LCMAC Meeting (Region A) - August 26, 2026

I'll do is I will just so we can start off the meeting, we'll do the quorum and then we'll go into the minutes. Okay, Norman Abbott. >> Present. >> David Bancroft. >> Present. >> Uh, let's see. DeMarcus Kennedy. Marcus is showing as being he's getting blocked for some reason. Uh >> Looks like his mic might be muted. >> Oh, okay. >> He's he's in. >> Okay. All right. Um Ah >> Present. >> Okay, good. Thank you. Uh, let's see where were we here. Uh, Monica Lamboy. And I see you. >> Present. >> Uh, Vincent Panzini. >> Present. >> Rick Carvallo. >> Present. >> Present. Present. >> Ron Hogan. >> Present. >> Scott Voltz. >> Present. >> And will and I don't know how to Cecil. And I apologize if I make Cecil, I'm sorry. Okay. All right, Derek, take it away. >> Just wanted to thank everyone for being here. As you can tell, there's a pretty full agenda. I know we have some new members and this is my first time actually addressing all of you other than in my budget capacity to talk about the administrative budget. So, thank you for the last year. Um, we have our executive director Dean Serpa here who wants to uh let you know how important this fund is to us at the commission as well as to you. Um, so I'm going to kick it over to Dean and then we'll um get back into the agenda. >> All right. All right, I'll go. Derek, thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. Um, I actually the most important thing to say is thank you to everybody, uh especially for being here for our meeting in late August, right? We're all trying to squeeze in a little more summer, so I appreciate seeing everybody here this morning uh for the important call. Um, I think as usual the most important thing for me to say is thank you for your time devoted to the community mitigation fund and of course the expertise that you all have developed as a group over uh a number of years, right? I need to thank our chair, Rick, thank you very much for for being involved and being chair to the organization. Um, All right, so as Derek said, I know he'll be talking more about the details of the FY27 funding, but I I know I need to thank everybody who was involved during the budget process uh and thank you for your outreach and your efforts to educate uh members of the legislature and members of the administration uh because this is an important fund. Um, it's certainly important to the communities that it that are involved in and it impacts and who have casino operations in their borders. Um, but it's important to the commission and the commissioners here as well because we get to do a little bit to help those cities and towns um with with uh issues I guess that are that are necessary to have directed funding. And as you know for for 2 years two fiscal years um there was no replenishment to the fund and then here in FY uh 27 we're going to be funded at 4%. So, I know that had mainly a lot to do with the outreach that you all made. So, we appreciate that because we feel like this is a way for the agency to help those communities. So, I want to thank you for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise because we need that as well. Um We'll be looking forward to your commentary today. So, don't hold back. Make sure you provide all of the feedback that Derek is looking for. And speaking of Derek and our staff, I guess I need to thank them uh at least in this form. I I try to thank them here at the office, but with everybody here today, I want to say thank you to them. Derek uh especially for taking over the program in his interim role. So, thank you Derek. I think I you did a good job of of stepping in. Uh you certainly had big big shoes to fill uh for Joe Delaney. And then we have to thank Mary. Thank you, Mary. Certainly the light the light of CMF here at headquarters. And for all your work over the years. And then I know that Jayden O'Rourke and Kayla Matos uh has been working closely with all of you. And I think you all enjoy working with them. I hope you do. I know they do good work and I want to say thank you to them today as well um here in the group. Um Right. So, thank you. I appreciate your time. We're looking forward to having the program uh funded for '27, and we're going to look at the um guidelines and such. I know we're going to talk about that today, and make sure you tell us uh tell us what's on your mind. So, with that Yeah. I I was going to turn it back to Derek, but I'm happy to answer questions as well. And um that's what I had to say. Yep. Go ahead. >> All right. I'll give everyone a minute. If you have any questions for Dean, if not, I will push forward. All right. >> All right. >> So, we've got a full agenda. Um Kayla and team will be um talking just as an overview. Kayla and team will be giving you an overview of why you're all here. I'm sure you understand those that are returning, some that are new. Um this is actually required by section 68 of 23K. You play a vital role. You help us to inform the commission on what the guideline should be, um as well as any areas that we should be um changing. Now, I do want to um I do want to acknowledge that those initial guidelines of 27 pages that you reviewed last year are a lot, right? Um so, we will be looking at later on in the agenda talking about opening that up and kind of simplifying and making it more of the partnership that we had at the beginning with the CMF, and less of the prescriptive format that we've had in the past, and get your thoughts on that. Um we have some minutes to review, a vote, which is required to appoint a chair and a subcommittee representative, um as well as our legal department is going because of your role as special state employees here and working for us on the subcommittee, our legal division will give a overview of of the of your ethical requirements under 23K. Mary will do a summary of the FY27 award, which once again we know it was a huge cut in funding. We appreciate all the work you did with us to put forward the best projects knowing that there were a lot left on the cutting room floor. And then just the guidelines discussion, which is where as Dean said we really want to hear your feedback of how it's worked in the past, how it worked this year, and we'll give you a preview of what we're thinking before we get into the drafting process. Does that make sense? >> That's great. >> All right, Mr. Chair, I will kick it over to you for the minutes and the vote from there. >> Oh, wait, you forgot Kaylee needs to do her presentation. >> I'm sorry, Kaylee will do a presentation for us and then we'll kick it over to the chair. >> That's okay. This should only It should only take 2 minutes. Let me just share real quick. Um Share like this. Share right here. All right, you guys are going to see each other for a little bit. >> We're seeing your schedule, Kaylee. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys are going to see each other for a second. All right. Here we go. Okay, cool. Everybody sees it? >> Yep. >> All right, cool. So, this is just a quick little overview, nothing crazy, and then we'll go right into the agenda cuz we have so much going on. But, just to confirm, this is a community affairs team. We have Derek who is leading us in the interim since Joe has been gone, um, Mary who is our fearless, uh, manager, and then there's me, and we're missing Jaden, but he's on vacation right now. So, uh, you'll probably see emails from him, but hopefully you'll see him in the next meeting. Um, and thank you, Dean, too, for saying those words. We appreciate it. Um, this is a quick overview for the agenda. We have the welcome, um, which Derek just spoke, and we had Dean. Um, I'm going to put this little presentation together. Then we have the minutes and a voting. Uh, we'll vote on the chair today. We have the ethics presentation and the summary. Um, and then we'll talk about the guidelines starting off today, but the vote will happen next, um, next meeting since there's just so much to go on for today. Um, and we'll uh, next steps and then hopefully closing. Um, responsibilities, we're going to go into talking just a little bit on some of the, like, legwork that we want for the committee since there's a few people here. Um, it's mostly to attend meetings. We try not to make it too, um, too much work. Mostly just attending meetings. Um, we would love if you guys could designate alternates because we want to make sure that there's participation and we're not um, losing time. Uh, I think Mary set alternates not too long ago, but since there's been some changes, if you guys have an alternate or don't have an alternate, please let us know. Um, we can input those changes into our, um, into our database. That way we'll make sure there's communication. Um, we have the votes, and we really want you guys to share your input with us. Um, specifically what makes the program very special is your feedback on from your community's perspective. So, any feedback or any tips or anything that we can use to help make the CMF more user-friendly for the communities, um, is so appreciative. And we're doing such a big overhaul right now, like we're changing not only the guidelines, but we're changing how application structure's happening, um, the grant cycle, things like that. Literally anything. And then advocating is, um, a huge part because that's what maintains the program and secures the funding. Um, and because of that, we've been been able to see an increase in funding. So, make sure to advocate as much as you can that we do you use these funds. Um, another way to show why we need the LCMACs, I put like a little chart over here just to show where we are in the Mass Gaming. Um, we're underneath the Gaming Policy Advisory Committee, and then we have the CMF right under, and then we have the LCMACs. And we uh, bunched it into two regions, but those regions are responsible to talking to the communities. Um, and we were established to specifically hear the input from the communities, but without having possible commission bias. It's just a uh, a way of keeping us all informed. Um, and we're building the program for the people specifically. So, it's not just we're hearing it from higher-ups, we're we're hopefully going to go from down up. Um, and we encourage also to use this time for collaboration and um, to hear what other communities are also up to as well since that will lead to more ideas, that will lead to more program success hopefully with people sharing what are the different things that communities are looking into and what they're struggling with and hopefully another community may be have some ideas for that too. But thank you again for your participation. I just wanted to like really drive that home because it's not easy to do something more than what you are asked of for your regular job, you know, so we just appreciate it so much. And then this is just like an ending slide. This is my email and this is Mary's. I should have put Jayden's also too, but if you guys have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us and we can help you out as much as possible. And then hopefully that only took like 5 minutes. >> Thank you, Kayla. >> Yeah, no worries. >> Okay, >> you can go on. >> Yeah. Okay, now we're going on to Rick Carvallo with regard to the minutes from the September 30th meeting. >> Uh thank you, Mary. Motion on the floor to accept the the minutes of the last meeting. Seconded by? >> I'll second that motion. Mary, do you want to call roll? >> Yep. Okay, Norma Abbott. >> Yes. >> David Bancroft. >> I wasn't there at the last meeting. Do you want me to just abstain? >> Yes, abstain. Yep, that's fine. Uh let's see. Vince Panzini >> Accepted. >> Ron Hogan >> Yes. >> Scott Voltz >> I was not there, so I'll abstain. >> there either, and actually Will was not there either, so I think we're not going to have a quorum to make a vote on this. So, we will just have to we will have to just uh leave a draft form until we have uh because we don't have enough members to vote it in. >> Okay. >> Move to the table to the next meeting? >> Yes, sir. >> Seconded by? >> I'll second that motion. >> Okay. All in favor? >> Aye. >> to do another roll call for that? >> Um if you want to, uh by you by right we're supposed to. >> Yeah, okay. Uh Norman >> Aye. >> David >> Aye. >> Uh Vince >> Yes. >> Ron >> Yes. >> Scott >> Yes. >> Will >> Yes. >> Okay. Think we're good. >> Did you forget me? Think I can vote yes. >> Oh, I'm I'm so sorry, Monica. I'm so sorry. >> Yes. Yes. >> Okay. I apologize. Okay. Um now uh do you want to discuss the vote, Rick, on the chair and the subcommittee? >> Um we have a motion to uh elect a new chair and and subcommittee. Do we have any volunteers? I nominate you, Rick. >> I'll >> Okay. Shall we do a vote? Uh Norm? >> Yes. >> David? >> Yes. >> Monica? >> Yes. >> Vincent? >> Yes. >> Ron? >> Yes, for Rick. >> Scott? Okay. And um Yeah, Rick And uh Will? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, your chair once again, Rick. >> Can I get the Where's our stipend? We got to get that big stipend. Come on, Dean. That's your job. >> Okay, currently >> on the line so that he can represent for it. >> Yeah. >> Um now, Ron, are you the You're the subcommittee representative, aren't you? Or did we vote someone else? >> Well, there's somebody else. I don't remember who it was, but I >> I know. I totally forgot. >> forward, yeah. >> All right. Does anyone want to volunteer for the subcommittee meeting? Otherwise, I I suggest we postpone it for the next and maybe someone will come forward to be the representative on the subcommittee for community communication. >> Motion to table that the the subcommittee to the next meeting. Seconded by? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Okay. Okay, one last time. Norman? David? >> I. >> I'm just calling out your names, so just uh yell at me. Uh Monica? >> I. >> Vincent? >> I. >> Ron? >> Yes. >> Scott? >> Yes. >> Okay, great. All right, so we'll take we're going to just table that subcommittee representative and see what we can do for next cuz we're still missing a couple of members. All right. Next. Um I guess it's me. We did the the vote. Oh, no, now we go on to our ethics and Autumn will be presenting the ethics, I believe. >> Yes, we have two members of our legal department, both Autumn Verrelli and Noah, um and they will both be here to work through our ethics presentation. So, thank you, legal team. >> Are you able to see the uh presentation? >> Yes. >> Yep. >> So, uh Noah's starting off today. >> Okay. Well, it's great to meet everyone and see everyone here. Autumn and I have a presentation to give you on conflict of interest training for committee members. It shouldn't be too long, but we'll stick to the uh salient points. So, why don't we advance the slide, Autumn? All right, so advisory committees created pursuant to general laws chapter 23K section 68B are state agencies and their members are state employees for the purpose of conflict of interest laws. Um a municipal employee or a gaming licensee rep appointed to serve on one of these committees will not be compensated for the service and therefore are special state employees under chapter 268A. Um advisory committee members must complete conflict of interest law uh training once every 2 years and you have to return a certificate of completion uh to us at the commission. Okay, slide. So, um let's talk about the two main areas of conflict of interest law. The first one as you can see is financial under section six of chapter 268A, you cannot participate in any particular matter that may affect your financial interest or that of an immediate family member or business organization that you're affiliated with. Sounds simple enough. Now, um let's focus on the second prong here, even the appearance of a conflict. So, under section 23D3, you cannot act in a manner that a reasonable person might conclude that you might act with bias in your job. So, in this situation, you should disclose the nature of your disqualifying interest to your appointing authority. Okay, next slide. Um a couple small points about gifts and unwarranted privileges. So, you cannot accept gifts or gratuities worth $50 or more, which were given for or because of official acts performed or to be performed or given because of your official position. So, importantly, a series of smaller gifts worth an aggregate total of $50 or more can also be a violation. And similarly, you cannot use or even attempt to use your official position to secure for yourself or others unwarranted privileges or exemptions which are not available to the general public. Okay. Slide, please. Okay, so divided loyalties. This is a pretty important topic. So, under 268A section four, no state employee shall, otherwise as provided by law, for the proper discharge of official duties, directly or indirectly receive or request compensation from anyone other than the Commonwealth or state agency in relation to any particular matter in which the Commonwealth or state agency is a party or has a direct and substantial interest. Uh further, no state employee shall otherwise, you know, in the proper discharge of her official duties act as an agent or attorney for anyone in connection with any particular matter again in which the Commonwealth or state agency is a party or has a direct and substantial interest. So, this essentially means that state employees must give their undivided loyalty to the Commonwealth and cannot take outside pay or act as a representative for private parties on matters involving the state. So, an example that I find helpful here is let's say you have a you're there's a state environmental analyst working a side job writing uh say private wetland permitting applications and then submitting them to a state agency. That's exactly what's prohibited. >> Okay. And then that gets over to me. And we're continuing undivided loyalties. Uh if you are a paid municipal employee, you cannot do any paid work for the municipality related to matters before the LCAMC. For instance, if the municipality you work for is going to be uh submitting a community mitigation fund application, you should not be working on that application. Please do not be the one who signs that application. Uh you may do unpaid work for your municipality related to matters before the LCAMC. And but you may not act as the agent or attorney regardless of whether you're paid or unpaid uh for the municipality or communicate on behalf of the municipality with the LCAMC. And that goes back to if your municipality is putting together an application for the community mitigation fund, uh you should not be the one contacting with the commission on that and you should also not be the one who signs or prepares that document. There of course certain exceptions when you're representing your own interests or assisting a family member or others in the in this matter. But for the most part the most straightforward example is that if an application is being written for community mitigation funds funds do not help prepare or submit that application. I said go to the next slide. There we go. So like I just said do not prepare the community mitigation fund application. Um You can work I guess I said you could work as an unpaid employee to prepare the mitigation fund but you may not sign the application and you cannot communicate with the commission on behalf of the municipality or serve as an agent of the municipality. And for the lawyers here you cannot offer legal advice to to a municipality in relation to an application or award and that's regardless of whether it's in the paid or unpaid position. Um I checked the roster and I didn't see that there were any legislators but there are some additional caveats for uh A member of the legislature is not subject to the divided loyalty provisions but they there are restrictions on to how they shall appear for any compensation other than their legislative salary. Uh they can only appear if the matter is ministerial in nature if the appearance is before a court or if it's in a quasi-judicial proceeding. Uh ministerial functions are include but aren't limited to tax returns, applications for permits or licensing or incorporation papers or other documents. But uh quasi-judicial actions uh as described here are the actions of the state agency that's adjudicatory. Uh that is appealable to the courts and both sides are entitled to representation by counsel. So, those are going to be very much uh adjudicatory hearings and matters of those side. Uh as special state employees, you're subject to the divided loyalty provisions uh only in relation to a particular matter in which uh you participated as a special state employee before the LCA and see uh and if it is within 1 year of the and has been subject to your official responsibility. Or if it is pending in the state agency in which you are serving. And the clause C, which is regarding uh ongoing pending matters, doesn't apply if you serve no more than 60 days in any uh given year. And so, in conclusion we don't expect you to be experts after this short uh PowerPoint presentation. We're just trying to make sure that you uh are aware that there are ethical duties and flag that maybe there is something that could be seen as a conflict of interest. You could reach out to either uh your municipal counsel or the state ethics commission regarding that. And the municipal counsel is going to be with the municipality you work for, but the state ethics commission can be found at mass.gov/ethics. Or if you want to, you could also reach out to the uh gaming commission's legal team, and we have all of our emails here and we'd be happy to distribute this slide deck. Do we have any questions? >> I just have one question. So if if if just one question. So if we work for another state agency that requires us to do this, can we just submit the uh proof that we took the ethics thing that we had to do for our own employer? >> Yes, so you could it's the same conflict of interest training for all municipalities and state agencies. So as long as you're completing that conflict of interest training and your annual acknowledgement, it's fine if you don't submit it to us as long as it's submitted with your employer. And if there's no further questions, I'd be happy to send it back to the LCA MC team. >> Okay, thank you so much Adam and Noah. We appreciate your work. And the next person is me and I'll give you a brief synopsis of our recently completed grant round. So the review team consisted of seven members and two commissioners covering four different MGC divisions. The team spent February, March, April and May and and May reviewing each application that was submitted. The review team connected with MassDOT for their expertise in transportation and the ICIP state intraoperability coordinators for any requests for radios. Of the 5 million available, the commission allocated 4.18 million to 28 eligible municipal entities and 820,000 to 11 eligible regional entities. Grant requests received were for 5.89 million. Of the 5.89 million requests, 6.4.64 million is from 25 municipalities. Three municipalities did not apply and 1.247 million is from the nine regional agencies. The municipal applications exceeded their allotted funds by 463,400, while the regional applications exceeded their allotments by 427,900. The The fund was able to distribute just about all the requested funding. Some waivers were able to be paid by reallocating funds from under-expended previously awarded grants from the allocations not used by communities that did not apply and funds from the research and responsible gaming division. In total, the funding was distributed at 4.11 million in municipal grants and 884,000 in grants to regional entities for workforce development and public safety. This amount includes the 66.2 that was not utilized in the municipal entity allocation. So, questions? No questions? Okay, so we were able to give it all out. Everyone was happy to receive the funding and um at this point we've just about got all the grants and contracts back, so we're starting a new year. So, this is where we're going into the discussion of the fiscal year 2028 community mitigation fund guidelines. Derek, do you want to say some words here? >> Yes. Um thank you, everyone. This is the part we really want a lot of input and thought on and um we can always come back at another meeting or if you have comments that you want to submit to Mary, Kelli, or Jayden um in the interim, we would love to take those in, right? Um So, section 61 of 23K establishes the community mitigation fund. Um it is a very short section. It's three paragraphs and the main part is the um paragraph B, which basically says the commission shall administer the fund um and expend monies in the fund to assist host and surrounding communities in offsetting costs related to the construction and operation of a gaming establish establishment, including but not limited to communities and water and sewer districts in the vicinity of a gaming establishment, local regional education, transportation, infrastructure, housing, environmental issues, and public safety. Right? So, those Well, it gives a list of some things, it doesn't make it all inclusive. That's including but not limited to. We have always taken the approach that it's to offset negative unintended consequences. That doesn't show up anywhere in the statute or in the six section 68. We have heard from the communities over the last 3 years the difficulty of meeting the 27 pages of guidelines and the rather prescriptive um categories that have been laid out. Now, I can say that over I've been here since 2013. I've participated in a lot of those meetings and those were created in commission meetings, those guidelines, and with a lot of input from the LICMA's, whether it be the local or even just the larger one that's created under section 68 of the statute. But, we also understand that guidelines are guidelines. They're here to be reviewed every year. And what we found was this year working with the communities, these are very tough, right? We we worked hand-in-hand with each community, and it's tough after 10 to 12 years of receiving funds to thread the needle through those. So, what we're looking into do is open up the guidelines, not have 27 pages, not require a certain percentage of traffic to go through unless this is something that the LICMA's like. Um but we're really looking for where can we be less prescriptive and how can we be better partners in getting this money out to the communities that welcomed gaming? All right, because I was at EOED as the CFO when this law was created, and I know that the host the community mitigation fund was really to help the communities that are welcome welcoming gaming, and it wasn't looked at as a positive thing at that point into their into their towns and the surrounding communities and the communities that are in the vicinity. You know, you look at you look at the language. It's not just those host and local, it's even communities in the vicinity. And we went through a whole process to establish those communities and who would be impacted. So, we have the communities pretty well labeled out now, but I think we may not have done a great job over the years of reviewing the guidelines to make sure it's staying consistent with what you're all feeling at the local level. So, we would love to see this fund get back to 6 and 1/2%. We would love to see all of you happy with how we give out these grants. We would love to see the communities, and we don't want to turn it into just free money, either, right? It has to meet the impacts, and it has to be a well-thought-out program. So, what we're looking at is how can we be better at kind of hearing from you what has been a sticking point. And also, where can we be better at not just looking at negative consequences, but economic development is an impact of the operation of a casino, and we want to be able to um harness that for the communities and give out funding to allow that to expand, as well. So, that's what we're looking at. Um that's what we're trying to figure out how to get those guidelines down from 27 pages and have it turn more into a collaborative approach, which I think we worked with some communities this year more collaboratively um to say, "Hey, this might not fit in the guidelines, but here's something that why don't you put some other ideas out, and we can work with you to make sure it does fit in the guidelines." But, we understand it didn't hit the top priorities the communities were facing. And we want to make sure that this fund hits the top priorities for those of you that have welcomed the casinos and welcomed gaming and welcomed the employment and the tax dollars to the Commonwealth. So, now I open up the floor to you, and we will be taking copious notes to bring these back to the commission as well as to the exact Dean is still here, so he hears it, um and we'll be meeting with the commissioners independently as we start working through these to get their opinions, too. >> Well, I know city of Boston um workforce development is uh is on the mayor's top priority, so anything that we can work with or um have some type of scope around more um um flexibility around workforce development. I think that would be helpful um on our end. >> Thank you, Marcus. This is the time This is a safe place, too, by the way. So, um you know, I do this with the licensees during the budget hearing. It all stays here, right? Um we do want to hear the struggles you've had with the guidelines and what you've heard from your communities about applying for funds. And some of you have actually been on that end of applying for the funds and now you won't be able to based on what legal said. >> So, yeah, so Derek, I think Everett is going to need to pick a different rep because I my team does write the grants. So, I'm happy to answer the question not here. So, I'll just consider myself to be a listener today as a non-voting from here on out. >> Yes. And we'd love to hear from you, Monica, because it was nice to hear the new perspective of the new administration as well and how we can better use the funds. >> Well, should should we discuss a little bit about what we've been doing? So, what we what we have been working on next year's guidelines, but we haven't really gone through any kind of approval process or anything else. But we've pretty much removed we've gotten the guidelines down to about four pages. And basically, those four pages are covering the legal issues concerning grants and what the applications need to contain in them in order to be um approved or considered. So, that's about all I can say right now, I think, Derek. >> Yeah, I mean, what we're looking at doing is turning it into a true block grant, right? Um and there are different types of block grants out there where you you would submit your intent to apply. You would have your allocation. And waivers would no longer be a big issue um because we're going to be allocating out the entire fund. All right, that's how block grant works. Um So, once once the intent to apply is developed, you would actually work with the community mitigation advisory team um the Mary, Jaden, and Kayla over the next two or three months to do your projects. Um and make sure that you can show how it relates to the operation or construction of the gaming establishment. And there's always additional construction happening at a gaming establishment, right? They have a requirement that they have to put 3 and 1/2% of their annual net revenues into capital improvements. There's also expansion talks going on all the time. So, you know, there there are different ways that the communities feel those impacts. And for us to say there's only six or seven that are eligible doesn't really take into consideration all of the different things facing each community. So, that's why we're looking at ter- turning it more into, "Hey, there has to be some nexus to the operation, but we're not going to prescribe whether it's 1% traffic, 2% traffic. Um I know that we had done that in the past and that's been a struggle for a lot of communities. We also heard that from um MassDOT when we were talking to them on their review. There are some projects that they rated much higher than we would have rated just because of what communities are facing for interoperability as well as different modes of travel and not just about what street it's on. Um so these are these are some of the things we're trying to take all the feedback we've heard and say now is a good time to adjust. Um and we do understand there are some pitfalls that could happen with that, but I was here the first year we gave out the money as was Mary and it was literally a checkbox. Do you plan on using your money and then work with us over the year of telling us how you're going to use it. We don't think we want to give a whole year to figure out how to use it because we don't want to have a lot of money sitting out there unreverted, but working three or four months with our team is probably what we're looking at. Um so that by June we have a good a good grant that you all told us is good and we can come back to the um commission and say there is a nexus to the casino. There is a nexus to the operation of the casino and it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative one. So that's what we're thinking. And we have to get this in front of the commission and get them to approve, too. So we would love to see it go down from 27 pages down to, you know, we're we're closer to five four or five right now and we understand it'll have to expand from there, but this is what these meetings are. Get your feedback, get your thoughts and then we can um kind of incorporate those guardrails into the into the process. So I know we're hitting you with it now. Um we don't expect you to have answers other than if something was really bothering you. Um we're here to take it, but over the next couple weeks we'll probably reach out to each one of you to see if you have anything else you weren't able to think about in here that you'd like for us to consider and bring back to the commission and back to these groups for the eventual FY28 guidelines. >> Derek, I'll just say I mean I I I think it's a welcome continual trend of adapting the program to be more flexible, to be more responsive. I think it's how we got in, you know, a little bit of trouble in the first place with money backing up, and so I think that you know, I surely think it continues a trend in the right direction. I think one thing that we have to do as a group, as a commitment, is to make sure that as we are putting this money to work, that we're getting it as much sunlight as we can with our you know, our local leaders, the the the reps, the senators. I think it's something that we probably just assumed was always going to be that we found out the hard way when we lost it that we probably need to do a little bit more to make them see how it's being put to work and the nexus and just the impact on the community proactively just to avoid that happening again. So I I could say we'll make that commitment. I brought it up to the folks that that do the work here in Malden, and I think if everybody just does a little bit there, the total impact of all that on the folks that are sitting there making these decisions, it will make it more uncomfortable for it to revert and maybe even provide the pressure we need to continue to get back to where we were at one point in time. So I just ask that everybody think about just that that little that little step to do our part there. >> Mhm. Yeah, thank you. >> we appreciate that. >> Strongly agree. >> Yep. >> Since everyone's thinking, I'll just add in my little two cents, too. Um, this is since we're just throwing this out to, like Derek said, um, if you can ask your communities for their feedback, I know you guys aren't going to work on the applications, but if they're experiencing anything within the process, we would love to hear about it cuz it's um I kind of noted it within my little presentation that um we're hearing about all parts of it, like the reporting part, the applications process, the closing out, like it can be anything. Um and just literally can be the simplest uh updates that we can do cuz we're we're kind of overhauling a long and very um uh older process. So, uh I'm new. I'm definitely taking note about all of this stuff and I'm sharing my grievances cuz on our side, we want to make it easier for you and your communities. Um So, just keep that in mind for next time as well. >> Yeah. >> Is there a draft Have we received I don't think we have a draft of the You've been revising the guidelines. >> Yes. >> Have Has that gone out to us? >> No. >> Not yet. >> until after we get input from you. So, that's the first step. The lick max have to give us some input. Um because if you came back to us and said we like them exactly how they are, uh we'd >> Then I would have I would have >> like to have a group description on on Zoom or something on the changes that you are making so then we could give you a feed So, you want feedback on something that we can't see or can't know right now. So, >> Well, we're asking for >> Yeah, for the next meeting. Slide 27, right? So, what we're asking for feedback is on the FY 27, the ones that we went through. But we let you know our intent is to kind of change it and >> Right. >> kind of overhaul. So, if there things you you about it, let us know. If things you didn't like, we can absolutely just leave those on the cutting room floor, because we still have to bring this in front of the commission. >> Right. >> So, what we like, the commissioners may not like. But, if we can say, "These are the things the Lick Max said they don't like absolutely, and we've outlived those." Then, those are easy areas to cut right from the guidelines. >> Yeah, it'd be it'd be nice to have a group discussion on where you're at right now. Um s- and that might spur us some more feedback on this. >> We can try and we can try and set up one of those. Mary, why don't we look at um setting up one of those? >> Okay. Yeah, cuz you know, once once we go through a little bit of the approval process and the we're partway there, then we can kind of release the draft guidelines. But, we need to get there's a lot of steps in the process. >> And while everyone's thinking, another piece that we took advantage of this year that I want people to really think about is if you have a lot of projects that are backlogged, which a lot of us do, um and you have a newer demand that is pressing the city or the town, there is the opportunity to ask for a change of funding, and as long as it meets that year's guidelines, and it's similar to a program from the past, we can we can do that, right? We can change the funding and put it towards a priority of today, especially if it's something that's ready to go. So, that's something that we took a big advantage of in the FY27 award period. If you look at it, we only had 5 million to go give out, and we reallocated another million or so um from previous awards to get towns and cities top priorities funded. Um so we really are trying to work with you to figure out what the needs are and get this program re-energized again and make it so that it's less of a administrative burden and more of a getting the money into the cities and towns hands that are experiencing negative or positive impacts from gaming. >> Mhm. Okay, well um I have if you if everyone could just uh put on their calendars, I have a preliminary next meeting scheduled for September 29th. And at that one we will hopefully be able to go through the draft guidelines. And then um so the process for the guidelines is once the commission approves the draft it will go out for 10 days for comment a comment period. Um and then they'll come back to the commission and they'll do a vote. Usually it's in early November. >> But we will reach out to you all individually to have a further discussion about what what your communities are feeling. And maybe during that there during that individual meeting we can let you know where we're currently at with those with those guidelines. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> So Rick, you want to wrap this up? >> So uh any other any further discussion before we adjourn the meeting? Hearing and seeing none, motion to adjourn. Seconded by? >> Seconded by. >> Okay, and we'll do our roll call once again. Monica? >> Yes. >> Marcus? Scott? >> Yes. >> Will? Ron? >> Yes. >> Richard? >> Yes. >> Norman? >> Yes. >> That's everybody. >> Nope, David. Vincent. >> Yes. >> Did I miss anyone? >> David. >> David, oh I'm I sorry. Sorry, David. Here. Okay. All right, well thank you so much for everyone participating and be watching your emails. We'll be sending more information out to you as we get it. Um if anyone wants the ethics presentation, please let us know. The legal department would be happy to forward that on to you. And we'll see you in September. >> All right, excellent. Have a good day. >> Take care, everybody. >> Thank you. >> Bye.