gonna read them the only way I'd read them would probably be like if I did a video that randomly picked what I read on my TBR and these came up like I would never choose to read them because there's literally 200 books in front of them of how excited I am to read them so they're going eight okay okay we can do this I just think she's very delusional and maybe possibly insane right we're up to eight at this point I'm even just trying to get 15 I can't you notice I find it hard to unhaul but I need the shelf space okay I'm gonna um oh this is a tough one I'm gonna unhaul Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rodgerson I didn't dislike this I gave it three stars and I would keep this where I'm planning to read any Margaret Rodgerson in the future but I just don't think she's for me and so I'm gonna unhaul her like I don't like to unhaul books by a book I didn't love if I'm planning on still trying out that author in the future because then I'd have their books together and then that gives me one hardback fantasy space to be filled by something else so that's how we're looking at it that's coming nine okay let's unhaul that and that okay tune on fixtures I'm going to unhaul The Secret Barrister which again I I enjoyed this but I don't think I'm ever gonna read this again I'm not planning on getting any other other books it's like a barrister in the UK who publishes books anonymously talking about their experiences in the court system and it's just hiding behind my own fiction shelf so I'm never gonna read this again and I'm gonna unhaul The Devil in the White City which I read for a booktube twin test video and I did not like this I found it so boring this is the story of the Chicago World Fair yeah the Chicago World Fair that was being built and the story that being built and a serial killer that operated at the time it's so like it's tangentially linked the right word like it's a it's a stretch is what I'm trying to say that these two are connected and I feel like the poor author just wanted to write about the Chicago World Fair because they were the bits that had the most information and when he was pitching the book to his publisher he was like oh yeah there was like a serial killer at the time kind of but like before and after the World Fair like not just at the World Fair and they were like serial killer right about that and this poor man had to write about serial killer that he had no interest in so getting rid of this how many is that now 11 okay okay we can get to 15 I can unhaul I can make the hard decision to unhaul at least four more we're not getting to 30 I hate to tell you that like it's just definitely not happening I just found um another copy of theatre of marvels they sent me two arcs they sent me this one originally and then they sent me the one I actually read because it had the the final art on it two book of the month books that I have I love Book of the Month I'm so so beyond grateful that they send me books I love working with them they're my favourite people to work with I have never unhauled a single Book of the Month I've ever been sent ever I own them all still but two that since they came out I've heard negative things about particularly in some of their like portrayals of stuff like kind of people not being happy with the portrayals of certain things and so I just don't think I'm gonna end up reading them are Olga dies dreaming and Vladimir now I know this one is about like a student teacher relationship and it's about kind of a toxic relationship and abuse and stuff but I've just heard some people not loving this and the same with this I've heard some people not being happy with the representation in this one so I just don't think I'm gonna read these they are the only book of the month books I've ever unhauled and it's pinning me but if I'm honest with myself I'd just be keeping them because I love like Book of the Month like the corner versus I don't think I'd ever actually read them okay how many is that 14 okay one more we've got to 15 that might be it I just I don't think there's many more that I want to unhaul I'm going am I going to unhaul this there's a lot of dust on it do I wanna unhaul this yeah okay I'm gonna unhaul the mystery of Black Hollow Lane this is another book oh my god I've unhauled two of Aaron's books you've I didn't dislike this I gave it three stars and I did read the second in the series on audiobook I listened to it on Scribb so I have continued on this series but because I ended up reading the second one by audiobook anyway so I don't own that and the series has ended I believe and I didn't love this I'm gonna unhaul this it's like a middle grade mystery set at this private school and you know it was fine the reason I was like oh do I want to unhaul this was because when I have middle grades I'm like I'll give that to my kids one day to read that is 15 books that I might be admitting defeat and that might be it because there's not much else I want to know and I haven't really helped myself get much more shelf space oh you know what I can do one more I can do one more do you want another one I'm gonna unhaul Final Girls by Riley Sega am I yes I am I just didn't enjoy this I gave it three stars it's not that I hated it but it gave me nothing it gave me nothing and so I just don't really care all of his other books I have in hardback so it just doesn't make much sense for me to hold on to this I'm getting gone 16 okay well I could make it to 20 four more okay right I'm gonna unhaul Fight Back and Win by Gloria Allred so Gloria Allred is a famous lawyer and I watched I feel like there was by the way what is going on with the lighting can we adjust thank you yeah I watched the Netflix documentary about her and like about what she done and I was like wow this is when I was like in my empowering women phase like I was obsessed with Diane von Verstenberg from DVF the design so I got this I remember not even really enjoying it because it's a bit like you can tell she needed help in writing it it's a bit canned I don't remember anything about it I don't consume any media about her anymore it can get gone right are we sure that's 17 and not more because I really hope it's more no it's 17 you know what I'm gonna need a cocktail two more and we can get to 20 two more Megan two more just two more no three more by the way I'm gonna cut out all of the like I'm spending minutes here trying to figure out what to pick like minutes you won't read this I've been filming for 33 minutes already like it's not good for me out here okay am I gonna do that yeah okay this can go to a better home basically when I unhaul books I give my um I give my patrons first dibs if they want me to send them any and then and then I just give them to the charity shop so this will go to a better home I'm gonna unhaul symmetry boys by Aiden Thomas this wasn't bad I gave it three stars again I didn't love it and I was a bit disappointed because obviously it was such a hyped up book and it just wasn't for me sadly I might try Aiden Thomas out in the future I might not yeah again I'm just trying to be more selective with the why I fancy I do pick up so that's that'll one that someone else will read it read in love because so many people have loved that I'm gonna unhaul the taking of jaco livingston this is a horror a why a horror I read at the end of last year it's basically about a guy who can see ghosts and he starts uh getting like haunted by the ghost of a guy who I think committed a shooting and we get perspectives from that ghost as well and I just did not adore this gonna be honest didn't love it it was a debut and I feel like it wasn't okay for a debut but I often look at this on my shelf and just feel like it doesn't fit with all the other horror I have there which is whole horror that I pretty much enjoyed one last one this does happen to be book of the month as well but it's like a sequel this is the book of magic by Alice Hoffman who turns out I just don't know the book from sorry Alice but yeah this is the sequel prequel to there's like practical magic and isn't there like rules of magic I don't know but I'm not planning I don't own any of those other books I feel like this was given out by book of the month to influences because a lot of people have read those books I haven't I have no plans to read them so at the moment this is just sitting on my shelf and again this would be great to give to someone who has read the other books I'm not sure if it's just one book or two hang on let me look at what I'm saying before I talk out of my ass no it's just the second one in the series from practical magic oh there's magic lessons the rules of magic yeah I wasn't making up rules of magic is like a prequel okay I have no plans to read the other books in this series so I feel like it's just better to pass it on to someone who will appreciate it more okay 20 books unhauled I could not make it to 30 I couldn't do it I don't think you're gonna see a lot of unhauls from me anymore like this because it's really hard I've been filming for 40 minutes the video is probably only like 18 minutes long because so much of that video is me like what do I pick thank you guys for watching let me know if you enjoy unhauling or if you don't let me know don't let me out actually I was gonna say let me know if there's any of these books you think I should have kept but don't let me know that because I don't need to know that because it was hard enough for me to handle them as it is yeah hopefully these books will go to better homes people who will enjoy them more than I did or actually read them it's the idea so thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you very soon in the other one bye