0001 1 TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS 2 BEFORE THE 3 TEXAS LOTTERY COMMISSION 4 AUSTIN, TEXAS 5 BINGO ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING 6 7 8 9 10 SEPTEMBER 20, 2018 11 10:00 a.m. 12 AT 13 TEXAS LOTTERY COMMISSION 611 East 6th Street 14 Austin, Texas 78701 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Proceedings reported by electronic sound recording; 22 transcript prepared by Verbatim Reporting & Transcription LLC. 23 24 25 0002 1 APPEARANCES 2 COMMITTEE MEMBERS: 3 William T. Smith III 4 Kimberly Rogers 5 Will Martin 6 Tommy Duncan 7 Jason Pohl 8 Melodye Green 9 Emile Bourgoyne 10 11 COMMISSION STAFF: 12 Doug Love, Commissioner 13 Michael P. Farrell, Director 14 Bob Biard, General Counsel 15 Deanne Rienstra, Special Counsel 16 Elizabeth Godfrey-Weidig, Public Information Coordinator 17 Angelica Navarro, Compliance Services Coordinator 18 19 PUBLIC: 20 Kimberly L. Kiplin, Attorney 21 Steve Bresnen, Attorney 22 Sharon Ives 23 24 25 0003 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 PAGE I. Call to order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3 II. Welcome, introductions, and overview of the Bingo 4 Advisory Committee (BAC) . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5 III. Public Information Act Training Session . . . . 10 6 IV. Discussion and selection of the Presiding Officer and the Presiding Officer’s designation of a member 7 to conduct meetings and general business in the Presiding Officer’s absence . . . . . . . . . . 27 8 V. Report, possible discussion and/or action on the 9 annual workplan, including items previously determined by the Commissioners and possible 10 additional items to be submitted to the Commissioners for their consideration 11 and approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 12 VI. Report, possible discussion and/or action on establishing a web page for the BAC on the 13 Charitable Bingo Operations Division website . 72 14 VII. Report, possible discussion and/or action on scheduling future meeting dates . . . . . . . . 79 15 VIII. Report, possible discussion and/or action on BAC 16 quarterly and annual reports to the Commission and possible presentations at Texas Lottery 17 Commission meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 18 IX. Public comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 19 X. Adjournment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 20 21 22 23 24 25 0004 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 AGENDA ITEM I 3 COMMISSIONER LOWE: So I'm going to call this 4 meeting to order. Welcome, everybody here. And as our 5 tradition is, I think it's important to say The Pledge of 6 Allegiance. And I'd ask Brother Will there to lead us in The 7 Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag and the Texas 8 flag. 9 (Pledges recited) 10 AGENDA ITEM II 11 COMMISSIONER LOWE: So welcome, everybody to 12 the first Bingo Advisory Committee meeting. We refer to it 13 as BAC, but I will tell you as an old prosecutor, BAC means 14 to me, Blood Alcohol Content, so let's watch it. So I'm the 15 Bingo Designated Commissioner. I was appointed by Governor 16 Abbott to be a Lottery Commissioner back in 2015, so I guess 17 this is -- I guess this is the end of three years I've been 18 doing this. And I've enjoyed it and I've enjoyed working 19 with the people that are a part of this industry. You're 20 important to Texas, you're important to the Governor, and 21 you're important to me. So thank you for agreeing to be a 22 part of this committee. 23 And so before we begin the festivities, I want 24 everybody to introduce -- to know everybody else, and so with 25 that, William, why don't you to introduce yourself? 0005 1 MR. SMITH: My name is William T. Smith III. 2 I go by Trace to everybody that knows me. I've been in the 3 bingo industry for about 30 years now. I started out washing 4 tables, picking up trash after the sessions were over. 5 Worked my way up to floor worker, calling, cage work, 6 management, charity rep, the whole nine yards. 7 I'm very happy to be here. I think this is 8 going to be a really productive panel. We've got great 9 representation from all around the State and the industry, so 10 I'm really looking forward to this. 11 MS. ROGERS: Good morning. My name is 12 Kimberly Rogers. I go by Kim Rogers. I've been in the bingo 13 industry only about 20 years. At this time I am a 14 bookkeeper. We have halls in San Antonio. And I've ran, 15 cashiered, done everything except calling. Never found that 16 bug. I really think the BAC is something that will help 17 assist the bingo industry everywhere in the State of Texas. 18 So I'm really looking forward to this and I think it's a 19 great, great move. And thank you. 20 MR. MARTIN: I'm Will Martin. I wear a lot of 21 different hats. I'm Co-Executive Director of Conservative 22 Texans and Charitable Bingo. I'm also the chairman of the 23 Legislative Commission for the American Legion Department of 24 Texas. 25 I'm happy to be here with BAC working to help 0006 1 the bingo industry. Bingo is the lifeblood of a lot of 2 veterans organizations and we do a lot with the money that we 3 can raise through bingo to help our veterans. Thank you. 4 MR. DUNCAN: I'm Tommy Duncan. I'm with 5 Goodtime Action Games. I've been with them for 19 years as a 6 Sales Rep and now Vice President. I started as a delivery 7 driver. Enjoyed working with the charities, helping them 8 increase their revenue, and really looking forward to the 9 BAC. 10 MR. POHL: I'm Jason Pohl. I'm with Brazos 11 Bingo. I've been there since '99. I worked the floor, 12 called, cashiered, all the works, management. Really looking 13 forward to being on the BAC. 14 MR. FARRELL: I'm Michael Farrell. I'm the 15 Director of Charitable Bingo. I've been with bingo for ten 16 weeks. I'm looking forward to working with everybody and 17 consider it a team effort that we help the charities; that's 18 my goal. The goal is that we need to help the charities and 19 that's where the focus should be. 20 MS. GREEN: My name is Melodye Green. I 21 started with the charity back in 1989, and our charity was 22 trying to raise money in bingo and we just didn't care for 23 the way the bingo -- the lessors was really doing anything, 24 and it wasn't really doing much. So we sort of started 25 stepping up from there. So that's how I became a lessor. 0007 1 There's a lot of this industry. We worked with the 2 Commission for years, and I'm really looking forward to this. 3 It's going to be great. 4 MR. BOURGOYNE: My name is Emile Bourgoyne. 5 I'm from Louisiana. I'm a retired Lieutenant with the 6 Louisiana State Police, and one of my duties there was I was 7 the Founding Director of the Charitable Gaming Division for 8 the State Police in Louisiana. Since my retirement in 1989, 9 I've been in work as a Director of Government Relations for 10 International Gamco, and since February 1st, Pollard Games 11 acquisition of Gamco, I now do the same job for both 12 International Gamco and American Games. And I'm also here as 13 sitting President of the National Association of Fundraising 14 Ticket Manufacturers that represent the manufacturers that 15 make predominantly most of the bingo paper and pull tabs in 16 the state of Texas. And I'm happy to be here. 17 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Excellent. So -- and we 18 have two members who are not present today, and tell me their 19 names. 20 MS. NAVARRO: Brian Malone and Laveda Brown. 21 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Oh yeah. And Laveda is 22 the public member; is that right? 23 MS. NAVARRO: Yes. 24 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And Brian is -- what is 25 his background? 0008 1 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Charity lessor. 2 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Okay. All right. And so 3 hopefully that they'll be with us next time for this 4 important organization. And I will tell you that I 5 appreciate you guys' commitment because even though that 6 you're here, the Governor and the Legislature decided you're 7 not entitled to any reimbursement for expenses, so it's on 8 your nickel, and I think everybody should know that and 9 appreciate your commitment in spite of the lack of 10 reimbursement for your time and your expenses. 11 I will say that this is not my meeting. I'm a 12 Commissioner. I'm not on this committee. So it's your thing 13 to get going and to handle as you see fit. I have asked 14 Kimberly though to be our acting presiding officer until you 15 guys have a chance to decide who you want that to be on a 16 permanent basis, and so after we have our Information Act 17 training, I'm going to pass the reins over to Kim so she can 18 push this along, and that's -- she can -- she acts as long as 19 y'all say she can act. If you want somebody else to be the 20 presiding officer, you can. 21 All right. So with that, is there -- all 22 right. So we talked about that. 23 So the Texas Public Information Act; it's sort 24 of -- it's a good thing because it creates transparency in 25 government, but it's a bad thing in that if you violate it, 0009 1 you could be subject to some penalties. And so we've had -- 2 this is required training in the law, isn't it, Bob? Where's 3 Bob? 4 MR. BIARD: I'm here. 5 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Okay. It's required under 6 the law; is that right? 7 MR. BIARD: Well, we think it's a prudent 8 thing to do because what you are doing when you're on the 9 Committee, is you're generating public information and so if 10 someone makes a Public Information Act request and if you 11 want to know who has experience with that, you might talk to 12 Steve Fenoglio. 13 He -- we have to produce the information even 14 if it's not here. Even if it's in y'all's computers and on 15 y'all's phones. So we want to make sure you understand when 16 you generate something written, some information about the 17 BAC, that it's subject to the Act. There are exceptions to 18 it, but we want to have this training so y'all know in case 19 we reach out to you and say do you have any emails related to 20 such-and-such, that you'll know that you need to turn those 21 over to us. 22 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Well, I guess it was 23 required for a Commissioner and -- 24 MR. BIARD: Yeah. 25 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- when I was District 0010 1 Attorney it was required. 2 MR. BIARD: It's required for public officials 3 and although we're very grateful to your service here, I 4 think officially you are not public officials. You are good, 5 upstanding volunteers to do this. 6 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And so with that, I'll 7 turn it over to Bob for your presentation or it's actually -- 8 AGENDA ITEM III 9 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Hello, everyone. My name 10 is Elizabeth Godfrey-Weidig. I'm the Public Information 11 Coordinator here at the Lottery. Thank you for your time 12 this morning. I'm going to do a quick presentation. We're 13 going to talk about the Texas Public Information Act. 14 So the Texas Public Information Act was 15 adopted in 1973. It's also known as the Open Records Act. 16 It gives the public a right to request access to government 17 information. The presumption is that the information is 18 public and that the information belongs to the people. The 19 Texas Government Code is Chapter 552. 20 So what is public information? Public 21 information is information that's collected, assembled, 22 maintained, under a law, ordinance or in connection with a 23 transaction of commission business of a governmental body. 24 We are a governmental body. 25 The public information is information that we 0011 1 receive, create, forms we fill out out, as well as database 2 information that we input as part of our jobs. 3 So examples of public information, electronic 4 documents, emails, microfilm, notes, paper documents, 5 photographs, sound recordings and text messages. So anything 6 that we're creating information-wise is subject to the Act. 7 So who's subject to the Act governmental body- 8 wise? Cities, counties, executive and legislative branches 9 state of the government, non-governmental entities supported 10 by public funds and school districts. Those are just 11 examples of, there are several more. 12 So requirements of a Public Information Act 13 request. So this is what we are required to have. The 14 request must be in writing. A verbal request does not 15 trigger the Act and its protection, so if somebody calls you 16 and says I want to make a public information request over the 17 telephone, we would ask that that be in writing. 18 It doesn't have to reference the Act, there is 19 no magical language, they just need to say what 20 documents they'd like and we go from there. 21 A request must ask for information that's 22 already in existence. They can't have a request that asks 23 for two weeks of information that hasn't been created 24 yet. So it has to already be in existence. 25 There's no requirement to create new 0012 1 documents, answer questions or perform legal research under 2 the Act. However, collecting information stored 3 electronically is not considered creating a new document. So 4 if we have a database and somebody wants database 5 information, getting and exporting that information is not 6 considered creating a new document. 7 So we see a range of examples of public 8 information, I won't read these to you, but anywhere from 9 winners' lists, Bingo organization information, emails, 10 contracts, if you can think about it, it's probably been 11 requested. 12 When we receive a request for public 13 information, we have an obligation to relate the request to 14 the information that we hold. So now I said we didn't have 15 to answer questions, but we have a good faith effort to say I 16 would like the winners of this or who won the winners of 17 this, to give that document over; we're going to do a good 18 faith effort for that. 19 We may not ask why the requesters want the 20 information, however, if the request is voluminous, we can 21 ask to narrow or clarify. 22 Also, when we receive a request, we may charge 23 for reasonable fees to provide the copies. We must treat 24 each requester equally. One request may not be expedited 25 over another request. They come in order, it's how it goes 0013 1 out. Information is released in the order in which the 2 information is received. So if Request A comes in and then 3 Request B comes in and I get the information for Request B 4 first, I'm not going to wait for Request A information to 5 come in before I release Request B. 6 We must release the information promptly 7 unless an exception applies. 8 So employee roles dealing with public 9 information. Agency staff receives or creates information 10 during the course of business that may be subject to the 11 public information request just in their normal day to day 12 business. We have Division liaisons who are the point of 13 contact within the Division that collects responsive 14 documents from staff and coordinates with P.I.C., which is 15 myself, on clarifications and cost estimates. 16 The Public Information Coordinator is the 17 point of contact for public information requests for the 18 Agency; coordinates, gathers documents, monitors request 19 deadlines, and communicates with the requester. So I'm just 20 the pipeline. 21 The open records attorney which is Deanne 22 Rienstra, she's here today, reviews documents and briefs the 23 Office of the Attorney General on the information we consider 24 confidential under the Act. That's where those exceptions 25 come in. The Office of the Attorney General maintains 0014 1 uniformity in application, operation and interpretation of 2 the Act, rules on whether or not we can or cannot withhold 3 information. So it's not up to us if we want to withhold 4 information, the office of the attorney general will make 5 that ruling. 6 I want to emphasize this is a very basic 7 process of how our public information requests work. It 8 starts on the left, we receive a request, it's reviewed and 9 sent to the liaisons, the division liaison sends its staff, 10 the appropriate staff for gathering documents. Staff 11 provides the documents to the liaison, the liaison reviews 12 those documents and sends them back to the public information 13 coordinator. The Public Information Coordinator and the open 14 records attorney review those documents and either they're 15 determined if they can be released without exception or if 16 we're going to write the Attorney General's Office. 17 Now, this is just the basic process. There 18 are some requests where we release some documents for 19 request, and we don't release all, so Bob had a -- 20 MR. BIARD: So this -- in this case, they're 21 not staff. 22 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Right. 23 MR. BIARD: So we're going to have to modify 24 our process a little bit to get the word out, probably and 25 we'll have to think about that, and maybe for the chairman of 0015 1 the BAC or maybe just to -- maybe -- we might need to just 2 communicate to each of the members. 3 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Did everybody hear what 4 he said about communications? Okay. 5 MR. BIARD: Because there's not going to be a 6 staff person for us to go to to ask if all these guys have 7 emails or documents that are responsive to an information 8 request. 9 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Right. So you'll 10 probably either be reaching -- I'll reach out to you 11 directly, say I need this information, we've received a 12 request, and I'll give you a deadline. 13 COMMISSIONER LOWE: So what happens if say Kim 14 gets an email from somebody send me your cell phone bill 15 related to your work in the BAC? Well, what is she supposed 16 to do? 17 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: What is she supposed to 18 do? That's perfect. Because what do you do when you receive 19 a public information request? So what you're going to do is 20 if you receive a request in writing, somebody mails you a 21 hard copy document, and says I would like documents for this, 22 this and this, and they give you an address, it's stamped, 23 it's snail mail, what you're going to do is get that to me. 24 You're going to either email it to me, send it interagency 25 mail if you can, or just mail it directly to me. 0016 1 Please write the date that you received it and 2 make sure you include the original envelope with that and 3 that will go to me. So date stamp the envelope and letter, 4 immediately scan and email a copy to the -- our official open 5 records, openrecords@lottery.state.tx.us, it's an email inbox 6 that I maintain. You're going to mail the original envelope 7 and letter to me or the Public Information Coordinator, and 8 then the original request is maintained in that file. 9 So let's do another scenario. 10 MR. BIARD: The more likely thing is it's 11 going to come in to us here. 12 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Yes. 13 MR. BIARD: Not to one of y'all. 14 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Yes. More -- 15 MR. BIARD: In which case we'll let you all 16 know that -- 17 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: More than likely, I'll be 18 reaching out to you saying we received a request, here's a 19 copy of the request, here's the requester, this is what I 20 need. If you all have questions at that point, feel free to 21 email me back, call me, anything you need to do to make it an 22 easier process for gathering those documents. 23 So if someone reaches out to you by email, 24 please just kindly reply back to them and say please use -- 25 send your request directly to 0017 1 openrecords@lottery.state.tx.us. That's on my business card, 2 that's on our website, that's on this PowerPoint that you 3 have. If you can't remember it, you can call me, you can 4 call Deanne, you can call anybody in Legal. 5 MR. BIARD: To make it easy, just give us a 6 call if anyone whether it's (indiscernible) or me Bob Biard. 7 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Absolutely. 8 MR. BIARD: And we -- we don't want to put a 9 bunch of extra work on you, we'll walk you through this whole 10 process. More likely thing is it's going to come in to us 11 here. 12 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Uh-huh (affirmative). 13 That's what I'm here for. Please do not forward the request. 14 That's not considered received, it's deadline sensitive, 15 until it's received by that email address, the open records 16 email address. If you get it by fax, oddly enough we still 17 do have faxes that come in, there is an official fax number 18 which is here also on my business card, you can direct that 19 sender to send their request to this 512-344-5189 number. 20 All right. Let's talk about deadlines real 21 quickly. So our first deadline is promptly. We must release 22 the information promptly. That's terminology that's in the 23 Act itself. It's something that we just want to do a 24 turnaround. My stance is there's one request right behind 25 the one in front of it and one behind that and one behind 0018 1 that. So it's just a process to get them out. 2 So you also want to do within a reasonable 3 amount of time. If a request is asking for a voluminous 4 amount of information it's going to take time to gather that 5 information and I understand that. So if we need more time, 6 just let me know. 7 The five business days is an internal 8 deadline, it's the amount of time for staff work, that's that 9 deadline I'll give y'all if I reach out to you. To locate 10 the final responsive information, that'll give you a chance 11 to gather it, review it, send it over to us, and that way we 12 have a -- we've got business days to meet the ten day 13 deadline. 14 So our ten day business days we must submit a 15 request for decision from the Office of the Attorney General 16 for information we consider confidential. That's a hard 17 deadline, we can't miss it if we're going to want to withhold 18 information. We must respond to the requester in writing if 19 there's going to be a delay in providing information. 20 So our ten business day comes, we don't have 21 our information ready, I just certify to the requester in 22 writing your information will be available on or before, you 23 know, September 25th. 24 The 15th business day is a deadline that we 25 must submit arguments and documents to the Office of the 0019 1 Attorney General for information we consider confidential. 2 So we have our ten days, and we have our 15 days. Fifteen 3 days is when we've got to get all of our documents into the 4 office of the Attorney General if we're trying to withhold 5 anything under an exception. 6 When we must start counting ten business days? 7 We start counting the first business day after the request is 8 received. Exceptions to the calculation of ten business 9 days, requests that are received after business hours, on the 10 weekends, holidays, skeleton crew days, weekends -- did I say 11 weekends -- inclement weather days for headquarters don't 12 count, so they become -- if I receive a request on Sunday, we 13 receive it officially on Monday, and we start counting our 14 ten business days from there. 15 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Ma'am, backing up to the 16 submission of the open record request, if it's not submitted 17 to you that -- from the email address, say I get something 18 hypothetically, I'm then to respond to that that it must be 19 submitted to the open records email address? 20 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Yes, sir. That's what we 21 ask. 22 Can we charge for our time and resources? 23 Absolutely. Under certain circumstances we can. We must 24 follow the cost provisions stated in the Public Information 25 Act. We must provide a cost estimate if the charge is going 0020 1 to be over $40. 2 The fee rates for labor, copying, programming, 3 disc, CDs, are all set by the Office of the Attorney 4 General. It's in the Act itself. 5 If we are pursuing a cost estimate, and that 6 will be clearly stated if we get a large, voluminous request, 7 we'll say up-front, we're going to pursue a cost estimate, 8 please do not gather the entire information. There'll be 9 further instructions at that point about doing a sample or 10 doing an estimate of how many pages, how much time it's going 11 to take to gather those documents. 12 Are there penalties for violating the Public 13 Information Act? Yes. There are. There may be criminal and 14 civil penalties for failing to comply with a public 15 information request. The willful destruction, mutilation, 16 removal of that information, alteration of public record, is 17 punishable by a time in a county jail, for a maximum six 18 months or a fine of $1000 or both. 19 Just to wrap up, if this is what y'all take 20 away, the request for information must be in writing, the 21 request must be for information that's already in existence, 22 the information is stored in many different types of formats. 23 Be aware of our legal deadlines and coordinate with the 24 Division Liaison and the Public Information Coordinator if 25 you have any questions. 0021 1 Does anyone have any questions? Yes, sir? 2 MR. SMITH: How often does that happen? How 3 often are we expected to get that? If so, what are they 4 going to be requesting; our emails, our -- can you go into 5 that a little bit? 6 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Well, so, I've gone back 7 and looked at previous requests for the BAC and when it was 8 in existence before, things like emails, the workbook, your 9 opinions, things like that. So -- 10 MR. SMITH: They can request our opinion? 11 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: They can request 12 anything. 13 COMMISSIONER LOWE: If it's in writing. If 14 you have the -- 15 MR. SMITH: If we've already written it. 16 COMMISSIONER LOWE: If it's a document. If 17 it's a document. 18 MR. SMITH: Okay. 19 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Yes, it has to -- 20 COMMISSIONER LOWE: In existence. 21 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: -- be a document. 22 MR. SMITH: Okay. 23 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Now, if you had a verbal 24 recording, let's say of your meeting, that could be subject 25 to the Act. 0022 1 MR. SMITH: But y'all do that anyway, right? 2 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Yeah. 3 MR. FARRELL: Working documents, drafts are 4 exempt, are they not? It's the final document, is it not? 5 So if a draft goes around between what they want to talk 6 about, that's -- 7 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Right. 8 MR. FARRELL: -- not subject to -- it's the 9 final version that's published. 10 MS. RIENSTRA: Unless a draft is never made 11 final. 12 MR. FARRELL: Okay. 13 MS. RIENSTRA: Then it could be -- then it 14 could be considered a public document. But most of the time, 15 if a draft ends up in a final document, we would submit the 16 draft, someone were to request for a draft of a document that 17 was circulated among all of y'all, we would submit that to 18 the Officer of the Attorney General. 19 MR. BIARD: We still need to get the drafts. 20 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Yeah. 21 MR. FARRELL: Yeah. 22 MS. ROGERS: And our minutes and everything 23 will be posted online like they were before, for everyone to 24 see? 25 MR. BIARD: Yes. 0023 1 MR. BOURGOYNE: Just a quick for 2 clarification. If there was a request certain information on 3 product submittal from a manufacturer, for example, and we -- 4 you still give us an opportunity to say -- to come back to 5 you and say that's proprietary, we don't want that released? 6 We still have that option? 7 MS. RIENSTRA: Yes. 8 MR. BIARD: Sure. 9 MR. BOURGOYNE: I know it's a bit -- 10 MR. BIARD: I'm not sure that BA -- that -- 11 that there might not be -- 12 MR. BOURGOYNE: It may not be BAC related, I 13 just wanted to clarify in case a product thing -- 14 MR. BIARD: Whenever a third party commercial 15 interest are involved we notify the third party. And let me 16 also say, that stuff you use just for like your own notes to 17 remember stuff, just for your own use, there's no requirement 18 to keep those forever or for any particular amount of time or 19 -- if you're just using those to sort of help you keep track 20 of things, whenever you're done with them, you can just throw 21 those away. So there's not a requirement for you to maintain 22 all of your records about BAC. So, you know, we have them 23 all. 24 MS. RIENSTRA: But if you do, they could be 25 subject to the -- to the open records act. 0024 1 MR. BIARD: But if you do keep -- we could -- 2 we get a request as of that day, you can't all of a sudden 3 decide oh, now I'm going to destroy them. You've gotta -- so 4 it kind of freezes at that point. 5 MS. RIENSTRA: The other main concern would be 6 the emails. If y'all end up discussing a subject here and it 7 goes -- y'all have a discussion with somebody else about the 8 same subject, they may ask for any of your emails that you -- 9 in which you have discussed this subject. So you would need 10 to turn those emails over to us. 11 MR. SMITH: I'm going to have a different 12 email than what you have listed on this, just for BAC work. 13 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Okay. 14 MR. SMITH: All right. So I'll get that -- 15 I'll get that to you. 16 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: Okay. Wonderful. 17 MR. SMITH: All right. 18 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And following up on that, 19 say he has an email that says williamsmithbac.gmail, can he 20 set a trigger on that that his email's deleted after 30 days? 21 Is that legal to do that, so he can my policy for this email 22 account is that I delete my emails after 30 days? Could he 23 do that? 24 MS. RIENSTRA: If he doesn't have them, he 25 doesn't have them. 0025 1 COMMISSIONER LOWE: So you can do that. 2 MS. RIENSTRA: I mean, it's -- 3 MR. SMITH: I really don't have any problem 4 with it. I just want to separate it from my regular email 5 account. 6 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Yeah, you can have it 7 separate. 8 MR. FARRELL: It'll make your life easier. 9 MR. SMITH: Yes. 10 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And then so -- let me -- 11 so I'm clear on this; if they got a request directly to 12 Kimberly, for example, timeline -- the ten days does not 13 trigger until they make the request directly to the agency. 14 And so what happens if some -- she tells somebody you -- I'm 15 not the person you could ask this from, you gotta ask -- and 16 nothing happens, we're okay? 17 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: If we do not receive it 18 through open records, we haven't received it. 19 MS. RIENSTRA: If she received it via email 20 and she sends an email back and said I'm not the person, 21 here's where you need to send it, and we never get it through 22 our official email, then there's nothing we need to do. 23 COMMISSIONER LOWE: So what a letter -- is it 24 different for a letter? 25 MS. RIENSTRA: Yes, it is different for a 0026 1 letter. 2 COMMISSIONER LOWE: It is different for a 3 letter. 4 MS. RIENSTRA: But I'm -- but -- so she would 5 need to get that letter, handwritten letter, which it would 6 be -- it would be very unusual for her to receive a hard copy 7 written letter, but she might. But she would need to get it 8 to Elizabeth as soon as possible. 9 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And do the ten days 10 trigger from when -- if it's a written letter it's a 11 different trigger? 12 MS. RIENSTRA: Yes. 13 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: And feel free to share my 14 contact information with folks that reach out to you that 15 have questions about public information. I can absolutely 16 walk them through what the necessary steps are. 17 MR. BIARD: And just to be clear, I'm not 18 expecting for y'all to be in direct contact -- contacted 19 directly by people wanting to get information. 20 MS. RIENSTRA: They usually send it -- 21 MR. BIARD: I think it's going to come to us, 22 so I know we're dwelling on this a whole lot about what 23 happens if you get contacted directly, I think the chance of 24 that happening is pretty small. 25 MS. RIENSTRA: Right. 0027 1 MR. BIARD: So really, if you get one, just 2 call us and we'll tell you what to do. So you don't have to 3 remember a whole bunch of stuff right now. 4 COMMISSIONER LOWE: All right. 5 MR. SMITH: That was the plan all along. 6 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Sorry. Sorry to go down 7 the rabbit trail. 8 MS. GODFREY-WEIDIG: All right. Wonderful. 9 Any other questions? Well, thank you so much for your time 10 today. I appreciate it. Again, I'm here to help you in any 11 way I can and thank you. And y'all have a wonderful day. 12 MS. ROGERS: Thank you. 13 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Thank you. 14 MR. BIARD: Thank you, Liz. 15 AGENDA ITEM IV 16 COMMISSIONER LOWE: All right. So, I think 17 we're down to number four, so right? The presiding officer 18 and Kim, Kimberly's the acting presiding officer, so I'll let 19 -- I'm going to turn it over to Kim. 20 MS. ROGERS: Thank you very much. And as he 21 said, I'm acting as presiding officer until someone else or 22 we vote to go further with however we do. 23 There are a couple of things while I'm 24 presiding officer that I would like to go over that I learned 25 in the past from a BAC, and there's two things. And I 0028 1 believe the gentleman in the back is legal that I would ask. 2 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Yeah, Bob Biard. 3 MS. ROGERS: Bob, okay. Always remember that 4 this type of Board there is a quorum. When there's five or 5 more of us gathered, correct? Because we're a board of nine. 6 So if you go afterwards, after the meeting. I know we were 7 always told about this, I want to make sure this still 8 applies. If y'all all decide to go to lunch afterwards, it 9 cannot be more than -- five of y'all or more, correct? 10 MR. BIARD: That's wrong. 11 MS. ROGERS: That's wrong? 12 MR. BIARD: The rules were different -- 13 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 14 MR. BIARD: -- last time. 15 MS. ROGERS: Okay. I want to make sure. 16 MR. BIARD: We are not -- we are not treating 17 you like a governmental body. 18 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 19 MR. BIARD: Which is technically how BAC was 20 treated last time. 21 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 22 MR. BIARD And that everything was subject to 23 open meetings act. But you're not anymore, because that's 24 not legally required. 25 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 0029 1 MR. BIARD: That was a deliberate decision 2 that was made, so y'all are advisory only. You cannot make 3 any -- you cannot make any decisions that are actually going 4 to be implemented. So for that case, in essence, there's -- 5 y'all don't need to worry. 6 MS. ROGERS: Wonderful. Then never mind what 7 I just said. 8 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Good point. 9 MR. BIARD: This incarnation of the BAC -- 10 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: We were already concerned 11 about that. We had already talked about that, yeah. 12 MS. ROGERS: Okay. Well wonderful. The 13 second thing, one of my very first BAC meetings we had a 14 facilitator in here and I was really taken back as to what 15 her job was, but she did a great job. And she taught us not 16 to speak over someone. Let them completely finish what they're 17 talking about, whether you completely agree or you completely 18 disagree. Whether it's getting your blood boiling or it's 19 not. Let them completely finish their speech and then you'll 20 have your turn. So those are just two advisal things that I 21 could give out there. 22 At this time, is there anyone that would like 23 to step forward to be chair or nominate someone to be the 24 chair and we can take a vote and go through that process? 25 MS. GREEN: Well, I'd like to nominate Trace. 0030 1 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 2 MS. GREEN: Is this something that you wanted 3 to do, too? I don't -- 4 MS. ROGERS: I am perfectly okay with someone 5 else taking the reins. 6 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Now, you have to have a -- 7 you have to have an acting -- 8 MR. BIARD: It's -- that's up to the board. 9 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Okay. 10 MS. ROGERS: Do I have to be acting for a 11 certain timeline? 12 COMMISSIONER LOWE: No, I'm talking about 13 somebody that's -- 14 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I'm thinking about if he 15 can't be here, an acting is somebody to conduct the meetings. 16 MS. ROGERS: Yes. What we can do -- 17 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I think it said that in 18 here. 19 COMMISSIONER LOWE: I think you need to have a 20 chair -- 21 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I'll second that motion. 22 MR. DUNCAN: Yeah. I think if he's not here, 23 someone should lead -- 24 MS. ROGERS: Yes. 25 MR. DUNCAN: -- the meetings. 0031 1 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Yeah, I think you ought to 2 take care of that now. 3 MS. ROGERS: You're okay with going ahead and 4 -- 5 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Y'all are -- it's y'all's 6 meeting. 7 MS. ROGERS: If you are -- if you do take this 8 position, then yes, you will need to have someone that can 9 run the meetings when you are not here. 10 MR. SMITH: Would you like to be -- 11 MS. ROGERS: Well, let's get -- let's -- let's 12 move first on you. So Melodye Green would like to make a 13 nomination for Trace. 14 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'll second it. 15 MS. ROGERS: You'll -- Emile will second it 16 and Will will second it. All those in favor? 17 (Chorus of "ayes") 18 MS. ROGERS: For the record, all those 19 opposed? None for the record. Congratulations. 20 MR. SMITH: Well, I would like to make a 21 motion that you be the second presiding officer. 22 MS. ROGERS: I accept. 23 MS. GREEN: I second. 24 MR. SMITH: Melodye's got a second. All in 25 favor? 0032 1 (Chorus of "ayes") 2 MS. ROGERS: Thank you. 3 MR. SMITH: All right. Good deal. Well, 4 guess that sums that up then, doesn't it? 5 MS. ROGERS: Threw you right into that. 6 Didn't we? 7 MR. SMITH: Right. I'm telling you what, just 8 no warning. 9 MS. ROGERS: Yeah. 10 MR. SMITH: All right. Well, I guess that's - 11 - number 4 is taken care of. I guess we'll go on to number 12 5. 13 AGENDA ITEM V 14 MR. SMITH: Report, possible discussion and/or 15 action on the annual work plan including items previously 16 determined by the Commissioners and possible additional items 17 to be submitted to the Commissioners for their consideration 18 and approval. 19 The annual work plan that we're supposed to go 20 by that the Commission has so graciously given us, number one 21 is conduct a review of Charitable Bingo administrative rules, 22 Chapter 402, and recommend for the statutory required rule 23 review proposed changes. 24 All right. Does anyone have anything they 25 want to bring forward on that? 0033 1 MR. BOURGOYNE: Yes, I'd like to bring 2 something forward. 3 MR. SMITH: All right. 4 MR. BOURGOYNE: Prior to disbanding the former 5 work group, we submitted a request to change the rule 6 regarding the sale of instant tickets that would allow the -- 7 I'm trying to find it here. It deals with Section E, sales 8 and redemption of tickets, paragraph 9. It says, a licensed 9 organization's gross receipts from the sale of pull tab bingo 10 tickets must be included in the reported total gross receipts 11 for the organization once the deal is withdrawn from play. 12 That's the language we would like to add; once the deal is 13 withdrawn from play. 14 Currently, in the sale of instant tickets, 15 they -- they're sold session to session and they have to be 16 reported for each session and it's too cumbersome and that's 17 why we've seen the sale of instant tickets fall by the 18 wayside to -- to bingo event tickets. 19 It's our thinking that if we only had to 20 account for the deal when it was pulled from play, it'd be 21 one session you had to report that deal and it might spur the 22 sales of instant -- more instant tickets and also spur the 23 use of more vending machines at the clubs. 24 MR. SMITH: So what you're saying is, is the 25 way we do it right now, if you sell a partial deal, you have 0034 1 to report that on your session data. 2 MR. BOURGOYNE: That's my understanding. 3 MR. SMITH: And what you're wanting to do is 4 not report that partial sale on that session data and then 5 report it when it's -- 6 MR. BOURGOYNE: When it's removed from play. 7 MR. SMITH: When it's removed from play. 8 MR. BOURGOYNE: With either sold out or -- or 9 removed from play, never to be played again, then -- then a 10 reporting is done at that session. 11 MR. SMITH: So what do you do with the money 12 that you accrued from that session? Do you hold it in a 13 special account or -- 14 MR. BOURGOYNE: I don't know. 15 MR. SMITH: You don't know. 16 MR. BOURGOYNE: I don't know the answer to 17 that. 18 MS. ROGERS: And if I could say something. 19 This is probably where you'd want to form some type of work 20 group to get some research on this to bring it forward so 21 everyone could have something to look at, because -- 22 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'd be happy to -- 23 MS. ROGERS: -- I think what -- I think what 24 you're talking about is going to be a little bit -- it would 25 only qualify for units maybe because then you have licensed 0035 1 times, they own their own instance, you can't run from one 2 over to the other. You know what -- you understand what I'm 3 saying? 4 MR. BOURGOYNE: Uh-huh (affirmative). 5 MS. ROGERS: I -- I believe that's what we 6 would have to do, is then you would have to get staff 7 involved to give us the legal on that. And we'd have to 8 bring that forward at the next -- so form a work group that 9 will look into this and yes, sir? 10 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Can y'all tell us what 11 rule number you're talking about so the public can follow? 12 MR. BOURGOYNE: It's under -- I don't have the 13 whole rules in front of me, but it's under sales and 14 redemptions which is at paragraph E under pull tab bingo, and 15 then it's at subsection 9. That's the only thing I have; I'm 16 sorry. 17 MS. ROGERS: And this would be the exact point 18 when you bring it -- 19 MR. BOURGOYNE: Right. 20 MS. ROGERS: -- at the next meeting, bring 21 this up. 22 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'd be happy to. 23 MS. ROGERS: We would have everything that 24 everyone could look at on the screen. 25 MR. BOURGOYNE: Yeah, we had brought it up in 0036 1 the work group and -- and it was in the process of moving 2 forward and then the directors changed and it just got left 3 off in limbo, that's -- 4 MS. ROGERS: It -- it's wonderful to bring up, 5 you know, something of that nature, if that would help. 6 MR. SMITH: Okay. So we want to form a work 7 group to look at that rule. Emile, obviously you want to be 8 in that work group? 9 MR. BOURGOYNE: Yes, sir. 10 MR. SMITH: Anyone else want to be in that 11 work group particularly? Tommy maybe? 12 MS. ROGERS: Yeah, I would strongly -- 13 MR. SMITH: Anyone else? I'll be in on that 14 as well if that's all right with you, Emile. 15 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 16 MR. DUNCAN: Yeah, the daily cash reports are 17 going to be a problem with that. 18 MS. ROGERS: I do have a question. Are there 19 any proposed changes to different rules on the dockets right 20 now with staff? 21 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No. 22 MS. ROGERS: No? Okay. 23 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I don't think so. 24 MR. SMITH: Okay. 25 MR. BOURGOYNE: I had one more. Sorry. 0037 1 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). Don't be 2 sorry. 3 MR. BOURGOYNE: This same work group could 4 handle this one, I believe. And I apologize again for -- 5 it's under the event tickets, section (H)(6), currently bingo 6 event tickets have to have more than two instant winners in 7 them and this requires manufacturers to have a separate 8 inventory for Texas bingo events versus the other states 9 bingo events who don't require the instant winners, and so we 10 -- and so we'd like to remove that language, if possible, as 11 long as it doesn't put bingo event tickets in a -- in a 12 category that's no longer pull tab bingo. Because we want to 13 keep the exemption to session limitations where pull tab 14 bingo is not counted. 15 So as long as we could do that, if we could 16 remove the requirement to have three instant winners no bingo 17 event tickets, we would reduce -- not have a separate -- 18 MR. SMITH: Two winners or three winners? 19 MR. BOURGOYNE: Well, it's more than two. The 20 language reads more than two. 21 MS. ROGERS: Once again, that would require 22 I'm sure legal for research to look back and make sure -- 23 MR. BOURGOYNE: Yeah, I don't know the history 24 of why that language -- 25 MS. ROGERS: Exactly. 0038 1 MR. BOURGOYNE: -- was put on there from the 2 beginning, but it doesn't exist in another state, which -- 3 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 4 MR. BOURGOYNE: -- requires us to use 5 different insides for the Texas bingo event market versus the 6 insides for the rest of the states bingo event markets. 7 MS. ROGERS: So I -- I would strongly agree 8 that this same work group could take that on, too. 9 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. 10 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Could I ask a question, 11 Bob? Are you going to have somebody available -- is there a 12 person that you want them to contact about questions in this 13 regard? 14 MR. BIARD: For legal? 15 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Legal. 16 MR. BIARD: Tyler Vance over here, who has a 17 lot of experience with occupational licensing and other 18 boards, has a lot of good experience, he's going to be a 19 point person for BAC. I'm certainly going to be involved and 20 stay involved, but I think he's probably your first for legal 21 questions, it'd be Tyler. 22 MS. ROGERS: Can you tell me his last name 23 again? 24 MR. BIARD: Vance. 25 MS. ROGERS: Vance? 0039 1 MR. BIARD: V-a-n-c-e. 2 MS. ROGERS: Okay. Wonderful. 3 MR. BIARD: He came to us from the dental 4 board and before that he was at the vet? 5 MR. VANCE: Pharmacy and veterinary board, so 6 it's all occupational licensing. 7 MS. ROGERS: Wonderful. 8 MR. SMITH: Awesome. Do we have anything else 9 from anyone? 10 I'd like to talk about the net proceeds issue 11 that we're having right now. I don't know if anybody else is 12 aware of that. Melodye, I'm probably sure you are. 13 MS. GREEN: Uh-huh (affirmative). 14 MR. SMITH: It's my understanding that the net 15 proceeds is causing some of the charities to go into the 16 legal process where they aren't making their net proceeds for 17 their rolling 12 months. Is it 12 months, right? 18 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Uh-huh (affirmative). 19 MR. SMITH: Yeah, rolling 12 month quarter. 20 Fortunately, I'm not very familiar with that, but I know a 21 lot of halls are. But I think that's something that we may 22 want to address and at least talk about getting on the table 23 and try to -- try to get some things rolling for either rule 24 changes or legislative changes, something like that. 25 Melodye, do you want to comment? 0040 1 MS. ROGERS: I completely agree, because I 2 will say that we have been -- run into that process at one of 3 our places and reading the legal -- what the Bingo Enabling 4 Act says is slightly different from what the rules say. It 5 kind of throws you -- not different I shouldn't say it that 6 way. They're -- a lot more people get thrown into it because 7 of the rule versus the Act. 8 MR. SMITH: Okay. 9 MS. ROGERS: So looking at the rule would be a 10 great thing. If you'd like to head it, I would definitely be 11 there to help you. 12 MS. GREEN: Okay. 13 MR. SMITH: All right. We'll get a work group 14 going with Melodye and then Kim obviously. 15 MR. POHL: I'd like to be a part of it as 16 well. 17 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 18 MR. SMITH: Excellent, Jason. All right. 19 Good deal. And I don't know, this may -- this may be a weird 20 question to ask, but are we allowed to take suggestions from 21 the audience, from staff, as well as the -- the attending 22 public or -- 23 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Well, it's you guys' 24 meeting. If you -- you know, we have a -- at the end, we 25 have a -- 0041 1 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 2 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- agenda item for public 3 comment. 4 MS. ROGERS: Public comment. 5 MR. SMITH: Okay. Is that where -- 6 COMMISSIONER LOWE: I think it's appropriate 7 you have -- if you need an opinion from somebody that has 8 expertise in a particular area, I don't think it'd be 9 inappropriate if you'd want to say hey Steve, what do you 10 think about this or Tyler. I just -- be mindful of y'all's 11 time to get -- to -- it's your job, y'all can do it. 12 MR. SMITH: Okay. 13 MS. ROGERS: You always do have down at the 14 bottom the public comment. But it was also wonderful to have 15 public involved. 16 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Uh-huh (affirmative). 17 MS. ROGERS: Because sometimes you have people 18 that do a lot of books in the public that could offer quite a 19 bit of assistance. 20 MR. SMITH: And the reason I ask that is I 21 know there's a lot of people that have a lot of ideas in 22 their heads and sometimes, when you get to a certain point, 23 they don't want to lose their train of thought, so -- 24 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 25 MR. SMITH: -- I get scatterbrained myself 0042 1 sometimes. 2 COMMISSIONER LOWE: I think the only thing -- 3 comment I would have is if you get somebody recognized in the 4 audience that you have them say their name so we have the 5 court -- 6 MS. ROGERS: Exactly. 7 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- reporter knows -- 8 MR. SMITH: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- who's talking. 10 MR. SMITH: Excellent. 11 COMMISSIONER LOWE: He can tell from looking 12 at the cards who's talking here, but not out in the audience. 13 MR. SMITH: Right. Okay. Excellent. Okay. 14 Well, is there any recommendations from staff or anything 15 like that, that they would like to see addressed or something 16 we can help the staff with then? 17 MR. FARRELL: I don't have anything further at 18 this point. 19 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Not the time. I think 20 we're -- we're kind of -- you know, Michael's sort of new. 21 We're -- we've got new lawyer working with us, and so I think 22 at this point in time, we're not prepared to go forward with 23 any -- any rule changes. My -- my only bugaboo though is 24 this issue about loans to the hall from lessors and how it 25 effects their ability to have a -- have a net proceeds and 0043 1 some sort of transparency in that regard. 2 You know what I'm talking about there? 3 MS. ROGERS: So commercial lessors allowed to 4 loan money to a -- 5 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Well, that -- well, it's 6 not really loan money, it's -- 7 MR. SMITH: I think they're -- 8 MS. ROGERS: I'm like -- 9 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I didn't think they 10 could. 11 COMMISSIONER LOWE: It's -- 12 MR. VANCE: The issue is at what point does a 13 deferred rent become a loan? 14 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Right. The rent issue. 15 MR. SMITH: Oh. 16 COMMISSIONER LOWE: The rent issue and the 17 legislature allows that. 18 MR. SMITH: Yeah, that's on my list as well. 19 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 20 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And so, I think that you 21 guys want transparency from us and so I think that -- I think 22 that that needs to be an issue we'd like to know how much 23 rent's being deferred. And I don't think that's 24 unreasonable. 25 So we could say okay, this is $20,000 from 0044 1 three years, there's a problem. The hall's really not doing 2 it, not -- not really -- not getting there. So that's the 3 only issue I'd like to bring to the forefront is -- 4 MR. SMITH: Back rent? 5 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- that. Is back 6 deferred. And I didn't know -- loan's the wrong word. But 7 I'm a simple person, so -- 8 MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- it's deferred rent. 10 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). Deferred. 11 MR. SMITH: Well, if your simple level is 12 here, mine is down there. Don't be afraid to use the big red 13 crayon with me. 14 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And before the session you 15 couldn't -- you know, it was happening, was not supposed to 16 be happening, but the session kind of -- kind of changed 17 that, so anyway. That -- if y'all want to start -- if y'all 18 want to make that part of your work plan. 19 MR. SMITH: We do. 20 COMMISSIONER LOWE: I'd be happy to volunteer 21 Michael to be on that. 22 MR. SMITH: Okay. All right. 23 MR. FARRELL: Thank you, sir. 24 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And I'll be a part of it, 25 because that's -- that's one of my things. 0045 1 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Deferred rent, not loan. 2 MR. SMITH: All right. 3 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Deferred rent. 4 MS. ROGERS: So deferred rent or rent 5 abatement I believe I've heard. 6 COMMISSIONER LOWE: What's it called? 7 MS. ROGERS: Abatement. 8 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Abatement? 9 MS. ROGERS: Rent abatement. 10 MR. VANCE: The issue is that a lessor can't 11 extend credit to a charity. 12 MS. ROGERS: Right. 13 MR. SMITH: Right. 14 MR. VANCE: So theoretically at some point it 15 becomes credit. It's not defined anywhere, but like you 16 said, we can all agree that if three years later $100,000 17 that's credit, but -- 18 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Yeah. 19 MR. VANCE: -- a lessor -- when does it become 20 credit. 21 MR. SMITH: So you're wanting to put maybe a - 22 - a cap on the timeframe; is that what I'm understanding? 23 MR. VANCE: Probably time and money I think is 24 the -- 25 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, again it -- it goes back 0046 1 to -- for me is it goes back to how are we helping a charity 2 if you let them defer rent for six or nine months or 3 whatever, it -- it just -- you're not helping the charity at 4 all. You know, if they're not making enough money to -- to 5 cover the rent over a reasonable period of time, how are we 6 helping the charity? 7 MR. SMITH: Right. 8 MS. ROGERS: And that's always the question, a 9 reasonable amount of time. 10 MS. GREEN: Right. Because bingo is seasonal. 11 MR. FARRELL: It is -- I'm not going to argue 12 that, I -- I've looked at lots of books, I've looked at lots 13 of audits, I've looked at the -- 14 MS. ROGERS: Yeah. 15 MR. FARRELL: -- quar -- monthly reports and 16 things, that you do run into seasonal, which is why it's a 17 12-month period, that's my understanding. But again, is we 18 have to run into does the bingo hall have a -- the equivalent 19 of Black Friday, all those kinds of things. 20 MS. ROGERS: Exactly. 21 MR. SMITH: Right. 22 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 23 MR. SMITH: Yeah. So you want to be on that 24 group, correct, sir? 25 MR. FARRELL: Do I want to be on that group? 0047 1 I think so. 2 MR. SMITH: Steve? 3 MR. BRESNEN: May I make a suggestion? I'll 4 hold my comment -- my substantive comments to the -- to the 5 time period, but I think this is a good place where -- to 6 reserve -- and it may not be here or whoever you want to 7 appoint, but for a member of the public who works in this, 8 that may not be on the BAC, to also participate in that. 9 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It's your call. 10 MR. BRESNEN: So if you'd -- if you'd keep a 11 spot open to have a member of the -- another person who may 12 not be here. 13 MR. BIARD: And I just want to interject for a 14 minute, and we are -- we have a court reporter here, who's 15 taking the minutes and everything. 16 MR. BRESNEN: Steve -- 17 MR. BIARD: I just want to make sure that he's 18 -- are you able to hear the conversation okay? 19 THE COURT REPORTER: It would be better if 20 they were closer to a mic, because I only mic'd the center 21 tables, not realizing that the audience is going to be 22 speaking. 23 MR. BIARD: Okay. 24 THE COURT REPORTER: I can hear them very 25 quietly. 0048 1 MR. BIARD: Okay. So one thing to make it 2 easier on the minutes, just make sure you all speak up and if 3 you're speaking from the audience, just identify who you are. 4 Thanks. 5 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You don't have another -- 6 you don't have a portable mic with you or anything, do you? 7 THE COURT REPORTER: No, sir. 8 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Okay. 9 MR. SMITH: Yeah, if y'all are going to speak 10 or interject, please be sure to state your name very clearly 11 so he can get that and we'll -- 12 MS. ROGERS: Is -- can I ask a question? Is 13 there anyone in the public that would like to volunteer to be 14 on this work group? Would you please stand up and say your 15 name for the record? Thank you. 16 MS. IVES: Sharon Ives, that's I-v-e-s. 17 MS. ROGERS: Thank you, Ms. Ives. 18 MS. IVES: Thank you. 19 MR. SMITH: Is there anybody else that would 20 like to be on the work group on that? I'm going to help on 21 that as well. 22 All right. Is there any other pressing 23 matters that y'all would like to address? No? 24 MS. ROGERS: All right. 25 MR. SMITH: Okay. Those are the top three to 0049 1 four items. 2 All right. So we'll go on to review 3 components of the bingo annual report and recommend elements 4 and information to be included in future annual reports. 5 Well, I think that's -- 6 MR. FARRELL: We don't have an annual report 7 ready for you. 8 MR. SMITH: Okay. 9 MR. FARRELL: The intent was to have one ready 10 for you. Unfortunately, there was a -- bottom line was there 11 was an editing problem that -- moved some sections around in 12 the wrong pieces and we couldn't get it printed in time to 13 get it to you. 14 The intent is it will be ready, I'm going to 15 say within ten days, but it will be posted on our website. 16 We'll notify everybody on the BAC that it gets posted so you 17 can see the final version. Because I wanted to try to hand 18 out a draft version, but it just -- it didn't look right. 19 MR. SMITH: Okay. 20 MR. FARRELL: And so rather than -- 21 pictorially kind of -- and rather than -- and a lot of 22 questions and why does it look this way, want to make sure 23 it's done right. 24 MR. SMITH: Okay. 25 MR. FARRELL: But the other I would say is 0050 1 along those lines is that that's the bingo annual report, 2 it's -- oh, it's number four and we'll -- I'll wait -- I'll 3 withhold until number four. 4 MR. SMITH: I don't have a problem with you 5 skipping to number four if nobody else has a problem with it. 6 MS. ROGERS: No. 7 MR. FARRELL: One of the things that's on the 8 agenda, if you look on the agenda for the commission hearing 9 meeting, excuse me, is the BAC should be making a report to 10 the commission based upon what their meeting is. So I know 11 you're not local, so you may want to -- you may want to 12 either have a written report that gets entered in the record 13 or you may want to have somebody here to speak to what 14 happened at the BAC meeting, because the BAC meeting is 15 yours, not mine or not the Commissioners'. So you -- I would 16 recommend you have somebody who does report out at the -- at 17 the Commission hearing meeting. 18 It doesn't have to be extensive, it could be 19 just very short and sweet, what you're working on so the 20 Commission knows. Is there anything else -- 21 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Like in the past, what -- 22 was that -- were they done? 23 MS. ROGERS: Basically -- a basic recap of 24 what we talked about, what we're looking at, doing our work 25 groups that we formed. Yes. 0051 1 MR. SMITH: So my question would be it -- it's 2 talking about an annual report and the annual work plan, but 3 are you -- do you not want updates as y'all have meetings? 4 Wouldn't you rather have that as well or are you wanting both 5 or do you just want the annual report? 6 MR. FARRELL: No, my recommendation is, and 7 it's -- is that you report out at the next Commission hearing 8 meeting after you have your quarterly meeting, it's supposed 9 to be quarterly. That you report that out to the Commission 10 and say these are the things we discussed about. I -- you -- 11 forgive me if I'm wrong or -- Bob, correct me if I'm wrong, 12 can they -- they can be on the schedule in-between their 13 quarterly meetings, can they not? On the Commission 14 schedule? If they had something they wanted to talk about? 15 MR. BIARD: To the Commissioners? 16 MR. FARRELL: To the Commissioners, the BAC? 17 MR. BIARD: Well, we are going to start 18 posting -- and our next Commission meeting is October 3rd. 19 We're going to have a standing item on the Commission agenda 20 in case the -- the BAC chairperson wants to address the 21 Commission. Or anyone else. And there's also always the 22 public comment, you know, item, but we're going to have a 23 specific item in case there's anything the committee wants to 24 review. 25 MR. FARRELL: So you don't have to do it 0052 1 quarterly, you could -- 2 MS. ROGERS: Right. I believe what you're 3 talking about is a work plan to come forward to the 4 Commissioners at the meeting, their meeting after ours, that 5 would let them know what we discussed, what we talked about, 6 what we're looking into, and if we had anything of that 7 nature. And I believe I'm probably the closest one. I would 8 be happy to do that. 9 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. 10 MS. ROGERS: If that's -- now, I believe 11 that's different, though, than an annual report. 12 MR. FARRELL: Right. The annual report's a 13 different thing. This is -- and that's why I said it's -- 14 it's really not the annual report, it's a report to the 15 Commission on the status. 16 Since this is the first meeting of it, I think 17 it'd be beneficial for the Commission as a whole to hear from 18 you how -- what you -- what's important to you, what you're 19 working on, and that they can ask you questions in particular 20 about if there's some -- if they have any questions. And -- 21 and that's an open forum. 22 MS. ROGERS: So I would draft up a paper and 23 list everyone that's on the work groups, what they're going 24 to -- what they're looking into, what research they're going 25 to reach out to find, and things of that nature. 0053 1 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. 2 MS. ROGERS: And then of course I would submit 3 that to the Lottery also when I email it to all the members 4 so they have it. 5 MR. FARRELL: Do you want to get it, Bob? 6 MS. ROGERS: Would that be something that you 7 would want copies of so that it could be a copy for the 8 Commissioners at their meeting -- 9 MR. BIARD: That's -- 10 MS. ROGERS: -- so they can look at? 11 MR. BIARD: We'd be happy to include it if we 12 have it in time. 13 MR. FARRELL: Yes. 14 MS. ROGERS: I will. 15 MR. BIARD: We'd be happy to provide that -- 16 MS. ROGERS: Of course. 17 MR. FARRELL: Yeah. 18 MS. ROGERS: Of course. 19 MR. BIARD: And even if we don't have it in 20 time for the notebooks, we'd be happy to take it and make 21 sure that we hand it out to them. 22 MS. ROGERS: Okay. Okay. 23 MR. SMITH: Does that satisfy everybody? 24 MR. FARRELL: Oh, absolutely. I'm -- I just 25 want to make sure you knew what the expectations were. 0054 1 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. Yes. Yes. 2 MR. BIARD: And obviously, this -- one more 3 thing about the Open Meetings Act, I'm not sure if y'all are 4 going to -- how much y'all are going to be emailing 5 Commissioners, but I would be real careful, because when you 6 have three commissioners communicate, you do have an Open 7 Meetings Act. 8 MS. ROGERS: Right. I was just going to email 9 it straight to the young lady that spoke earlier. 10 MR. BIARD: Okay. That's correct. 11 MS. ROGERS: That was going to be it. I 12 wasn't going to email the Commissioners. 13 MR. BIARD: That's correct. 14 MR. SMITH: Okay. Let's skip back up to -- 15 anybody else got anything they want to add on that? Let's 16 skip back up to number three then. 17 Identify recommended statutory changes. 18 Anybody want to delve off into that? Y'all have anything -- 19 MS. ROGERS: I think they said they didn't 20 have anything at this time, right? 21 COMMISSIONER LOWE: No, we don't have a -- 22 MS. ROGERS: No. 23 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- legislative agenda 24 right now. 25 MS. ROGERS: No. 0055 1 COMMISSIONER LOWE: I think we're probably in 2 reactive mode is where we are. 3 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'd like to throw one out 4 there. 5 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 6 MR. BOURGOYNE: Just from my perspective, it 7 seems kind of funny to me that we have a provision for having 8 progressive pull tabs, but we still have a top tier of 750 9 and we're not allowed to take any of that prize money and 10 carry it on from deal to deal, so I'd like to look at Section 11 201.420 under prizes to see if we can put an exception for 12 progressive pull tab games to exceed -- not to exceed 2500. 13 I know it's out -- I know it's a statute 14 change and it's probably not going to be the easiest thing in 15 the world to do, but it just seems to me if you -- 16 progressive pull tabs are legal, but you can't have a 17 progressive jackpot prize, it makes no sense. 18 MS. GREEN: You want to stop it at 2500? 19 MR. SMITH: Not to exceed 2500; is that what 20 you said? 21 MR. BOURGOYNE: I -- I think that's probably 22 the lowest in the country. 23 MS. GREEN: Oh, I agree. I'm just saying it 24 was not -- 25 MR. BOURGOYNE: I mean, I'd love to -- 0056 1 MS. GREEN: -- to ask for more. 2 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'd love to see us ask for 3 more. 4 MS. GREEN: Right. 5 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'm just trying to be 6 conservative. 7 MS. GREEN: Uh-huh (affirmative). 8 MS. ROGERS: Emile -- 9 MS. GREEN: That is low. 10 MS. ROGERS: You're saying look in having 11 progressive that can go above 2500? 12 MR. BOURGOYNE: We -- we take -- well, right 13 now you have to cap it at 750. 14 MR. DUNCAN: Actually, you're capped at 599, 15 unless you -- it's a $3, $2, $3 ticket. 16 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yeah. 17 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'll throw out the amount 18 whatever you think is reasonable to -- to think we could get 19 out of the legislature. I'm all for anything. 20 MS. ROGERS: I was just asking for 21 clarification because we didn't understand if you were 22 talking about exactly what numbers you were talking about. 23 MR. BOURGOYNE: Right. I -- 24 MR. SMITH: Well, there's always another work 25 group if you'd like to do that, and I'm sure there'll be 0057 1 plenty of people that would love to help you with that. 2 Tommy? 3 MR. DUNCAN: We're already working on that. 4 MR. BOURGOYNE: I'd be happy to. 5 MR. MARTIN: I'm on it. 6 MS. GREEN: Will Martin. 7 MR. SMITH: Put Will on that. 8 MR. POHL: I'd like to be on that as well. 9 MR. SMITH: Okay. Jason. All right. So 10 we've got Tommy, Emile, Will and Jason on that. All right. 11 Anyone else on statutory changes at the 12 moment? I'm sure there'll be some during the public comment 13 period, I'm sure. 14 MR. BOURGOYNE: I had a question I just wanted 15 to bring up about statute changes and I was looking at them 16 and I asked our sales people to look at them as well from 17 both companies to see if they knew something -- anything they 18 thought would change that would help spur more ticket sales 19 if you will. And one of the things that was pointed out to 20 me, that under the definition of Bingo Occasion, it says pull 21 tab bingo tickets are conducted on the day and at the time -- 22 this is on the license issued to a licensed organization. 23 And then under Section 2001.055, regulations 24 of the game, it says the Commission by rule may establish the 25 number and type of bingo games that may be played during a 0058 1 bingo occasion. 2 So I pose the question why couldn't by rule we 3 allow a charity like the American Legion or VFW, who own 4 their own building, play pull tabs beyond their bingo 5 session? Why couldn't we -- under existing statute, could we 6 not go through a rule change to allow them to do that? 7 MR. SMITH: Anybody want to take a stab at 8 that? 9 MR. BIARD: That would require a rule review 10 analysis. 11 (Laughter) 12 MS. ROGERS: That's -- 13 MR. SMITH: Anyone want to jump in with both 14 feet? Okay. 15 COMMISSIONER LOWE: I would say on the 16 legislative stuff, we don't want anything to happen that 17 threatens our budget or makes us do more work. 18 (Laughter) 19 MR. BOURGOYNE: Well, that narrows it down. 20 (Laughter) 21 MS. ROGERS: Exactly, but isn't it written 22 that you can't do anything outside your license times? 23 MR. BOURGOYNE: But the time is established by 24 the Commission -- 25 MS. ROGERS: And the time is only four hours. 0059 1 MR. BOURGOYNE: But they could exempt that 2 four hours if you owned your own building, et cetera. They 3 could make that -- their own rule. We could do it by rule. 4 MS. ROGERS: True. But -- 5 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I could only see a -- 6 MS. ROGERS: But then you're affecting -- and 7 that's one of the things that we have to always remember on 8 the BAC, Texas is a huge state. We have to not do something 9 in Austin that affects Amarillo that does -- affects 10 negatively in McAllen that affects positively in Houston, but 11 negative in Dallas. 12 So you know, you're -- you're talking about 13 that if they own their own building. You're throwing out a 14 lot of bingo halls that wouldn't be able to do that. So it's 15 not something that would be for everyone. 16 MR. BOURGOYNE: I think -- 17 MS. ROGERS: I mean, I'm all for looking into 18 it if that's -- if that's something that everyone wants to 19 do. 20 MR. BOURGOYNE: Well, it's something we see 21 across the country in other states that -- 22 MS. ROGERS: I'm just talking about Texas. 23 MR. BOURGOYNE: -- that we don't see here in 24 Texas. I'm just pointing that out. 25 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 0060 1 MR. SMITH: Well, and I know from just a 2 charity standpoint, I think what that does is it creates an 3 unfair advantage for some charities over other charities. 4 And I don't believe that would be consistent with what BAC 5 could support and the staff can support. I'm going to speak 6 for you a little bit, but -- if I may, I think what we want 7 to do is create a level playing field for everyone in Texas. 8 and that -- I like your idea; I think we might be able to 9 modify it a little bit maybe to make some headway, I'm not 10 sure, but I would like to see maybe if you're going to let 11 one charity do it, let all the charities do it. I'm not 12 saying I'm a proponent of that, because that creates a lot of 13 work, especially for us down here. 14 MR. BOURGOYNE: I was taking baby steps. 15 MR. SMITH: Right. But I think that's 16 something that maybe we may want to consider and think about 17 if we could create a level playing field for all the 18 charities, because we're not just representative of one group 19 of charities or one group of halls. We have to -- like Kim 20 said -- we have to make it level across the state. I would - 21 - I would feel better representing something that benefitted 22 all the charities. 23 MR. BIARD: I'd just say if -- my gut sort of 24 tells me that there may be some people out there -- some 25 folks out there -- who might say that's starting to expand 0061 1 gaming a little bit. Some folks out there just sort of -- 2 play these -- play these sort of bingo games outside their 3 bingo occasions, so I just would be sensitive to that as a 4 policy matter. 5 MR. SMITH: Okay. Anything else on the 6 statutory changes? 7 MS. GREEN: Last time at our meeting we -- we 8 -- last week we talked about adding more temporaries or 9 Patricia and I did a temporaries on demand. When you get -- 10 you have a big, big crowd, for some reason you don't think, 11 you know, it surprises you, and you can play another session. 12 It doesn't have to be a whole 2500, but anyway, that's -- 13 those were the -- we were trying to get input before we got 14 here about what -- what the industry's wanting and we have 15 several requests for that. 16 MS. ROGERS: That's something unique. 17 MS. GREEN: Uh-huh (affirmative). 18 MR. SMITH: Yeah. 19 MS. ROGERS: Temporaries on demand. 20 MS. GREEN: Uh-huh (affirmative). 21 MR. SMITH: It's my understanding that there 22 are other jurisdictions that allow you to do that on demand. 23 I'm not familiar with them, but I -- you know, through 24 talking with people in the industry I've heard people say 25 well, if we can have it on demand, you know, we could have a 0062 1 big crowd one night and we don't want to turn them loose 2 because Tuesday was bad, but it's Thursday now and 3 everybody's got their checks or they've got, you know, it was 4 payday that week for that industry in that town or if 5 whatever they want to make a snap judgment call and be able 6 to play bingo and that's definitely maximizing the charities' 7 returns and I -- I get it. 8 MR. DUNCAN: Rather than have one scheduled 9 and only 80 people show up. 10 MR. SMITH: Yes. Yes. 11 MS. ROGERS: I would think that would 12 definitely warrant a work group to look into is that 13 legislative, is that rule, is that -- 14 MS. GREEN: I don't know. 15 MS. ROGERS: How we could go about something 16 like that to work in with the bingo portal system, something 17 of that nature. 18 MS. GREEN: Because that would definitely just 19 help the charities. That's one thing that, you know, you do 20 -- we're not asking for more money, we're -- 21 MR. SMITH: Right. 22 MS. GREEN: -- whether the -- on demand and 23 maybe some more temporaries. 24 MR. SMITH: You want to be on that work group, 25 Kim? 0063 1 MS. ROGERS: Sure. 2 MR. SMITH: Melodye? 3 MS. GREEN: Sure. 4 MS. ROGERS: Yes. 5 MS. GREEN: And Kim. 6 MR. SMITH: Anyone else want to help out on 7 that? Will, do you want to help out on that, sir? 8 MR. MARTIN: No. 9 MR. SMITH: No? Okay. 10 MR. GREEN: That's not his wheelhouse. 11 (Laughter) 12 MR. SMITH: Anything else? All right. We'll 13 come back to that in a minute I feel like. 14 So let's consider any other items? Is there 15 anything else that maybe y'all want to address? 16 MS. ROGERS: The annual report used to be, 17 doesn't have to be anymore, whatever you decide. It used to 18 be, if I'm recalling correctly, a recap for the Commissioners 19 to let them know -- and I don't know if maybe staff already 20 gives them this -- how bingo's doing as a whole over the past 21 year. It's numbers that we would put together; sales, how 22 many licenses, et cetera, letting them know just kind of a 23 general recap of this is what happened in '17 to bingo; it 24 went up, it went down, nothing real elaborate. I mean, some 25 of them would get pretty in depth depending on how -- who you 0064 1 have working with numbers. But just to give them something 2 at the following meeting. And it was usually at a time -- I 3 want to say it was like their August meeting or maybe March 4 meeting, of the year prior. 5 So you may want to see if anyone -- if that's 6 something y'all still want or does staff -- do you know, 7 Michael, if y'all do something like that already? 8 MR. FARRELL: We do, but it -- if I go back to 9 the -- and -- administrative code -- at the first Commission 10 meeting held prior to September 1st of each year, the BAC 11 will provide to the Commission a report. So it's in the code 12 that you need to do that. 13 MS. ROGERS: Yeah. Sometimes I -- I seem to 14 recall it would fall in August or something, at the meeting. 15 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, this one says prior to 16 September 1st, and usually it's the August Commission 17 meeting. 18 COMMISSIONER LOWE: But you're wanting to know 19 as far as content, we -- would you be wanting to put 20 statistics in there, like a state of the industry? I think 21 we -- our report does that as far as sales and -- and -- and 22 data that's useful, so I -- I don't -- I don't think y'all 23 have to do it. I think that really what we're -- you're kind 24 of -- we want y'all to gather the pulse of the industry so 25 that -- so that that message is coming to the Commission and 0065 1 so we can say Michael, go -- we need this data on this piece 2 of the puzzle, so yeah -- 3 MS. ROGERS: Very good. I didn't know if 4 y'all were already covered on that, if y'all would want it. 5 MR. FARRELL: What we're -- we're very black 6 and white. It's -- if it goes up, it goes up. If it goes 7 down, it goes down. And then there's a percentage attached 8 to it. But what I think -- what I think is we can't give you 9 the state of the industry. We can tell you what the numbers 10 are, but I can't give you the state of the bingo industry. 11 MR. SMITH: Right. 12 MR. FARRELL: I can't tell you that, you know, 13 why maybe Victoria is -- I can't make a value judgment saying 14 Harvey destroyed the bingo industry in Port Aransas. I can 15 say the numbers went down in Port Aransas, but I'm not going 16 to tie it to Harvey. Where I think as you as the BAC can tie 17 it to and make -- and make statements that say this is how 18 the bingo -- this is kind of how the bingo industry works. 19 MR. SMITH: So are you looking for in -- in 20 that report that you're talking about, are you looking more 21 of the why and the hows? 22 MR. FARRELL: I think you need -- I think what 23 you need to do is you need to say your -- your first -- 24 you're going to report your activities as related to the work 25 plan and I would say you -- you would say what you perceive 0066 1 the state of the bingo industry to be, is from your 2 perspective. Is that -- 3 MR. BIARD: I just want to interject her for a 4 second. I'm sorry. 5 MR. FARRELL: That's fine. 6 MR. BIARD: I'd like to interject. 7 COMMISSIONER LOWE: You can have a chair right 8 here. 9 MR. FARRELL: You want my chair and I'll -- 10 MR. BIARD: The rule speaks to the report and 11 it does include, you know, the duty -- the activities as it 12 relates to the work plan. But I think you have a copy of the 13 rule in your materials, but at -- on the second page of it, 14 it's Section N(2). 15 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, N(2), yeah. 16 MR. BIARD: You know, well, in there it says 17 the BAC must report their activities quarterly to the 18 Commission, although, the Commission may require reporting 19 more frequently, and that's why we're going to always have a 20 standing item at the Commission meetings. 21 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 22 MR. BIARD: The second item says the BAC will 23 report annually to the Commission the BAC's perspective on 24 the state of the charitable bingo industry in Texas, with 25 specific comments on the following: Adjust gross receipts, 0067 1 net receipts, charitable distributions, expenses, attendance, 2 and then any other matter requested by the Commission. 3 MS. ROGERS: And that's what my question was. 4 I didn't know if y'all already put something like this for 5 the Commissioners or not? If we need to -- before we skip to 6 the next item, if we need to put somebody in charge of the 7 annual report, an actual report for the Commissioners. 8 MR. FARRELL: Well, here's where I think we -- 9 we'll have to have -- get back to you on a little bit. One 10 is, we may -- we may have those numbers, but you report them 11 to us, so I mean, it's the same. We can -- we may have those 12 numbers, but we won't have specific comments on them. And 13 that's what I'm saying is. 14 MR. SMITH: So the whys. 15 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, it's I -- I can tell you 16 that attendance went down in Port Aransas over the last year 17 50 percent let's say, right? But I can't tell you the why or 18 I'm not going to make a comment on it, I'm just going to say 19 it went down. 20 MR. SMITH: Right. 21 MR. FARRELL: Right? I think that's -- if I'm 22 not mistaken, so that's -- 23 MR. BIARD: So we're here to be support, to 24 provide information on -- 25 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, we can give you the 0068 1 numbers that we have, that's not the issue. The issue is 2 what are they meaning to the industry? 3 MS. ROGERS: Right. 4 MR. FARRELL: Because that's where you -- I 5 think that's where the specific comments on the bingo 6 industry. 7 MS. ROGERS: And I don't -- I can't recall who 8 it was, who sent an email back that asked about the net 9 proceeds and to get some information from the -- the emails 10 that we were receiving from staff. No? No one? 11 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I didn't get that email. 12 MS. ROGERS: Okay. I thought there was 13 someone. If these numbers -- and that's what I used to do is 14 pull them off of the internet because they're there. 15 MR. FARRELL: Uh-huh (affirmative). 16 MS. ROGERS: Y'all put them in because we tell 17 you what they are. So pulling them in. I would be happy to 18 put that in my report to the Commissioners, and then also, 19 I'll reach out to y'all -- I believe I'm okay to do this -- 20 reach out to each one of you if you see any ups or downs or 21 anything of that nature, so I can combine that into a reoprt, 22 reduce it down of course, a quick synopsis for the 23 Commissioners to say this is why we've seen numbers drop in 24 this area, it was because of this, because you are all from 25 different areas. Is that okay? 0069 1 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Absolutely. 2 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 3 MR. SMITH: The only thing that I would think 4 that we might want to include in that report that the two 5 things that really stand out to me and one really affects me 6 and the other one doesn't, but the first one would be the 7 illegal gaming or eight liners, I know that's a four letter 8 word sometimes. 9 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 10 MR. SMITH: But I think that affects a lot of 11 the bingo industry. 12 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Uh-huh (affirmative). 13 MR. SMITH: In a lot of areas. And it's very 14 hurtful. I think we ought to try to address that in some 15 way, shape or form, even if it's just a one line the reason 16 this area is down and the other's X, and also the other thing 17 is the out of state gaming; Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, 18 and then I think it's New Mexico out in El Paso. We have 19 bingo out there still. 20 MS. ROGERS: Well, and when I reach out to 21 y'all to say okay, this is the annual report that I'm going 22 to present to the Commissioners, is there any comments that 23 y'all would like to add, those of you that are on the border 24 and it's effecting your area, let me know. 25 MR. SMITH: Okay. 0070 1 MS. ROGERS: And I'll combine that into a 2 quick, small comment for them. 3 MR. DUNCAN: Well, I think that illegal gaming 4 goes back to net proceeds in certain areas. 5 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. 6 MR. DUNCAN: When she says why was the net 7 proceeds down, you know, because I don't think the Lottery 8 allows you to put that in the waiver request. Isn't it more 9 of a business plan to -- 10 MR. FARRELL: A business plan. 11 MR. DUNCAN: -- you say and you know, there's 12 really not one to combat that. 13 MR. FARRELL: Well, yeah, it's a business plan 14 or it -- unusual circumstances I think -- 15 MS. ROGERS: Force majeure. 16 MR. FARRELL: Force majeure they talk about. 17 MR. DUNCAN: Okay. 18 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, that's -- that's the 19 Harvey, that's the flooding -- 20 MR. DUNCAN: So you can include that then? 21 MR. FARRELL: Right. 22 MS. ROGERS: So force majeure -- 23 MR. DUNCAN: When you make that request. 24 MS. ROGERS: -- does not only have to be 25 natural. 0071 1 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Yeah, back on the 2 legislative side, that I think Steve, y'all are going to push 3 that bill again, right? The bill to withhold money from 4 counties? 5 MR. BRESNEN: We're going to lean on the 28th 6 to make a decision about that, but if they listen to my 7 advice, that's what we will be pushing. 8 COMMISSIONER LOWE: And I think Will's got 9 some ideas, too. Maybe increasing the penalties to state 10 jail felonies for illegal gambling, which is what you need to 11 have happen. Pardon me? 12 MR. DUNCAN: I think you brought on the State 13 Sheriff's Association on that. 14 MR. MARTIN: Yeah, we've got the State 15 Sheriff's Association behind us and working on getting the 16 District Attorneys Association behind. 17 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Good luck. 18 MR. DUNCAN: Yeah, I know. 19 MS. ROGERS: Have to start somewhere. 20 MR. MARTIN: That's right. 21 MR. SMITH: That's right. 22 MR. DUNCAN: It's been done two or three times 23 I think. 24 MR. SMITH: All right. 25 MS. ROGERS: Sorry about that. 0072 1 MR. SMITH: So we're clear on that and you'll 2 -- 3 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 4 MR. SMITH: Any assistance you need, let me 5 know and I'll be glad to help you with anything. 6 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 7 MR. SMITH: All right. So that's going to 8 bring us down to our next item, Item 6. 9 AGENDA ITEM VI 10 MR. SMITH: Report and possible discussion 11 and/or action on establishing a web page for the BAC on the 12 Charitable Bingo Operations Division website. That is a 13 fantastic idea and I'm sure that was your idea, Michael. 14 MR. FARRELL: I'm going to take credit for it, 15 yes, sir. 16 MR. SMITH: All right. Good. Good. 17 MR. FARRELL: No, actually, I've gotta leave 18 it up to the folks sitting in. But we'll be happy to put 19 that on. Our intent is to put the transcript of the meetings 20 on there, put whatever else that need -- your bios on it and 21 pictures, so that -- and your point -- your contact 22 information, which should be -- is public information. So if 23 you give your home address, that -- if I'm not mistaken, we 24 can't redact that, so it's -- if you can -- you know, your 25 business address or your mailing address is what -- so how 0073 1 they can get a hold of any one of you and -- and you know, a 2 brief bio. 3 That's -- it's not going to be a very dynamic 4 page, so I'm saying is, is that we're probably going to need 5 something from you saying if you have questions about the 6 BAC, email it here. That doesn't mean we can't create a BAC 7 email address. I think we have one already, but I can't -- 8 I'm not sure we have one, but we can't create a BAC email 9 address and have it sent to like Kim or Trace or Will or 10 somebody to be the field -- that's okay with us, but it -- it 11 can't come -- it's not going to be in our division to talk 12 about what the BAC is doing. 13 MR. SMITH: Right. 14 MR. FARRELL: Because we have to maintain that 15 separation. But we're happy to support you that way. 16 MS. ROGERS: I would like to say I think 17 that's awesome. That's great for the public to be able to 18 have somewhere to go to reach out to hey, we would like to 19 see this in our area or that in our area. 20 Is there a timeframe that you're looking at so 21 we can -- it was a great idea I think that Trace said to do 22 our own email -- a different email so it doesn't link to our 23 personal. 24 MR. POHL: I agree. 25 MS. ROGERS: And everything is so public 0074 1 nowadays. I don't know that I would want my personal cell 2 phone on that web page, but -- 3 MR. FARRELL: No. No, we'll put on -- 4 MS. ROGERS: -- just that email -- that email 5 address. 6 MR. FARRELL: What we're going to put on -- 7 what we'll do is we're going to put your name -- we'll put 8 your name on it, we'll put your bio on it if you've got it, 9 and then we will -- we'll create a email address right now 10 that's -- it's -- it's a BAC@bingo.org or whatever the heck - 11 - lottery.whatever. And then we'll create that and then 12 somebody will tell me that Trace or Kim, you'll tell me who - 13 - who's going to get it, who -- who we'll forward that email 14 to, because we can set up an email that will forward to you, 15 so we're -- I think we can do that. J.D., am I speaking out 16 of turn here? 17 J.D.: No, sir. 18 MR. FARRELL: Okay. 19 J.D.: Doing great. 20 MR. FARRELL: Thanks. So we'll get -- we'll 21 get that to you and then we can update -- we'll update the 22 page for you as you get information. So what I'm saying is, 23 is if you -- Trace, you've got your -- you know, Trace -- 24 BACTrace@ whatever, we'll put that in. If your email -- if 25 your information changes, we'll -- we'll make the update to 0075 1 the -- we'll update the page to -- if it changes. 2 Like your mailing address could change. I 3 mean, that happens. 4 MR. SMITH: Right. Uh-huh (affirmative). 5 MR. FARRELL: Right? We'll do those updates 6 for you for the nine folks. If your bio changes and you want 7 that, we'll -- just let us know and we'll update it. 8 We also have our commun -- our communications 9 -- that's not the right word, but okay -- our communication 10 staff said they'd be happy to if you want them to look at 11 your bio and edit it and/or -- or help you out writing your 12 bio, they said they'd be happy to help us so that we get it 13 consistent and it looks right and -- and it's -- I know they 14 did mine, so they turned it in to English, so it's -- it was 15 you know, so we can get that taken care of that way. So we - 16 - we're happy to provide support, reasonable -- I'm going to 17 use the word reasonable. We're happy to provide some 18 reasonable support for you and just understand that we can't 19 do -- in the Division we can't do the BAC's job. We can give 20 you information and like, but you folks have to -- 21 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 22 MR. FARRELL: It's -- and you report directly 23 to the Commissioners, not through me. 24 MS. ROGERS: Thank you. 25 MR. SMITH: Okay. Well, I think that was an 0076 1 excellent idea. 2 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 3 MR. SMITH: We certainly appreciate that. I 4 think that's going to be a big help. 5 MS. ROGERS: Yes. Before we move on to the 6 next thing, I'm sorry, can I jump back to -- 7 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. 8 MS. ROGERS: I don't know which one it would 9 fall under, but work groups; making a work group. 10 I would like to see that somehow on the bingo 11 portal system if you would like to opt out of a mailed 12 quarterly report, that you can do that, because I think 13 that's -- and I don't know if that's even possible, but I 14 would like to head up a work group to look at that. Similar 15 to like your CPS bill. You don't -- you can opt out of 16 receiving paper bills. And you can just pay it online. 17 All of our quarterly reports that I do I pay 18 them online. I file them online. So when I receive this big 19 beautiful packet from staff, it goes in the back of the 20 folder. The papers, I don't -- there's no reason for them. 21 I don't have any reason for them. And I think that might be 22 something -- I'd like to look further into it -- that would 23 help staff, maybe lessen a lot of the burden on them. I 24 don't know what legal ramifications we would have to look at 25 to say okay, you chose this, so you -- you are responsible 0077 1 for filing October 25th, it's yours. But I would look into 2 something like that. 3 Is there anyone who would like to assist me on 4 that work group? And I apologize for jumping backwards. No? 5 MR. SMITH: Is there anybody from the general 6 public that might want to get in on that? Sharon Ives. 7 (Laughter) 8 MR. SMITH: Said she would like to volunteer. 9 MS. IVES: Do I need to stand up and repeat my 10 name again? 11 MR. SMITH: No, I think we got it. 12 MS. IVES: Okay. 13 MS. ROGERS: Do you not -- but you agree, I 14 mean, it -- you understand where I'm coming from? 15 MR. SMITH: You want a go paperless option. 16 MR. FARRELL: Can I -- can I back up? Can you 17 frame it again, because I missed the -- I missed -- I 18 misunderstood your initial statement, so that's -- that's why 19 I'm trying to frame that. 20 MS. ROGERS: Just speaking for myself, just 21 completely for myself -- 22 MR. FARRELL: Right. 23 MS. ROGERS: -- as a bookkeeper, I would log 24 on as the bookkeeper for (Indiscernible), and I would have 25 somewhere on my bingo portal system, because I have access to 0078 1 all their records, that I can click, sign whatever it may be 2 nowadays in this technology world, and I am opting out of 3 receiving the big, beautiful package from the Lottery. 4 So every quarter, I do what I normally do; I 5 go on my bingo portal system and I file all my quarterly 6 reports. There's no -- we're wasting paper. We're wasting 7 someone's time to put that package together. We're wasting a 8 computer to make copies. I don't know if it's possible, but 9 I'd like to explore the idea of it. 10 MR. SMITH: Is that -- 11 MR. FARRELL: Okay. I understand the -- I 12 understand the framing now. I'd missed -- misunderstood at 13 the beginning. 14 MR. DUNCAN: it's just a go paperless option 15 -- 16 MR. FARRELL: Yeah. 17 MR. DUNCAN: -- for these bookkeepers. 18 MR. SMITH: Is that statute or rule that y'all 19 have to send that out? 20 MR. FARRELL: Well, I'd have to research that 21 a little bit, whether the requirement requires a wet 22 signature or we can do electronic signatures or any of that. 23 We -- I'd have to do some research on that, but I don't think 24 it's a bad topic to look at and then it -- I will say this, 25 if it -- depending upon what the overhead is to make it 0079 1 happen, it may not be -- it'd be something to consider in the 2 future. Because if it makes your life easier, I'm all for 3 that. 4 MS. ROGERS: Wonderful. 5 MR. SMITH: Okay. 6 MR. FARRELL: But again, I'm going to 7 reiterate saying is -- research needs to be done. 8 MR. SMITH: No problem. 9 MS. ROGERS: Completely understand. 10 MR. SMITH: No problem. Okay. All right. 11 Ready? All right. 12 AGENDA ITEM VII 13 MR. SMITH: Let's go on down to Item VIII 14 (sic), report and possible discussion and action on 15 scheduling future meeting dates. Does the staff have any 16 dates in mind that would help coincide with the Commission 17 meetings? 18 MR. FARRELL: Next meeting's on third -- 19 when's the meeting after the 3rd of October? 20 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: December. It's every 21 other month, so December, February, April. 22 MR. FARRELL: So you -- you -- your next 23 meeting would be in January my guess is we -- if we do it 24 kind of that way. Right? November? 25 MS. ROGERS: Because when's the next 0080 1 Commissioner's meeting? 2 MR. FARRELL: You're supposed to have 3 quarterly meetings. The next Commissioners' meeting is 4 October 3rd, and the one after that is the first Thursday in 5 December. 6 MR. BIARD: It might actually be -- 7 MR. FARRELL: I didn't bring my -- 8 MS. ROGERS: So we would need to -- 9 MR. SMITH: We probably need to have one -- 10 MS. ROGERS: -- meet in November. 11 MR. SMITH: -- in-between. Yeah. 12 MR. DUNCAN: We're required to meet once a 13 quarter. If we want to meet more, I guess that's up to us, 14 right? 15 MR. FARRELL: Yeah. 16 MR. SMITH: Yeah. 17 MR. FARRELL: December 13th would be the next 18 one and then after that, there'd be one in February. So if - 19 - and to September, October, November, December would be the 20 next -- would be the -- the quarter. 21 MR. SMITH: Steve Bresnen? 22 MR. BRESNEN: I'd recommend that you do one 23 before December if you can and because you're going to have 24 legislative items. If you wait until January or February 25 it'll be too late. 0081 1 MS. ROGERS: I completely agree. We need to 2 meet in November so I can present and talk to the 3 Commissioners, if necessary. 4 MR. SMITH: All right. 5 MR. FARRELL: So the only date I would say is 6 you don't want to do it on the 22nd, 23rd or 24th. 7 MR. SMITH: Agreed. 8 (Laughter) 9 MR. FARRELL: Unless you're bringing the 10 turkey. 11 MR. SMITH: The -- sometime the week of the 12 11th through the -- or the 12th through the 16th work? 13 MR. MARTIN: Not the 12th. 14 MR. SMITH: Not the 12th? 15 MR. MARTIN: That's still spilling over -- 16 MR. SMITH: Oh, that's right. Okay. 17 MS. ROGERS: I would vote to keep it on 18 Thursday. 19 MR. SMITH: Okay. 20 MS. ROGERS: Is that still good with everyone? 21 MR. SMITH: Yes. 22 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 23 MR. SMITH: So maybe the 15th? November 15th? 24 MS. GREEN: November 15th, Thursday, that's -- 25 MR. FARRELL: That's okay with me right now. 0082 1 I don't see that being a problem. 2 MR. SMITH: Everybody okay with that? 3 MR. BOURGOYNE: 10:00 a.m.? 4 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, I wouldn't do it any -- 5 start it any earlier than 10:00 a.m. and I would also only 6 plan for two hours, because otherwise you guys -- it just 7 gets on and on. 8 MR. SMITH: Would it -- is 10:00 a.m., is that 9 a set time that -- could it be a little later, could it -- 10 MR. FARRELL: You could do it in the afternoon 11 if you want if that's -- if you're looking at travel, is -- 12 if you -- if you're looking at starting at like 1:00, I don't 13 think that's a problem, we'd just have to get the room. But 14 yeah, that's -- it's -- the time is up to you. 15 MS. ROGERS: 10:00 a.m. for me I will -- I'll 16 speak, is -- 17 MR. BOURGOYNE: I've got to come in the day 18 before, so that -- 19 MS. ROGERS: -- is fine. Exactly. 20 MR. SMITH: Yeah, me too. 21 MS. ROGERS: And if you go in the afternoon, 22 getting out of Austin sometimes, if we do run late is 23 completely a booger. 24 MR. FARRELL: I would -- you can go earlier 25 than 10:00 a.m. if you want, but I -- 0083 1 MR. SMITH: No -- 2 MS. ROGERS: Please don't. 3 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, but it's -- yeah. 4 MR. SMITH: Some of us are night owls and we 5 work at night -- 6 MR. FARRELL: Oh, is that what you want? No. 7 MR. SMITH: Yeah. 8 (Laughter) 9 MR. SMITH: If we could have the meeting about 10 9:00 p.m., that'd be great. 11 MR. FARRELL: That works for me. I'm okay 12 with that. 13 MS. ROGERS: We're bingo, remember? 14 MR. SMITH: Right? 15 MR. BOURGOYNE: It'd be entertaining. 16 MR. SMITH: All right. So -- 17 MR. FARRELL: So what's -- 18 MR. SMITH: -- 10:00 a.m. the 15th of 19 November. And we would like to extend the invitation to the 20 Commissioner. If he'd like to make it, we'd love to have 21 you. We do really appreciate your input and we definitely 22 thank you for being here today. 23 COMMISSIONER LOWE: You're welcome. Thank 24 you. 25 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 0084 1 MR. FARRELL: Oh, and let me -- let me throw 2 this out, is the agenda items, when you get the agenda items, 3 you post those, right? So they would send to you or to us, 4 they post them publicly? The agenda items for the next 5 meeting? 6 MR. BIARD: Add items? 7 MR. FARRELL: It's a standing agenda; is that 8 -- what I'm getting at is, when we -- we post -- we're going 9 to post this before they have their next meeting in November. 10 How soon does it have to be posted before the meeting? 11 MR. BIARD: Ten days. 12 MR. FARRELL: Ten days. So you need your -- 13 you need to have the agenda done ten days before so we can 14 post the agenda. 15 MS. ROGERS: And that one's on you. 16 MR. SMITH: Yes, ma'am. 17 MR. FARRELL: Yeah. But I just want to make 18 sure that came out so that we -- 19 MS. ROGERS: Yes. 20 MR. SMITH: So if there's anything that y'all 21 want on the agenda or want to talk about at the next meeting, 22 please have that to me -- 23 MR. DUNCAN: Well, I agree with Steve; it's 24 probably going to be legislative items, right? At that 25 point? 0085 1 MR. SMITH: Yeah. So if you've got something, 2 please get it to me as soon as possible so we can get that 3 agenda to the staff in way plenty of time. I don't like to 4 wait until the last second. I know sometimes it goes that 5 way and I'm guilty, but I'd rather have it in early than 6 late. I was always told if you're on time you're late and if 7 you're late, you're dead, so. 8 MS. ROGERS: Goodness. 9 MR. SMITH: It's the way I grew up. 10 All right. Anything else on the meetings? 11 All right. We're going to number 8. 12 MR. FARRELL: Oh, can I just -- 13 MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. 14 MR. FARRELL: Oh, sorry. Forgive me, it's 15 number 8. I'm not reading well today. What can I tell you. 16 MR. SMITH: Okay. 17 MR. FARRELL: Only two cups of coffee. 18 AGENDA ITEM VIII 19 MR. SMITH: Report and possible discussion 20 and/or action on the BAC quarterly and annual reports to the 21 Commission and possible presentations at the Texas Lottery 22 Commission meetings. Yes, sir. 23 MR. FARRELL: I was going to say, if you're 24 going to meet in November, I would definitely say -- suggest 25 you do something for their December meeting. 0086 1 MR. SMITH: Yes. 2 MR. FARRELL: Okay. 3 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think 4 it would be in our best interest and you'll -- maybe might 5 agree with me, that if we have a meeting and then they have 6 the meeting afterwards, that we present something to -- 7 MS. ROGERS: Well -- 8 MR. SMITH: -- show our -- 9 MR. DUNCAN: I think that's what you just 10 covered, didn't you? 11 MS. ROGERS: Right. I will take it on to do 12 it for the next year, that after every one of our meetings I 13 will put together -- not the annual report, of course, that 14 will only be once a year -- 15 MR. SMITH: Right. 16 MS. ROGERS: -- annual. But what we've talked 17 about and what we're looking at doing. 18 MR. DUNCAN: In case they ask her to speak, 19 right? 20 MS. ROGERS: Exactly. 21 MR. SMITH: Okay. Anything else on that? All 22 right. 23 AGENDA ITEM IX 24 MR. SMITH: Number 9, public comment. Steve 25 Bresnen. 0087 1 MR. BRESNEN: Bresnen, B-r-e-s-n-e-n. Steve. 2 Thank you all. First thing I want to do is thank 3 Commissioner Lowe and his colleagues for re-upping the BAC. 4 I think it's going to be extremely useful. I appreciate all 5 y'all being willing to serve and coming ready to actually get 6 into some meaty items. 7 The net proceeds deal was the number one thing 8 on the bingo interest groups' agenda that I represent and so 9 I think that's hugely important and it has both a statutory 10 and a rule component to it. Obviously, the Agency could do 11 the rules faster than the legislature's going to meet, so to 12 the extent that those things that are in the Agency's 13 prerogative I -- my recommendation would be that you focus on 14 that. 15 I'd also suggest that you move the public 16 comment period to the top of the agenda each time. The -- I 17 -- in many agencies, it's at the bottom of the agenda like it 18 is today, but I think that -- you know, I get paid to be 19 here, so if I'm here, it's -- it's neither here nor there, 20 but members of the public that have to wait until the end, 21 it's not the most satisfying experience for them and 22 sometimes you'll be past an agenda item when they've had 23 something that they wanted to say. 24 In addition to that, I think you might have to 25 make some time when you come to the agenda, specific agenda 0088 1 items, it'll be helpful to you if you'll let them talk some. 2 I fully agree with you, Commissioner Lowe, that you have to 3 be careful because your time can get away from you if it 4 becomes a great big group around a particular agenda item. 5 Bingo interest group will meet September 28th. 6 I'm hoping that they give me my marching orders at that 7 meeting so your November meeting to talk about legislation 8 will have a substantive agenda that I think you'll find not 9 only substantive, but substantial. 10 And that's all I've got to say and thanks for 11 letting me participate. I've got to go meet with the 12 Attorney General's people, I'm going to run out of the room. 13 Very much appreciate all of y'all and the work you've agreed 14 to do. 15 MS. ROGERS: Mr. Bresnen -- 16 MR. BRESNEN: Yes, ma'am. 17 MS. ROGERS: -- would you have any problem if 18 we needed anything legal from you in reference to the net 19 proceeds, for us contacting you? 20 MR. BRESNEN: I'm happy to help. I don't -- 21 MS. ROGERS: Okay. 22 MR. BRESNEN: -- want to lawyer for you, we -- 23 we'll get Steve Fenoglio involved -- 24 MS. ROGERS: Gotcha. 25 MR. BRESNEN: -- and Kim as well, but I'm 0089 1 happy to help you all at any time. This is -- 2 MS. ROGERS: Thank you. 3 MR. BRESNEN: -- this is more than a 4 professional involvement with me. Y'all know I've been 5 working on bingo for a long time, it's important to me. So 6 anybody can call me at any time, I'll be happy to work with 7 you. 8 MS. ROGERS: Thank you. 9 MR. BRESNEN: Okay? Thank you, all. 10 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Good luck on your test. 11 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: See you, Steve. 12 (Laughter) 13 MR. SMITH: All right. Is there anyone else 14 that would like to provide public comment or any further 15 comment on any of the agenda items? 16 COMMISSIONER LOWE: So I just found a sticky 17 note that -- this sends a friendly reminder -- which I forgot 18 to remind myself to do, but so let me pass out -- 19 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Want me to help out? 20 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Yeah, if you don't mind. 21 And I apologize. The legislature -- one of the things we're 22 required to do is to report -- to make recommendations on 23 criminal history issues, and I think that's something that 24 y'all have talked about before, right? Criminal history 25 issues? And so we'd like to have the Committee maybe you'd 0090 1 want to have a work group on this -- everybody got one? 2 MR. SMITH: Sure. 3 COMMISSIONER LOWE: A work group on dealing 4 with this. It's actually number D -- D -- excuse me, B, I 5 had to borrow my wife's glasses today. Yep, B. Each 6 licensing agency shall make a recommendation. So can y'all - 7 - can -- can y'all -- can you add this, Trace, to your list 8 of things that the work group's going to cover? 9 MR. SMITH: Yeah, each licensing authority 10 shall for each license issued by the authority that has an 11 eligibility requirement related to an applicant's criminal 12 history, review the requirement and make a recommendation 13 regarding whether the requirement should be retained, 14 modified or repealed. 15 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Yes. 16 MR. SMITH: And you're wanting to change 17 repealed? 18 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Well, no, I -- well, I 19 want your input on this. I want the Committee's input on 20 this. So I'm sorry, I didn't bring this up earlier, but Bob, 21 do you want to speak to it? 22 MR. BIARD: Yes. So this is a one time 23 requirement by this bill from last session and it goes away 24 after this report. But this report is due December 1st, so 25 we're kind of on a short timeframe. We're not -- we're not 0091 1 suggesting that any changes need to be made to the statutes, 2 but we did want -- we had a system -- we didn't want the 3 Commission to run off and file a report with the BAC 4 convening right now without making y'all aware of it and 5 giving y'all an opportunity if you have any thoughts about 6 whether any other criminal history and eligibility standards 7 ought to be changed in the statutes. 8 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Okay. 9 MR. SMITH: And this is for the license that's 10 issued to the charity? 11 MR. BIARD: This would be for each of the four 12 tiers of licenses. They all have eligibility requirements -- 13 MR. SMITH: Right. 14 MR. BIARD: -- under certain types of crimes 15 and convictions that will disqualify you from being a 16 licensee. 17 MS. ROGERS: So this says repealed. So if we 18 all came and said yes, then you would take it away? You 19 would -- 20 MR. BIARD: Oh, this would just be -- this is 21 just a report to the legislature. 22 COMMISSIONER LOWE: It's a recommendation from 23 our Agency to the legislature on this issue. 24 MR. DUNCAN: They're just asking our opinion. 25 MR. BIARD: Do we think any eligibility 0092 1 requirements with respect to criminal history need to be 2 changed. 3 MR. SMITH: Okay. Big red crayon on this for 4 me. I apply for a license and there's something on my 5 criminal history, how would this affect my application? 6 MR. BIARD: Well -- well, it depends on the 7 kind of -- whatever -- if it's a crime, you know, right now 8 there's only certain types of crimes that would -- would 9 render you ineligible -- 10 MR. SMITH: Right. 11 MR. BIARD: -- for a license. So I mean, this 12 is -- what this report is, is to just tell the legislature 13 whether we think any of those standards ought to change, 14 whether we should be more lenient or whether we should be 15 more strict. Should we include more types of crimes or 16 should -- should we -- 17 MS. ROGERS: So they're asking for our opinion 18 on a suggestion when they give their report to the 19 legislature if we think the -- right now a Class A -- a 20 gambling offense or something of that nature would stop you 21 from getting your license, do we think that's fair, should it 22 be more lenient, should it be stricter? 23 MR. BOURGOYNE: They want our opinion on -- 24 MS. ROGERS: They want our opinion. 25 MR. BOURGOYNE: Our opinion on what the bingo 0093 1 statute -- what it prohibits -- 2 MR. FARRELL: Right. Should it be forever, 3 should it be ten years, should it be -- 4 MR. SMITH: When is the -- when do you need an 5 opinion by? And does it need to be an opinion from the whole 6 BAC or individuals on the BAC? 7 MR. BIARD: We're just asking for input, so it 8 doesn't really matter to us what format it comes in, we just 9 need to have it soon enough so that we can get our report to 10 the legislature -- 11 MR. FARRELL: Right. Is it -- 12 MR. BIARD: -- by December 1st. 13 MR. FARRELL: If it's gotta be -- if it's 14 gotta be in by December 1st, it really needs to be out by -- 15 MR. SMITH: When do you need an opinion by? 16 MR. FARRELL: I'd prefer -- 17 MR. SMITH: In your best -- in your perfect 18 world? 19 MR. FARRELL: My perfect world, it'd be 20 somewhere the end of October, because we'd have to take a 21 look and see what you were saying. 22 MS. ROGERS: And my suggestion would be that 23 everyone on the BAC reads what the rules -- what the -- what 24 the crimes are that stop you from getting a license at this 25 time. Each one of us could email you and then you put it -- 0094 1 comprise it down and put it in one opinion, not -- don't send 2 -- 3 MR. SMITH: If I'm -- if I may, I would -- if 4 I may, I would probably like to talk with probably Kim Kiplin 5 and Steve Fenoglio -- 6 MR. FARRELL: Oh, absolutely. 7 MR. BIARD: Right. 8 MR. FARRELL: And that's why I'm saying like 9 you say, Halloween is when, you know, we -- 10 MR. SMITH: Get it in by Halloween? 11 MR. FARRELL: Yeah. 12 MR. SMITH: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER LOWE: It doesn't have to be 14 formal either. It doesn't have to be anything formal. This 15 -- 16 MR. DUNCAN: Just an opinion. 17 COMMISSIONER LOWE: -- just some bullet points 18 would be -- 19 MR. FARRELL: Yeah, and who the point of 20 contact is on the bullet points so that -- so that if -- what 21 I'm getting at is, Trace, if you -- if you send something in, 22 but it's really Kim has got -- is the expert on that -- 23 MR. SMITH: Right. 24 MR. FARRELL: -- if I have a question on it, 25 I'm -- or we have a question on it, we may go to Kim rather 0095 1 than trying to get you to talk to -- just because we're going 2 to have to expedite it, because there's not going to be a big 3 turnaround on my part, because I'm going to have to turn it 4 around in a week. 5 MR. SMITH: Well, we'll try to get that to you 6 before Halloween. 7 MR. FARRELL: Okay. I appreciate that. 8 MR. SMITH: I like early better than on time. 9 MR. FARRELL: All right. Yep. 10 MR. SMITH: All right. We have a member of 11 the public wanting to speak. Ronnie Baker. 12 MR. BAKER: Yeah, I'm with Roy Bingo Supplies. 13 Bob, just a quick question for you. Recognizing that there's 14 different criminal violations, what's the -- what's the 15 accepted statute of limitation on somebody that's been 16 convicted? Is that spelled out? Because I haven't read 17 that, but as past president of the soccer association and 18 having to go back and look at past criminal histories, we 19 lost a lot of people and I've had several people at various 20 bingo halls that we knew that they had a -- a run-in with the 21 law, they had been processed, done their time if you will, 22 and the question always came back when can we be involved. 23 Does this -- does this whole thing center around a specific 24 violations of gaming or do you -- or is it open for all types 25 of violations? 0096 1 MR. BIARD: I remember several sessions ago 2 the legislature took the ten year restriction out, so now it 3 goes back ostensibly forever. When we have some guidelines 4 that we follow that sort of determine whether particular 5 types of crimes, how they really impact the licensee -- 6 MR. BAKER: Well, the question that Doug 7 brought up, you being a prosecutor and me being an ex-felony 8 probation officer, one of the things I always adhered to is 9 that, you know, if you've done the crime and you've done your 10 time, you've rehabilitated, sometimes when you go back "X" 11 number of years and you start looking at histories, it has a 12 tendency to -- if you will, bring out things that -- that 13 probably shouldn't be brought up, in my opinion. Because 14 it's been adjudicated in the people, so -- and Trace, in you 15 all's consideration of this, if the legislature's taken away 16 the ten year requirement, I'm interested in the types of 17 violations and how many year -- how many years are you going 18 to go back and how many years does the House and Senate want 19 us to go back and look at somebody's criminal history? I 20 mean, you know, there's current events right now, how far do 21 you go back? 22 MR. BIARD: Yeah, that -- that's a really good 23 point and I could just use an example for conductors. So 24 it's 2001.105(A)(6) says no person under whose name bingo 25 will be conducted and no person working at the proposed bingo 0097 1 has been convicted of a gambling offense or criminal fraud. 2 So you're talking about convictions; a gambling offense or 3 criminal fraud. 4 That could be something that happened in 1979. 5 We used to just have a ten year look back. But now we're 6 having to go back further. 7 MR. SMITH: So are you trying to shorten that? 8 MR. BIARD: Well, that's -- that would be -- 9 that would be the perfect kind of comment that we might -- 10 that we would think about including in a recommendation. 11 MR. DUNCAN: A timeframe. Because right now 12 there is one. They did change that; they can go back as far 13 as they want. 14 MR. SMITH: Right. Well, and I -- and we've 15 run into that as well, you know, getting the people just 16 approved on the -- the registry, the people that have had 17 stuff that have gone way back and they're like no, you can't 18 do that and they're like but that was in 1980-whatever, and 19 they're like sorry about your luck, you know. 20 MR. BIARD: And there are a lot of people who 21 might have -- who might have pled to a deferred adjudication 22 or something, but they were technically convicted. 23 MR. BAKER: That's correct. 24 MR. SMITH: Yes. 25 MR. BIARD: And so and -- but they did that 0098 1 because at the time under the statute as it existed, they'd 2 be okay, they'd be eligible. But when that statute changed, 3 they suddenly became ineligible. That caused problems for 4 some people. 5 MR. SMITH: Yes, it did. All right. And I'm 6 sorry for trying to get you to big red crayon it for me, I 7 just -- 8 MR. BIARD: No, that's -- 9 MR. SMITH: -- I'm just a simple guy. 10 MR. BIARD: No, that's great. I love it. 11 that's fine. 12 MR. SMITH: All right. Well, I think we can - 13 - Emile, you said you wanted to help on that work group? 14 MR. BOURGOYNE: Yes. Definitely. 15 COMMISSIONER LOWE: You've got a member of the 16 public back there that wants to help, too. 17 MR. SMITH: You're a step ahead of me, sir. 18 Ronnie, would you like to -- 19 MR. BAKER: I would love to. 20 MR. SMITH: Okay. 21 MR. BAKER: Thank you. 22 MR. SMITH: And Kim, I'm sure that we'll be 23 talking to you about that. 24 MS. KIPLIN: I'm happy to weigh in. 25 MR. SMITH: Okay. Excellent. 0099 1 MR. BIARD: And Kim's a great resource on 2 that. 3 MR. SMITH: Sir? 4 MR. BIARD: Kim's a great resource. 5 MR. SMITH: I agree. I agree. Okay. 6 MS. ROGERS: Before we leave that, may I ask a 7 question? Are you wanting us to give them our opinion also 8 or are y'all going to do a work group just to put something 9 together for the Commissioners? 10 MR. SMITH: I think it'd be good to get 11 everybody's input on this. If you want to send that to my 12 email, you're more than welcome to. I will be having a new 13 email set up. 14 MR. POHL: I'm going to. 15 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I'm going to as well. 16 MR. SMITH: So if you want to wait about four 17 or five days to send anything on that. 18 MR. BOURGOYNE: I plan to contact all the 19 manufacturers. 20 MR. SMITH: Sir? 21 MR. BOURGOYNE: I plan to contact all the 22 manufacturers that I represent because they're all going to 23 want to weigh in on this. 24 MR. SMITH: Sure. I'm sure. And, you know, 25 any input is -- is good input, whether it's for or against 0100 1 something because you tend to start to see all sides of the 2 equation. 3 MS. ROGERS: Uh-huh (affirmative). 4 MR. SMITH: So if you want to send that to me, 5 I'll have my email operational in a couple of days so -- and 6 then the work group as it will, we can formulate something 7 and tag our names to it and get it to Michael as soon as 8 possible. I don't want to wait too long and -- and kind of 9 put the noose around your neck, so we'll get something 10 quickly. All right. 11 All right. Anything else? Anything else, at 12 all? Okay. 13 AGENDA ITEM X 14 MR. SMITH: Well, let's adjourn our first 15 Bingo Advisory Committee meeting and once again, would like 16 to thank you, Commissioner, for showing up for this -- 17 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Thank you. 18 MR. SMITH: -- and helping us get this put 19 back together. I -- I personally think it's a wonderful, 20 wonderful thing for the industry. I think we're going to be 21 able to get input from all sides and that's a huge thing. 22 Michael, thank you for coming, we appreciate 23 it, and of course, Lottery staff as well. Thank y'all for 24 coming and our members of the BAC. And we'll adjourn at 25 11:45. 0101 1 COMMISSIONER LOWE: Excellent. 2 MR. SMITH: Yeah. 3 (Adjourned and concluded at 11:46 a.m.) 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 0102 1 C E R T I F I C A T E 2 STATE OF TEXAS ) 3 COUNTY OF HARRIS ) 4 I, Kimberly C. McCright, Certified Vendor and 5 Notary in and for the State of Texas, do hereby certify that 6 the above-mentioned matter occurred as hereinbefore set out. 7 I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT the proceedings of such were 8 reported by me or under my supervision, later reduced to 9 typewritten form under my supervision and control and that 10 the foregoing pages are a full, true and correct 11 transcription of the original notes. 12 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and 13 seal this 2nd day of October, 2018. 14 15 /s/ Kimberly C. McCright Kimberly C. McCright 16 Certified Vendor and Notary Public 17 Verbatim Reporting & Transcription, LLC 1322 Space Park Drive, Suite C165 18 Houston, Texas 77058 281.724.8600 19 20 21 22 23 24 25