ke the applicants thought that some of those roadways ought to be part of the gaming establishment and the commission said, no, the commission actually excluded them. And the commission, as I read the decision, narrowed what they wanted to bring into the definition of the gaming establishment. But that's what I'm talking about, when, as I understand from the decision, that's what was in front of the commission. Some of the internal roadways and exterior parking, and they were excluded from the definition of the gaming establishment. They were deemed to be the non-traditional structures. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. We did deem the gazeba to be a structure subject to the, was it a non-traditional structure? I guess what I'm struggling with, Joe and Todd, is there a different analysis when Mr. Starr says it's a, if we deem it a non-traditional structure, we were to deem it to be that, do we do a different analysis or is it still the more step analysis? Or is there, it's just, they're not subject under the statute. So therefore, we're done. The four-part analysis applies. It's important to just note, and I think this was mentioned before, the four-part analysis, of course, is deeply rooted in Chapter 23K. So it's all tied to a provision of the statute. Some of the applications of the tests that we're talking about, subsequent to the initial 2014 decision, extended to what we considered to be a pertinent areas to the gaming establishment. So it was a similar analysis, but there were some certainly unique challenges and issues that arose along the way. But ultimately, it's the same analysis. It has to be a non-gaming structure. It's not a distinction. That's very helpful. Was it because Z-Belt considered a non-gaming structure or a non-traditional structure? Non-traditional structure is not an actual thing. It's a non-gaming structure is what we're looking at. And I don't know, I'd have to go back and look at that decision and of course we will, but it was, I think it was more the whole area that we were looking at, not necessarily the Geek-Kazebo specifically when that decision was made. Maybe that's right. That could well be, it would extended right down to the end of the Kazebo where it came to the public harbor walk. Okay, that might be why I don't remember that language being attached there. Okay, thanks. Other questions at this time? Very, very helpful presentation and an important one, Chris, because it was, it's revised from what had been put out publicly and we have received some comments based on the earlier version. So very helpful today at this juncture. Sure. And then- Just a process question I guess for Joe, we thought the hearing was the 17th. You said it's the 28th? Yeah, we had originally talked about the 17th but we decided that we would try to do a little bit, give a little bit extra time for folks to put together written comments and so on and just with commission of schedules and all that the 28th works best for us. And obviously if you need anything before then or anticipation, we're very happy to help any way we can. Yeah, I think we're gonna be having the agenda setting meeting next week. I think we'll talk about some of the particulars on exactly how we want that meeting to go. I'm not sure right now whether we're going to be asking any specific questions of you or it's just going to be taking public input. I think we need to have those internal discussions on exactly, obviously we're taking public input. That's the primary purpose of this meeting but whether or not there'll be sort of opportunities to address questions and things like that or it's just simply a matter of, here's my position on this issue and we will take it under advisement. We'll need to talk about those things a little bit. Thank you. The only thing I would add to this discussion and I haven't read the, I read through the agreement, the ILOV that was executed, Jackie. I'm wondering if you folks are in coordination with the impact now? Because I feel as though in section 11, the definition of a camera roll, how the entities were defined, but it looks like the ILOV is still relevant to, even if there's an addition, even regardless of whether it's a part of the gaming establishment or not. Sorry, go ahead. I just wondered, have you reached out to them by meeting it right? No, but we certainly will. Yeah, I would just, I might have been misreading it, but in section 11, in that definition it seemed as though that might be helpful to think about before we start getting public comments. We didn't concentrate on that today, but of course that is an issue for our community members and some, I think we'll view this as an economic driver that will only support other islands and then there'll be others that worry. So I think that that's a fair consideration even though we didn't raise, we're not raising all of our questions or our issues today. Very preliminary discussion, but I didn't want that piece of business to be lost. Is that fair, commissioners? Is that we should be? Todd and Joe, is there anything that another, you've mentioned NEPA. I know that there are discussions with NEPA, which is excellent. Anything else that we can, to be helpful really for this process to enhance it? Well, I think just from the public input that we've received so far has I believe all been around the entertainment venue. So I think that's obviously a critical piece. I imagine on the 28th we will hear from some of those folks in person. But as I said, to this point, the only major concerns that have been raised have been by those entertainment venues and some of their representatives. And we appreciate the outreach. We've already received that and Joe has been in touch with those stakeholders. So we appreciate as always input. And I think it's fair to note that for your sake, so that everybody can be prepared. So thank you. All right. Commissioner, are you all set on this? Okay. All right. Thank you so much. It's good to see all of you. Katie, we didn't hear from you, but I'm looking forward to that. And thank you, Tony. And again, Chris and Jackie, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all. Have a good day. Good. Thank you. All right. So, Crystal, I now have my packet up. I'm turning to you, Crystal. Do you plan on a break now? Or it is 11.53. I'm a little bit over.  So technically you have a few minutes for a break. This was just supposed to be a quick break because you have a couple of items before all of the quarterly reports. So you have another break coming up at about 12.30. So I guess that's for you to decide if you guys can make it another half hour and then take a long one. Commissioner, do you want sort of a need for a quick break now or should we go straight through to 12.30? All set. Commissioner O'Brien, how are you doing? You're okay? All right, excellent. Then we'll continue on. Thank you to all the team and to our guests. We did start at nine. So I appreciate this very much. We'll get right now then to item number eight. Good morning again, Loretta. And I'm sorry I caught you off guard. Now please do acknowledge Kate. Yeah, I mean, Kate has been an integral part of our team for I think upwards of four years now. Really helped put our hearing process into order. Just a highly experienced attorney who brought a high degree of professionalism to our team. So I'm really happy for her, for the opportunity that she has. Of course, it's a bittersweet piece for us. I just want to wish her all the luck in the world and acknowledge all the contributions that she made. I know our GEU team has really worked great with her and they depended on her. So want to thank her for everything and wish her good luck. I think we all echo those sentiments. So thank you. So now moving on to item number eight, you have an update that you want to provide. I do. So this is a little bit of a pivot from the cultural and entertainment discussions we've been having, but I'm sure we're all up to the challenge. So I did want to update the commission on some disclosures that Penn National has recently made. They alerted the commission to some media articles about the founder of Barstool Sports, Mr. David Portnoy. Barstool Sports and Mr. Portnoy are relevant to Penn National because Penn National has an ownership stake in Barstool. Barstool is a sports media and entertainment company originally based in Massachusetts. It's based in New York City now. The two companies, Penn and Barstool, have a marketing arrangement where Barstool promotes Penn offerings and licenses to Penn the right to use the Barstool brand for Penn's sports book and for Penn's online wagering offerings. Under our statute and regulations, Barstool is not a qualifier for the Plain Ridge Park Casino license and none of Barstool's owners or executives are qualifiers either. If Barstool or any individual associated with it bought a stake over 5% in Penn, they would be qualifiers. But Barstool is not an owner of Penn and there's no risk that it can exercise control over Penn or control over our licensee. So that's the rationale behind designating qualifiers and that's why Barstool is not a qualifier here in Massachusetts. While I was reviewing this matter, IEB staff brought to my attention that Barstool Sports is registered as a non-gaming vendor with us due to the business that it conducts at Penn in selling some merchandise and the distribution of some promotional materials at PPC. So regarding Barstool's non-gaming vendor status, the NGV status, the IEB did perform a background review on Barstool consistent with the protocol that we use for NGVs as you well know, that's a different protocol than the one we conduct for our primary gaming vendors. And it's a review that's commensurate with the NGV status. These NGVs do not come before the commission for a vote for approval, they are approved by the IEB. The Barstool non-gaming vendor background check did reveal some derogatory media information pertaining to the company's founder but nothing that would lead to a denial of the registration under the criteria established for NGVs by the commission. And the criteria and protocols for the NGV review do not call for a review of any particular individual associated with the applicant company. So the IEB has not performed a background investigation of Mr. Portnoy or any other individual associated with Barstool Sports. So as I mentioned, Penn National did notify the IEB of two media articles in a publication called Business Insider. It's a news website and the articles appeared on November 4th of 2021 and then a second article on February 3rd. And the articles contained assertions by a number of women about sexual activity and conduct involving them and Mr. Portnoy. When Penn notified us, they expressed to us and to other regulators the serious nature of the allegations and the articles and that they were reviewing it. And on that point, I am well aware that the allegations are of concern to all of the commissioners. I heard from all of the commissioners after both the November 4th piece and the more recent piece each of you has reached out to me with concerns and there's been notable expressions of the disturbed by you of the disturbing nature of the content in the article. And it's clear that you wanted to make sure that the IEB is monitoring it and receiving appropriate information and updates from Penn. So as a result, initially of the November 4th article, the IEB has been in communications with Penn since the beginning of November, first by telephone and email and recently earlier this week in a meeting with a number of Penn executives. Penn has expressed that it fully understands the regulatory concerns here and also understands its reputational concerns. They did point out that the conduct asserted in the articles is not workplace conduct, not conduct that allegedly occurred at either the Barstow workplace or the Penn workplace. Penn also noted that no criminal charges have issued at this juncture and Penn has expressed that they have no knowledge of any ongoing criminal investigation. A civil lawsuit was filed this week by Mr. Portnoy in federal court in the district of Massachusetts. It's a defamation lawsuit against the business insider publication and some people associated with it on the basis that aspects of the article are untrue. Penn has continued to express that it understands its obligations to regulators around transparency. Penn is on notice that it must make certain affirmative disclosures here and the IEB is closely monitoring it, but it seems like a good time to have this conversation with you now in this forum while all of you are together and bring you up to date on this status. Thank you, Loretta. Commissioners, Commissioner O'Brien. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Loretta. I know you and I have had a number of conversations since November on this topic and that I reached out to you shortly after that first article and I understand and appreciate the distinction between a non-gaming vendor, the status, the process, et cetera. I'm also appreciative of the status that Barchel is not an automatic qualifier under our statute. They don't have an ownership interest in Penn. It's the other way around, but I do want to continue talking about this and Penn's response because I have commented a lot recently on the fact that they make a point of putting bar stools as well as the My Choice brand on their PowerPoints when they come and report to us quarterly. And so it is part of their brand that they're putting out there and part of their persona that they're putting forward. And there is a component to suitability that encompasses integrity, honesty, and good character of the applicant. So I do think that this bears following as you've been doing as these allegations and lawsuits progress, et cetera. I appreciate that Penn has acknowledged to you their responsibilities under the statute. And I just would want to reiterate that that's, I can't speak for the other commissioners. We've never spoken about it publicly, but in terms of, I'm happy that we're talking about it here today to make it clear the importance of sort of the discretionary component to suitability as well as the strict mandatory qualifier requirements. So thank you for updating us. Yep, no, that's helpful. Commissioner Cameron. Yeah, if I may jump in, I also have spoken numerous times to Director Lilios about this matter and had full briefings on everything that's been done. And I appreciate IEB continuing to monitor and I also appreciate Commissioner O'Brien's comments that there is a bigger umbrella here that we are concerned about and continuing to monitor and make sure we have all the latest information is really important. Commissioner Hill. I was very disturbed by what I saw and what I read. And I want to say thank you to Director Lilios as well. She immediately got back to us and jumped on top of this and Penn obviously on their own sent out information as well. But we certainly got to keep our finger on this one for sure moving forward. Thank you. I just was wondering if I could have a quick timeline Director Lilios, can you? The transaction where Penn National made its purchase happened in January of 2020? It was 2020, that's right. And then I just, they've been a non-gaming vendor since when? Barstool has been a non-gaming vendor since the spring of 2020. Okay, so spring of 2020. So, and again, this is evidence that our work continued notwithstanding the fact that the casinos were probably suspended in their business, right? So they- Exactly. That was when they were not, they weren't operating. Okay, I was having, that makes good sense now. Director Lilios, thank you. I appreciate very much that we don't operate in public on every subject matter, but we also don't get to talk to each other. And we all raised appropriately questions around what is our responsibility and what is our licensees responsibility and what is their parent company's responsibility here. And Loretta, you did act promptly. I was able to get clarification around that back in November. And so, the fact that that wasn't publicized at the time, it does show that we were expressing our desire to understand the matter. Appreciate the fact that Penn National has made two disclosures and our licensees have done that. And I appreciate that they met with you and they took your, this is just this week, your concerns and your questions very seriously. So from my perspective, the monitoring has been going on. And I think at this point, we will stay tuned. But I think that you've heard from all four of us that we do wanna stay apprised on this matter. And I also, like Commissioner O'Brien noted, there was a distinction in these different qualifiers in our review and the process that is used for registering a non-gaming vendor. So there's a lot that goes on and that registration took place during the peak of COVID. At the initial stage. And it's my understanding that process followed all the proper protocols. I think it's one that I'd like to understand better, but I do fully appreciate that it's, that the process was performed correctly and the reviews were done properly. So thank you. Okay. All right. Okay, well, thank you. Well, stay tuned. Thank you. And Director Lillios will certainly keep us surprised and we'll put it on for another public update. I think it's really important for us to hear it together. So thank you. Absolutely. Yeah, and Commissioner O'Brien, I appreciate your framework. Thank you very much. Okay. Then I think we can move on to item on our agenda now, nine, and thank you. See if I know Lenin. You're probably getting a little hungry at this point. No, no, can go for days without eating. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. I'm joined by Doug O'Donnell, Revenue Manager, Agnes Bolier, our Budget and Procurement Office Manager who retired a little over a year ago, but has been helping us while we searched for a Budget and Procurement Office Manager. You notice I didn't say replacement because no one will ever replace Agnes. But I'm also very pleased to officially and publicly introduce John Skelly to you. Karen had already given an overview. He's taking over the full-time responsibilities of the Budget and Procurement Office. He's going to be working with Agnes on a transition process. But collectively, we're here to present to you the FY22 second quarterly budget update, and then Doug will also have a request that came forward from one of our licensees following the budget update. The commission approved an FY22 budget for the Gaming Control Fund of $33.02 million, composed of $27.12 million in regulatory costs and $5.9 million in statutory required costs. The Gaming Control Fund initially required an assessment of $29.3 million on licensees, and after balancing forward money from FY21, the assessment was reduced down to $27.26 million. The commission also annually approved a $5 million assessment required by law for the Public Health Trust Fund, which is spread across the licensees. After first quarter adjustments, the Gaming Control Fund's projected expenditures went up to $33.43 million, and revenues remained the same at $33.02. The second quarterly update, the Finance Office is recommending a net decrease of $348,000 to the Gaming Control Fund spending projections and an increase of $265,000 in revenue projections. The memorandum also includes adjustments to each licensee share of the second half of the FY22 Gaming Control Fund assessment and the assessment to the Public Health Trust Fund based on revised gaming position counts as of January 1, 2022. As a reminder, the commission had approved an initial budget that funded the bare minimum for litigation and flat funded the Massachusetts State Police overtime costs. This is something we wanted to keep an eye on, kept an eye on it through the first quarter, and I'm pleased to say as of the second update, we're not anticipating any additional funds needed for either of those areas. Once again, it's the second quarter, so we'll keep an eye on it, but this is a good thing to report on. The table on page two of your memorandum lists out the adjustments that compose the $348,000 decrease. I'll walk through them briefly. There's a $500,000 reduction in straight pay for FTEs. That's on top of the $250,000 that we had already projected for turnover savings. With that decrease in straight time, we've been using some overtime, especially in the gaming agent division. That's where we see a lot of the turnover savings, so we're recommending increasing that line item by 60,000. Fringe and payroll taxes are going down 173,800 because of the tied to straight time salary. The independent monitor, we increased it by 281,000 for the bills that were paid between 10-1 and 12-31 of this quarter, and our indirect expenses are going down by 15,800 because those are tied to all of the categories above, well, they're tied to the straight time, overtime, and the independent monitor, so the net of that is the 15,000 down. All in, that's a $348,000 decrease in spending projections. We're keeping a close eye on revenues and good news again, in FY22, licensing fees are appearing to stabilize. Last year, if you recall, our licensing fees, we had to revise them down quite a bit due to closures and then just some of the restrictions that COVID put on the staffing levels at the patron levels, which had a reflection on the staffing levels at the casinos. This year, we're seeing those numbers bouncing back. Licensing division is billing for the employees coming in, their IEB and licensing are firing through all of those license applications, so it's good to see people getting back to work and us pulling in the revenues for those licensing fees. We are revising those numbers down slightly by 25,000, which is not that much, seeing that last year, we decreased them by a couple of hundred thousand. This is the 25,000 decrease is offset by a $281,000 increase in revenues for the independent monitor, which is the exact same amount that we are increasing expenses. That's a revenue neutral item on Corbos and Harvard pesos directly. At this point, I will turn over the presentation to Doug O'Donnell to discuss the change in assessments on licensees based on the revised gaming positions as of January 1st. Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon, I should say. On page three of Derek's memo for the mid-year review, you will see spreadsheets and I want to touch on the fiscal year 22 opening gaming positions for first half of the year. This is what the assessment is based on and it is the total gaming position count. And you can see that MGM, for the first half of the year, I had total gaming positions of 2,063, encore 3,786, and PPC 871 for a total of 6,693. What we do at the first of the year is we meet with the licensees right after January 1 and do a physical count with them as to what the updated gaming positions are. And as you can see in the second item, the second half of the assessments, the total gaming positions, MGM actually went down by one, encore increased as well as PPC and the total increased and went from 6,693 to 6,917, which is a minimal increase. But the good news about that is the majority of it were increased table games. As you can see, MGM had 52 table games with 338 positions at the beginning of the year and they went up to 65 table games to 455 positions. On-core only increased by four to 184, but their positions went up to 1,202. So this will have a reflection on what their percentage payments are. At the beginning of the year, MGM was 30.42% and that had a slight decrease to 29.42% for the second half of the year. On-core had a slight increase of 56.57, increased to 56.59 and PPC went from 1,301 to 13.99. So this will reflect in the second half assessment payments in the public health trust fund payment. But it's a very minimal increase to these. It'll change a little bit. We have reviewed these, submitted them to the licensees and they are all in agreement with this increase or decrease at this point. Questions for Derek and Doug and Treasurer Cameron. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just comment not a question because this finance team is very, very good at answering every last question. And when I was new to this role, I asked a lot of questions. So I just wanted to say that I really appreciate everyone's efforts to control spending so that we are responsible regulators and the finance team is really, their dashboard is on top of that, meaning they have a good reason or they understand the reasons why spending goes up, why it goes down, does it make sense? And they ask the appropriate questions always about spending. And the other thing I really appreciate is the transparency as Doug just pointed out with the licensees, our books are open, they understand everything we spend our money on, they don't always agree with everything but they have the ability to comment and their thoughts are certainly taken into consideration. So those are two things that I think are really noteworthy about how this team operates and how impressed I've been with just the knowledge of the spending and the efforts to control it because that's really important. Thank you. Other comments? Commissioner Hill, you're all set, Commissioner O'Brien. I agree with what Commissioner Cameron said. And I also, I appreciate it Doug pointing out that distinction in terms of while the numbers changed, the raw numbers turned into some good jobs which wasn't necessarily obvious on the face of the document. So I appreciated that during the briefing and I'm glad you brought it up now. Very, very helpful. I'm all set. Again, echo my colleagues' comments and observations, Doug and Derek. We can anticipate always that these reports are thorough and thoughtful. And of course, Doug closed with that point about transparency where we knew that you were working closely with the licensees. So I very much appreciate that. Thank you. I think, Doug, we have another item. Yes. Wow. So this is on a ticket payment request. An expired ticket, yeah. Yes. It's an EVH patron request for unclaimed ticket. On back in March 4th, 2020, an encore Boston patron had won $9,347 in a poker tournaments. The citizen was from the UK, the patron and they left the winnings as a pending identification safekeeping deposits. They waited for tax identification to submit so he'd be able to get a full payment rather than having taxes taken out of it. In order to collect the winnings, the casino required him to be in person and provide the tax identification number as well as additional paperwork. Due to the pandemic, the casino had closed 10 days after, closed on March 14th, and the travel restrictions made it virtually impossible for the patron to return back to the property within the timeframe, which normally would have been 365 days but due to the pandemic, we extended that another three months. So it would have been 15 months when he would have been able to get back to collect his winnings. As a result of this, the 15 months passed, so the casino remitted the expired funds to the Mass Gaming Commission. Despite complying with the regulation, the casino was now requesting permission to reduce a future expired gaming fund remittance by $9,347 to disperse to the patron for his winnings. This request was submitted to us by Mr. John Santin, who is the Executive Director of Accounting at Encore and he is with us today. So if you do have any further questions for him, he is available to respond. Questions. I had asked this when I was briefed on this before, but it's correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is that they could pay this monies themselves and have done so in the past in similar circumstances. Is that correct? They are able to pay it. They don't need our approval to pay out of their own funds, I guess is a better way for me to ask that question. No, they do not. Okay. And there's nothing, is anyone aware of any statutes or regulations that mandated that this person appear in person to submit the tax forms? I am not aware of that. Yeah, I'm not aware of that either. I do know that this particular patron did contact the casino after the 15 months had expired, requesting his funds and they let him know that the expired funds followed the regulations and it was submitted to the commission. And it is my understanding that he was going to come to the commission directly, but the casino decided, John decided to come to us and explain the situation to us. Okay. And maybe this is better directed at John Stanton, but am I correct that you have used your own funds to pay out in a circumstance like this in the past about asking for a future remittance? We have an amount that's not as meaningful or it's $9,300. We've already remitted the funds to the commission. So that would essentially be coming out of our own funds. So we've done so at much smaller denominations. Do you have a sense when you say much smaller denominations, what's the ballpark you're talking about? I don't have a great number on hand, but it'd probably be a couple hundred dollars at the most. But it was a similar type hardship. We generally wouldn't bring something like this before the commission. We obviously appreciate everybody hearing us out on it, but given the amount and the patrons kind of extraordinary situation, we thought it was worth bringing your attention. Yeah. I'm sorry, Karen. I'm so sorry, commission. I feel like it's something that, I don't know why it has to be remitted in future, given what seems to be a de minimis amount in the grand scheme of things, but that's where I'm coming from. Given the unusual circumstances of not only the shutdown, the three month extension on the year, but also travel restrictions, particularly those applying to people from Europe and the UK that probably inhibited getting here in person. Commissioner Cameron, did you want to? I had similar thoughts on this, that these were extraordinary situation and the individual is not capable. Our country was shut down to those from Europe. Under the circumstances, I really believe the licensee could have done a better job reaching out to someone like this and kind of talking through the situation or making another arrangement with that individual where he wouldn't have to come in person. And it's my understanding that other licensees have done things a little bit differently when it comes to patrons. And I think to ask for tax money back now, is not something that I think is the right thing for this commission under the circumstances. Commissioner Hill? I agree with my fellow commissioners on this. Derek, are there any fiscal implications here? There are no fiscal implications, I have to say, and I think John's aware, I was hesitant to bring this before you because I thought the statute was pretty clear and the casino does have the ability to pay this. That being said, there are the further considerations that I wanted the commission to have a chance to weigh in on regarding the travel restrictions and ask any questions. But my line of thinking is along the same as the commissioners, I do have sympathy for the patron. I'm hoping that the right thing will be done for the patron, but to ask for the tax dollars back when I think there could have been some other accommodations made, which I'm not aware couldn't be made, is where I was having a hard time, but I did commit to bringing it in front of the commission. So I guess where I'm troubled here is the patron did reach out during the 15 months where the matter was still live at a certain point, John, or no, was it after the 15 months? To my understanding, it was right around that time. I'd have to look back to the exact date. It may have been before. I'd have to check back into it. But the fund said the duration of time had passed and we did, per the CMR, we did have to permit the payment forward to the commission. So you didn't hear from them saying, how can this make this happen? There wasn't any back and forth for the whole full period? Sure. So the full situation was that the patron had their own safekeeping funds on hand, which we were able to handle that and return those funds to the patron because that was their deposited money that they had on, that's their money. And this particular instance, we have people wet sign the tax forms, right? Because it's particular in this case because we're required to withhold for a patron with a foreign passport. And with certain treaty countries, we're able to waive the withholding and pay them in full provided they give us a 10 and sign a W-8 ban, which is basically an attestation saying that their 10 is accurate because we're unable to validate international 10s. So those two forms are really critical for us, for our own documentation purposes to have on hand. And those were the two forms we really wanted the patron to sign in person. And so is that with those forms that you wanted him to sign the back and on March 4th or was it during that interim? Right. So the patron would have had a probably a 10 day window prior to a 10 or 12 day window prior to the closure to do so. And the patrons, my understanding of the patron had left because he didn't have his 10 handy at the time. And so we could have paid, we could have net paid the jackpot net of the tax withholding at the time, but the patron opted not to go that route because they wanted to be paid in full. They wanted to be paid in full. They didn't want to pay the taxes unnecessarily, who does, right? So then was there an opportunity for you guys to circle back to the patron? But you don't do that. It hasn't been our policy to do so for the case of a jackpot to send it because everything electronic, it's a little dicey with the communications and we pay out of the cage for a jackpot or in this case, it was a tournament prize. So then how's it worked? What got remitted to the Commonwealth on the unclaimed? Sure. So the, I believe it was $9,347. That was the patron's winnings from the tournament we were discussing. We just kept those in a deposit and then when the time expired, we remitted that exact amount, along with other unrelated funds for that cycle. But didn't circle back to the patron before doing that? There's a large quantity and number of tickets, not just jackpots are usually a little bit less, but we just, we remit them automatically as they expire. In some cases, the nature of these is that there is no ID. So we need a positive ID to ensure that we know our customer and compliance with all the payment policies. I'll tell you where I'm at. I'm not really sure if I truly understand the back and forth, but I do understand what that in the past licensees will make the customer whole. And that means that the licensees down, right? You don't have any obligation to do that right now. So what I think I'm hearing from my fellow commissioners is, you know, do what we, but because of COVID, the right thing and pay him. But we have no regulatory oversight on that, correct? That's not, Todd, am I right? We're not instructing him to pay the year. No, we're not. Nor do I think we have any legal authority to accuse them from making a future payment here. Wait, could you say that part again, Todd, please? There's no, I mean, the law doesn't address excusing future payments based upon improper payments that were previously made or anything like that. It just, the process has worked as it was supposed to. Yeah. The payment kind of came to us as it should have. And I'm not sure that there's actual legal authority to do what's even being requested here. That's what I wondered. That was kind of like, where are we right now in our authority? So we can't, I don't think we have legal authority to require that you make, you know, reimburse the patron and I'm not sure we can do what you're asking either. And I don't know if commissioners, if that's helpful or not for us to sort of understand what our authority is here. Cause I think we were also asked to take formal action on this today. Where we've done? There was a, you were seeking a motion. Again, it's a, you know, it's a decision that's made by the commission, whether we want to honor that request or not. But as Todd said, we have no legal authority to do one way or the other. I think what came up in one of the conversations was if, so the commission has extended this deadline in the past. So there's some precedent for kind of looking at that statute that the commission has done. This is a whole different precedent as far as making a payment after the fact without, and you want to take a look at our similar circumstances and existence to allow you to kind of extend that and say, well, maybe that money shouldn't have been returned at that time period. That being said, we don't have to make the vote now. You could work with legal to see if we even had the statutory authority to do that. I think, I think Todd's kind of giving you a precursor to the way his mindset is right now. But we put it on for a vote just because we didn't have the authority as staff to make this decision. That authority always laid with the commission, whether they want to take a look at the circumstances and see if this is a circumstance where they would want to kind of consider what the true definition of that 365 days are. I mean, you can take a look at, if there's a requirement that these forms have to be done in wet signature, which I think that's more of John saying they'd prefer it to be done in wet signature, but they could have probably gotten them electronically, then is that deadline extended? Because the patron truly couldn't get back here for travel bans to sign those. So if there's a statutory requirement there, those are some of the things that we were looking at as far as where the commission may have some ability to open up this tax side. I know that those are very narrow circumstances. You would never want to open it up, especially where it's a statute like this, but we're also looking at what's the fairness to the patron as well as what's the fairness to the licensee. I know where I came down initially, it was absolutely not, but I'm not a commissioner, I'm not the decision-making authority. So we wanted to explore all of these options, if that's helpful. So can I assume that you've since been given the documentation electronically, or did he actually come back at any point? I'm sorry, was that, I didn't hear the beginning. Sure, yeah, no, Mr. Stanton. So I'm assuming you've got the necessary documentation electronically ultimately, right? He hasn't come back or she, I don't know what's the moment. To my understanding, I haven't been back in person yet. I'm not sure of that. We did receive a scan of UK passport. That's to my knowledge, that's all we have. So do you have the documentation that you would need to make the payment without withholding taxes? He would still need to provide us a tent. There's, he'd have the sign. He would have to come back to do that? With our current policies, yes. Okay, so this is even premature then, because no matter what we say today, yeah, I don't know, I don't think it's right if the person still hasn't come back or hasn't been able to come back. Interesting, interesting to me with such an international clientele that that's the obligation.  And that works well for under your policies. But also clearly, is there another conversation to do really directly between the patron and EBH about, there's no reason under your policies right now to not pay out on your own funds, the jackpot minus the withholdings. Doug. Yes. Oh, I thought you were leaning in. I do that when I see the box light up, because I think you're leaning in to ask, I'm excited to offer the opportunity for you to speak. Commissioner, as I, I would welcome a motion if you're comfortable making a motion. I'm somewhat with mixed emotions about taking any steps because I'm not really sure what I'm authorized as a commissioner to do. And then to sounds like there's still some issues there. Yeah, I personally think it's premature. I mean, if the fact of the matter is they're asking to get future remittance offset on a total amount where they haven't even satisfied their internal protocols to not withhold the taxes, the dollar amount's not even accurate unless I'm mistaken in that. So to me, this isn't even ripe in terms of adjudicating one way or the other. I don't know that we don't have the authority to do that. There may not be clear authority written out somewhere. I agree. I don't know that I would go so far to say we could never do it. I just think that under these facts, it's not right for coming before us. It sounds like another conversation should probably be had with the patron directly with the licensing. I don't think we've ever had this situation where I think if I'm hearing every, I'm hearing Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Karen, would you like to act or move today or are you... I don't think it's marked up for any kind of a vote first of all. Oh, I thought it was. I don't see that on the agenda. And secondly, I think we've been clear on how we feel about this matter, frankly. And we are not, no matter what the legal authority is, I think my decision was not based on legal authority. It was based on taxpayer money. And the fact that the licensee did not have any kind of thorough conversation and accommodation for something under these circumstances. I think my clarification, Commissioner Cameron was just that I wouldn't want there to be an expectation that we're telling the licensees to pay him. Cause I don't... No, we don't have that authority, but this is a company that is prides themselves on customer experience. I'm actually surprised, that's all. Yeah. There, thank you for pointing it out. I was looking for the motions and didn't note the agenda. So Doug, Commissioner Hill, do you want to add anything? There's nothing mad that hasn't already been said. I think it's before us, before it needs to be. Okay. John, thank you for your time. Not an uncomplicated matter to be fair. This was 10 days before an unprecedented pandemic. So the facts that difficult for the patron and difficult for the licensee, we all appreciate that. To Derek's point, that's why we did extend the deadline. It's just that we hadn't, I confirmed that in speaking to Derek that we hadn't extended it further. So I think back to the drawing board, if there is one, right, Doug? Yes. Okay. Thanks John. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Okay. Thank you, Derek. And Doug, for the first part, an interesting issue on the expired ticket. I think, yeah. We'll follow up with the licensee to see if they want to bring this back in front of you after getting the temperature in the room. I think it just, there's some questions. Yeah. Kind of questions as to even using that, that bringing that money back out. I know that it's would be somehow that we would get it in some kind of a cycle going forward, but it's just a little bit conceptually difficult. All right. So, but we have some different reports to look forward to in the afternoon. Before we take our lunch break, I did want to let the commissioners know that in fact, Commissioner O'Brien, our independent monitor did say that somehow they didn't appreciate today's date. So we may not have been as clear. And that's okay. They're exceptional. And that's what I gathered that perhaps today's date. She did send an email at noon. Yeah. So she has followed up exactly at noon with that notice that I was looking for. And that notice really does take the same structure style of one that we acted on after the first six months baseline. Commissioner Cameron, that was, we extended because of the work there. So if we, if you don't mind, I'd like to start off the afternoon with that matter to take care of it before we go to. And so that's, that's item three or C. And then we'll move immediately to that community's affair and Joe's quarterly reports from our two licensees. Does that make sense? And then of course we are anticipating an executive session at the end of those reports, but that way we won't forget the independent monitors notice. Okay. Yes. All right. So we will, I guess break for lunch. It's 1242 crystal. Probably you gave us a half an hour. So one 15. And if you could just take a look at that, at that noon time, you know, that would be great. I think you have to forward it. Unless it's already been disseminated. It came, it only came to the two and I as the contract managers, but I think you need to disseminate it out. Oh, I saw commissioners and you honestly assumed it was everybody. I will forward it to crystal and crystal and make sure everybody gets it immediately. Okay. Thank you. I am not going to leave the meeting. We're just going to mute ourselves out. I'm so nervous about that and we'll video out and we'll reconvene at one 15. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Gail, I think my French roots were shining through when I tried to get choreography and choreographed out today. Oh yeah, it was fine. I do that all the time. I couldn't figure out. It was impressive, wasn't it? Oh. But an impressive guy. Wow. The commonwealth's very lucky to have his public service, right? Well, he is taking all of kind of his educational experience and his experience and his skillset and really putting it into a great position. So. Yeah, and he also certainly understood the value of fundraising and really just growing the brand kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. I just got off of a quick check in with Karen. I said, how do you say the verb with choreography? Choreograph, I couldn't do it. Where's the syllable that you accept and you emphasize, right? Yeah, right. And last night I was choreographing, right? Choreography is the noun in choreograph. Choreograph is the verb. It's the verb choreograph. Yeah, so it's chess, right? A little bit. Yeah, it's not. It was not blowing at whatever time it was this morning at 10 o'clock. If my mother were alive, she would laugh because she would say, that's my influence on you. Oh, really? She was a very, French was her first language, but she was a great English reader. And then she would take that language that she read, and then she would speak it. And said, French Canadian or French Canadian? And inevitably, we'd look and go, and the classic was one day in Northern Vermont, there was a parade, and she was with her grandchildren, you know, a couple of us adult kids, and she said to all the grandchildren, look, look, it's a limo, and it was a limousine. And she must have read limo, you know, because in Northern Vermont, there weren't a lot of limousines at the time. This was years ago. But we went, limo, huh mom? Yeah, and it didn't occur to her that it would be a short eye, right? Yeah, no, this is not funny. Yeah, yeah. You realize how language is learned. Did you get the, Brad? And I don't know if I can't see everyone, maybe Dave, you can take it down now. Everybody has the email from Alejandra. Crystal did send that to us. Yes, she should. Okay, well, there we are. Excellent, Crystal, thank you so much. Crystal will prep me for long words going forward. The choreography was cracking me up because you're speaking my language, that was like my whole history before. In marketing, I was a dance major, so it's always like, but I was gonna tell you, it's even funnier when you get to the, if they start shortening it. And then the emphasis moves again, because it's Korea, they don't even say. Oh, that's funny. Well, there's a reason maybe, right? Well, and Crystal and I share a little bit of the same heritage, but you must just be much better at it.  But I didn't think. What a word, we all knew, we knew where you were going. Just wasn't blowing up. Okay, so it looks like we can get started. We need to reconvene David, David, my all set for streaming, are we all set? Yep, we are all back to normal. Okay, great. We're reconvening public meeting of the Massachusetts Game Commission, number 370 after a lunch break. We are, before we turn to item number 10, we want to just go back to item three, four, C. Regarding the independent monitor, we have since this morning received from the independent monitor the notice that is required under contract for giving us notice as to when they're approaching a threshold of over 775,000 plus 15% on billings for the fiscal year. In my email, Eileen, and please jump in because I'm reading off my phone and it's a little bit hard to see that the monitor is requesting an adjusted amount of what they, an estimate of 1.125 million for the fiscal year, is that correct? That's correct. Yeah, you want to just go over, Eileen, by the contract, they do have to give us an explanation for. Sure, you don't just read the six. Yeah, read the overage. Certainly, she left six. One, changes in key leadership roles that result in an additional interviews of personnel in key positions. And by that, she means at the company, not internally. She means the licensee. Number two, a request for additional focus groups at both EVH and Las Vegas, generated by preliminary observations in the lapse of time in the focus group activity due to the pandemic because they did not conduct focus groups into 2020 and threw into the 2021 review cycle. Number three, additional requests for board and compliance committee interviews that were generated based on the preliminary observations for preparation of an interim report and an interim presentation at an MGC public hearing that had not been included in the original budget. Five, a larger than originally anticipated volume of company documentation that was made available for review and testing. And lastly, number six, a larger than originally anticipated number of reports that had come into the company hotline. Number six, not being necessarily a bad thing because it's that hotline being available. So those are clarifications for number two, actually number three, that, or no, I'm sorry, number four, the interim report. We didn't really think about that as an expansion of the work plan, Todd. And I suppose that really was an additional deliverable that we asked for. I mean, is that right? So, Todd, do you just wanna go over what is expected under the contract so that the commission is just making a consideration today if we want to expand the work plan, but we don't have to approve this, correct? That's absolutely right. The contract just set out by way of refresher, I projected costs for the monitor over the course of the contract. And there was a provision built in that said, if they are anticipating exceeding those costs by 15%, that they will let the commission know so that you can go back and determine whether the work plan that was approved should be adjusted in any way. And so if everybody's still comfortable with the work plan and the work that's been being done and the reasons that have been cited, there is no reason to take any action to amend or adjust the work plan in any way. It's just an opportunity to have a look at what's been done, what's going to be done in the cost of it. And, Todd, with this adjustment, it's still our projections would be that the independent monitor is well within the what was anticipated upon selection for the overall costs, correct? For the overall costs? Overall costs at the conclusion of either three to five years. If they went the full five years on these projections, they would still be within what was given to us as an overall estimate on for the, when they were selected. I think Derek was able to confirm that the other day. I can't recall exactly, but that may be a contract. I guess what I can say is that I asked that question and Derek, I don't know if Derek is available now, but I mean, I think that even with this estimate today, they're not outside the realm of reasonableness in terms of what was initially anticipated for a spread when they applied. I think that's accurate. Yeah. Any questions? Commissioner Cameron? No questions. I did have a chance to read it before the meeting and just her Eileen's explanation and her explanation of all the steps. No, I think it's fine. I don't have any concerns or issues. And again, just to remind everyone, the invoices come in monthly and the process that we use is that Todd, Eileen and I look at them with Derek. And so that there's a green light, really the three of us deciding whether they seem reasonable. And then if we green light and they got the Derek processes and it's immediately reimbursed through by Encore. Now that was my understanding of how the process would work and if the three of you are comfortable, then I certainly am. Yeah. So Brad, do you have any questions? Okay, then I think we can move ahead. Commissioner O'Brien, you're all set with these explanations today? Yeah. Okay, good, I'll let them know. Todd and whatever notation you need, I think the commissioners have no further consideration of the work plan, so we're all set. Great. Karen, you did want to do another quick update before. It's just a quick update. I was reminded that I just wanted to make sure the commissioners were all on the same page and aware. We have been going through the process for procurement of the live stream equipment for getting back into the office. The team did review a number of proposals. They have the top proposal. We met with the team that's implementing and reviewing the proposals. And the direction I gave was to go ahead with that first choice. We have briefed the commissioners on that. So I just wanted to let you know that that is going forward. We were pleasantly surprised that we were probably not spending as much money as we thought we may have had to spend, which is always a good thing. So I wanted to say thank you to the communications team, IT and finance. They've all been working on this. And hopefully we will get going and get the equipment as soon as possible. There may be some delays on procurement of certain items just because of the supply chain issues. But we're working on incrementally just getting this up and running as quickly as we can. So I just wanna make sure you're all aware of that. If you have any questions, please let me know. Okay, any questions on that? Thanks for that update. And thanks for the process, very thoughtful. Thank you. Okay, we still have a good amount of work ahead of us for the afternoon. And Joe, thank you for this morning, very informative. And now we're moving on to quarterly reports. Yes, thank you Madam Chair and commissioners. So what we'll have up for you are two quarterly reports. First we'll have Encore and then PPC. And then after that, we anticipate going into executive session to discuss a few items regarding each of our licenses. So with that, I will start with Encore and I'll turn it over to, we have Jackie Crum and Juliana Catanzeridi from Encore to do their presentation. Jackie, take it away. Good afternoon. We've said good morning, so we'll now move on to the afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity to present our quarterly report to you today. I'm gonna turn it over to Juliana to get us started. And I also, well, we'll get there in a second. So go ahead. I'm just gonna share my screen so play up when we all, is everyone able to see? My computer has a. Where's it? Nope, it just slipped away. We started to see it. And now, did we lose Juliana? She may still be there, but she's muted. So I don't know if she's trying to talk, but we can't hear her. I'm gonna text her. And Jackie, if you're having trouble with the presentation, I've got a copy of it ready to pop up if I need to. Okay, great. We might take you up on that. Thank you. She's just trying to join back. I guess it wouldn't be a virtual meeting if we didn't have one or two technical glitches, huh? Yeah. Well, even in the in-person meetings, they've been technical glitches from time to time. Yes, indeed. Joe, would you mind sharing it? It looks like she can't get back on. So she's gonna head over to my office. And if you wouldn't mind. Sure. I appreciate that. Thank you. Sure. There we go. Perfect. There we go. Okay. I guess I'll kick it off until she arrives. To start with gaming revenue taxes and lottery sales. And as you can see from this, we've continued to grow in each month as well as the quarter as well. Do you wanna, there we go. So this is just the year-over-year status. And Joe, if you wouldn't mind just scrolling a little bit lower. Sorry, if you go back one slide. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So on the table games, gross gaming revenue, we're at approximately 280 million on the slots. We're at 353. And on the total GDR, we were 634 million for the, for 2021.  On state taxes collected, $158 million. Now I'm gonna pass it over to Juliana. Sorry about that. I got kicked off and it wouldn't let me join. Apparently my computer was, thought the meeting was running. So I will pick up at lottery sales for the fourth quarter. So our lottery sales for the fourth quarter totaled 908,165, which was a 43.5% increase from the same quarter of 2020. Although as we all know, we were closed for the entire second quarter of 2020 and then portions of the first and third quarters. So all of these comparisons are sort of to be taken with a grain of salt because we're sort of comparing apples and oranges here, but so here are year over year lottery sales. As you can see the Q4 numbers are highlighted in yellow. So moving on to our workforce numbers. So all of the fourth quarter figures provided in this reporter as of January 1st, 2022. Our total number of employees that's the last yellow column there that's sort of in the middle was 3,455 of that number. 56% fell into the minority category, 2% were veterans and 44% were women. 87% of employees live in a surrounding community. So that means a community within 30 miles of Onford, Boston, Harbor and 90% are in Massachusetts. So the next slide details, employment statistics for managerial and supervisory employees. During Q4, we had a total of 222 managers and above and of those 222 employees, 99 or 45% or minorities, 95 or 43% were women and 13 or 6% were veterans. Of our 543 employees in supervisory roles, 314 or 58% were minorities, 230 or 42% were women and 24 or 4% were veterans. We're moving on to the operating spend. So for Q4, our total discretionary spend was 20,681,545 of that total discretionary amount, 10% was spent with minority business enterprises, 4% was spent on veterans business enterprises and 14% was spent on women's business enterprises, sorry. The chart here provides a year over year comparison of the total diverse spend for each quarter during 2021. So our Massachusetts spend, this is our operating spend locally broken down here by city. The last line there, our Massachusetts spend of 10,540,893 for Q4 was actually more than half of our total discretionary spend. Here's also the local community breakdown for Q4. You can see that we spent nearly $3 million with Boston-based businesses and then $2.3 million with Everett-based businesses in addition to those amounts spent in the other communities that are listed here. Juliana, just one quick question, this is a joke. Do we have the numbers for the whole year? Because these are annual goals and we've got the quarter. Would you get that to us? Yeah, sure. That'd be great just to see it all in one place and to see how close we are on that annual goal. I think it may be included in the paper report that we submitted, but if it's not, I'll make sure. Oh, great, great, thank you. And here we have the year over year comparison for the local operating spend. This doesn't include the Massachusetts spend as there's no communities that are listed in the previous slide. And this is the actual Massachusetts spend as a whole. So moving on to compliance. During Q4, we actually did not have any miners that were intercepted gaming. Most of the instances that you'll see here of miners on the gaming floor were for really short periods of time. For the most part, it was due to security either waiting for backup security or the GEU to come. Some of those instances were related to small children that were with adult parents that were quickly escorted off the floor. Can I just ask though the one that was three hours, 56 minutes, almost four hours? Yeah, so that miner had a fake ID and I think almost two or more than two of those hours were spent in memoir. So they use a fake ID to enter the floor and then when they were discovered that it was actually a fake ID and it was a miner, they were escorted off and trespassed. So were they, they got successfully onto the floor and into memoir with the same fake ID? So I think Jackie's gonna take it up from here so I don't know further questions. Thank you. And it's my great pleasure to introduce you to somebody who's joined our team in the last, gosh, it's probably over last, more than just the last quarter. Glenda Swain is our Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion. She's based out of Las Vegas and she is in charge of the company from a corporate level. She's in charge of all of our diversity and inclusion interests. Prior to joining Wynn, Glenda worked in the auto industry for two of the big three automakers where she was responsible for EEO compliance and diversity and inclusion. After moving Detroit, Glenda worked at the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta with responsibilities and diversity recruitment and diversity communications for North America. Very pleased to introduce you to Glenda and have asked her to present briefly on her plan for Wynn Resorts. Glenda. Joe, maybe, Joe, maybe you could take down the presentation briefly. Please. Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you guys for having me and thank you, Jackie, for that introduction. I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity to meet everyone and say hello from Las Vegas and just kind of give you a very high level abbreviated version of our diversity strategy for our North America business, which obviously includes Encore Boston Harbor. And Joe, would you mind putting back the presentation because I think Glenda's gonna speak to that. She's got a couple. Thank you. It's great to see you there. Same here. Thank you. Sorry to disrupt the flow. No problem. Great. Perfect. Thank you. So just to start off, I wanted to make sure you guys understand where we're trying to go with this strategy. The very first thing we wanted to do is create a diversity logo that kind of dovetails into our Wynn branding for Wynn Resorts. And so this is our new logo that is going to accompany all of our brand assets across the North America business. And, you know, just stepping back for a minute before I created this strategy or created all of this, there were some pre-assessments that were done because I thought it was important to kind of understand where we were as a business in this space before I started making recommendations or making changes. And so part of the pre-assessment included talking to all of the senior leaders up into including our CEO and property presidents, Jenny as well, about, you know, where we are or who we're trying to be in this space and what we've done in the past. I also talked with our diversity advisory council about the activities they've done before and the connectivity between activities in Las Vegas and Boston. And I also thought it was important to engage our employees. So I conducted a series of diversity focus groups at both our Las Vegas properties and Encore Boston Harbor. And so all of the information that I received kind of affected how I went about devising this strategy. So I kind of want you guys to understand the context of how all of this came together. It was very collaborative and it took into consideration all the things that were already going on in Boston. And so we created a goal, what we wanted to be. We're already doing great things in the hospitality space. We wanted to do the same thing and replicate that in the diversity inclusion space to make sure we become a leader in this area. The core behavior that this strategy is anchored in was a core behavior that we've already adopted, which is treat everyone with dignity and respect. I thought it was important not to come and add anything or add an appendage to what we already were as a company. So I think it would make it easier and more palatable if it just was an extension of the brand that we've already established. And so our diversity policy, I pulled from this statement when resorts is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture and environment in which all people are valued, respected and welcome. And so in putting this strategy together, it hinged in three pillars. So we wanted to make sure it was holistic and addressed all areas of the business. And so the first pillar is the workplace. We're committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all our employees are valued, respected, and more importantly, given the opportunity to reach their full potential. So it speaks directly to workforce development. And our marketplace statement is we're committed to ensuring that our business reflects the diversity of our guests. We have a very diverse guest composite and we wanna make sure that the business that we do in the marketplace reflects that. And then lastly, in community, we're committed to supporting diverse organizations in the communities in which we do business. And I know my colleague in Las Vegas, Monica Murackin and her extended team in Boston have done a great job in making sure we have a great community footprint. And we just wanna extend that to include more diverse organizations as well as reach more diverse and underrepresented communities. So I think it's important to know that this is a three year strategy. So it's going to be rolled out over three years in three phases. You know, we wanted to make sure that we took our time and course corrected where we needed to, but these are the three phases and these are the different components in each phase. And also I wanted you guys to know that we may move some initiatives up in a phase or we may move some back depending on what the business dictates. But for the most part, for my planning purposes, this is how we've outlined the rollout. And so some of these were actually already done and in place in 2021. For instance, I'll just go through them briefly. For instance, diversity and inclusion advisory council of which Jackie is a member and I am the chair. It was already kind of in place. So I just changed the complexion a little bit to add a couple of more leaders from major organizations that I feel whatever we do we need to make sure that they're on board because it may affect their organization a little differently. So it's a 12 member council made up of senior leaders of all the major divisions in the company at both our properties in Las Vegas and Boston. We have a diversity learning and development curriculum. So we want us to go beyond just diversity training and create a curriculum that could be proactive in helping our employees and particularly our managers build their capacity around diversity and inclusion. We want it to be something that they own that it's not an HR program solely that it's something that can be waterfalled down into the business. Our diversity talent management program speaks to workforce development. One of our challenges, especially here in Las Vegas is making sure we create a diverse talent pipeline for minorities and women into leadership roles. And so we wanted to be very intentional about that and make sure that we develop our mid-level managers to make sure they're ready for leadership roles when they come available. Our diverse meetings and convention strategy is in conjunction with our senior VP of conventions and meetings here in Las Vegas. And I'm also partnering with her counterpart in Boston to make sure that we're extending our solicitation to diverse organizations to come do business with us here in Vegas and in Boston. On the most recent trip I had to Boston last week, I met with a contingency of African American females who were leaders in their respective organizations. And we just had a brief dinner on property but they're very interested in bringing business to Encore Boston Harbor and have committed to going back to their respective organizations to talk about how we can do that. And so my next visit to Boston, which will probably be the end of March, we're gonna have them tour the property and meet with some of our people to see how we can move that plan to action. So we're very intentional about getting more business into our properties. The CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion is a benchmarking platform that is a partnership between the Executive Leadership Council and I'm honestly a PWC with land that charge. And so before mathematics left, he signed on to this action. And it's pretty much the CEO saying we are committing to our, you know, to including and improving diversity and inclusion in our respective organizations. And so it's a great benchmarking and best practice sharing platform that our new CEO Craig Billings has agreed to continue. So I will manage this relationship and continue to have our CEO involved in it. Our Diversity and Inclusion Community Outreach Program is like I said, an extension of what our community relations team is also doing. We wanna be very strategic in where we not only put our dollars, but where we have our employees volunteer to make sure we're having an impactful impact in the communities in which we do business. Cultural commemorations and diversity events, we're really excited about this. And this was one of the things that came out of our diversity focus groups from our employees. They wanted to see more celebrations on property. They wanted to see that their respective cultures and heritage are being celebrated. And so we activated that actually starting last month with the Martin Luther King Jr. day commemoration we had on both properties, Las Vegas and in Boston. We had a fireside chat with someone who was very close to Dr. King. And we made the video because of COVID reasons, we didn't do it live, but we made the video available to all our employees. And so people very much enjoyed that. This month we're celebrating Black History Month and we have an employee driven video that we're launching in conjunction with that month. And then next month, we're starting on Women's History Month as well. And all the subsequent cultural commemorations to include Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month Latino and Hispanic Heritage Month Veterans Day, Native American Heritage Month, we are making sure we're being inclusive with all of our cultural commemorations on properties. And then diversity week is something new that I felt we should implement. It will be held in August. And we took that time mainly because that was one of the few months that didn't already have a cultural commemoration attached to it, where we're gonna have a week long celebration of diversity on both our properties, Boston and Las Vegas. It will include a cultural food fair. It'll include an interactive cultural commemorations. We're gonna have a diversity speaker series where we bring in different cultural speakers to talk to our employees about how to embrace respect of cultures, how to work together. So we're really excited about that. And it'll end with a diversity town hall where our property presidents and hopefully our CEO will be available for this as well, where we just have an open forum where employees can talk about how they feel about diversity and where we are on our journey. In phase two, we're gonna have a diversity recruitment program where we're intentional again about bringing in diverse minorities and women into our organization. The diversity toolkit for managers is meant to be a platform and a resource for our managers to utilize during their pre-shifts or during their meetings in their own respective town halls. The goal in that is to make sure they own their place in our diversity and inclusion journey. They speak to, they work with their employees and we wanna make sure it gets down to the organizational level. The Chamber of Commerce Partnership, I'm excited about, you know, as we think about, especially here in Vegas, engaging minority and women enterprises, the Chambers of Commerce are a great resource for helping us do that. And so we wanna be intentional about engaging those partnerships. And then there's industry related nonprofit alliances such as minorities for minority society for hospitality. It's a college-driven organization of minorities and women who are studying hospitality and tourism. And so we think it's a great kind of pipeline organization to partner with as we try to staff entry-level positions. And then phase three is our supplier diversity program. And I know our partners in Boston are way ahead of us in Vegas in this particular initiative. So we wanna use them as a best practice to kind of extend that to our initiatives here in Las Vegas. And lastly, diversity branding. You know, as we do these great things internally, we wanna make sure that we're intentional about stewarding our successes to our internal and external stakeholders. And so that's what we're gonna do around diversity branding. So this is just a 5,000-foot overview of our diversity strategy. And I just wanna make sure you guys are aware of what we're doing. And as we have some quick wins or something to steward to the commission, I will certainly be happy to do that. Can we pause and just be able to speak with Ms. Swing? First off, congratulations on your appointment. Thank you. It's a really important role. And it appears that they've made a really, really thoughtful choice. So congratulations, commissioners, comments or questions from Ms. Swing, Commissioner Cameron. Yeah, I'd like to congratulate Vice President Swing as well. I think you've earned that title. And secondly, talk a little bit about some of your programs. Very exciting. Funny, before you came on, we were just reviewing the diversity numbers as we do every quarter. And I think what we found as a commission is that if you have to put it in writing and you have to look at it, somehow those numbers improve. And you have to talk about it on a quarterly basis. And one of the things we didn't do early on was talk about the supervisory and above. And since we included that, those numbers have jumped somewhat dramatically when it comes to elevating folks or putting a program in place like you just explained, which is your talent management program, right? Interesting, you said, especially in Vegas. I was wondering if that's because it's already been being done pretty well here in Boston. I mean, if you look at the numbers, they are strong in all of those areas. So I wondered if that's why you said, especially in Vegas. And the other thing I love that you talk about is having managers on it, right? Because if you have managers who you don't realize, really don't buy into this, then they can be harmful in an organization. So just very important and buy in from the top. That's so critical as well to make these kind of systemic changes. So again, congratulations. And already this looks excellent. The program's you're implementing. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Yeah, Boston is in a lot of instances miles ahead of us with regards to certain aspects of management diversity. And so we're gonna get there. And like I said, the hope is that this plan puts us on the right path to get there. And I can't say you are absolutely right. It has to be embraced from the top down. And it needs to get to the manager level as well, because they're the ones who are in front of our frontline employees more so than we are. And we need to make sure that they are on board with what we're doing and understand their role in getting this implemented. We can't do it all ourselves. And so we're being very intentional. I just recently had a platform called Conversations with Leaders where it's all of our managers on a team's call. And I had the pleasure of speaking to them and talking about a couple of the components that impact them directly. And I told them, we need you to own this in order for all of a high tide raises all boats, right? And so in order for us to move the needle on this, we need their participation. And I feel that we're gonna get that. So hopefully we're on the right path. Thank you for the question. Commissioner O'Brien or Commissioner Hill. I can add my congratulations to you as well. And I hope that Boston doesn't come without its challenges either. And so I hope, I'm sure you've seen them already. You'll see more. And I hope that obviously you get the support you need in Boston to keep doing this work. And obviously, we as a commission obviously value it. And so we're very happy to hear that you're here and to hear the progress that you make on this as you go forward. Thank you. Yeah, I told Jenny and Jackie and the leaders here that I'm responsible for diversity and inclusion across all our North America business. And of which Uncle Boston Harbor is a large part. And so my intention, although I sit in Vegas, my office is in Vegas, my goal is to spend a considerable amount of time in Boston. I think it's important to have a presence there. I told Jenny I want to consider me a part of her extended leadership team because I think it's important for the employees to see that we're not just building this strategy in Vegas and tossing it over the wall to Boston. There's nuances in the Boston market that don't occur here in Vegas. And so I need to be, and I am mindful of that. And certain things you just need to be in market to activate. And so I'm committed to doing that with regularity. So thank you for that. Yeah, and I think your presence too in terms of role modeling and particularly when you're talking about management, I'm sure it's impactful to have you on the ground in Boston too. Thank you. Commissioner Hill. And I don't know how much more to add except I can see the excitement in you as being the leader of this goal that you have in the, what you hope to attend. And I can see that it's a very aggressive plan that you will put together. And we are all looking forward in the years to come in the quarters to come to, that those goals are realized that you put forward. But like I said earlier, you show a lot of excitement for this. And I can see it's gonna be very, very successful. You did very well in your presentation. And when you do visit Boston, give us a hello so we can meet you in person. Absolutely, I look forward to that. Thank you. Well, I'll just reiterate again, we're very excited that you've been chosen for this role and very pleased that our licensee parent company has really taken action and to back this important initiative. And quite properly giving you the license to navigate between among the three North American properties. We've always noted, and I've said it with sort of empathy that when resorts has really different properties and you don't have many properties but your jurisdictions are very different.  Boston is different from Las Vegas. And what I love is that you've already met apparently some wonderful leaders in our community and they're capitalizing on your presence. So that's a great first step. I have to say in all of my experience with dealing with different both private non-profit and public organizations, I have never seen a full strategic plan committed to diversity and inclusion. And so this is a prototype, Karen. I know that you're probably thinking that there's some notes for us to take here. We have our own action plan that we adopted. We had a working group convene right after Mr. Floyd's death in June of 2020 and the commission adopted our action plan in September. Swiftly, Swift work, but really purposeful intentional work and we're gonna borrow some of these great details. So I think that there's a great opportunity for Karen for you to share to meet with Vice President Swain and think about some of these tactics and overall strategy. So it's a pleasure, real pleasure to meet you. I was excited to see that you are going to be part of today's presentation. So, Jackie, thank you. Really overall pleased. Thank you very much and thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Glenda. We're very excited to have Glenda on board. As she mentioned, I'm part of the council and at some point we realized that if we're really gonna do this, we need to do it right. And we approached our senior management in Vegas and asked for money. And the very first thing we spent that money on was Glenda. So we're pleased to have her on board. It's really important the company, the company stands behind you, we all do and we look forward to working together with you. Thanks, Jackie. Excellent, thank you. So now we get to brag a little bit. We were named, our spa was named, one of Boston's best by time out. And for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to visit our spa, you really should. I personally feel like it's the most beautiful spa in New England, but if somebody has another spa, be sure to try that out. Other events that we've been doing to program the sports bar, we've had Patriots Watch Party. We've been fortunate enough to have some members of the team stop by and mingle with our guests. We've had some cheerleaders. So it's really been a fun way to activate the sports bar. As special events and volunteerism, we've really repositioned our entire retail department. So a couple of things we've done is we closed our beauty store and instead we opened Windgifts. And Windgifts features beautiful home goods, pillows, candles, clothing for your dogs, really high end, beautiful, beautiful ornaments and stuff. So that's been an exciting new development. And then we have also reopened the drugstore. So for those of you who have seen the drugstore, it used to be about 700 square feet, pretty small. And we were able to double that in size to 1400 square feet. Construction ended, I believe in December and we reopened our brand new drugstore. In terms of volunteerism, we sponsored the Disabled American Veteran Stab 5K Run. And we had about over 70 participants from our property participate in that run. Actually, it was on Veterans Day weekend. And I think our employees really looked forward to the in real life of volunteerism as opposed to some of the online volunteerism that we've been doing since the pandemic hit. In fact, Juliana was one of the runners and I'm gonna embarrass her and let everyone know that she came in 12th in her age group. Every year we partnered with the city of Everett to do a toy drive and this year we had over 500 toys donated by our employees which were delivered to the city for distribution. And that ends our presentation unless anyone has any questions. Juliana, what was your average mile? What was your average mile, eight minutes? I think so. Nice, nice. I haven't done that since seventh grade. That's great. I've run a race around that area but not that course exactly. So that's, I hadn't even heard about it. That's great. So you said 70 volunteers? Yes, from our property. And then of course they brought people as well to run with them. Yeah, I'm sure it was really inspiring. I'm sorry that I hadn't heard about it, that's great. Okay, commissioners, what do we have questions for John Jackie and for Juliana? I just have one question if you're okay, Madam Chair. If during your presentation on page eight you're giving us an update on the employee numbers and the increase in minorities and women but what I continue to see I think in the time that I've been here is that the veterans number seems to continue to be low and I was just wondering if you could maybe let us know what you're doing for outreach to try and get some of these veterans. Cause I work with the, I work with our area veteran organizations and I still see a lot of folks that need jobs. And I just don't know what the outreach is to try and capture that community. Sure. So we work very closely with veterans groups including actually DAV, the disabled care and health group. We reach out to all of our community partners every time we have jobs available which is pretty much all the time at the moment to see if we can bring people and train them in a particular field. So that's a number we continue to work towards. I think our goal was three and we just dipped below the three. One of the things that makes it a little bit more difficult is not everyone identifies as a veteran when they start work with us. So we did an event. It was over Veterans Day as well where we recognized all of our veterans that we knew about and we wrote letters to veterans and employees who are in our building thanking them for their service. So it's something that we are very focused on and we'll continue to reach out to those groups to try to get that number back up. Thank you. Other questions, comments, quick question. So actually quick comment. Overall, I think you've improved your number of women and maybe that's kind of coming off the pandemic and more women able to get back into the workforce. And secondly, always enjoy hearing about what's new at Encore, what you're refreshing and the volunteer work is always strong, the community work. So we're grateful and thank you for advising us about that, Jackie. Thank you. Michelle Bryan? No, nothing really to add. Thank you for the time. And just curious if anybody dissected that really great fake ID that seemed to make it past to do with that supplies. You know what? It probably is an ID that the person borrowed from somebody else who looks like them because otherwise it would have been caught in the machine that really was fake. Any idea how they actually figured out in memoir that it was an underage? You know how they figured out? I think we may have tried to order and train our team after and then someone asked for it again and they realized it was not. So Juliana was just saying that somebody, they were asked for it repeatedly and when somebody saw it, they made the connection that it wasn't the same person. Got it. Commissioner Ryan, I did want to let you know you'd asked about the miners leaving from red eight before and we have implemented new standard operating procedures to identify the miners who are dining there so that we can make sure that one, we inform them that they are not allowed to leave because I think a lot of times the parents just didn't even know and that we're taking their children to the bathroom or whatever and that was increasing the numbers but that went into effect in December. Okay, great, thank you. And to follow up on that, I think today's earlier conversation, Jackie, it might have pointed out to me that we could maybe benefit from a refresher as to where miners actually can travel throughout the property. I realized I probably wasn't as clear on that today. So that would be really helpful. I just want to also commend you. It looks like, again, that you're exceeding all diversity spend goals. And so we focus a lot on employment but we know that it's ramping up and continues to ramp up and we appreciate that you're not just meeting but exceeding goals. And I also want to reiterate what Commissioner Cameron said that intentionality, accountability that we're doing right here is really important but I also know that continued collaboration and commitment from the licensees, you're demonstrating that so much to us in today's presentation from President Swain, really. Just further clarifies that commitment. So thank you. Now, and I think that intentionality is exactly what we needed, right? So having those goals and putting it at the forefront of our procurement team's mind. So every time they're asked about a new vendor, one of the first things they do is go through and look at our list of diverse vendors. They've done a phenomenal job. How Nadia Ballert has done a fantastic job in implementing that. Really pleased. Thank you. I have no more questions. Commissioner, are we all set for this presentation? Jackie, thank you. It's been a long day with the gaming commission but always a pleasure. So thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you all, appreciate it. Thank you, Jackie. We'll be going into the executive session right after we finish with Plain Ridge Parks. So stand by. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. So next up we have Plain Ridge Park Casino's quarterly report. So, looks like North has already started sharing. So take it away, Norah. Good afternoon, Norah. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and good afternoon, commissioners. Plain Ridge Park is pleased to present our Q4-2021 report. I'm joined this afternoon by Cathy Lucas, our Vice President of Human Resources. I'm gonna handle the slides up to and including our slides on compliance and Cathy will take over from there to update you on our employment statistics and community efforts. So with that, I'll jump right into our gaming revenue and taxes for Q4 and that slot revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was 33 million. 762,000, which represents an increase of 26% over the same quarter in 2020. Similarly, total taxes for the quarter were up 3,384,000, which is also a 26% increase over the prior year. As we look at, oops, yes. For the full year of 2021, that slot revenue was 139,347 and total taxes were 68,280,000. Both of these figures represent an increase of 69% compared to prior year. So moving on to lottery sales, Q4 sales were 503,000, which represents an increase of 42% the prior year and sales for the full year of 2021 were 2,124,000. So that was 60% higher than prior year on lottery sales. So that's the revenue side. Moving now to the expense side of the ledger, we get to review our qualified spend. For Q4, 54% of our qualified spend was to entities in the Commonwealth with the remainder split out to the right. These figures very similar to our spend for the full year as shown on the next slide, for the full year total qualified spend with the Commonwealth was 53%. So looking now at our local spend for Q4, 14% of our spend inside the Commonwealth went to our host and surrounding communities. And the breakout there of that is to the right. As you look on slide seven, I do wanna make you aware that as we view the next slide that this differs from what's in your commissioner packet, we discovered that the amount distributed to rent them in 2021 was not included in the full year number there. So the updated slide that you see on the screen now, right now is correct. So those percentages are still the same with roughly the same with 11% going to the host and surrounding communities in the total of 2021. On the vendor diversity side, we had a really strong end to a year in which we exceeded all of our goals related to diverse spend. And in Q4, total diverse spend was 33% on a goal of 21%. WBE spend was 21% on a goal of 12. MBE spend was 8% on a goal of six. And VBE spend was 4% on a goal of three. As we look at the full year of 2021, again, the numbers are similar. Total diverse spend was 28% on a goal of 21. WBE was 16% on a goal of 12. MBE was 8% on a goal of six. And VBE was 4% on a goal of three. As we look at kind of how all of this stacks up, despite total qualified spend being down 18% over the prior quarter, total diverse spend for Q4 exceeded Q3 by 4%. As we go on to the compliance side, we had a total of 165 patrons that were prevented from entering the gaming established, meant 18 of those patrons were minors, 29 were underage, and 118 had expired and valid or no identification. In the month of December, we had an event in our ballroom that permitted underage patron attendance. During that event, there were three minors who accessed the gaming floor and routed the event. In no instance, did these minors gain. So that wraps up my portion of the presentation.  Thank you, North and good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. You'll see that all the employees referenced in this exhibit were current as of Q4 2021. During the quarter, we had 311 team members, which is a decrease of 2019 members from Q3. And that was a result to the closing of live racing in November. We continue to exceed our diversity goal of 15% in Q4, with 23% of our team members being diverse. As well, we exceeded our veterans goal of 2% in Q4, maintaining 6% from Q3. In Q4, we also maintained 40% women team members with a goal of 50%. And as I've shared, this number has been impacted by the closure of our casual restaurant and banquet department. In Q3, nope, go back one side. Thank you, North. In Q3, our local team members were 33%, close to our local goal of 35%. And as you are aware, that includes Attleboro, Foxboro, Mansfield, North Attleboro, Plainville and Rentham. On this slide, you can also see that of the 311 team members, 70% are full-time, 28% are part-time, and 2% are seasonal. Next slide now, North. Right, in Q4, you'll see at the supervisor level and above we had 63 leadership team members of those 25% identify as diverse, 5% are veterans and 33% are women. Next slide. Here's a little bit of information about what we've been doing within the community under PPC CARES. We had a lot of activity. In Q4, we were able to support three organizations that align with our commitment to local diversity and women organizations with Tito box donations along with property donations. So we had Lenore's Pantry, which is local. The Boston Pearl Foundation, which is a diversity organization for young ladies and also college-bound students.   At the property, we raised funds with our Pink Out campaign. My team participated in the Boston Walk. And then our Slack team members, there's Chef Peter and our manager, Bubba Carr, got in for the Pink Out day. The next picture you'll see is the Chatter for Charity. We did that in partnership with local restaurants to raise funds to support organizations, nonprofit organizations that help incarcerated men coming back into the community get culinary positions. Then on the top, you'll see North over there in the Fluities with the Fluities Foundation, they held their annual fundraiser or annual holiday fundraiser in December with the private event. We were able to showcase Fluities Live and North was able to give them a generous donations to their annual drive. And last but not least on this page is the partnership that we have with our team members and also our community in bringing in toys for toys for cots. And we were able to deliver those right before the holiday. Next slide. Some personal things with team members that I like to share, a couple of things. You'll see we welcome Joe Wenzel and then Charlie Ordele into the Slot's department. Joe is our vice president of operations and Charlie is our Slot operations manager. Adding them increases our level of talent and experience on this team tremendously. Charlie is also a former game sense manager. So he is really familiar with our property and Joe is a transplant from the upstate New York area. So they're blending in very well with our property. On the wellness side, we had some exciting activities. You'll see that we had a wellness fair. We also hosted a COVID-19 vaccine clinic. We hosted a flu shot clinic. We partnered for a blood drive and vision band. A lot of these activities were for team members and also for the community. So our commitment to making sure our team members are safe in this pandemic era has been consistent since we started. And then finally just wanted to share that we have done our first in-person recruitment activity with Johnson & Wales University during Q4 and my team had an opportunity to talk to culinary students that are not only local to the area but from across the country about opportunities here at the property. We actually brought an intern with us who is a JWU intern and working with us in our culinary department now. And at that year, we have secured two interns for the spring semester. And I wanna thank Chef Damien who is also our food and beverage director who helped us with that because the culinary industry has been really hit hard with the pandemic in regards to having a compelling reason to be a place to work at. And he inspired a lot of students to apply for roles with us. So that is what we have to share. I'll turn it back over to North. Thank you, Kathy. So yes, that includes our update. Concludes our update today and we're ready for any questions you may have for us. Mr. Hill, do you wanna go first this time? The only thing I didn't hear and if you mentioned it, I apologize. What's happening with fluties? So we continue to hire for fluties. The employment situation has been challenging, I think for all of us, but we do continue to hire for that outlet and we do hope soon that we'll have an update for you with an opening date for that outlet. And with that said, I also heard any functions are still not happening there? So functions is another area where we are looking at doing some hiring. It's functions have been challenging for a lot of folks with different restrictions that were in place and those types of things, but we are getting a lot more requests on that front lately. There are a few groups that we've been able to accommodate recently. We'll talk about it next quarter, but we were able to have an event this past Sunday where we recognized our team members of the year. So, and that had around 100 participants. So we're getting closer commissioner. We're not completely there yet, but we are making the effort for sure. So when we talk about functions, I think about weddings and things of that sort. I do know in the past, you've had like comedy shows and maybe bringing in a band here or there. Is that you're looking to do that as well? So we did have an event in Q4 on that side of the building that was an entertainment event. I think that you can expect that we'll begin to see some things like that as things become a little bit more normalized and restrictions ease and those types of things. And people feel comfortable coming out. Thank you. Can I have a follow up to that North? So in terms of food and beverage, and I think we all recognize the challenge. Right. But we also are hearing from Kathy that that means that the numbers for female employees are down. Right now, the food and beverage options that are available are all restricted in the food court. Is that right? So we actually have our slacks, which is our oyster bar is open Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh, good. Okay. Thank you. I wasn't sure. So that has opened three days a week. Three nights. And fluidities is coming along. Correct. Yes, ma'am. And then in the food court, there's a few options, right? Yes, that's correct. So there are three options in the food court. One of those is a franchise location, so we don't report those team members, although they are all female. And then we have two other outlets within the food court. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Hill, did you have another question because I added on to yours? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien or Commissioner Cameron? Only question I had going back to the local spend. I know I'm going back and I think this might predate you, North, I don't remember. But I know that there was a shift at one point where I think there were a couple more regional vendors that you guys shifted away from for larger corporate reasons. And I'm just wondering, do you know what the last year was or 19 and 20 local spend numbers were in terms of Massachusetts spend, like you're saying here for 21? Mass or community, Commissioner? Mass. I do not have that at my fingertips, but I'm happy to research it and get it back to you. That'd be great. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. Thank you. I have the same questions that the chair and commissioner Hill talked about is an update on when would we get those hospitality locations open and some of those employees back. But it looks like you had a very successful female-owned company as a vendor because those numbers went sky high, right? We did. So we did have a large capital project that was a woman-owned business. That's great. Thank you for it. Great. Thank you for the report. Thank you. Any other questions? Everyone's looking at their notes. Excellent report. And of course, great community involvement. Kathy, thank you so much for your piece and your pink glasses really supported your report today. North, thank you. Anything else? Everyone all set? I know that we are anticipating going into executive session. I'm not sure. It's only for Encore for both entities, Joe. For both. We have two separate meetings set up. So we're gonna go into the Encore one first. And North, I don't expect this to take more than probably 15 to 20 minutes. Okay. So I'm wondering, Crystal, if you could maybe give North a text or something right when it looks like we're wrapping up with Encore so that they know when to jump on. But there's a separate meeting notice for you guys. So actually you could jump on almost whenever and whenever we join, the meeting starts. Yep, absolutely. The links are both live. So even if you're in there awaiting, that's your link along. Crystal, are you joining us in the executive session or do you want to make sure? Okay, excellent. Okay. Good. Well, thank you. Very thorough report. We appreciate it. And I'll probably see you in a few minutes again. It is 2.31. Commissioner O'Brien, I know that you had a commitment. We're doing okay so far. I am, I've finagled a little extra time. So it looks like we might be able to get everything done just as I jump off, so. Okay. Excellent. Then moving on to item number 10C on the agenda, the statute law requires that I read this language into the record. And then there would be a vote in the event that we decide to go forward with these executive sessions. So the commission anticipates that it will meet in consecutive executive sessions in accordance with GL chapter 30A section 21A7 to comply with GL chapter 23K section 21A7 for the specific purpose of reviewing the proposed multi-year capital expenditure plan. Described in 205CMR139.09 and any corresponding materials submitted relative to Encore Boston Harbor and Plain Ridge Park Casino. As discussion of this matter in public would frustrate the purpose of the statute and associated legal authorities. This matter is further governed by 205CMR139.02 as the information issue is covered by a non-disclosure agreement. So I, we can take a single vote on this. If someone wishes to move on this, I welcome a motion. Madam Chair, please, Commissioner O'Brien, would you like to make that motion? Go ahead. Madam Chair, I move that we go into the consecutive executive sessions or the reasons and exemptions that you stated earlier. Second. Okay. Any questions? We have time. Okay. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. And I vote yes for zero. So just as a note to the public that it's the public session of the commission meeting will not reconvene the conclusion of the executive sessions. So for those of you who are not joining us in the executive session to the team, it's been a long day. I know that many of you kept your ears open and continue to be productive. It's not lost on us that you stayed with us. And most of all, thank you for all the contributions you made today to help us do our job. So thank you. Crystal, we need to leave this meeting and then go to our calendars and we'll find the link there, correct? Good. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.