GRANT-2025-1 : Requesting acceptance of a Massachusetts Gaming Commission Community Mitigation Fund Grant in the amount of $65,500 to address the impacts of gambling related harms in our community.

Transcript (~9 min @ 1:25:15)

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▶ 1:25:21 Speaker 8: Um, So

▶ 1:25:35 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you for the members of the, um, uh, zoning board for being with, with us tonight. And now we have our, uh, the next item on our agenda is Grant, 2025 dash one, um, requesting acceptance of a Massachusetts, uh, gaming Commission Community Mitigation Fund grant in the amount of $65,000 to address the impacts of gambling related harms in our community.

▶ 1:26:11 Maya Jamaleddine: We have Director with us.

▶ 1:26:19 Speaker 6: Hi. Thank you everyone. Um, I'm excited to, uh, announce that we were awarded, uh, $65,500 from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, um, to address the impacts of gambling related harms in our community. Um, we are excited because this, this opportunity is for us to address some of the impacts, um, even though Melrose is not an immediate but to the encore development. Um, we have that, they have seen that there is gonna be impacts from that development. And so we're hoping to address, uh, some gambling related harms. Um, some of the important notes is that the grant request was more than the amount that was approved. Um, a request was made for the Memorial Hall renovations in the amount of 101 hundred $4,694. Um, and the a ED purchase and installation budget was reduced from 30,000, uh, reduced by 30,000, from 44,000 to 14,000. Um, that can cover the cost of the seven portable AEDs that we included. Um, I wanna say thank you to Kara Showers our prevention and wellness coordinator in our office who led, who led this effort, um, but be prior to being awarded this grant, uh, the city had an, uh, extensive application interview process with the project management team, um, from the committee mitigation fund. They asked a series of questions. This team included, uh, myself, Kara, uh, Lauren Gimmick from the mayor's office, chief failure, um, Maya and Lori Masa from the, um, planning, uh, planning division. And so we worked very closely. And after, um, review by the committee, um, they had awarded us 65,000. I'm happy to answer any questions related to this. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 1:27:59 Speaker 4: Any question?

▶ 1:28:04 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, councilor Stewart?

▶ 1:28:06 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you Mr. Chu, for your patience this evening. And I had to wait a little while for this. Um, just a, a small comment. I think this is great to bring this into the community. I think it's a good opportunity to, uh, uh, for education. If, um, there's anything beyond what you've already said that you would like to elicit on terms of what this would impact and, and how this would help the community, that would be great.

▶ 1:28:31 Speaker 6: Absolutely. So, just to get a little more detailed, um, a large portion of this funding will go towards gambling, harm reduction. Uh, we're seeing more and more different forms of gambling, online, gambling, sports betting. Um, this is something that we've seen in our schools. Uh, we've heard anecdotally, at least from our parents, um, from our community that this is an area of concern. Uh, we've also heard from some of our teachers, our coaches and athletic director as well. Um, so this is something that we're really, um, interested in learning more about. Uh, we have some preliminary data on gambling as a whole and how it can impact youth, but this is something that we want to extend further. Um, some of this work will also go towards our council on aging, um, moving towards a kind of an age spectrum, um, approach. And so, um, we also look, we're also gonna be doing research and look and doing surveys and trying to find data around, um, gambling on, uh, in from seniors. And so this is an important group because this is sometimes a fixed income group that we're, that we're aware of. And so, um, we want to dive deeply into, uh, financial management, uh, responsible spending as it pertains to gambling and how different forms, um, can affect different groups. Um, so this is a lot of that funding will be going towards that

▶ 1:29:40 Robb Stewart: Commendable. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you.

▶ 1:29:43 Maya Jamaleddine: Thanks. Any other question?

▶ 1:29:48 Maya Jamaleddine: Councilor Chei? Um,

▶ 1:29:50 Manjula Karamcheti: Thank you so much. No, I wanna just, I think I, in some ways reiterate what you said. I have been talking to a lot of families whose high school age students are getting deeply involved physically in locations, but also online in terms of gambling. And it's becoming bigger and bigger because it's also becoming easier and easier to access. So is it the grant for more research based and is it programming? Like, is there like a percentage of,

▶ 1:30:24 Speaker 6: Uh, yes. So there's, there's a share. So, um, some of it'll go towards, um, surveys. So we're gonna try and find out what the actual percentage, we had one, one or two questions in the YRBS. Um, this past year was our first time asking questions about gambling. They didn't get too far into it. You know, there was, there was a, um, percentage of stu there was a higher percentage of students than we anticipated that acknowledge that they use sports gambling apps, that they participate in betting as a whole. Um, but we're looking to get more details like how they're accessing these things. You know, how often they're, um, they're betting, you know, how much the amounts might be. So these are some of the questions that we wanna dig further into. Um, so part of the funding will go towards survey collection results, and then we'll also use some of different programming as well. Um, there's already some evidence-based, um, youth betting, um, programs out there that we're gonna be looking into to, to

▶ 1:31:12 Speaker 5: Thank you so much.

▶ 1:31:13 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Councilor Van Devin.

▶ 1:31:16 Kimberly Vandiver: Um, thank you very much. Um, I, I just had a question about the, the document with the, um, breakdown of spending of the grant. Yes. Um, there's a consulting management fee in there along with the popup location that seems pretty significant. It looks like about half the, looks about as much as the rest of the line items related to the popup. Um, and you know, I'm sure there is a lot of management to do there, but I was just wondering if that's something that in the future, if we get very familiar with running these popups, maybe we could bring that in house and have more leftover to spend on some of these other programs.

▶ 1:31:51 Speaker 6: Absolutely. Yeah. Um, actually, uh, Lauren Grek, who was the former economic development director here, um, was spearheaded the pop-up program. Um, so we'll have more details on that. Um, I don't believe this budget is gonna be static. Uh, I believe we'll be evaluating this throughout the course of this grant, um, this year and seeing, you know, what, what we'll need to sustain this moving forward. So, um, I I could see that moving forward.

▶ 1:32:13 Maya Jamaleddine: Great. Thank you. Uh, vice Chair Williams. Thank

▶ 1:32:15 Speaker 9: You. Um,

▶ 1:32:18 Ryan Williams: Councillor Vandiver pointed out the $10,000 consulting management fee that is also listed as a two month commitment, right? So it's $5,000 a month for, for some lucky individual. Um, and I agree that that is a pretty high rate for what the Pop-Up program ultimately is. Um, but interested to see how it plays out. And that leads me to a broader point, which is that I really think that in particular with these programs, we really need to see the grant proposal itself in I QM two, the grant proposals for the Community Mitigation Fund are all public. They just take a little while for the Commission on gaming to put them online. Um, and so you can go and look at what other communities are applying for, and it's very helpful to compare what the different communities. Um, some are abutters, of course, Everett gets a ton of money from them. Some are not quite abutters like Medford applies, Malden applies, um, saga applies for some Route One work, things like that. Um, but it, it's, it's, I would like to see the actual proposal so that we, as a council when we're looking at this, we can review some of the justifications and the data. The proposal itself is pretty, as you know, it's pretty detailed and it has the Yes, absolutely. You know, the, the statement on, um, on the impacts and things like that. And I think all that information is extremely helpful for us. Um, so if you could just please attach that to this, that would be great.

▶ 1:33:37 Speaker 6: Absolutely. I can do that. Thank you.

▶ 1:33:41 Maya Jamaleddine: Perfect. Any other question from my colleagues?

▶ 1:33:47 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay. Seeing none, what is the will of the committee

▶ 1:33:52 Robb Stewart: Shall I'll make a motion to, uh, recommend to the full counsel. Second,

▶ 1:33:55 Maya Jamaleddine: We have a motion to recommend, uh, to the full council, made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Karen Cheney. Um, Madam Clerk

▶ 1:34:04 Speaker 2: Councilor Repe? Yes. Councilor Hamilton. Yes. Council ine. Yeah. Councilor Karen Shay. Yes. Councilor Ky. Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Meli? Yes. That's 10 Yes. Passes.

▶ 1:34:21 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, thank you. Um, and this, uh, passes. Thank you for being with us tonight. Thank