MASSACHUSETTS GAMING COMMISSION
MEETING
FEBRUARY 28, 2019
11:00 A.M.

CONFIDENTIAL
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P R O C E E D I N G S

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>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Good morning.  We are calling to order meeting number 263 of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission on February 28th, 2019, at 10:00 a.m. in our offices at 101 Federal Street here in Boston.  We will start with agenda item number 2, approval of minutes.  Commissioner Stebbins, I understand you have two sets of minutes for approval.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Yes, good morning.  Colleagues, in front of you you have the February 14th, 2019, public meeting minutes.  I would move that those be approved, again, subject to correction for any typographical errors or any other nonmaterial matters.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Do we have a second?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Second.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Further discussion?  All those in favor?  
[ Vote taken ]
Opposed?  Unanimous.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: The next set of minutes from the February 20th public meeting, extremely short, but I would also move for the approval of those minutes, again, subject to any typographical errors or any other nonmaterial matters.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Do we have a second?  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: I move to approve the minutes ‑‑ I'm sorry, yes, I second.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Further discussion?  Those in favor?  
[ Vote taken ]
And opposed?  Unanimous vote.  Agenda item 3 is an executive session.  The Commission will now go into executive session pursuant to Mass General Laws Chapter 30A Section 21A3 for the purpose of discussing litigation strategy in the case of Stephen A. Wynn versus Karen Wells, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Wynn Resorts, et al.  Given the posture of the case, it is clear that a discussion of the Commission's strategy in an open public meeting would have a detrimental effect on the litigation position of the Commission.  The Commission will reconvene in open session at the end of the executive session.  Do I have a motion to go into executive session?  
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: So moved.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Second.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Okay.  I will take a roll call vote of the Commission to go into executive session.  Commissioner Stebbins.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Aye.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Commissioner Zuniga.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Aye.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Commissioner O'Brien?
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: Aye.
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Commissioner Cameron?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Aye.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: And the Chair votes yes.  Thank you.  The Commission is now in executive session.  All members of the public and any staff members not involved in the matter to be discussed must leave the room.  I'd ask that all live audio and video recording and live streaming be shut off and the doors to the room be closed.  Thank you.  
(The Commission went into executive session)
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Good afternoon.  We're reconvening in public session.  The Commission received a briefing today on litigation strategy in the executive session.  In compliance with the Open Meeting Law which requires that any vote to be taken be listed on the meeting agenda.  A vote was listed for the executive session.  The vote was put on the agenda in the event that the Commission needed to take some action based upon the briefing.  The Commission at this time today was not asked to take any action, so no vote is needed, and no vote will be taken.  So thank you.  Thank you, everyone, here.  Thank you to those who are watching from afar.  We thank you for your patience.  The Commission has just concluded an executive session and completed the necessary steps to finalize the resolution related to the Wynn litigation in Nevada.  It is our expectation that the case will be formally dismissed in the coming days.  
	After significant and thoughtful deliberation, the Commission executed this action after receiving advice from our legal counsel and the necessary assurances from investigators that this Commission will receive all material and substantive information required to make a fully informed decision.  This step also brings to a close the uncertainty of prolonged litigation and allows this important process to now advance.  We fully appreciate the public interest in this matter.  The Commission, myself and my fellow Commissioners have asked Executive Director Bedrosian and team to prioritize the steps necessary to prepare the final agreement and related executive session minutes for public release as soon as possible.  
	Given the fact that our deliberations entailed a significant amount of attorney/client privileged considerations, appropriate redactions should be expected.  But we are committed to transparency and eager to share an understanding of our thorough and careful decision‑making.  I would like to acknowledge the diligence of our investigators and legal counsel.  We still have a lot of work left to do, but we are profoundly aware of the effort that has gone into this incredibly complex process.  I would like to ask now Executive Director Bedrosian to provide a status for next steps and describe what we should expect for a time line as we begin preparations for the adjudicatory hearing.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: All right.  Good afternoon, Commissioners.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Good afternoon.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Good afternoon.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: So given that preface, once the litigation in Nevada is resolved, then the Commission can move on to prepare for the actual adjudicatory hearing.  And the first step's going to start next week.  The investigations and enforcement bureau will provide the Commissioners with information on any new qualifiers at the Wynn Corporation and then the IEB's investigative report will follow soon after that.  This is a lot of information.  It will take you time to review.  Meanwhile, the legal department will work with both the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau and the lawyers for Wynn Corporation to identify and schedule any pre‑hearing issues that need to be resolved in front of the Commission.  We'd hope to get those scheduled in March.  
	Once you, as Commissioners, have had enough time to review all the information provided to you and to have heard any pretrial motions, again, if any, then we can have the adjudicatory hearing.  As a reminder, it will be on the first day of the hearing that the IEB's investigative report will be publicly released.  The actual number of days the hearing will take is subject to pretrial discussions with both the IEB and feedback from you all.  Once you have reviewed the information in the report.  Given all these variables, today I can't tell you exactly when the adjudicatory hearing will be, but we are definitely balancing a sense of urgency and the necessary time to prepare for this matter.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Executive Director Bedrosian, you mentioned once this litigation is resolved, we've taken all of the steps necessary, as the Chair mentioned in her statement towards that resolution, can you speak a little bit towards that timeframe any more than you already did?  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: I think it's soon.  I mean, in any legal situation, you've got to get all the signatures of parties and do the appropriate court filings.  And I anticipate our legal staff is working with all the parties to do that as soon as possible.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: But ‑‑ 
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: And I've taken ‑‑ I've taken the direction from the Commission and the Chair, which is once that is done, to work on making the appropriate redactions on the minutes and making those available as soon as possible.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  So I think all of those ‑‑ all of that will be a very important part of the public record as we move forward.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Correct.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: And I assume by your statement that these things will be done simultaneously, meaning we will have access to qualifier information and shortly after that, a report to read, digest, understand, as you and the staff will be working toward the hearing, pretrial motions ‑‑ not trial, but any ‑‑ 
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Pre‑hearing, yeah.  Right.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Pre‑hearing motions.  So that will be going on at the same time.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: That's right.  It's not sequential.  They all be happening at the same time, yes, absolutely.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Well, I just want to mention and echo some of the remarks from the Chair relative to the eagerness.  You mentioned the word "eager," and that's one that I would like to emphasize, that this has been a process that has taken quite a bit of time, more than we initially anticipated, but it was necessary.  And I also want to add my thanks to all the work that legal counsel, outside counsel, and our staff has done relative to this effort because there's a lot of very important issues at stake and a big, big interest from the public, but we need to move carefully, and we need to do it deliberately ‑‑ in a deliberative way, and I'm just very thankful for all the work that everybody has done.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: I agree.  We realize it's been an awful lot of work, and I know that we are anxious to move forward with this.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: And ‑‑ and I can speak for staff, we are anxious to ‑‑ for you to have the product of a lot of work that's gone into that, and we think it's important, but it's important to dot the Is and cross the Ts.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right, right.  And we'll follow a lot of what we've done in the past, make, as you mentioned, the report will become public as we begin the adjudicatory proceedings, and I think that's also a very important milestone to keep in mind.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Great.  Thank you.  So actually, that sort of completes my administrative update.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Sorry.  One quick question.  Can you just remind us how many suitability ‑‑ individual suitability reports we're expecting?  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Yeah.  I ‑‑ I don't want to be exact, but I think it's eight or nine.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Qualifiers?  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Yeah.  These would be the new either board members or key executives.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: And we'll get them at the same time as the overall report?  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: No.  You'll get those starting next week.  And the report will be soon thereafter.  But we don't want to ‑‑ we want to get right on this and use the best use of your time.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Okay.  Sounds good.  No, it's up to you.  It's however you want to do it.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes.  Quick 30 minutes?  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: 30 minutes, yeah.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Well, I thank you all for your patience.  I ask that you exercise continued patience because we do need to take a break.  We have a good amount to hear in the next part of our meeting.  We're looking forward to that part of the meeting, but we do need a break.  So we ask that we be ‑‑ we take a 30‑minute break.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: That's ‑‑ yeah.  So 1:20.  Perfect.  Thank you.  We'll reconvene at 1:20.  Thank you.  
(A lunch break was taken at 12:52 P.M.) 
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: We're reconvening our public session.  We want to thank everyone once again for your patience.  We are going to be turning to item 5, but we will have a change in the order of our agenda.  I understand we have a scheduling issue for folks at MGM, and we appreciate our friends at Plainridge Park Casino for accommodating that scheduling need.  So MGM will be going first.  Ombudsman John Ziemba, please.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Thank you.  Good afternoon, Chair and Commissioners.  On the agenda today are several matters relating to Plainridge Park and MGM Springfield including quarterly reports for fourth quarter of 2018 ending on December 31st, 2018.  Chair and Commissioners, we first turn to the MGM Springfield items on the agenda.  Here with us today are Mike Mathis, president of MGM Springfield, Seth Stratton, Vice President and General Counsel of MGM Springfield, Jason Randall, director of Human Resources, and Talia Spera, Executive Director of arena operations.  Mike may need to depart shortly after the quarterly report, and so Joe Delaney, Construction Project Oversight Manager, will move into his seat.  
	Following MGM Springfield's fourth quarter presentation, I'll briefly outline some approaching and current deadlines relating to the construction and post‑construction requirements including the residential unit development requirement that has a March 1st deadline that I will explain.  In regard to the quarterly report, although quarterly reports by their nature look back on the prior quarter, we have asked the MGM Springfield to provide some more detail on a number of important items including but not limited to an update regarding the development of the so‑called residential units, the status of the development of the Dave's Furniture lot, and plans for the armory and activation of the plaza.  
	MGM Springfield will also focus on employment which has been and will continue to be a special priority item for Commission staff and for the Commission.  I know that director Griffin has been working to further refine employment reporting.  It's anticipated that all of our licensees will ultimately have a similar reporting format.  However, the reporting will need to consider the uniqueness of goals and commitments made by the licensees.  This reporting will, in all likelihood, be part of the discussion no later than the next round of the quarterly reports.  And with that I turn it over to Mike and the team.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Thank you, Ombudsman, and Madam Chair, nice to be officially before you for the first time.  Welcome to the Commonwealth and the regulatory process that we're going to be going under way.  I look forward to having you out at Springfield to tour the site.  It's a very special facility and a special group of people that run it.  A pleasure to be working with you and fellow Commissioners, glad to be back in front of you in the new year.  
	Thank you all for helping to accommodate my schedule.  I know this morning ran late, and I want to thank the Plainridge Park folks for also assisting and rearranging their schedule.  And I do have to make a flight, but I'm available for any Q&A.  This is the priority.  So I can make anything work if things come up realtime.  Otherwise I'll leave it to my team to handle any of the closing‑out items.  
	So I want to start with our gaming revenue.  This is for Q4, October, November and December.  And you'll see that we've settled in around the low 20 millions per month.  And then you can see the 25% gaming tax that's derived from that.  I'll just tackle this head on.  I think there's been some discussion and some press about where these numbers are landing in the context of some of our original projections.  These numbers are certainly, you know, lower than what we had hoped to see in our initial months.  But just for context, I think one important aspect of this ‑‑ and we have some history, having opened our National Harbor facility a little over a year and a half ago in terms of what our ramp up looks like and what it takes to get stabilized.  The Plainridge folks will tell you and anybody in our industry will tell you that typically we look at a three‑year stabilization period, says and there is a natural ramp‑up to understand what is working with the customer, what kind of promotions are they reacting to, what is the competition doing in reaction to your program, you know, how are holidays landing, how is weather landing.  And over that period of time, you can get to sort of a stabilized run rate.  
	The other aspect I think context for these months is that particularly November, December, even going into January, within the season are typically the lower months.  You can see a difference of between 15 and 20% doing nothing else other than just the outdoor weather and the seasonality between gaming revenue and this market.  So as excited and as well as we think we opened up to, you know, one of the things that you're seeing here is we opened up into the winter sort of low season.  That said, we are aggressively working on increasing these monthly numbers, and we feel good about a lot of the programs that we're putting into place.  Each week we gain thousands of new customers to our loyalty database, and that's also part of the ramp‑up so that when we put promotions out there, we're putting it out there to a larger and more active database.  And we're starting to see the benefits of that even in February and as we go into the new season.  
	So unless you have any questions, I just wanted to give some context to some of these initial numbers.  Great.  This is our lottery report.  One, I want to compliment the Plainridge folks.  I looked at their quarterly report, and they produced a significant amount of lottery revenue.  These are really strong numbers.  And we're always looking to continue to grow our lottery numbers.  Again, what you'll see here is some stability, some consistency between the months.  And I think this does not include some of the lottery tickets that we actually buy as part of our promotional package.  This just comes out of the actual machines.  So we're looking at different ways given the popularity and success of the lottery in this market to leverage it to cross‑market, but certainly happy with these results, and I think we have the opportunity to grow them from this baseline.  
	Compliance.  And this is something we've worked really earnestly with your staff on.  You know, given ‑‑ and everyone's well aware of the design of our facility, it's a very porous design.  I think we have 15 to 20 doors because we wanted to engage with Main Street, we wanted to engage with our outdoor plaza.  The upside of that is we have a very porous site, and we're able to allow our customers to enjoy all the different amenities of our resort without driving them through the casino floor, which is a typical older casino model, which is to force people through the gaming experience if you want to get to the nongaming experience.  As you know, our design flipped that on its head, and we have significant exposure to the entire perimeter.  The challenge of that as well as our nongaming amenities of bowling and movie theaters, a lot of the holiday programming on the plaza.  The flip side of that is that we don't have a true checkpoint like some of the traditional facilities.  And there are many days I wish we built a checkpoint because we spend a lot of effort policing our floor to make sure that we don't have underage access on the floor and gaming on the floor.  
	But you'll see some stats reflective of where we're at with ‑‑ the first column is minors that we've intercepted on the gaming floor before they've gamed.  And in some ways that experience is almost like a typical checkpoint.  And then the second column is minors that have actually been able to game.  And most of those happened on our slot machines because each aisleway is really a doorway into the floor.  To be clear, our goal is zero in both columns, but to be realistic, I think the most important goal is obviously preventing minors from gaming.  And that's something we work on very hard.  You'll see the photo is one attempt, and we continue to sort of tweak the enforcement policy.  But we've created this podium right at our main entrance off our self‑parking garage area.  And that's where we get about 90% of our traffic.  And even the ‑‑ even standing at this podium has, over the last 30 days or last two or three weeks, based on the feedback from the security officers, has really been improvement.  I think people who pass by there ‑‑ there was always an officer posted there and there was signage, but I think the podium itself has created the sense of more formality and more of a checkpoint.  So we have more customers coming up to us showing their IDs, getting a stamp.  And it's those types of things that we want to continue to work on and test and control.  
	So one of the things that Seth Stratton helped me to put forth in this slide is really to put some of these numbers in the context of our visitation.  Those percentages are percentages of our total visitation.  We're averaging about 500,000 visitors per month.  And each of these incidents in that context show how really de minimis some of these incidents are.  Again, our goal is zero, but I think context is important.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Question.  President Mathis.  Have any analysis been done on the month of December?  I mean, those numbers are significantly higher.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Yeah.  I think ‑‑ I'll let maybe Seth and I can tag team this.  One of the things that we did in November into December is really stepped up our enforcement.  We dedicated more officers to patrolling the floor.  And I think you'll see the gaming numbers slightly higher than the prior month, but I think the finding the minors on the floor is really a reflection of our stepped‑up enforcement and dedicating more officers to that.  We did a dedicated patrol.  Because one of the issues we ran into from a customer service standpoint was that, you know, our policy is to card anyone that looked under 30.  And you get some of these baby‑faced 40‑year‑olds, and they were literally getting harassed on our casino floor because I would stop them.  Seth would stop them.  Our security officers would stop them.  Some would ask for a stamp.  Some wouldn't.  So one of the things we implemented in our peak period between 6:00 P.M. and 2:00 a.m., we've got a dedicated officer that patrols the floor.  And the benefit of that is they can recognize someone they just carded and not have to ask them again for their ID.  And that's been a really great customer service improvement.  But some of that December is stepped‑up enforcement.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Also family programming.  We did a tree lighting, ice skating rink, and we just had more families that were going through the facility.  And if they stepped into the floor, you know, that constituted being in the gaming area even if they didn't actually intend to game.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Mike, you mentioned stamping them.  It's one of those, like, at the clubs, something that you cannot erase in your hand?  
>> MR. MATHIS: Yeah.  
>> MR. STRATTON: That's right, Commissioner.  And it is ‑‑ we change them out.  So we have a number of them so you can't figure out what the stamp is and replicate it.  So every day it's a different stamp.  And I think we have a total of 14 or 16 that we rotate through.  So once they've been carded, they can show the hand stamp we recognize and we don't have to ask them again.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  And is there, through your dealers, because then moving into the next column, when you identify them gaming, you said that's mostly in the ‑‑ 
>> MR. MATHIS: Slot machines?  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: ‑‑ slot machines?  
>> MR. MATHIS: Yeah.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Because the dealers presumably have at least an added level of potential review there if they see the stamp or they see somebody who looks under 30, then asks them for their ID?  
>> MR. MATHIS: Yeah, that's right.  I think we have a view of zero tolerance on table games because there really is no excuse with that human interaction.  We've had a handful of those incidents where either the dealer presumed that the cocktail server served them or checked their ID or vice versa.  We actually had a dealer who thought the requirement was 18 years old and did card them and thought they were compliant.  Each of those instances have been dealt with in terms of progressive discipline because there should be zero tolerance at the table games.  The slot machines are areas where they can sort of sneak on, and I'm proud of how quickly the team has been finding those folks.  But very rare to happen on table games, and when it happens, it's dealt with very seriously on our end.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  And in fairness, I think Rhode Island has an age limit of 18.  So one of those things we learned through PPC was people were just so close, assumed, at least early on, that they would be 18 and not 21, and so there was a fair amount of educating of the public that also went ‑‑ was part of that initial effort.  
>> MR. MATHIS: I think that's a great point.  And because we've recruited some of our staff from other jurisdictions, there could be some confusion on that ground.  But we've done so much training around 21 and anyone appearing under 30 that even there we didn't give much tolerance to anyone that's confused about what the rule is in Springfield.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: And if I could just add, to be clear, we are working with MGM Springfield on this issue.  The IEB has met routinely.  We're working collaboratively, but we're still the regulator.  And, you know, to the extent that there are ‑‑ you know, we look at each situation and go over them and there might be aggravating factors, you know, Mr. Mathis just mentioned if someone gets on a table, that's probably an aggravating factor because of the human interaction that should or shouldn't happen in that point.  Slot machine on the edge of the floor might be different than one buried deep in the floor.  But we're looking at all those factors.  Someone drinking in addition to gaming obviously is another issue.  So we're looking at all those factors, and we'll take those.  But we do recognize the porous nature of the property.  On the flip side, we want to make sure that our licensee does everything they literally can do to prevent this because this is a serious issue for a lot of folks including the Commission and other stakeholders.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Thank you.  So with that I'm going to hand it off to Seth to give an update on our spending.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Thanks, Mike.  I'm going to cover our spending in Q4 of 2018 compared to our goals.  And so there's a lot of information on these slides that I'm not going to talk through every point.  I think it's represented graphically, but the short answer or the conclusion is that we're making good progress towards our goals.  We're not quite there on several of them.  We're doing very well with the veteran business enterprises.  But with respect to women‑owned businesses and minority‑owned businesses, there continues to be work to be done, and we're working hard at it.  Some of what you see here is that we ‑‑ you know, we front‑loaded a lot of purchasing through our OS&E for our opening.  And a lot of that, when you're opening and you need the high volume, is with vendors that we've done business with previously through national relationships, and we're now, as we're operational, shifting some of those purchases from the initial buy to ongoing procurement on a local level.  So I think you'll continue to see progress toward those goals.  But from the women business enterprise standpoint, we're at roughly 7%.  We're at 3% minority and 3.5% veteran.  
	And then shifting to the right ‑‑ and I want to distinguish, by the way ‑‑ you'll see two different totals, the left and the right with respect to the spend.  The $13.5 million is our biddable spend, and that's ‑‑ and our goal is for veteran, minority and women‑owned business spend are focused on biddable spend because that's ‑‑ those are some of the purchases that we have the ability to go out to the community and they're specialized.  And so when we set those goals, we characterize it on our biddable spend.  Some examples, by the way, are, you know, regular purchases of supplies and equipment, rentals, services, advertising.  Those are generally all biddable.  There's some nonbiddable spend which you'll ‑‑ we factor into our total spend for our local commitments.  And that includes on top of biddable spend, gaming equipment, for instance, would be not part of our biddable spend.  It would be hard to go out to the community for gaming equipment.  Employment benefits such as, you know, health insurance, et cetera, national travel agents, things that are enterprise‑wide procurement that we generally buy at a corporate level.  
	$18.5 million spent in Q4, and you'll see the breakdown of the local both Springfield, surrounding community.  So Springfield is the ‑‑ sorry, Springfield is the gray, 19.85%.  Western Mass is 24.5%.  And then you'll see we also break down the percent of surrounding communities.  So the communities right around us.  Go ahead.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Did I hear you say that you've already started to make some adjustments in order to be more inclusive with your biddable spend?  In other words, you realize that you are not meeting your goals, and you have made adjustments?  
>> MR. STRATTON: That's right.  I think a good example would be probably in the food and beverage area.  You know, as we're buying and getting ready for opening, we're procuring a lot of food and beverage and related supplies at a high‑volume level with respect to opening.  But as we're operating in the community and finding those local purveyors, we're able to shift some of that to local purveyors, for instance.  And so, yeah, we've been making those ‑‑ we've been making those changes, and we anticipate those blue bars continuing to go up and get as close to ‑‑ and hopefully in some instances exceed the orange bars as we move forward.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  Thanks.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Can I also just ask a question perhaps of John or Jill or Joe behind Seth?  I recall a process internally for us to review during the construction period.  I don't know if this is the right word, but exempt certain categories from what would be the base to determine the MBE and the WBE because of things like, you know, equipment that only one company makes and it's unrealistic to make that part of the base and so on.
Have we done a review of that for MGM to look at this difference between what they're calling biddable and, you know, the actual total to be comfortable that, you know, in fact the categories that they're saying, you know, should not be part of that base should not, or is this something that we could do in the future?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Director Griffin, would you like to speak on that matter?  
>> MS. GRIFFIN: Sure.  . 
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Hi.  
>> MS. GRIFFIN: Some of the general categories that were mentioned by MGM Springfield I think are categories that we have approved early on with Plainridge Park Casino, so I don't see anything out of the ordinary there.  But I do think as time goes on, we'll take a look at some of the spend.  But traditionally spend that is part of a national contractor airline or things that can't be bid are things that we have accepted as outside that area.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah.  And I'm totally fine with that.  I was just asking if, you know, if we're reviewing these numbers as we go forward, and it sounds like we will.  
>> MS. GRIFFIN: Yeah, we will be.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Okay.  Thank you.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Commissioners, I'll just add, we're part of a vendor advisory group locally.  Our head of procurement meets with local stakeholders, and I know there's a high comfortable level that although we may be missing some of these numbers, it's not through lack of effort.  We try to reach out to many different vendors.  We do it all the time.  In fact, we've taken a chance on a few local vendors, and frankly, the product didn't stand up, and we're willing to take that chance as much as we can.  So we're happy to take any referrals.  I feel comfortable that if you talk to any of the stakeholders, you know, we're doing what we can on each of these categories.  But if there's some vendor that believes that they haven't had a shot at it, please know that we'll take a look at anybody because this is an important part of our program.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Michael, I appreciate that, and Ryan and his team have been great to work with.  And I know Jill continues to work with them.  I think where we may also want to look at is folks that you're already doing business with who are not going through a certification process.  You may have some vendors in that, you know, file that may think they're certified, may have certified we don't recognize.  I think if they go back and revisit that, that might also be an occasion to strengthen some of your numbers.  Some of it just kind of says, well, I told you I was a veteran‑owned business, but until we have the certification, till you guys are aware of the certification it's tough to kind of count those numbers.  We've enjoyed the chance to work with Ryan and his team, and he seems ‑‑ I don't want to say desperate ‑‑ but he's anxious to kind of keep working with us and some of our other stakeholders are at those vendor advisory team meetings.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Thank you.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Thank you.  So the next slide that I'll cover very briefly is the trend slide.  I think we're early to really see trends, but let me just walk through with you just to be clear what each one of these columns represents because we'll be coming back each quarter on these, and I think quarter by quarter will establish more clear trends.  
	The first bar is our preopening spend.  So basically the few years leading up to opening, that's the percentage for each of these categories.  And then you'll see the largest bar on each graph is that OS&E.  So that was that bulk purchasing leading up to opening, and that's why those bars are so much higher.  
	The next bar is basically since we opened.  So from August 23rd to the end of the year, that represents the percentages for each category.  And then the final bar is just the quarter that we're focused on for this quarterly report.  So you'll see that the operating and the Q4 are very similar.  The OS&E is going to be a lot larger.  And then the preopening generally smaller.  But we hope that, you know, that the operating bar is going to get, again, grow close to those goals.  And the quarters may vary from time to time depending on what we're purchasing.  But hopefully that operating to date and the goal will continue to trend very close to one another.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Seth, remind me the OS&E stands for owners applied equipment?  
>> MR. STRATTON: Operating supplies and equipment.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Operating supplies and equipment.  Okay.  So they're expendables.  In other words, they don't have a long, useful life?  It's stuff that you will ‑‑ as you use, you'll continue to have to replenish?  
>> MR. STRATTON: Yeah.  So a good example is ‑‑ I don't know if there's a good example ‑‑ but an example would be flatware and plates.  We bought, you know, thousands and thousands of glasses and plates to open up.  Now, some of those will break.  Some of them we'll change them out, and so we'll replenish and we're always looking for opportunities to find, say, local or diverse vendors that can help replenish those.  Same things with hotel supplies.  Various things that we had to buy in bulk early on.  And then as we replenish, as they're useful wear, reduces or there's breakage, we'll look for opportunities.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: You know, there's another ‑‑ and Mike, you touched on it ‑‑ talking about, you know, finding youth on the gaming floor and the unique nature of your facility.  I know we're going to hear about what you have planned for the plaza.  You might have a unique story to tell in terms of engaging minority women and veteran‑owned businesses for the types of farmers' markets and other, you know, festivals you have going on as you program the plaza.  It doesn't necessarily reflect spend that you have, but you're giving them an incredible business opportunity.  Again, I don't want to throw another layer of data for you to collect, but I think it's ‑‑ might be helpful data to share about your story and, again, about the uniqueness of the facility.  Yeah, we're not cutting them a check directly, but we're giving them an opportunity to be in front of their clients, patrons, live members, and that's, again, an added economic benefit to think about.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Absolutely.  So this next slide just shows ‑‑ similarly shows the trend in each one of the categories of local spend.  So, you know, starting with the most narrow in the far lower right‑hand corner, Springfield.  Then going out to surrounding communities.  And then Western Mass and then the Commonwealth.  I said on the last slide it's too early to see trends, but maybe I'll say hopefully we're seeing a good trend already on this one, which is ‑‑ and I think every instance, yes, definitely in every instance, Q4 is represents an increase over opening to date.  So I think that's a good sign that ‑‑ what I was talking about before is we're finding, as each month goes by, more and more opportunities for local purchasing so that that ‑‑ the latter three months ‑‑ the last three months of 2018, we were doing better than we were over the last five in total.  And that's universal in each category.  So I think that's the good start of a trend.  
	And some of the ways we do that is through our vendor outreach events, and we'll report quarterly on the various events we're involved in.  But you'll see here listed some of the events that Ryan and his team participate in throughout the year.  But these are some of the specific events that they've attended in Q4.  And you'll see that we're not ‑‑ you know, we're reaching out throughout the Commonwealth and even beyond borders to find ‑‑ to find opportunities specifically with veterans and minority suppliers.  You know, we're going outside of the Commonwealth to really find opportunities to engage.  
	This is one of my favorite slides because this just shows a few examples of some of the businesses that we've partnered with.  And you'll see on here quotes that they have provided to us.  But I'll highlight a few sentences from these quotes because I think it shows basically the opportunity, the economic development opportunity.  Mansfield paper talks about being able to address wage adjustments and benefits to keep competitive and ahead of industry standards.  Wassman AV said that the MGM project forced them to reexamine their internal processes and make much needed changes that allow for future and continued growth and market expansion.  And Park Cleaners, one of my favorite stories, because they were my dry cleaner and I recommended that they talk to our hotel VP, and it worked out being a very good partnership there of women‑owned business in the city of Springfield.  And they've added 12 employees already as a result of partnering with us and doing our uniform dry cleaning.  So that's a really good story.  So I think collectively, you see from these three snapshots that folks are expanding and changing their business models and learning to grow and develop as a result of their partnership with us.  And we think that will present further opportunities and good lessons learned that they can share with other local businesses as we continue to partner.  I'll pass the baton to Jason to talk about employment.  
>> MR. RANDALL: Thanks, Seth.  Thanks, Seth.  I want to share a few slides on our employment here.  So our first slide shows our progress on our hiring goals.  With Springfield residents, employees are 35%.  We currently stand as of 12/31 at 38.4% of our employees that are Springfield residents.  For women employees, we're at 45.3% with our goal being 50%.  So that is certainly a goal that we recognize there's still work to be done by our recruitment and staffing team to onboard.  Anecdotally, we've identified a couple department areas where we do have additional opportunity like security officers that may be a traditionally a male‑dominated role where we can partner with our local schools and universities to recruit female students coming out of those programs to join our team.  
	For minorities, again, 50% goal.  We are at 56.3% of our employees are minorities.  And on the veteran side with 2% being our goal, we stand at 6% of active employees on 12/31.  This is representative of 2,522 employees.  That reacted with us on 12/31.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Jason, you're missing a ‑‑ it would be great if you had a figure up there of what you're doing from the region.  You had a goal at 90% from the region.  
>> MR. RANDALL: On the next slide, I'll transition because I actually do have more breakdown of data that we can share.  It's not in a nice pie chart for us, but we do break down in the top section, the employees are broken down full time and part time.  The employees are full‑time employees and 22.5% being part‑time employees.  And our goal being an 80/20 split on those areas.  As we work down the graph on the lower section, we do showcase Western Mass residency and Massachusetts residency as a total of the employee base as well.  So 73.5% of our employee base represent western Massachusetts residents with 75.6% total being Massachusetts residents.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Quick question.  Are you ‑‑ and Plainridge will know because I've asked them the same questions in the past ‑‑ it's great that you're tracking percentages, but it's really important to track where folks are in the organization.  Now, I know when you opened, in this company you were extremely diverse, top to bottom.  But I think it's really important to continue to track that.  You know, it's important to not only track it but probably report it to us as well.  So if you see some ‑‑ if you don't track it, sometimes you don't realize that there's a certain level at mid‑level management, whatever it may be, women and veterans.  So I see all these numbers, percentages, but it's nice to really keep track of how they're doing moving up in the company.  And I know at the beginning, you had a great story to tell about that.  
>> MR. STRATTON: If I could jump in, Commissioner.  It's a fair question.  It's a dialogue we've already been having with staff.  I think John touched on it earlier, and we've been speaking with Jill as well on what the reporting ‑‑ the public reporting looks like going forward.  We have really rich data.  We have a lot of information internally, and we do look at a lot of different trends internally on where various folks are, and we have some pretty rich data.  We continue to discuss what that looks like going forward in terms of our reporting in this context and otherwise.  But we ‑‑ the point is taken, and we do ‑‑ and Jason could verify this ‑‑ but we have a lot of really rich data internally on what ‑‑ 
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  
>> MR. STRATTON: ‑‑ what our employees ‑‑ where they're from, salaries, based on grade, et cetera.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: So the rich data you're talking about, it sounds like it's something you're proud of, right?  
>> MR. STRATTON: It ‑‑ it's ‑‑ it's a tool that we definitely ‑‑ it's a tool that we use all the time.  It's just how much as ‑‑ the dialogue we're having now is how much as a private company we're putting out there for the world to see and everyone, you know, the more granular it becomes, the more we use it on a granular basis, but we are sensitive to having that granularity out in the public.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: No.  We're not interested in you publicly reporting this specific ‑‑ you know, but just overall how you're doing top to bottom I think is an important piece if we're looking at employment numbers.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Understood.  We agree.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: I would echo that.  I want to jump in.  I actually have two points.  First of all, just curiously going to your website this morning, 30‑some‑odd positions that you're still posting for.  Is that 30 a hard number?  Are you looking for multiple people under a number of those?  I mean, let's stress the word that people should not have worried, I didn't have a job on day one.  There's still opportunities to come and work for MGM Springfield and, you know, I'll put myself on a career path.  So those 30 positions, a combination of full time and part time?  
>> MR. RANDALL: Correct.  And some of the positions are representative of multiple head count for looking for more numbers.  I think anecdotally, it's about 60 head count out of those 30 positions and some of them are pure one‑to‑one seats but some of them do represent in some cases five or ten people that we're actively looking to source in.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Okay.  Other information that I would like to see ‑‑ and I'll go back to what Commissioner Cameron was talking about in a second ‑‑ and again, this stresses the uniqueness of your campus, the uniqueness of your facility with other vendors, other tenants on site.  I think it's important to get their body count.  Maybe not necessarily the breakdown, if that becomes a challenge, but what is the overall body count.  Because a lot of things that were rolled out in your RFA2 was the assumption that you guys were going to operate a number of these amenities.  That's not the case.  But there's still people coming to work every day on your property, you know, be it the cinema, Kringle Candle, Hannoush, any of those other entities.  I think it's ‑‑ hopefully at some point you're going to have Wahlburgers on the corner.  Looking at overall employment count, even if they're not yours, if there's a way to extract that with your tenants, I think that would be great information to share.  You know, to pick up on Commissioner Cameron's point, I think there's a lot more detail.  We've talked about it.  You know, we do want to get into kind of what that diversity is at various levels, in management, employment levels within the company.  I understand that it might be a snapshot in time, but at the same time you guys might be able to show, I think to your point, folks moving up within, you know, the organization.  That was one of the things that impressed me about my trip to Detroit to MGM Detroit was finding the person who started as a banquet server who is now in banquet sales.  And you guys have a good track record ‑‑ or a good human resource development plan when it comes to helping folks move up the ladder.  I would suggest that it shouldn't wait until your next quarterly meeting, if the Executive Director and maybe a member of the compliance committee and staff sit down with you and try to hash out this new reporting format.  Some of it's going to be consistent with all of our licensees.  You guys are going to have obviously some information that we need to make sure that you're in compliance, as John mentioned, with what your local goals were.  So if we can do that in the immediate future, that would be a good use of all of our time.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Commissioner, if I can just address a couple of those comments.  And they're all well taken, I think.  You're absolutely right.  And if you didn't ask it, I would have volunteered it.  You know, the important part of the asterisk is that that number of 25, 22 does not include our tenants and our vendors.  And as you know, we take a campuswide approach in terms of the economic development we generate in terms of the workforce development we generate.  So we believe we have approximately 250 employees that are tenant employees.  We know that because we have to badge them.  So you can add approximately 250 to that number.  And that also does not include vendors.  I know I've been in meetings with our team where we specifically made a decision to hold off on a hire because we wanted to continue using a local business for outdoor cleaning, for example.  So there are a number of jobs created on the campus by outside services that easily could have been our employees.  But for various reasons, we thought it was the right decision to use our ‑‑ to use the outside service.  And this also, we had at any given time about 100 employees in the pipeline in licensing and background checks as well in addition to the open positions.  So there's significant employment that is either in, you know, in the pipeline or being driven that's outside of our technical active hire list as a snapshot at any given time.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Okay.  
>> MR. MATHIS: With respect to the granularity, you're right to have the instinct that evasiveness is sometimes a desire not to give you the information because the information isn't good.  In this case that's not the issue.  The issue is because we have so much data, we want to make sure that it makes sense and that it's reflective, what is a supervisor?  What is a manager?  What are the right departments to look at?  Some of our departments are so small that you can't drive some of the diversity goals that we might otherwise want to do ‑‑ want to show you.  So I think a session, a working session, makes a ton of sense so you can see what we have.  And then we can put ourselves in a position to produce in a way that shows the good effort.  But we also have to think about our other jurisdictions, and we want to make sure we don't create inconsistent standards across jurisdictions.  So happy to have that conversation with you.  I think ‑‑ and you've seen my executive team.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes.  
>> MR. MATHIS: You've seen our workforce.  We're proud of the diversity throughout all our levels.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah, there's two ‑‑ and I'm glad you mentioned, Commissioner, the compliance group.  There's two levels that are at play here.  Information ‑‑ access to all the rich information that you described is key, and we've always had it, and our staff will continue to have it.  But there's also the reporting that is important for ‑‑ not just for the rest of us outside of that group, but the public, really.  And ‑‑ but the flip side is we also recognize that some of that granularity is indeed potentially competitively disadvantaged information.  If it's put out there entirely.  So there is a happy medium that I think we can ‑‑ you know, we can all agree on when it comes to public reporting.  So we should work on that.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Great.  
>> MR. RANDALL: Next slide we get into our 2019 workforce development plan.  Many of these educational and community partners you'll recognize from prior presentations.  But these are relationships that we continue to value and expand upon in 2019.  On the educational side, certainly Putnam Vocational Technical School and Westfield Academy, two high school‑level programs that we're able to utilize and partner with having our executive chefs come into their programs to, you know, continue reinforcing skills and encouraging to continue in the field and potentially advance into like a Holyoke Community College in their culinary program as well.  The Massachusetts Casino Careers Training Institute continues to be a valuable partner of ours.  They join us on many of our recruiting trips to share their experience as well, but we continue to recruit students at completion of their classes as well.  
	UMass Amherst remains a core school to MGM resorts in its entirety and specifically us here in Springfield.  We're on campus at least once or twice a semester at recruiting events and additionally into their hospitality classrooms to do guest lectures as requested.  We're able to continue promoting our internship programs at STCC American International, western New England, and then Johnson Wales, we participate in their large annual culinary job fair for recruitment.  
	On the following slide, our workforce development partners, Westfield Job Corps was a fantastic partner leading up to opening, and we continue to have very active dialogue on how students that are actively participating in their programs can work simultaneously on our property as well as New England Farm Workers, bringing their members into us.  The preopening had a large number of their members that were able to participate in the MCTI training school and additionally that joined our culinary program and we continue to partner with them on our recruitment efforts.  We participate in a job fair with AARP as well as attending Veterans Inc.'s job fairs that they host locally as well.  
	Goodwill of Hartford, they put on a large job fair that we attend annually, and we've been fortunate to share a lot of our recruitment efforts with the Urban League via their radio program that they have in Springfield.  We do continue to reach out to Head Start and be able to promote our positions to the parents of their customers.  Veterans Assembled Electronics has a very strong partnership on our slot technicians.  They have a training program specifically designed, so we're able to recruit individuals right out of that program.  
	United Way, if you recall the stories preopening, the victims of the hurricane tragedy in Puerto Rico that relocated to our area, United Way was able to organize us to reach out to those impacted individuals to recruit.  Ultimately we have had hiring success in having those individuals come on our campus and be able to grow their careers with us while their families transition here.  Dress For Success, we've been able to provide a speaker to their students, conduct mock interviews to their participants as well.  And then our partnership continues to grow with Springfield Works and their citywide efforts of aligning and organizing additional training and employment opportunities for the region.  
	The final slide that I'll share is our Q4 recruitment efforts.  On the heels of opening, our team was still able to get out to two more job fairs to share our message.  Specifically we attended a veterans picnic in the park that was hosted by the eastern Hampden county veterans service district.  MassHire put on a large keeping Western Mass expo that we were happy to be at that and continue to ‑‑ they held one in January as well that we were happy to be at that as well.  Western Mass Employment Collaborative held their job expo that we were in attendance at.  Western New England had a large career fair in Q4 that we were able to attend.  Veterans Inc., their flagship career fair that they host in Holyoke.  I believe that was their second one.  We've been proud to be at that one both times.  And then with UMass Amherst with their hospitality program, they hosted a rapid recruitment session where they only invited in 15 employers.  We were one of those employers.
And we really did speed dating with students to share, you know, what opportunities lie within our company.  Any questions before I pass back to Seth and on to Talia here?  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Mike.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Thanks, Jason.  I'm going to touch on our marketing highlights and then hand it off to Talia for the entertainment discussion.  So what you have before you is a sample of ‑‑ examples of our monthly newsletter.  And this is really our promotional casino promotional calendar.  It's been very successful.  As I mentioned before, you know, some of our projections are not quite where we want them to be.  To get more granular, our table games is very successful.  Our slots is what's ramping slower than we had hoped.  And we continue to tweak our promotional model.  Car giveaways have proven to be very successful.  In March we are giving away ‑‑ we have the fortune of five Saturdays in March so we're giving away five cars on five Saturdays, so it's going to be exciting to see that promotion.  We've had a lot of success on car giveaways.  So just to give you a sample of the kinds that we do in our monthly newsletters.  
	Briefly talking about sponsorships and partnerships.  Extremely important for us is who we associate ourselves with and the inherent good will and cross‑marketing that comes with it.  And you can see we have the marquee brands really throughout the Commonwealth represented on the slide.  Some of our most successful weekends have been when we've got a Sold‑out Thunderbirds game, when we've got a great Red Sox playoff game, certainly the Patriots' success has been a boom to the property.  Six Flags in our backyard is part of our summer programming.  Really associating ourselves with those brands, understanding their promotions, understanding their database so that we can do cross‑marketing is a big part of how we'll continue to ramp.  But they've been very successful, and we plan to continuing with them.  You've heard me talk about the basketball hall of fame relationship before.  And one of the shames before we came to town was much of the activation with the Basketball Hall of Fame's annual induction ceremony went down to Connecticut where they held a party after holding the ceremony.  We're now able to hold a lot of those ancillary events and keep a lot of that great activity in downtown Springfield.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  
>> MR. MATHIS: So just a small example of what we're able to do new that we've got a facility.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Will they come to your facility next year?  
>> MR. MATHIS: We've reluctantly agreed to share it with our competitor.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Because they made a substantial investment in the Hall of Fame, but we're able to share much of the activity.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Good.  Great.  
>> MR. MATHIS: We've got them sort of Thursday and Friday.  I think they get them Saturday.  We'll try to get them back Sunday.  So that's a little bit of a tug‑of‑war that's going on with our competitors.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Mike, this was in the prior slide, and of course I could not participate, but how does one win a car?  Just curious.  
>> MR. MATHIS: How does one win a car?  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: How does one win a car?  Yeah.  
>> MR. MATHIS: It's based on the amount of play, and you get entries.  We do a virtual ‑‑ 
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Raffle?  
>> MR. MATHIS: Yeah.  What do you call it?  The old ‑‑ 
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Sweepstakes?  
>> MR. MATHIS: I'm going to make a hand motion.  A virtual drum.  And the more you play the more tickets you get into the virtual drum.  And then it's just a random number generator that kicks it out.  So we'll get ten finalists that are able to pick five to ten finalists on any given day, they're able to pick envelopes.  And one of the envelopes is the key to the car.  And I always go to those because they're exciting.  And the other nine are consolation prizes are free play and other rewards.  So the shrieks that come out when they open up the envelope for the car is pretty great.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: That's great.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Make sure you can't play and maybe our extended family can't play.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Nobody can here.  
>> MR. MATHIS: That's right.  And then lastly is ‑‑ actually, I've got two more slides.  Just some images of how we've activated these partnerships.  So we had an MGM Springfield day as a tailgate at one of the Patriots games.  In fact, the first one was so successful ‑‑ and I think they felt badly that we got rained out the first time ‑‑ that they invited us back a second time.  So great to get in front of customers on the eastern start of the state, signups.  We do a food truck.  You can see on the bottom right, we have a Mexican food truck called Guac this Way.  It's really fun.  So we're able to get in front of new customers and cross‑market.  And then other examples of what we do at Thunderbirds and some of the other programs.  
	And then the last one is just to remind you of what we do with our M life rewards.  And through it we're able to take partners, and the win‑win is we're able to give promotional discounts from our vendors and partners to our database.  So it drives value to our customers.  It also drives awareness to our partners.  So 10% off merchandise for the Thunderbirds, other discounts for some of our other sports partners.  Basketball Hall of Fame, 15% off admission.  So it's a great way to expose those brands to our active database.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Been really successful and we'll do more of that.  With that, I'm going to hand it off to Talia.  Unfortunately I have to run for my flight.  And this is one of my favorite sections, which is entertainment.  But some exciting announcements that we've just made.  And I do have time if there's any other questions that you feel like you want to ask of me before I hand it off to the team.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Mr. Mathis, I have one question back on the slide ‑‑ I'm sorry.  I'll get used to that.  Thank you.  Mr. Mathis, I have one question, and I'm sorry that I didn't ask it before.  It's out of order and I wanted to make sure you get your flight.  But with respect to the issue around the minors.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Yeah.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: You had said that, you know, the number was obviously higher.  And I understand it's because you have higher enforcement measures.  Do you happen to know ‑‑ I know it's not fair because it's your quarterly report, but do you happen to know how January looked for the minor number?  
>> MR. MATHIS: I think we could fish it ‑‑ Seth, do you want to help with that?  
>> MR. STRATTON: I don't have the specific numbers, but it looks very similar.  To December.  I think the ‑‑ I think there are ‑‑ anecdotally, I think there were a couple fewer gaming but more that we intercepted on the floor.  So it's a very similar month to December.  I think some of the same factors that led to the higher numbers in December contributed in January as well.  Some of the family events, the cold weather, the increased enforcement.  One of the things ‑‑ and I think Mike did a little bit of analysis  ‑‑ but one of the things we did see, a really promising change in January ‑‑ by the way, each one of these instances we have a report on, and we look at the time.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Yeah.  
>> MR. STRATTON: We track the person, see how they came in, how long they were gaming.  And so what you're seeing a good positive trend is it's taking less time for us to find them and remove them.  And so the average time in January is much lower than it was earlier on.  And so you'll see that when we get into the details.  But Mike, I don't know if you have anything to add.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Yeah.  I think, you know, one of the things ‑‑ and I think you're right on is what we're looking for is was the trajectory.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Right.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Of our program and our enforcement.  And one of the things I was really pleased to see in January is I did some math on the ride out here is 25% of the incidents of gaming incidents were discovered five minutes or less.  And those are largely slot machines.  So that really speaks to the ability of our security team to sweep the floor and to aggressively check new faces that look like they might be underage.  75% of the incidents were 20 minutes or less.  So from the early days where someone could hide out in the corner and now we've implemented these programs, we're able to get to them sooner.  To me that's the measure of how effective our team is.  We're going to continue to do things like the podium and increase sweeps.  But really we're looking for those durations, if they sneak on they're not going to be on there for long.  And we'll share those new numbers with you.  But I think they have been pretty consistent.  It's just the durations that have really come down, which is a great success.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Thank you.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Thanks so much.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Have a safe flight.  
>> MR. MATHIS: Absolutely.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Thank you.  
>> MS. SPERA: Good afternoon, Commissioners.  I'm excited to talk about more of our entertainment programming over Q4.  First I'll speak to the headliners that we had which are the national acts.  So at Mass Mutual Center, we had Stevie Wonder, Bill Burr and then the comedy getdown tour which features some of the artists you see at the bottom.  At symphony hall, Ann Lewis, Felipe Esparza and then a partnership for a symphonic Prince tribute show.  And then on the plaza we were excited to bring blue man group, Jabbawockeez and a sold‑out show of the Dropkick Murphys.  And it was a fun event for me specifically.  We in partnership with Nathan Bill's which is a local restaurant and the artists themselves were able to generate over $16,000 for charity, and that went to Sergeant ‑‑ Gunnery Sergeant Tom Sullivan Foundation which is a local diseased military veteran that we have in the area.  So one of my favorite shows that we did so far.  
	These ten shows we're estimating brought around 25,000 visitors to downtown Springfield over Q4.  Some of our community events and programming, most of which were on the plaza and within the armory.  And so Jam Fest, which was a free music fest to the community in partnership with the Springfield Business Improvement District and brought around 4,000 visitors, Ride to Remember, we had a cornhole tournament.  And so I won't touch on all of them.  Some of you that attended our free concert series as well which was called City Block at the time.  
	We've got some images of what that programming looked like.  You see the tree lighting.  You see Nancy Kerrigan opening our ice rink.  Some of the Ride to Remember participants and other activities that we had.  And as far as upcoming entertainment for the headliners specifically, we're really excited to have a sold‑out Cher show.  She's going to be performing at the Mass Mutual Center in April.  And then this week we just announced our one‑year anniversary programming, we'll be bringing Aerosmith to the Mass Mutual Center for four dates with expected attendance of 22,000 over the week to the downtown Springfield area.  We're not even on sale to the public yet.  We're just in the presale phase right now.  We've already sold 50% of our saleable capacity.  So that show will go quickly and is going to be really exciting for the downtown area.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: 50% of all four shows?  
>> MS. SPERA: Correct.  So we have 21,000 in total sellable capacity as of noon today, we were at 10,500.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: And the comedy club?  
>> MS. SPERA: Yes.  So the comedy club, we call it Roar.  It's currently in the armory.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Right.  
>> MS. SPERA: We've had about four shows a weekend starting since January.  That was a temporary agreement with a partner out of Boston, John Tobin Presents.  It was supposed to be six months.  We verbally agreed to extend that throughout the remainder of the year.  And so we will continue to have comedy in the armory.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: We heard about it ‑‑ you were anticipating it the last quarterly report.  Just wondering how it's ‑‑ is it ‑‑ 
>> MS. SPERA: It's great, yeah.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Oh, it is.  
>> MS. SPERA: Most of the shows hit about a 90% sellout, on average.  Some of the shows start on Thursday.  Some are on Sunday.  So those ones are around 60% capacity, and then obviously the Friday and Saturday ones are a sellout, if not around 95%.  And so on average we're sitting around 90%.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: And capacity is?  
>> MS. SPERA: 243 per show.  
>> Talia, can you speak to the affordable family entertainment and we're getting a lot of positive feedback on that.  
>> MS. SPERA: Yeah.  Most of them, depending on the act, obviously, but most are right around $30.  Anywhere from $25 to $32 has been the max so far.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: That's a great price.  
>> MS. SPERA: Thank you.  And then also upcoming we're really excited ‑‑ you guys are seeing it first.  MGM Live is going to be our summer concert series this year on the plaza.  And so with that will be 25 free and open to the public concerts.  And then in addition to that, there will be some of the ticketed shows that we will do with headlining acts as well.  We're estimating around ten as we continue to finalize the artists for that.  And then in addition to that, you'll see, you know, farmers' market, we will continue with yoga, which the community was praised significantly.  We will do food and beverage festivals.  So a lot of upcoming sort of variety that we're hoping to have on the plaza for our guests.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  
>> MS. SPERA: Any questions for entertainment?  Thank you.  
>> MR. STRATTON: I forgot that this was Mike's section, and he left.  So I guess I'll take over.  So I think, you know, one of the things that we wanted to highlight is that, you know, there are questions around what's going to be our impact to the community, local businesses, and, you know, and while we're anxious to see further development, for instance, across the street, so we can get additional foot traffic, we've seen ‑‑ we've heard anecdotally and seen as reflected in this article that folks within the vicinity, business owners are really seeing a spike in their business.  And so this was a piece on NPR speaking to that.  There is a hotel nearby that we have a strong relationship with who's seen some significant increases in their occupancy rate since our opening.  So you see a 70% occupancy with a $95 ADR to now 84% occupancy with a 20% increase in the ADR.  That's a significant increase, and we hope to continue to see examples like that.  One, again, anecdotal that I think many of you have probably seen as you've visited is Red Rose Pizza who's right next door to us who has been doing very strong business since we've opened.  We often go in there ourselves and see a lot of our customers with our giveaways eating in there, and we're happy for him.  We wish some of them would stay on the property.  But they're doing very well.  Very, very well at Red Rose.  So there has been some really positive spin‑off impact.  And we hope to continue to see that.  
	Resident ‑‑ do you want me to cover this, John, or were you going to tee up the residential?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Yeah.  We understand it's in the middle of conversation.  So if we could have ‑‑ I know there's sensitivity regarding the negotiations, but if you could provide a higher‑level status update of what's happening.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Sure.  If ‑‑ if everyone recalls, we have a time line to do our offsite residential development.  At one point we were asked by the City of Springfield to pause with our own development efforts to try to collaborate with the City on a really iconic project in the City of Springfield, the 31 Elm project.  Those discussions have been ongoing for quite some time.  And we've addressed it several times before the Commission.  We've said it's been on the goal line for a long time.  It's literally inches from the goal line from what I understand.  We've been in several discussions, but we're not privy to all discussions.  I understand that the City has requested a short additional time period with respect to our deadline to report to the Commission really tomorrow was our deadline to say whether 31 Elm would move forward and whether we would participate or go to a plan B.  And then what the time line for that plan B would be.  We have ‑‑ we have been proceeding parallel path and exploring a number of plan Bs and have opportunities.  But we are still holding off because we understand there's been some progress, and the City thinks it's very close.  And so we continue to be willing to wait so long as the Commission allows us to.  But we do feel confident that there's been some really significant recent progress on that front.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah.  I read the email that we got from Solicitor Picoula.  John, is there anything beside the remarks that he has here in his email that you could speak to?  Not necessarily ‑‑ it doesn't mean that ‑‑ it doesn't drive the point in their ask, which I find sufficient.  But if there is anything else that you might be able to say?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: No, I think I can just amplify that based on the conversations that I've had, it does appear that there's very significant activity.  Up for conversation today is a vote to extend that 30‑day requirement.  I can go into a little bit of detail about what the requirement said, but basically it's what Seth just reported, that by March 1st, MGM Springfield shall provide a final commitment, a documentation for the 31 Elm street project along with a realistic construction timetable from the city.  And then if it couldn't meet this condition by March 1st, MGM Springfield shall proceed with independent residential requirement within the timeframe set in the HCA.  
	So one thing that I will note is that one of our prior colleagues, Commissioner McHugh, often talked to us about the value of deadlines bringing clarity to all situations.  And I think I will, you know, recognize this belatedly that there is tremendous ‑‑ tremendous benefit in having deadlines.  But, however, that said, given the reports that I have heard, I do recommend that the Commission move forward with approving the 30‑day extension.  This has been an extremely important ‑‑ the 31 Elm project has been an extremely important project to the City of Springfield.  The Commission certainly has shown its diligence in following up on the original requirement regarding the 54 residential units, and indeed it recognized, and Commissioners that currently are on the Commission, recognized that in order to meet the final commitment of construction, we had to know sooner than that that we would either move forward with 31 Elm or move forward to plan B as soon as we can so that we can get the construction of those units up and running.  All of that said, I do recommend, and Seth does recommend, moving forward with the 30‑day extension for our deadline.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Because you feel like they have made ‑‑ they're very close to finalizing this project?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Let me not say very close.  I would just say that there has been, you know, significant activity as of late.  We've heard very positive things.  But just so I don't overpromise, I think I will just stay that there has been very significant progress on everything.  With that as the wet blanket, let me just say that it does seem very optimistic at this point.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Can I ask about the time line for a plan B?  So we're giving 30 days theoretically for 31 Elm, or does it also include at the end of the 30 days, either 31 Elm or plan B, or would we ‑‑ what runway would be needed for plan B?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: So ‑‑ thank you, Chair.  Great question.  So when we did approve the detailed construction schedule for MGM Springfield, we also did note what that plan B would be.  Currently there's a requirement under Springfield's host community agreement that those units must be built by March of 2020.  And so there was an anticipation that we had to figure out what would happen for that March 2020 date.  I don't think that we're under any misimpression that if the City does choose ‑‑ does choose to move forward with 31 Elm that the construction could be completed by that 2020 date.  But there would have to be some additional action at the city level and city council level to determine that date.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: But I don't think that was necessarily ‑‑ that was a good explanation, but not necessarily her question.  I think ‑‑ sorry to put it that bluntly.  I think you may have been referring to more ‑‑ if plan B starts from scratch, the day they move to plan B, and that's not necessarily the case.  Am I under the right impression, Seth?  
>> MR. STRATTON: That's correct.  I believe that at the end of those 30 days, we would be prepared to tell you about what our plan B is, the project, and what our expected time line would be to get that done.  Once we're controlling it, in theory, it could be done by that March 2020 deadline.  I think once we ‑‑ it's been hard because we're working with third parties on that, and they know we're talking about 31 Elm as well.  So the amount that they're willing to invest in terms of construction drawings, et cetera, while we're waiting to see, we've had to be on pause.  But we can hit the ground running very fast.  I think at the end of this extension if we feel that 31 Elm is not moving forward, we would be prepared to discuss that project.  The realistic time line.  And I think it would be ‑‑ I don't think anyone feels that it would take as long as 31 Elm would take because 31 Elm is a very complicated project that we're not controlling.  So we could ‑‑ I think we'd be in striking distance of that original deadline.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Just to provide a further time point on that, I think we're both saying the same thing, but our original motion held it to that March 2020 date because that is the date of the ‑‑ under the HCA.  So if indeed there needed to be movement for even plan B, that would require some city action in addition to action by the Commission to take a look at that March 2020 date.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Agreed.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  Right.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: So just so I know in terms of agenda planning, 30 days from now, we have a meeting.  What would be our ‑‑ 
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: While we haven't confirmed our meetings, we're on a two‑week schedule.  So 30 days, or I would just say ‑‑ 
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: I think it's the 28th of March.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Yeah.  I think March and April have the same days.  It would be March 28th.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Yeah.  So. 
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: 30.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: If need be, depending on a motion for an extension if it's approved, I just want to make sure I understand.  If 31 Elm Street does not go through and we asked MGM to come in on March 28th, will you be able to say this is plan B and it will be all prepared to go, or will there still be a need for further discussions with another developer, et cetera?  
>> MR. STRATTON: No, we anticipate that we will be able to tell you what plan B is and our plans or executing on it in the time line.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: I just want to say, just further comment, I'm inclined to go along with the request from the City to extend, because this is really a request from the City to extend the deadline.  I do recognize the value of deadlines, as you mentioned, as being a big incentive towards people to finally, you know, fish or cut bait, as they say.  But the City really values the prospect of this project, and you will see it if you haven't already directly across from the side of the casino and really on the other side of ‑‑ is it called Court Square?  
>> Mm‑hmm.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: And one with a lot of complicating factors for a number of reasons, but really a worthy economic development project.  And so we've always had the extension between also we're here in MGM trying to meet the requirement that we had put ‑‑ that has been in place for some time, and the city wanting to try to make this project work.  I don't know that I would feel ‑‑ 
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Yeah, and to be clear, I did understand that this extension is driven by the City.  I do understand that.  So thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  I do think, though, that I hope this doesn't turn into another 30 days and another 30 days and, you know, we find ourselves whatever, next year still talking about this.  So there is going to have to be some kind of really reckoning time at some point, if it's not today.  I'm inclined to go along with the request, as I mentioned, but we really hope that the parties are really close to getting it done.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Just from an historical perspective, and I also, you know, don't want this, as Commissioner Zuniga said, to keep dragging itself out.  Certainly amenable to the City's request.  You know, we're talking about a project that has set empty for 20‑some‑odd years right in the heart of downtown, and this seems to be the first kind of real opportunity or credible opportunity that's come forward to try to save this historic building.  Again, I'm in the position of, you know, familiarity with the property of trying to give it this 30‑day extension at the request of the city, but also mindful that at some point, you know, the deal is either there or it's not.  You know, for your ability to kind of meet the components of our RFA2 is to look for another location.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: But we're holding off on the vote until later in the agenda.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Yes.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  You just previewed.  I see.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: I didn't know where we were or not.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: You could ‑‑ well, that's ‑‑ my question was, it's slated for later, but if we're discussing it now, we could take a vote now.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Yeah.  We started talking about it before the agenda agenda.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: We did.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: I'll leave it up to counsel.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: No, it makes sense.  It seems like you've just had a robust discussion about it.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Unless there's something that you wish to add, or folks from the Commission wish to add other than from MGM.  I believe it's a time ‑‑ would be a timely motion right now.  Do I hear a motion?  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Madam Chair, I'd move that the Commission approve the request of the City of Springfield for a 30‑day extension with respect to the development agreement to be finalized with respect to 31 Elm.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Second.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Further discussion.  My only discussion would be we wish all parties good luck on this, and a vote.  All those in favor.  
[ Vote taken ]
Opposed?  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Can I just, for clarification purposes, could you assume the 30‑day extension times us to the March 28th meeting?  
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: It would go to April 1st which would be March 28th which is the meeting that precedes it.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: As long as we're within the March 28th.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: I think it's important for Springfield to understand that because they've asked for this extension.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Right.  Thank you.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: It's a clarifier.  Thank you.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Great.  Thank you.  I'll touch on the three final points very briefly.  As I know they're of interest to the Commission.  We call it the Dave's Furniture lot.  I don't know if you've heard this before.  It might have been confusing when you first saw it, but that's several years ago, the building that was there, and we've been calling it the Dave's Furniture Lot for so long that it's hard to get away from.  This is the corner of Main and Union Street in Springfield and it's reflected right there with the Wahlburgers banner.  We have a letter of intent for them to construct a Wahlburgers restaurant on that site.  We were hopeful we'd be sitting here today saying the lease has been finalized, but lawyers sometimes draw things out.  I'm one of the guilty ones on this particular item, but we had a very productive call the other day, and we anticipate no issues with ‑‑ as soon as we finalize the detailed lease, we'll move forward with construction drawings, and we'll be able to report on the timeframe.  I believe Mike previously mentioned, and it remains the case, that we're hopeful to have a New Year's Eve opening at that property.  And so that remains the target for The Wahlburgers restaurant.  
	In terms of armory plans, that's one of the requirements you'd like us to continue to report on.  Our armory development plans, that is.  Because the Roar Comedy Club as you've heard has been such a success and they're extending it, we continue to plan to utilize it for that purpose for the foreseeable future.  But one of the things that we've experienced ‑‑ you heard Mike talk about the gaming numbers.  Our food and beverage numbers have been very strong since opening and continue to be.  And we think there is demand that continues to outpace the supply on our property.  So we continue to look at ‑‑ and I'll touch on it in a moment in the next point ‑‑ we continue to look at food and beverage opportunities.  So we're a parallel path, continue to explore and think about whether that our rebuilding is suitable for a future use with a multilevel food and beverage operation, and that continues to be an ongoing discussion.  But for the foreseeable future, we continue to use it as the comedy club and other event programming.  
	Finally, I don't have specifics, and Mike perhaps would have had a few more to speak to, but we are evaluating our food and beverage needs on site, and there are multiple spaces on our site.  A vacant space between the Western Mass News and Tap, that's one of the original retail spaces that we've been waiting to develop, we do anticipate developing that ourselves as a food and beverage ‑‑ an additional food and beverage outlet over the next several months.  We're still working on design, name and theme.  But we anticipate ‑‑ one of the things that Talia wants is rather than have portable bars and ‑‑ for the events out there, to have the ability to have a restaurant with food and beverage there that has almost an open air ‑‑ a garage door lift‑up so it can service the plaza right there.  So that would be ‑‑ that's something we're exploring, and we're also exploring some of the space in the South End Market that is experiencing less volume.  Whether we can shift the programming and create a stand‑alone restaurant in South End Market, and we're still determining what, again, the theme and food is, but it's possible we'll be adding an additional stand‑alone restaurant as part of the South End Market to replace the wine and cheese bar is one of our performs not at of the level of the others, and there's some good space there that we could create a new use.  So we continue to explore those, and with those are additional opportunities for wait staff and servers.  We continue to push the food and beverage development, and we'll update you as those plans progress.  And unless there are any questions.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Just with respect to ‑‑ because you kind of hit on it in a couple of places under Talia's report and also under the future development ‑‑ I was always under the impression when we were talking about a ‑‑ I think it was a 60‑day plan to look ahead to how you were programming the plaza and the armory space, which obviously ‑‑ a lot of that is consumed with Roar.  I guess I was looking for a plan that might have a little bit more detail, be it a schedule, you know, again, I understand might be some information you don't want to disclose as to who or what, but I was always kind of under the impression that there would be a little more meat to that programming plan.  So as we look at maybe the next quarterly report, kind of building that in if that's fair.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Okay.  Did you hear that, Talia?  Next time.  90‑day plan.  
>> MS. SPERA: We will.  The challenge being our season is really going to be memorial day weekend through Labor Day weekend just due to weather, and so we're continuing to look at what that looks like especially for the 60 days for the plaza specifically it will be a little quieter, and we'll ramp up in May.  So next meeting, I'm happy to share what that looks like with you guys.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Thank you.  Seth is very good that Mike had a flight to catch, right?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Okay.  Chair and Commissioners, I'll be brief on the very next section.  As I mentioned, there are a number of other time lines and deadlines that we are very closely monitoring.  When the Commission approved the MGM schedule, the detailed construction schedule on April 12th, 2018, the Commission established a July 8th, 2019, date for the planned construction at the so‑called Dave's furniture lot that Seth just described.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: What was that date, John?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: July 8th, 2019.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Okay.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: So it's clear that deadline will not be met.  But as Seth mentioned, significant progress has been made.  So I recommend that the Commission take another look at this deadline and short order after evaluating MGM Springfield's construction plans post the signing of that lease.  We'll discuss a date when we can bring it before the Commission, but perhaps as early as the 30 days from now, the March 28th date, perhaps we can bring that to you at that point.  So we'll discuss that further with MGM Springfield.  In addition to the Dave's site, we're also monitoring MGM he says Springfield's progress on its planned solar installation.  That, too, has a deadline in the near future pursuant to our 6 and 61 requirements.  Those installations shall be complete within one year of the opening of MGM Springfield facility.  One more item that I'll mention is the completion of MGM's transportation demand management measures that are also required in their section 61 requirements.  You know, due to the time ‑‑ the time in the afternoon, I think if you have any further questions regarding TDM, Joe Delaney is here to answer those, but otherwise there's significant detail included in your packet.  One item that we'll mention that we're actively working on and MGM is actively working on is an MOU between MGM and the PVTA regarding a lot of these measures.  But if you have any questions, Joe is here.  Otherwise there's significant detail included in the packet.  But we will also need to address that timetable in short order regarding the TDM measures.  So ‑‑ 
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: But both the solar panel discussion and the TDM could be talked about at a later meeting?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Yeah.  We have to determine exactly what we do because it's a section 61 requirement regarding TDM.  So we'll have further discussions on what we do about those measures that necessarily will take a little bit longer in time.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Okay.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: There's 65 items on the TDM planned, and most of those, I guess, have been wrapped up or completed.  Is there one or two that are of particular concern either to our licensee or you and Joe?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: I think I will just mention the MOU.  We've had communications with the PVTA and with MGM Springfield about wrapping that up in short order.  It does, you know, take a little bit of additional work to put together the MOU, and I know both PVTA and MGM are tremendously busy.  But I know that they're making great ‑‑ they're making great efforts to communicate regarding all the priorities locally.  You know, they obviously work on the loop together.  They work on a lot of different initiatives.
And we've heard those reports in meetings that Joe and I have had with MGM.  So we know that they're making a great amount of progress.  And hopefully things will be completed fairly soon on that MOU.  
>> MR. STRATTON: Agree, John.  And to be clear, we have an existing MOU with the PVTA that we negotiated and we went through to develop the loop and get that loop service up and running.  And so whether we do a separate one or amend our existing one to incorporate the additional commitments is one thing we've been discussing with them.  But it is one of our priorities, and our prior relationship entering into MOU for the loop demonstrates our ability to work together and get that done.  It's just, again, a lot of irons in the fire and taking a little longer than we had hoped.  But that is on our priority list.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Sounds good.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Thank you very much.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Thank you.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: I might suggest while we have the MGM folks up here and Penn folks have been incredibly patient, if we could just do the service employee exemption quickly.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: I agree with that, in case there are any questions.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: Right.  
>> MR. STRATTON: For the record ‑‑ 
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Thank you for your continued patience.  
>> MR. STRATTON: For the record, Lance promised us Aerosmith tickets.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: At least four, right?   
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Good afternoon, Manager Curtis.  
>> MR. CURTIS: Good afternoon, Commissioners.  How are you today?  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Very good.  
>> MR. CURTIS: Today we come before you on approval for service employee exemptions.  In your packet you'll find a memo requesting a consideration for the approval of 15 positions for exemption at MGM Springfield.  These 15 positions include ten unique job profile numbers that represent 67 individuals.  The Commission staff has worked collaboratively with MGM Springfield Human Resources department, and this collaboration has resulted in the positions that we are putting before you for your consideration.  Commission and staff is recommending that these positions be exempt since the positions fall outside of the Commission's endorsed factors for consideration of making exemption determinations.   Questions?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: The only question I had, one position was a manager position that had employees underneath.  But you are still recommending that that position ‑‑ that that position ‑‑ I'm trying to find the position.  Is it graphic arts?  
>> MR. CURTIS: That would be the creative manager?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: It might be.  There were levels above it.  I just wanted a clarification on that.  
>> MR. CURTIS: Yes, Commissioner Cameron.  There's five levels of supervisory folks above them.  
>> That's correct.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: So you made a determination that although it is a supervisor's position, it did not require ‑‑ 
>> MR. CURTIS: Correct.  It falls outside of the parameters.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: But one of them is managerial responsibilities.  
>> MR. CURTIS: Oh, in any department.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes.  
>> MR. CURTIS: But in the past, we've always eliminated a managerial position if there were multiple levels of managers above that position.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: I don't recall seeing one like this.  But you're saying there is precedent here?  
>> MR. CURTIS: Yes.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: There's also other criteria it would fall under, right?  That person is not on the gaming floor necessarily.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Usually if it touches any one of them, we don't allow the exclusion.  I think we're getting the explanation here.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: I believe, commissioner Cameron, there may be additional positions that are similarly supervisory in nature, but there are the levels of oversight.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: I saw that one.  I didn't see the others.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: For instance, transportation supervisor.  I'm sorry, I don't have my notes with me.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yeah.  Mm‑hmm.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: But I believe you explained to me, Mr. Curtis, that there were additional oversight.  
>> MR. CURTIS: Yes.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: And additional levels of supervision in multiples, says not just one or two.  
>> MR. CURTIS: Correct.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Okay.  So you're comfortable there's no risk.  
>> MR. CURTIS: Yes, ma'am.  
>> MR. BEDROSIAN: I would just remind the Commission, you know, I think one of the factors I believe looking back on the history of this, that the Commission also considered in even supporting the legislation for exemption is that the company itself still does a background check.  They don't necessarily have the automatic disqualifiers we did under the statute, but they are able to look at potentially a criminal history, but it would have to be associated with the type of job that's going on, and they'd make that initial determination.  So this, just a reminder, this exemption doesn't mean a person gets hired without any process at all.  There's still the company's process.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: And if I understand correctly, we could reverse any exemption at any time?  
>> MR. CURTIS: Yes, ma'am.  
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: And the only clarification I had asked you for early earlier was the supervisor activation position.  Just for everyone else's Edification, you did clarify for me that those are all nongaming floor events, correct?  
>> MR. CURTIS: That's correct.  None of those events are held on the gaming floor.  
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: I'm happy to go along with this request for exemptions.  In the past, we believe that this exemption is a really ‑‑ this process really goes a long way towards providing jobs to the unemployed and underemployed which is a big principle in the statute, but at the same time also allows us to conform to the background check and suitability and whatnot licensing in this case of many of the operations that are more critical.  Those having to do with cash, casino operations and so on.  The process of arriving to this exemption provision which we are now voting on a few more than what we've done in the past for MGM and PPC.  And I think it has been really a good compromise.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Yes, and I have to thank Mr. Curtis.  He's given me two very extensive briefings.  So I am very comfortable with the process and the framework.  At this point, I will still ‑‑ 
>> MR. CURTIS: You did have an outstanding question on one of the positions and Mr. Randall is going to answer that for you.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Excellent.  Thank you so much.  
>> MR. RANDALL: Related to the food server position that is in‑room dining or room service related to service of alcohol that may be brought to the room.  A standard operating procedure for that progression is to verify identification to ensure any of the recipients of the order are over 21.  Those servers will be checking IDs in the room.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Thank you very much.  And Commissioners, do you have any additional questions?  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: I'll be happy to move that the Commission approve the request to exempt from the gaming service employees in the packet today from the licensing requirements.  Period.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Second.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Any further discussion?  All those in favor?  Having vote taken ].
Those opposed?  5‑0.  Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Thank you.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: As everybody settles in, the Commissioners will take a five‑minute break.  Thank you so much.  
(A break was taken at 3:00 P.M.) 
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Thank you, chair.  Up next, she'll unfortunately be here for her last meeting with us.  I've certainly enjoyed all of her visits in the past.  And Mike Mueller, Vice President of operations.  And with that I'd turn it over to Lance.  
>> MR. GEORGE: Thanks.  15 or 20 minutes is what Commissioner Stebbins committed to.  We will start with revenues and taxes.  Several numbers on this slide, I'll point to just a couple.  Year over year comparison of the fourth quarter shows a modest uptick in revenue and taxes paid.  This increase was largely driven by a stronger than expected December.  Notably Q4 does represent the first further quarter that PPC has faced the impact of two new casinos opening in the form of MGM and then closer to home the new facility in Rhode Island that is just over the border.  All in for the fourth quarter 2018, the combination of taxes paid to the Commonwealth and fees paid to the horsemen at 49% totaled approximately $20 million with gaming revenues just under 40.5 million.  Successful quarter, successful year with revenues increasing by roughly 6.8 million from 2017 to 2018.  
	Lottery sales, again, a lot of numbers here.  I'll highlight just a couple.  Quarter four, 2018, total sales of $867,000, up 5.5% year over year.  In total for 2018, sales of $3.6 million, an increase of almost 10%.  Encouraging year‑over‑year trend with no material change to the relationship or the approach, in essence, number of machines remains consistent, as does the location of those machines.  No significant changes.  
	Transitioning to spending and procurement by state.  These next two slides will go hand in hand relating to in‑state spending.  And so for quarter four, 66% or approximately $1.5 million of the eligible spend occurred in state.  The remainder is split amongst several other states.  Year‑end results on the next slide were largely consistent as well with 74% of the eligible spend occurring in state.  Purchasing continues to make spending in Mass a priority.  Certainly pleased with these numbers, no doubt.  
	Digging a little deeper into the properties procurement for 2018, we provided a breakdown of local spending for host community and surrounding communities.  Approximately 740,000 of PPC's procurement spend in 2018 occurred in our local and surrounding communities with the majority occurring in the towns of Plainville and Mansfield.  And with that I will turn it over to Kim.  This is her last meeting.  I, too, will miss her greatly.  And I think we all wish her well as she heads down to Pittsburgh.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you, Lance.  Good afternoon, everyone.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Good afternoon.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Good afternoon.  
>> MS. REGO: I'm going to dive into the vendor diversity.  This is a really good story.  We've met and exceeded our goal for each quarter.  We had growth in minority business enterprises as well as veteran business enterprises.  We've had ‑‑ sorry ‑‑ oh.  Sorry about that.  Significant growth in women businesses, and that was specifically in Q4 due to food and beverage equipment with Smashburger purchases for the opening of Smashburgers, Kittredge at 172,000.  Direct mail with vendor payments highlighting Liberty Creative Services for $148,000.  And we also had marketing promotional goods from global promotional sourcing as well.  
	Heading now into ‑‑ so continued vendor diversity.  So 2018 by quarter, each quarter, we were able to meet or exceed our goal continuing to do that.  So women business enterprises was for about 13 different vendors at 1.3 million.  Minority businesses, there were 11 at 439,000.  And veterans, there were 8 at 315,000.  So Penn is in the process of doing a spend alignment.  So where it's accessible, we're looking to retain and continue to move to diverse suppliers.  
	Next I'm going to take us through our employment.  So our totals each quarter are an as of date.  So though the end of December was at 461, this is down slightly and in no way is indicative of a trend.  We do see seasonality with racing and had several layoffs related to racing, but all of those employees will be returning with us in the spring in March when racing comes back on board.  We do currently have, as of this time, 473 employees.  Our full‑time employment, 309, 67% of our population.  Part‑time is 152 at 33%.  Our other numbers remain largely the same.  So diversity, we typically go up and down one percentage point.  So that's at 26%.  Veterans remains the same at 5%.  Massachusetts residents were up slightly with 1% higher so at 65%.  And our local continues to trend the same as 34%.  We are very proud of our male and female.  We are 50/50.  So we've hit our ‑‑ a new goal of 50% women.  And so we have seen, even with the reduction in numbers for the month of December, there was still an increase over Q3 in the number of women that we are employing.  
	That being said, let's move on into women leading at Penn.  One of my favorite initiatives.  So I did want to touch base about the things that we've done in Q1.  Q4 was a little flat with the holidays.  We didn't have a lot of stuff going on, and we were preparing for these two events in Q1 of this year.  So we did have Ann Nicholson.  So Ann is the CEO and president of Simmons Group.  She also is a member of the Board of Global Gaming Women.  So Ann spoke enterprisewide with Penn National.  So it was a live recording, and then we were able to play it back.  And it was such a motivational opportunity to see her speak that I'm glad that we were able to record it, and we have it available so that women can continue to watch it, refer to it.  I've even referred back to her slides.  So it was very much an empowering session.  So she spoke a lot about building your personal brand and communicating assertively.  So very much respect Ann and enjoyed that.  
	We just had this week, actually, Ashley Pare.  I was glad to be here for that as well.  She did a workshop on leadership and confidence.  She spoke ‑‑ I don't know if you remember her, Gayle.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: I do.  
>> MS. REGO: She spoke at a women's workshop.  It was several women, it was an intimate session for two hours.  And we talked a lot about having tough conversations and giving and receiving feedback.  The team really enjoyed her, and she's also agreed to ‑‑ if some of our team members who are in the group reach out to her to do some continued consulting and one‑on‑one conversations with them.  So I'm very excited about that.  She also was she excited that she's just done a Ted Talk.  I haven't watched it yet, but I'm looking forward to Ashley's Ted Talk.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Question.  
>> MS. REGO: Yeah.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: The group of women who are being mentored at Penn to be future leaders, is that the same group you're working with, or are these programs open to others as well?  
>> MS. REGO: Specifically the group, so that initial 15 and then Michelle and I make 17.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes.  Mm‑hmm.  
>> MS. REGO: So that initial group.  But also because we recorded Ann's program, I know several of the women in our group want to share that with their teams as well.  So there is an opportunity with this one particularly that we are able to share that across the property in different departments with all different levels.  I did want to mention, too, that of the 17, there are 4 that have been promoted in the last year.  And there are 4 that have also had expanded roles.  So we're very excited about that.  I'm one of them.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Excellent.  
>> MS. REGO: So I'm excited about that, too.  And when we initially started the program, we had males in management at 65% and females at 35%.  I'm not sure this is largely due to the program, but I am pleased to report that we now have 60% males and 40% women in management positions.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: So a 5% increase.  Excellent.  
>> MS. REGO: So a 5% increase.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  Thank you.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you.  And I'm going to turn this over to Mike to talk about compliance.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Before, Kim, you turn it over, could we go back to your vendor diversity slides?  You said that this is a good story.  Can you, before you leave, shed light for my sake, perhaps, on how you've accomplished these goals?  What do you think is the greatest driver for you in terms of achieving the diversity?  
>> MS. REGO: I think largely due to Eli Huard who is our purchasing manager.  Eli has worked very closely with Jill and working to find vendors and resources and meeting with people and going to ‑‑ I think he went to a ‑‑ in my world it's career fair, but I know it was like ‑‑ vendor fair, thank you, Jill.  And he did a lot of work with looking at new vendors and opportunities and looking at the types of things that we spend and what other vendors are out in the local and surrounding community to be able to partner with.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Director Griffin, does ‑‑ has MGM or Plainridge worked with the ‑‑ I think it's the operating services division very closely?  
>> MS. GRIFFIN: They have.  It's still on.  They worked very closely during construction and the OS&E supplies, and I think they're open to working more closely for operations.  I have to say that MGM has been very willing to talk with vendors.  I've referred a handful, as has Crystal Howard referred some diverse vendors and businesses who have expressed interest in doing business with MGM.  And we find that these businesses, you know, get a phone call.  They get information and sometimes get business.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Good.  Good.  That division that I mentioned, OSD, helps on the certification process and can streamline those processes.  And I think that they ‑‑ I assume the office might have expose and vendor fairs that maybe MGM hasn't been accessing, and maybe Plainridge would want to access.  Excellent, excellent results.  Congratulations.  And I didn't have the pleasure of working with you, but I do know it's a big promotion, so congratulations.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yeah, I'd like to join that.  I have had the pleasure of working with you, and you did a fabulous job with the Women At Penn Who Lead program and promotions are always a great thing, aren't they?  So congrats and good luck with that.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you.  I'll come back and visit.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Okay, great.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: I also want to just congratulate Kim, too.  I guess I can say she's a star because now she's moving out of our jurisdiction.  But she's been wonderful to work with.  She has brought ‑‑ been more than willing to go out and host community college representatives to come to PPC and talk about employment opportunities.  We just had a great email the other day from the state director of the workforce ‑‑ career services, Alice Sweeney, talking about how helpful and engaging you were.  We hope you're a successor and pretty sure your successor will have big shoes to fill, but we look forward to working with that person as well.  And only because we talked about it with MGM, obviously, we're going to be sitting down with your successor going through some of the kind of reporting requirements that you guys are going to have.  Again, kind of beyond what's been in the traditional quarterly report as well as a form that will accurately reflect kind of the new hiring goals that you guys have worked with us on.  So we'll be moving that along as well.  And you'll be in Pittsburgh and won't have to worry about it.  But we'll miss you.  You've done a great job.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Come visit.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you.  
>> Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Commissioners.  I'll also add that Kim will be greatly missed.  She's been great to work with these last few years.  Looking at our compliance.  In Q4, we had about 20,000 ‑‑ just under 20,000 ID checks at our three security podiums.  These ID checks prevented 238 patrons from entering the casino.  And of those 238 patrons, 10 were minors, 42 were classified as underage, 184 had expired, invalid or no IDs.  And there were two fake IDs that were turned over to our local GEU agents.  
	In October we had one underage person gain access to the gaming floor for a total of eight minutes.  The person went straight to the players services area where a cashier immediately identified them as underage.  Security was called and that person was escorted from the facility.  They did not game nor did they consume any alcoholic beverages.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  Great numbers.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Absolutely.  
>> MR. MUELLER: Looking at the next slide, we continue to support our local community in terms of contributions.  Shown on the slide is a partial list of our Q4 donations.  Looking at YMCA of Attleboro, parkway community YMCA, the Ellie Fund which supports cancer patients while they're undergoing their treatments, Personal Best, which is an organization that helps feed and support local families in southeast Massachusetts, the town of Mansfield and Relay For Life.  Our Relay For Life goal as a property was $25,000 which we're happy to say we surpassed in 2018.  And we have beat our increasing goal every year since 2016 when we started.  Our goal for 2019 is now $30,000.  For Penn, all of Penn properties, who are participating in Relay For Life, over $427,000 was raised to help support the efforts of the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.  Two other events worth mentioning, we've recently added two donation boxes to our floor for guests to drop their low‑value Tito tickets in.  And those funds, once collected, will also be going to Relay For Life.  So we've had a ‑‑ it's been just a few weeks and a great response so far.  
	And also this past December in our employee dining room, we did a Santa For Seniors program.  This is where we had a tree set up with ornaments and had suggested gifts for seniors on the ornaments.  And our employees picked the ornaments and went out and purchased the gifts, and then those gifts were distributed to local senior centers to provide gifts for some seniors that might not have been able to get gifts for the holidays.  It was very well received by our team.  They did a great job with that.  
	Finally, you can see our Winning Wednesdays there where we donated $777 for every Red Sox regular season win during their 2018 World Championship season.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: So a lot of money was donated this year.  
>> MR. MUELLER: That goes to my next point because when I looked at the schedule when I was putting this together, Wednesday was a great day to pick because the Red Sox win 17‑6 on Wednesdays.  So those 17 wins got another $13,000 towards Replay For Life.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: That's great.  Have we converted ‑‑ are have we converted Lance yet?  
>> MR. GEORGE: There's no chance.  There's no chance.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: It's very hard to live here and not feel the fever.  
>> MR. GEORGE: It's hard to live at my house and not feel the fever.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Right.  Great.  
>> MR. MUELLER: You can see on the slide that the check‑presenting ceremony for that $13,000 and the support to the surrounding communities totaled over $62,000.  
	Moving on to the next slide.  In Q4 we continued to sponsor local organizations like Patriots and Gillette Stadium.  NESN where we have in‑game sponsorships with the Red Sox and the Bruins.  NBC Sports has their Monday Night Patriots program which is a radio show that is in our Flutie's sports bar after every Sunday game.  And that is one of the hosts is former Patriot linebacker Rob Ninkovich.  And we continue our relationship with the valet where our patrons can show their players card and receive a loyalty card to get discounts on their spends there.  
	Final slide, we're going to look at our Q4 marketing highlights.  As I just mentioned, our relationship with Wrentham Outlet Malls around the holiday season as they can take those gift cards and spend locally at the outlet mall.  And on New Year's Eve for our guests we introduced an '80s‑teamed party across the entire casino floor where the highlight of that party was having the actual DeLorean from Back To the Future on the floor and the guests were able to look at it and there was a representative there that they could ask questions and get their pictures taken with it.  It was a very popular event.  
	As I mentioned earlier, we worked with the Super Bowl LIII winning champion New England Patriots.  To offer some exciting experiences to our guests.  The first one was a VIP experience where four lucky guests received seats to a Patriots/Buffalo Bills game and they also received VIP parking and passes to the pavilion.  The next event was the Patriots Flyaway Experience where two lucky guests received tickets to the Patriots/Steelers game in Pittsburgh, field passes, ground transportation, and they got to fly back and forth on the Patriots team plane.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Wow!  
>> MR. MUELLER: In addition to those great experiences, we also have our season tickets that we offer to our guests on a regular basis.  We also work with the Boston Bruins to offer four guest Bruins Suite experience where they receive tickets to the suite at TD Garden for the Columbus Blue Jackets game, dinner, and transportation to and from the game.  Our final marketing highlight is one that we're very proud of, and you can see the picture up on the screen.  We partnered with the Massachusetts council on compulsive gambling and our local GameSense office to provide a drop‑off point for guests who wanted to support the holiday lottery responsible gaming campaign and toy drive.  As you can see from the photo, it was quite a response from both our employees and our guests.  And we were able to provide holiday gifts to many local children that were in need.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Well done.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: You weathered the competition well.  The numbers look really strong.  
>> MR. GEORGE: Yeah.  It's been interesting.  So we were down, you know, publicly reported numbers for September or October, November.  And then December we were up 10% year over year.  January down a bit.  And so we'll see what happens as we continue.  But it's certainly been a bit of a challenge to understand what that impact is.  I would have known more other than December.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Right.  
>> MR. GEORGE: Not sure other than weather certainly was favorable.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes.  
>> MR. GEORGE: Certainly a nice rebound in December for us.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Great.  Thank you.  Very good report.  Appreciate ‑‑ appreciate the hard work.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Thank you.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Commissioners, next on the agenda is the review of Plainridge Park's progress towards meeting its goals and commitments.  Included in your packet is a summary memorandum regarding this commitment review and reports and documents provided by Plainridge Park regarding these commitments.  By way of background, Commission staff and the Commission's audit committee have been engaged in a review of Plainridge Park's progress and meeting goals and requirements specified in Plainridge Park's original application, host and surrounding community agreements, Section 61 findings, it's workforce plan and associated RFA2 workforce requirements.  
	As the Commission is aware, Plainridge Park and all the Commission's licensees appear before the Commission quarterly, as today, to report on their progress and meeting commitments.  This commitment ‑‑ the commitment review detailed in the memorandum in your packet describes a further in‑depth review of items discussed at the quarterly briefings and other important matters for review.  
	As noted in the memorandum, it is clear that Plainridge Park has demonstrated success in meeting a big majority of the goals and stipulations of the original application.  Plainridge Park will provide a briefing regarding many of these categories of items.  In addition, Plainridge Park will also detail efforts it has made and is making to meet some of the goals and requirements that it has not yet met.  For example, it will discuss plans regarding the fulfillment of requirements to add a bus connection to Plainridge Park.  It will also discuss efforts it has made and is making regarding its employment goals and requirements.  In that regard, included in your packet is a draft amendment to Plainridge Park's current workforce plan.  
	Both staff and Plainridge Park recommend that the Commission update this plan to include new measures to help Plainridge Park achieve its employment goals and objectives and also to revise some language that we believe sets unattainable standards.  Workforce director Jill Griffin and program manager Crystal Howard are here to help assist in the conversation regarding Plainridge Park's workforce goals.  We note that we are not requesting nor recommend that the Commission take any final action on the items before you today.  Instead we recommend that the Commission request Plainridge Park to discuss with its hosts and surrounding communities the status of its compliance with its goals, particularly the local hiring goals and we also request that the Commission should ask Plainridge Park to meet with GATRA.  That will be described by Lance in short order.  And MassDOT regarding the measure to extend the route 14 bus line to Plainridge Park.  And finally, we also recommend that we should post the proposed amended workforce plan before taking final action on any such plan.  
	So with that as a general background, let me turn it over to Director Jill Griffin who will provide some opening remarks and then turn it over to the Plainridge crew.  
>> MS. GRIFFIN: Chair Judd‑Stein and Commissioners, as mentioned in the memo, we reviewed various categories so ensure that the goals and requirements in the original application and the host and surrounding community agreements Section 61 findings and the strategic plan to engage the under and unemployed workforce plan were met.  But I actually wanted to talk to you a little bit about the process and how we got to the amended workforce plan.  Director Ziemba, General Counsel Blue, and Construction Project Oversight Manager Joe Delaney as well as Mary Thurlow and Crystal Howard and I began meeting with Lance George and his senior leadership team back in September of 2017.  And we, this morning, reviewed those meetings, and these meetings were really vitally important, and I think this process really worked.  
	Plainridge Park also met with our Executive Director and the compliance committee to review their revised plan and new goals.  And I think that Lance would agree that we had some very healthy discussions during some of those meetings.  I wanted to commend Plainridge Park for their commitment to not only meeting the goals and exceeding the goals but the revisions in the plans, they've included some really strong tactics and measures that will help them to achieve especially their workforce hiring goals and potentially even exceeding them.  So they've proposed an amendment to the workforce plan.  They've included enhanced strategies that really may be the factor in creating successful outcomes for residents in Massachusetts.  And these increased measures including ‑‑ include job fairs on property, an employee referral program.  I'm not going to get into the specifics because they'll talk a little bit about that.  They've established a very strong relationship with career centers and community colleges.  And they already talked to you about the Women in Leadership program that focuses on promoting from within.  I'll turn it over to Lance George, but first I want to recognize also Kim Rego who's moving on to Pittsburgh.  And she's a great example of someone who's been promoted to another property.  It might affect your numbers locally for a little bit, unfortunately, but congratulations to you.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you.  Thank you, Jill.  
>> MS. GRIFFIN: Lance.  
>> MR. GEORGE: Thank you.  I will touch on GATRA and public transportation, and then I'll turn it over to Kim to provide some detail on PPC's workforce development plan as well as an update on salaries and wages as well as staffing and discuss how our current status compares to the original RFA2 application.  
	I would say overall we are incredibly pleased as we've taken this opportunity for a lookback over the last several months.  I think we're in good shape.  As noted in the commissioner's packet relative to GATRA, PPC has had productive conversations recently.  There are few service options that have been highlighted in GATRA's regional plan to the route 1 corridor which PPC is a part of.  Conversations continue and are ongoing.  Progress has been encouraging.  As noted in the recommendations, we will provide ongoing updates during our quarterly reports and anticipate continued progress.  In short I believe we're in a good place.  And certainly we look forward to being part of the expansion of the route 14 bus.  I don't foresee any significant roadblocks at this time given our recent productive conversations.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Lance, can I add ‑‑ just ask?  I know it's hard to predict the timeframe, but anything in those terms that you might be able to speak to?  In terms of timeframe?  
>> MR. GEORGE: As far as completing that initiative?  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah.  
>> MR. GEORGE: Certainly we're optimistic that it's 2019.  I think they would like to move quickly.  They had some thoughts moving into a North Attleborough location in spring.  And as you look at the existing route, certainly there is already a drop‑off in the town of Plainville.  And I'm oversimplifying it.  Certainly that seems simple enough to extend that.  There is also a very large development on route 1 less than a mile up the street from us that I know they would also like to tap into that has mixed housing as well as retail.  So they're open to it.  I believe they see that new development as an opportunity for them as well.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: So you're really looking ‑‑ I mean, this is great.  I think it can serve the dual purpose of not only allowing patrons to easily access Plainridge Park, but, you know, to Kim's concern, what can this do to allow residents of the area to access your employment opportunities as well?  
>> MR. GEORGE: Personally, I think I'm more optimistic on the employment side than on the patron side.  I do believe there's opportunity because the route is local.  So I do believe there's opportunity on the employment side for sure.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Great.  
>> MR. GEORGE: Salaries and wages and staffing?  
>> MS. REGO: Okay.  So there's two things I'd like to talk about.  So the workforce development plan and the RFA2.  The updated PPC strategic plan to engage and recruit the diverse, under and unemployed workforce population takes into account the changing landscape of workforce development.  We discuss in the new plan how the unemployment rate in Massachusetts is significantly below the national average and our local and surrounding communities are among the lowest in the state.  
	Penn National and PPC's equal opportunity policy has not changed.  We strongly believe in giving equal employment and advancement opportunities to all employees and applicants.  In fact, we have raised our initial goal from 10% to 15% of our workforce being rise comprised of individuals from ethnic minority groups given the success we have had since opening.  
	The goal of maintaining 90% of the workforce coming from the host and surrounding communities has proven to be more difficult due to among other factors a significant decrease like I mentioned in the unemployment rate.  We have made concerted efforts to reach a sustainable target percentage of workforce from the host and surrounding communities including numerous job fairs, recruitment bonuses and other incentive programs.  
	We propose that we shift the local hiring goal to 35% so it aligns with the current workforce environment.  We will continue to utilize recruitment tactics to identify employee residents of the host and every surrounding communities.  In fact, we would also like to increase ‑‑ excuse me ‑‑ additional goals to the plan so that 50% of our workforce will be women, that 2% of more of our workforce will be veterans, and to hire 65% or more of our workforce from the state of Massachusetts.  Additional recruitment goals that we've added into the plan include hosting an on‑site career fair per calendar year, attending a minimum of one veteran career fair per calendar year in Massachusetts, attend at least two college career fairs per calendar year in Massachusetts, and partner with the Massachusetts Career Centers and coordinate at least two hiring events.  And as we've discussed earlier today, we talked about how we had a meeting back in October.  We have also had meetings since then with our MassHire counterparts.  And we continue to build our relationship with Mass Hire.  We're also happy to be part of now the Resource Solution Initiative and now have a designated Mass Hire coordinator that will assist us in continuing to partner with Mass Hire to get out to career fairs, and it's a much easier program now that we're coordinating through one individual out of the Bristol Career Center.  
	Other additions to the plan included developing opportunities with illustrations of career ladders at Plainridge for culinary and slot operation positions.  We've also included in the plan our Women Leading At Penn program.  Lastly I'd like to discuss the 2013 RFA2.  It included projections in the full competition scenario for a number of employees and salary and benefit totals.  Our jobs compendium represents 99.6% of the projection.  However, there are always going to be open positions.  We are happy to report that after comparing the total salaries and benefits from calendar year 2018, the number of employees is at 91% of the total, and the compensation is at 96% of the projection ‑‑ projected total.  We have met or exceeded the projected number of employees in several job classifications.  Specifically in food and beverage, two out of the three subcategories and other administrative support in one of the four subcategories and in the engineering and transportation valet in two of the three subcategories.  
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: I don't know if this is the appropriate time to ask, but going through the attachment in terms of what you had complied with, can you talk to me at all about the day care options?
I know it says you don't have that capacity on site.  Is there anything other than what's described in here and that you're working on, are there any specifics about offering day care options?  
>> MR. GEORGE: So we do with a relationship with a day‑care center that is two miles down the road, and certainly that is the recommendation that we provide to our employees.  That is the extent of the relationship at this point.  We worked with those folks prior to opening to ensure that we would send our employees their direction.  
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: But that's it in terms of ‑‑ but that was in the original one.  But has there been any further action taken to find additional options or to make that an easier choice for them?  
>> MR. GEORGE: There has not at this time.  That's certainly something we'll take under advisement and look into further, but there has not at this time.  
>> COMMISSIONER O'BRIEN: Okay.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Does that conclude the presentation?  
>> MR. GEORGE: I believe so.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Now, I know there's no vote necessarily today, but is there any other topics that we needed to touch on?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: So no vote is being requested, but as I noted, we're going to ‑‑ we're hoping to do three things.  We're going to ask Plainridge Park to meet with all of its local communities to go over how it's been doing with all of its commitments.  There's extensive detail regarding how it's been doing in each of the commitments in its surrounding community agreements and host community agreements.  And they can go over some of the local hiring goals specifically in the workforce plan.  In addition, we're requesting Plainridge Park to meet with both MassDOT and with GATRA to finalize the bus route alternative plan.  And then we want to put up for comment the revised workforce plan, and our goal would be that we would bring it back to the Commission in all likelihood by the next quarterly report for Plainridge Park.  So with that, we know that the team at Plainridge Park has been doing a lot of work over the last year to take a look at all of their compliance items.  We, of course, will continue to take a look at compliance as we go forward, and indeed over the next year, we'll take even closer looks.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  And if I may, this was referenced earlier, but I have attended the compliance group meetings that take place once a month, and this review, what started as a midterm review and is now really the compliance review for PPC is now a couple of months ‑‑ a few months in the making and have been privy to some of the detailed conversations that have happened and that you have summarized ‑‑ the team has here ‑‑ has summarized well.  And I think it's a great outcome to what leads us to this point, and your suggestions, I think, are really right on point as well to really point in the direction of this additional conversations with the host community for the employment goal and GATRA for the transportation goal and then post those for additional further comments before we take any other action.  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: Thank you.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Any further questions?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: No.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Thank you for your presentation today.  Thank you, Ombudsman Ziemba, and Director Griffin.  Very helpful.  In terms of the one question I did have, when will we be reviewing the workforce number?  Is there a date on that?  
>> MR. ZIEMBA: So our anticipation would be at the next quarterly report with Plainridge Park, which we haven't scheduled that date likely two‑plus months away.  If we do see a need, we could always bring the workforce plan to the Commission earlier than that.  But perhaps I think that would be a good timetable.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Well, thank you and good luck to everyone, but particularly to you, Kim.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Thanks very much.  Good luck in Pittsburgh.  
>> MS. REGO: Thank you.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: And drive home carefully.  I think we can move to item 6, Commissioners' updates.  Do we have any?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: I have one update.  And that is that we have beneficially selected by the Board of Directors for the International Association of Gaming Regulators to host the 2020 conference here in Boston.  We would be the host agency.  And, you know, typically it's 250 to 300 regulators from around the world, very interesting group, and I think it's a good thing for our Commission to do.  Some of us have been active members with this association.  And we just received word this week that we have been selected to do that.  So just wanted ‑‑ most of you knew that.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah, great news.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: It is.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Usually September or October is when they have it.  They wait for another conference.  They wait for the dates to be posted for the Las Vegas conference.  22E which is usually the end of September.  So we will ‑‑ we are in the process of working with the Board.  Janice, of course, as she always does, you know, volunteered to really spearhead our effort on behalf of the Commission.  But we will be looking for volunteers to assist.  And so we'll get the dates shortly.  And work on all the other logistics with the association.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: But it's in 2020, right?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: It's in 2020, correct.  Yes.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah.  So, it's a conference that I know ‑‑ I know you've attended.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: I have.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: In the past.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Something that I've been ‑‑ 
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Yes, and I know our fellow regulators are looking forward to coming to Boston.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  Right.  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: Especially those from outside the United States.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Right.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Exciting news for us.  Excellent.  Any other reports from Commissioners?  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Yeah, I have one.  It's a little bit of a preview of what's to come in the next month.  March is Problem Gambling Awareness Month.  March begins tomorrow.  And there are a lot of efforts that go ‑‑ that are visible and a lot of efforts that are behind the scenes relative to a lot of awareness, education, and prevention.  We will be hearing from Director Vander Linden and others hopefully during the next couple of meetings on some of the details of what takes place in now two properties, at MGM and PPC.  And a lot of those efforts, just to summarize them very briefly, include education and prevention work with casino employees who happen to be a group that is at slightly higher risk of having ‑‑ developing a problem gambling.  And so our GameSense program is very much a hands‑on program in that effect as well.  Something that is not quite visible to the public but is important for us to understand and appreciate.  And we will have, again, a lot more of those updates in the coming Commission meetings.  
>> COMMISSIONER STEBBINS: Nothing from me.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Commissioner O'Brien.  Item 7 is reserved for any matters not reasonably anticipated at the time of posting by the chair.  Having none, do I have a motion to adjourn?  
>> COMMISSIONER CAMERON: So moved.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Second.  
>> CHAIR JUDD‑STEIN: Discussion?  All those in favor?  
[ Vote taken ]
5‑0.  Thank you.  
>> COMMISSIONER ZUNIGA: Thank you.  
(The meeting concluded at 3:50 P.M.)