K all right ready good evening folks we are ready to begin thank you for your patience um the issue has been resolved somewhat so uh it the meeting tonight is not being streamed live on Channel 8 that's the glitch but it doesn't have to be that is um something that we typically do in the city um but it is working on all other ends and so for my understanding from the IT department the very hardworking and sweating like crazy right now IT department is that they are going to record the meeting like they normally do they'll play it as soon as they can after the meeting is over and they will be working on the glitch um continuing uh through before the public hearing and if they can get it um squared away before the public hearing then they will go live on Channel 8 but either way both the informal meeting that was supposed to begin at 6:00 and the public hearing that's supposed to begin at 7:30 will uh they will both be recorded and um they will both go on as we had planned from here so again thank you for your patience um this has never happened here since I've been in a city counselor but there the first time for everything so again I appreciate all of your patience and we will begin the meeting without further Ado so good evening this is an informal meeting of the gardener City Council on Tuesday July 23rd 2024 I'd like to ask the clerk to please call the role councelor Brooks present Council Craig Cormier councel D LTZ Pres counc harder pres councelor Heath pres councelor hegy pres councelor Mack present councel T munis present Council tone pres Council tyres pres president kazin present we have a quorum present uh council corer did have a prior commitment that was planned before this meeting was scheduled and he may be here before the meeting ends is anyone here recording tonight's meeting just your name and address or company thank you if there is anyone in the Overflow room this evening recording the meeting if you could go over to Brandy she is over by the right ENT exit of Perry Auditorium so if there's anybody in Perry Auditorium recording the meeting please go to Brandy she's probably waving her hand right now and and please give her your name and address or company uh to let her know that you are recording tonight's meeting and she will communicate that to me and I will announce that as well for the public watching this evening we are meeting informally tonight regarding city council agenda item number 11317 a vote to determine if a track of land located at 827 Green Street be approved as the location of A running horse racing track where race meetings laid out and conducted by lenses under Mass General law chapter 128a will be held or conducted this item was posted publicly in the city council regular meeting packet for the Monday June 17th 2024 and July 1st 2024 meetings where the city council voted on July 1st to meet as a committee of the whole on this item which is our purpose for meeting this evening if you could please silence your phones informal meetings allow for a presentation of an item and for the council to ask questions on the meeting topic also for the public watching this evening there will be no official vote taken this evening on item 11317 the earliest that a vote can be taken on this item would be during the next the council's next regular meeting but there will be no official vote taken this evening following tonight's informal meeting at 7:30 p.m. there is a public hearing scheduled on item 11317 representatives from Bas State racing are here this evening to give a presentation provide information and answer questions on the topic of the meeting thank you for being here and with that we will start with the presentation thank you madam president can everyone hear me okay thank you madam president um counselors clerk City assistant solicitor and residents of Garder for the opportunity to speak with you and talk with you about our proposal to uh bring uh breathing racing training to uh 827 Green Street which is currently the location of GMA it has been racing breeding and training has occurred on this site starting with Dr Andrews in 1875 and Leonard leblan who was considered one of the most foremost trainers in New England uh and from there it ended in the hands of GMA GMA currently uses the facility uh in a noteworthy way using courses for therapy they currently have two uh pregnant Mayors on the site um along with a whole host of other animals that exist on the site it is our hope to be engaged and productively with the community and to be good neighbors we want to maintain the existing Farm as that exists today with the addition of renovating the Barns and uh the buildings building a track and we'll talk a little bit more about that we would become as the 54th business to join the city in the last few years we would be the largest taxpayer In the City by a factor of at least two and we would improve the storm water management and environmental conditions on the site and we would support other local businesses with that I'd like to walk through a few slides that we have here this evening to talk a little bit about our team our proposal some of the details and then answer any and all questions you have first our team uh We've assembled a team of folks who are recognized in their area for their uh skill and integrity for our Architects David Schwarz uh those Architects uh design colleges and universities and hospitals and racetracks our engineering firms we have three different engineering firms each of them is noteworthy VHB Gard Consulting and haly Aldrich each of them have an expertise in a different area uh Haley Aldrich in um water quality in Geotech VHB in civil and garded in Wetlands our our Law Firm miraco Connell was also here this evening and L rafetto who is a recognized uh racing consultant also in the room we have with us our partners the New England horse owners and the Masters of the Breeders Association who have been Partners in this they represent uh some 12200 horse farms all over Massachusetts we also have with us our lead investor saki ganger who is sitting in the second row with us this evening all of our materials uh by the way if folks are looking for anything that is referenced this evening anything that's talked about everything we have sent to the city plus a bunch of things that we've been asked we've posted on our website we have compiled a list of frequently asked questions which is also on our website and all of the documents the city produced is also on our website so you can go to base State racing llc.com and you can find anything and everything relative to this process it is our goal to be as transparent and as direct as we can possibly be our next slide please so this is the site as it exists today we have just we're just in the process of finishing the surveying of the site which is an an enormous process and we're getting towards the end of that if you look at the slide that you see here you can see that about half the site maybe a third is in green that is vegetated Wetlands areas this whitish area are Uplands or areas that are not in the wetlands there is existing a house two barns an existing track folks have asked us why we don't use the existing track it's a 58 mile track it's for standard breads um it is safer for thorough breads to raise on Turf and so we would construct our own turf in this Uplands that exists over here which I'll get to in a minute to orient everybody you got wiend in over here you got Route 140 just off the edge of the site is the Pearly Brook which has gotten a lot of attention um south of us is the Golf Course Mount wus um to give you a sense of where the site is and what's going on um one of the things I wanted to report back to the council if You' have not heard it's in the letter that's in front of you we were asked to meet with d we have met with d we met with them for about 70 minutes we had our Engineers with us on site also there was the assistant city solicitor the DPW director the engineer and another person from DPW it was the director the deputy director and several members of the water quality control we walked through our plans for the site they walked through their uh requirements for us the director or direct quote from her I believe uh and you can ask your solicitor was the site would benefit greatly from a um enhanced or topnotch storm water management plan we plan to do that and we committed to do that the D director also said that when the city is done with its review they will review it and make sure it meets all of the standards and we would be required to apply to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for a water quality certificate to ensure compliance with any and all regulations that exist um so I want to report back on that next slide please the community process why are we here tonight because the state has laid out a process where you start with the use the use start starts with the council not akin to akin to zoning or some other process and from that we then have to enter into an a host Community agreement with the mayor which lays out our financial terms our obligations to the community it is a legally binding document we then have to apply to the gaming commission for a racing license they will hold a hearing in Gardner it will be in a judicatory hearing for the lawyers in the room it means it's it's one held with sworn testimony anyone one and everyone in the community can testify and be part of that they will solicit input then they will come to their conclusions and they will vote on their application um then we will go to the Conservation Commission and the planning board conservation for wetlands delineation and wetlands regulations and the planning board for uh traffic review and the like those processes will go through in great detail the various details of each of those and we're required to follow specific rules and regulations we would then go to uh D to review the decisions that are made for compliance with their regulations and a water quality certificate which we would exist this site which you just saw um about a third or half of this site is in the um uh uh um uh storm water groundwater protection overlay district and in that context about to put that in context about 20% of the city maybe 25% of the city is in that overlay District including your hospital including your golf course your cemetery and most of the area that is around this site so we're following the we'll follow the same regulations and rules um it is Our intention if we could go to the next slide to continue breeding and training thorough uh off track retirement Agri Agricultural and equestrian festivals on the site to collaborate with local students to run and work with not just GMA but others on therapy as it relates to horses and to have um thorough bread racing on the site next slide I think I mentioned earlier but these are a series of news clips and other issues relative to the site the site has been active as a horse farm the first slide if you can look at in your head which is a picture of first couple slides a picture of the site that view of the site you see today the 75 ft tall white pines along the Pearly Brook on the east side of the site the old track that exists there the pastures the Barns and the house that view is not going to change the houses will get a little bit of a facelift they may be uh Architects want to make them so they all look similar to each other so we may paint them all red and deal with it but what you see there today from the street you will see what in addition to that will you see you will see a gazebo we have some covered structure for in climate weather or something else and we'll put in some utilities so that food trucks around festivals for the one two three weekends a year we run a festival that there is an ability for uh them to connect to power and we will build a track and that has occurred on this site for some time next slide please so this is the same slide now we've overlaid a concept on this and it's important for me to put a big giant asteris next to this for everybody the Conservation Commission and the planning board will require us to do multiple concepts of what a track would look like on this site this is one of those Concepts this is an iterative process and we will have to go through first the delineation of the wetlands and the rules and laying out the buffers that exist then after we do that we'll have to lay out the track on the site and we'll have to come up with a few different Alternatives what you see on this site in this track is you see the existing house the existing barns parking a Gaza this Brown Line is pedestrian access to and from you see the existing track the access will remain the same and this is uh the track that we Envision we do not Envision Building Stadium because we envision using the side of the Hill if you can imagine this is a hill that flows down and we would build into the side of the Hill like you see in your slides and we'll get to it in a minute um stadium seating where you could have a tent or you could sit on the grass or a blanket or something else think of tangle wood or grap Woods or some kind of outdoor an theater it has a lot of flexibility we can bring in tents we can put in tables chairs um but it would remain natural and open again uh a typical day on this site 365 days a year you're going to see somewhere between 5 and 25 or 30 horses on this site the number of horses will vary based on horses coming in for retirement the number of horses that are going through and I'll talk about that in a minute the number of horses that are being uh uh R trained the horses that are being bred on the site as part of what they do until they end up at their ultimate horse farm and there will be a handful of working horses we will have a similar or lower census of animals and a similar or lower census of people on this site on an average day say that again likely fewer animals and fewer people on this site on an average day on the days that we race and racing will be determined based on purses and Horses of which there is a limited pool the state supplies for purses we would race we believe right now we can race one weekend a year we'd like to get to two weekends a year the turf track while it is safer for the horses can only be used for a weekend every 2 or 3 weeks so you end up with a track that we couldn't use at much more than the interval we're talking about even if we wanted to we want to avoid other race meets that are going on in the area and we want to avoid other major events that are going on we'd likely look at an event in late spring early summer and an event in late to Mid fall so you end up with one in the spring one in the fall those events are important because just as a um someone who's producing lettuce brings their their produce to the farmers market for a horse farm the track and the race is how they sell their Agricultural Product they bring their horse to the track to be shown to be claimed to be sold or to get prizes the first six horses in a race in a proportion receive a piece of the purse money this track would disperse about $4 million a year to racetrack owners all over the commw that enables those racetrack owner those race horse farm owners to be able to maintain their Farms to keep them from being developed and to earn their livelihood and to do what they think is important I'll talk about horse safety in a minute as we proceed uh next slide please excuse me you can just make sure you speak directly into the micophone when you're talking yeah when you look away it's hard to get recorded um thank you thank you m president um structures on the site the top picture is a picture that was taken not too long ago from the site as I said to you before that picture is what you see today and it's what you'll see 5 years from today plus a gazebo um the picture below is an architectures concept of what the apron of the track might look like with a apron that extends down to the track and is grass where people could sit with a blanket or a chair or a tent or something else the facility will have temporary facilities there are people who bring the various needs of a track on a temporary basis for agricultural Affairs and the like so they would come in the horses would arrive on a Thursday they would race on Friday Saturday Sunday and then they would depart so you're looking at a a 3-day race the track itself the track in this race is dirt ours would be Turf it would be approximately 70 ft wide about a mile in length as it goes around depending on the shape and configuration as we go through the planning process next slide please the ecoin facility we have started to talk a little bit about th bread breeding the breeding on this site would have a handful of horses that would go through the program but the real Essence is for the for the site and the program to be a catalyst for horse farms all across the Commonwealth to breed horses so this would the breeding would not only occur here all over the Commonwealth so the number of fos dropped in Massachusetts plummeted after suff Downs closed to zero and with that the horse population begins to dwindle with that the horse farms become subject to development and closing as fos are are dropping that population will grow the revenue flows through the race track as an as an agricultural event and those dollars then go to the horse farms and the horse farms use that by the way the RAC track owners receive no reimbursement for conducting the race we do not get any of that $4 million I'll talk about our Revenue stream in a minute but we do not get a penny out of that $4 million it all goes directly through to the horse owners the training facility on the site with retirement the horse owners uh contribute uh a piece of their revenue into a fund and so that hes are not slaughtered or put out to pasture in a negative way these equestrian athletes are retrained um on non-ra days the average census of horses as I said would be somewhere between 5 and 25 next Slide the breeding program cost $35 to $50,000 uh associated with raising a f um this program would generate about $350,000 a year in revenue and we'll talk about that second and it would cost us about $350,000 year in Revenue it's about Revenue neutral but that is the jobs around the breeding piece of this is relative to the training not every thorough breed course will participate in racing other career oper off options include venting D jumping Polo and other issues the uh only equestrian gold medalist in US history torren Watkins who Liv lives not too far from here has had 150 thorough breads every one of them a retired uh thorough bre so these horses have a long life span and time after they're done racing next slide retirement somewhere between 8 and 12 15 horses a year the uh New England horse owners take 3% of their revenue and they put it into a fund so when people talk about horses and how do you care for your horses there are good dog owners good pet owners and there are bad ones Massachusetts has been a leader in this category for decades and the Massachusetts breeders and owners have put aside a percentage of their money to ensure that the horses when they finish their life as an active equestrian athlete have a period of time to get repurposed retrained so they can be used in treatment and Hunter jumper or something something else next Slide the festivals themselves uh is a weekend you can expect horses to come in on a Thursday again we're talking one two maybe three weekends a year never more than 20 days in a calendar year the festivals themselves will be um pageantry music on a Friday Friday night as part of it they'll be familyfriendly uh they'll have themes associated with them they're designed to be fun we are incredibly heavily regulated there will be local police on site State Police on site which we will pay for this will be the safest place to be in Garder on a race day and when it's not a race day there'll be horses breeding there wagering on the site will exist in temporary kiosks on Race days only there is no wagering on this site if there is not a race day so those one two three weekends a year you can wager on a horse race on this site you cannot and never will be able to bet on a Red Sox game or a Patriots game there is no Sports wagering going on here there is no restaurant here there is no bar the onsite again will only be as part of that 95% of our Revenue and I will get to that occurs on this little device our Revenue occurs from people wagering all over the Commonwealth on Races all over the country so if you're in Boston and you're wagering on your phone in a race in New Jersey or New York or California we because of our license will get a piece of that and through that piece of that that's how we will pay the city that's how we will pay to operate the racing operations that's how we will underwrite the retirement and the breeding operations so we make our money in one bucket and we pay for things in other buckets and I'm going to go through that business model in a minute but there'll be no Sports wavering on this side next slide Community Partnerships I've spent 35 years in and around local and state government I've worked a lot of Partnerships with a lot of groups a good project is a good neighbor a good company in a community participates in the community and helps others grow so what kind of Partnerships would we have we'll work with GMA to make sure that our philanthropic owners and investors are donating and participating with G that our owners of horses who are foremost experts in race horses and uh thoroughbreds are training their teachers and working with their clients helping their clients get jobs this can be a way for someone who is interested in horses to have a meaningful career path in addition to that we've spoken with the mount and Stockbridge Community College at UMass about collaborating with them with their students doing internship programs we would pay their students as part of an internship program to learn and uh develop large animal vet tech and the like this is an opportunity I'm not speaking out of turn they're excited about the program we would promote Partnerships with local businesses if you can imagine in one weekend we can generate the revenue for a local business that's the equivalent of them having another week worth of revenue for their employees and their folks imagine gardenary house having a beer garden on the site imagine um the Blue Moon serving breakfast to 200 people for 4 days or Williams restaurant serving dinner or lunch in a catered fashion to people when you bring people together for a short period of time you have to feed them the colonial will be filled for the 5 days around each of our events those are revenues that will come to the city in hotel meltel and uh beer and food tax and lastly we've worked with the mayor to include in the host Community agreement a requirement that we contribute $220,000 a year to local charitable organizations that's our way to help local organizations that are making a meaningful impact in the community to make sure they can buy new uniforms that they can pay their coaches or their referees or do whatever it is they need to do with Arts culture education next slide as I said to you as the 54th new business in the last few years we would instantly be your largest taxpayer so if you look at this site today it's a not for-profit that is um uh on the site but they would pay in taxes today $115,000 on this site we would enter into an agreement to pay $500,000 a year approximately to the city and we've negotiated with mayor and the solicitor that that would have an escalator clause in it and that escalator would climb at the same rate that your taxpayers increase their taxes each year so if your Levy goes up by 2 and half% we would go up by 2 and a half% you go up by 1% we'd go up by 1% whatever everyone else in the community does we would follow that and so our value would increase and grow each and every year next slide benefits for G will help grow the local economy we're proud to have support from the regional tourism the Regional Chamber uh the the regional labor organizations to create jobs we'll create a venue for functions for a wedding for um a community benefit if a local team or organization wants to put an event on we'll have a place that will have parking spaces and an ability to put something together we will invest $25 million into this site that means we will upgrade the utilities we will upgrade the groundwater management we will uh improve the site and we will create jobs in the process 15 to 25 permanent jobs and more than 100 temporary jobs the temporary jobs can be very meaningful jobs paying people that are retired or um in need of a second source of income uh We've agreed to plant trees and to a tree planting program in the city with the mayor so that we are replacing and replenishing more than the trees that we are removing from the site and will'll preserve the open space and we'll connect to the central pathway which is along the eastern border of the facility next slide supporting local agriculture we've talked a little bit about this so I can skip most of this but there are lots of hay farms and horse farms in the area that don't have an outlet for Revenue this site will be a major consumer of hay and hay is not just grass you that's too long that you cut down the horse owners want an alala content a Bluegrass content a uh red clover content depending on whether the horse is sick or it's racing so the Hayes tend to get a premium value value and it is good for the local agricultural Community next slide please the challenge in Massachusetts why does Massachusetts put up $4 million a year for purse money because they support the agricultural purposes of these farms and these Farms are being lost each and every day we are the sixth in disappearing Open Spaces this enables Open Spaces not only to be preserved here but Open Spaces across the Commonwealth as well next slide professor ameritus at UMass John Mullen a few years back did a study on what equestrian uh facility would do for the economy and what it means to the Commonwealth this location is a local business for sure it's a local commercial agricultural operation but in addition to that it is a conduit for commercial agricultural operations all across the conwal and we won't generate the revenue that this talks about because we're not doing everything in this study but we're doing a big chunk of the things that are in this study and some of the other things in this study are being done in other horse farms around the conwal that will have significant impact on the revenue of those areas so John asked some accomp and his son who are leading trainers from pitsburgh they will end up with a dozen 15 20 more horses in terms of where they are and the revenue associated with that in each of those horses they will hire people to care for those horses some of them will go through the vet tech programs here and at UMass and they'll be connected and they'll find a job next slide those jobs this is a list of some of the jobs that you'll see that are there some of them are temporary around race day some of them are folks that visit the site periodically or regularly um but they are a lot of different professional activities that go into caring for a horse one horse requires seven different people to take care of so you're talking about a lot of horses you're talking about a lot of people next slide um so we've been asked a bunch of questions that's the end of my presentation but I wanted to address a handful of frequently asked questions that I assumed would be asked because they've been part of our conversation in the community first and foremost wetlands and water protection so as we've talked about I talked about the uh D meeting and in your packets is a letter that goes through uh the D meeting in terms of what we did this site as we all know is part of the surface water protection overlay District it covers about 20 25% of the entire city of garden as I said before it covers the hospital the college it covers the cemetery and the uh golf course this overlay Protection District is not just us it's a huge swap of property to the community as part of what we need to do is we're a heavily regulated group we're going to have to go and go to the Conservation Commission and we're going to have to go to D and we're going to have to go to the mass gaming commission a few items that have been raised manure we're not going to keep manure in a pile we will be required to collect it to store it and to remove it in an encapsulated uh facility offsite so will not be allowed to sit on site it will be required to be removed that's an improvement water we'll be introducing new buffers in the construction of rain Gardens to purify groundwater we need to by regulation treat our groundwater on our site that means before our groundwater leaves our site we need to improve our ground water that means we need to make sure that it goes through channels of filtration they call those rain Gardens and swes and the like you see a little building that we would is a typical kind of design for a uh manure container in addition to that DP will require us to get a water quality certificate when we're done and we will have to demonstrate that we are doing these things as I mentioned earlier the central office the director specifically stated this site will benefit from quote a top-of-the-line storm water management we will improve the storm water flow from this site period the buffers near the Pearly Brook which flows on the east side of the site where you see those Grove of of very large white pines we're that's on the east side of the site over here this is the Pearly Brook just off the site our main work is going to be on the west side of the site and the highlands on the other side of the site next slide horse welfare this is something that our group and owners spend an enormous amount of time talking about Massachusetts has been a leader in anti-doping and anti-s Slaughter in Massachusetts for decades if you uh sell your horse off to be slaughtered you are banned from for life from racing in Massachusetts it is a very severe penalty Congress getting into this space because of poor actors in it created two years ago something called hissa the Horse integrity and Safety Authority it now regulates and is everyone is required to follow including us the regulations that they have recently promulgated which largely mirror the kind of regulations that Massachusetts has used for a long period of time the owner here and they're here with us today are committed and you'll hear about this in your testimony they're committed to using the safest and best practices next slide before each and every race a qualified veterinarian will independently review each and every horse so you see races if you go to Sarah toer or someplace else and maybe they are 10 horses listed on that race but only nine horses race well maybe one didn't show up or the veterinarian looked at the horse and said this horse isn't racing today the veterinarian has that kind of power and the veterinarian works for the gaming commission they do not work for us um the question that I think when I'm asked about this care that these horses get from veterinarians is not whether they get sufficient care but why we don't get the same care as humans um we talked about them being banned for substances these horses are tested before the race and after the race they're blood tested and their their hair is tested the surface we're talking about is Turf which is gentler and stronger for the horses next slide uh it's highly regulated we talked about that these areas around the track have 24/7 video monitoring so anyone who is tampering with the horses anyone who's going there we're required to have security and we're required to protect these equestrian athletes while they are in our Care on our site next slide traffic VHB is among the most qualified uh engineering consultants in the state if not the country we've looked at and done an analysis we've given you that report as to the capacity of 140 to handle not only our average day traffic which will be similar or less to what is there today and our race day traffic we will be required to meet with the planning board to do a full-blown traffic study which we will pay for and we will pay for the city to peer review that with a consultant of your choice to go through and work through our traffic and parking mitigation plans as the process continues next slide this is a question I get asked from time to time and I know it can be confusing this is the business model and I have to put a giant asteris here which is these numbers are generated with publicly available data from the Massachusetts gaming commission and they are guidelines this is not our our spreadsheet because we don't know the business yet but we have a pretty good idea the breeding program is going to take in and is going to spend about $350,000 a year it will be a break even activity the racing operation will make between food and beverage and on-site wagering maybe $300,000 a year it'll cost a million eight for a couple of weekends the retirement program again the horse owners will contribute about $150,000 to it and they'll spend about that taking care of the horses probably a little bit more the wagering on offsite that is the wagering occurring by people all over the Commonwealth on Races all over the country not in Garden those folks will generate we'll get a little piece of that and we'll generate $5 to8 million a year in Revenue associate it cost us about a million4 to administer that when you look at our expenditures we're going to have Capital costs on 28 million we're going to have operations annually of 3.2 million and we're going to uh to pay in taxes to the city of Garder $500,000 first few years profits are pretty lean hopefully with some uh some good fortune those profits will grow over time and the business will make the money that the investors would like to make I show this slide for a reason this is not when Everett casino that has a spreadsheet of a billion four this is a spreadsheet of 5 to8 million this is a very small operation in comparison to the kinds of facilities that you see we make our money off of the wagering no doubt about that we also spend it in these other areas next slide lastly folks a lot of folks have contacted us a lot of folks have visited our website if you have questions we're available email us go to our website call us text us our contact information is out there go to bat rcing llc.com all the documents we've talked about are available there we're happy to answer any and all questions and I'm happy to do that for you folks and I appreciate your time and for listening thank you at this time we will open it up to questions from the city councilors council Tyra thank you madam president Mr Stefani thank you for that presentation um my first question is relation to the company that is uh pushing for this proposal U because you are their lawyer you're not the CEO or the owner of Base State racing um and the reason I asked that question is I know tonight's and the item before us is focused on the location and its appropriateness for horse track racing uh but the base State racing is pushing for this proposal to happen it's not the city resoning a section of town to try to draw business in the two are very connected the location and the company uh and the reason I asked is cuz Gardner is a relatively small community where uh you can you know know that in most cases the owners of the businesses that you're patronizing if you uh go for a meal at the Ale House Rick Walton's probably going to walk by and ask how it was if you looking for a pickle ball set and you go to John sports shop and talk to Ann and Allen leblank and the reason I asked is because it would be new to Gardener to have a company with a substantial operation even though it's small in terms of the industry it is substantial for Gardener um and to not have local ownership and on your first one of your first slides I saw you had a project team but I was wondering if you could share a little bit about the company its leadership team its funding sources how long it's been an operation if it's operated in other communities and for you know how long thank you Council excuse me one second this microphone's going to work better if you wouldn't mind having a or standing over to talk speaking into this microphone thank you uh please don't mind my my back um thank you for your question counselor so a few things first of all we should talk a little bit about why Bay State was created and what happened when suff Downs closed and the horse owners that receed their revenue for their Agricultural Product through a race had no place to go those horses started to move to other states those Farms started closed and through my relationship with some of those investors and other folks we started to look around and say how could we help these folks deal with this if we were looking at the investors will make money on this but if they were looking for a straight investment to make money they'd make more money in Walmart down the street than they would in this investment I am an investor in this project I'm not the attorney for the project the attorney for the project is mar o Connell they are here I am also chair of the racing oversight committee I here before you as the accountable person for this Venture and this activity and if you have a question you call me I have sat in your seat I've I've served in the legislature I know what it's like to deal with constituent inquiries and I know what it's like to be held accountable and we are committed and we have agreed with uh the mayor to include one of the seats on the racing oversight committee for an appointment of the mayor so that your community is active and engaged in what is going on and in real time you have somebody who's sitting at the table in addition to that we will have recognized experts in and around this community who are recognized in industry and racing that are part of this group of people that will oversee this in addition to that bayate racing which is a relatively new investment vehicle for the company their lead investor is s ganger who is here today he is the lead investor in terms of the financial uh piece of that he has been at every community meeting that we have done he's been active and engaged in the community in addition to that we have other folks who are interested in investing who have uh significant portfolios in addition to that the Massachusetts gaming commission requires each and every investor to present themselves to the gaming commission for suitability that means they have to go through a rigorous background check and they will ask us sworn questions as to our veracity our integrity our ability to follow through on what it is so the person who is standing in front of you is accountable and I have an ownership stake in this and I am committed to Gardener as a community and I want to be an active and engaged person in this community and I have tried to do just that by going around and meeting with business owners and others I do not live here but I have grown to be fond of your community and I'd like to become a bigger part of it I've joined the chamber I've joined the regional tourism group and I've met and worked with probably 75 or so local business local union members who are workers who are here and we're committed and our commitment to them is to hire local workers our commitment is to work with local businesses to use those businesses I hope that answers your question Madam president if I may uh thank you for that answer uh I'm not quite satisfied with that answer to my question uh but I want to let other counselors asked questions as well uh but just very simply uh has Bas State racing completed any other projects in the Commonwealth are there any current operations because I do have questions for later this evening that are related to the operations that are intended for Bas State racing so so base State racing is a new entity it is not something that has done other projects in the Commonwealth it has not been associated with those some of the members of our team have been involved in numerous projects I've done several hundred projects in my career in different forms um the members of our team have done other projects but base State racing is an entity that was formed and created to build a racetrack thank you and there's no other racetrack in the Comm thank you madam president um I just had a question about the DP uh quality control certificate how often do you have to apply for that is this a oneand done you get approved it's cleared you don't have to do it again um is this a yearly thing so the DP water quality certificate is a oneandone certificate but compliance with their regulations is ongoing their ability to inspect the site as is the case with your local conservation a agent is ongoing so and in addition to that we would be required on an annual basis to come back before the council and or the mayor and talk about what we did last year that was good and bad and what we're going to do the year ahead we're licensed on an annual basis by the Massachusetts gaming commission which has subpoena power over us and they do a uh annual Hearing in the community the gaming commission Prides itself on listening to local communities and if the council has something that we're not being responsive to they'll subpoena it and they'll make sure you get it but that Authority on an ongoing basis once we meet a standard of water quality we have to continue to maintain that standard of water quality so if someone shows up and we're not processing our manure correctly we can be shut down and our license can be taken away from us that is very significant penalty to us so we are incentivized and committed to achieving the highest standards and maintaining the highest standards one other question if I may um thank you madam president uh I was going off of your um the facts about the traffic um just yesterday I took a drive down Stone Street and you know I almost got ended trying to take a turn on Stone Street um the question I have is is you're saying that there won't be any added to well added traffic to morning or evening rush hour I personally haven't looked at the studies on how many accidents happened during those times but there's a lot of accidents that happened right there and it's not from my understanding it's not during those hours I could be wrong but the text that I get from the officers things are such usually early in the morning not rush hour and usually towards the night so that's a really big concern on my behalf over there as I'm on record with uh uh rep zlotnik on the traffic control over there besides you know this project here so I don't I think that that part right there needs to be more looked at mhm um we would agree with you so I mean I would say take a you know take a ride down on yourself and turn on Stone Street cuz if you don't know it's there and you're coming in you know so let me address let me address thank you councel for your question um I have spoken with um quite a few residents on Stone Street and the third or fourth resident I spoke to said to me she said to me I'm concerned about traffic people parking here on race day and what it's going to mean and what it's going to do this is great we'll work with the city to hire a police officer at our cost put them at the end of Stone Street and if you're not a resident you don't get up and down Stone Street on a race day now that's something the city has to decide because it's a public street but we're committed to working with neighbors with residents on Solutions relative to green and 140 we're going to have to get our traffic engineer Rob n who is here today who's done big and small projects and I've done numerous projects with him is one of the leading Professionals in this area we're going to study this and we're going to come back with what are the solutions that make this a safer intersection for purposes of what we're doing does that mean we hire Troopers or local police to regulate the traffic before and after and during festivals maybe does it mean we do some other kind of mitigation in that area we're prepared to pay for the mitigation that's rela to our project and we're prepared to study it with recognized professionals and we're prepared to work with your planning board to work through those issues and we'll need a vote from your planning board to accept that and we will come back each and every year per our host Community agreement to review our traffic and parking plan and we will update it if it didn't work one year or it didn't work as well as it should have we'll make an adjustment and we will deal with that but we take traffic seriously we want people who come to our event not to say we're not going back next year because the traffic was terrible or because there was that accident over there we want people to leave and not think about traffic and to think we had a lovely day at the races we enjoyed what happened and what didn't happen the other thing that's worth noting is our horse population is coming in and out with a specific group of people we know who they are when they're arriving when they're departing and we can place regulations on them in terms of when they arrive when they depart what their vehicles are Etc which is not unusual so they come in at a certain time and they don't come in at another time all of those kinds of issues and a whole bunch that I hadn't even thought of will be part of the engineering discussion on this and will be public and part of the process and we will review it each and every year with the mayor and the councel period I I hope that answered your question question thank you um last year we were here over the same type of proposal from B State racing um and it me came up against a lot of resistance from the citizens um so I'm just curious here we are in the same geographic location in Gardener with the same concerns of environmental concerns traffic concerns um that have all been you know addressed again um why does Bay State racing think this is a better proposal and why is Bay State racing so insistent on this racetrack here in Gardner where again citizens have been very vocal against their concerns and and their opposition towards us so we Council thank you for your question we have had lots of citizens call us in support and we've had lots of citizens call us in opposition and a lot of the concerns and opposition I would tell you when we talk to them and lay out the facts it changes the conversation so so when people say to me you're in a overlay water protection Zone and you explain to them that about 20% of the city including the hospital the cemetery the golf course and the college are all in that same Zone people step back and say oh I didn't realize that when you talk to them about our ability to improve the water qu ground water quality in this area and that we would be required to do that by our local cons local conservation in by D people look at the water quality a little bit differently when they look at our requirements for storing and maintaining uh and removing offsite manure it's a different way of looking at the same exact site from a different lens the previous site had we withdrew from the previous site because it had article 97 concerns that we didn't want to go through the two or threee legal process to figure out whether it was or was not true we didn't stop because of uh concern from a group of people and by the way I recognize some of the people in the audience from my days at suff Downs there are some people who are professional in their opposition and I see that I also see people in the community that are very sincere in their concerns about horse safety water quality traffic we want to be the 54th business in this community because there's a Renaissance going on in this community and there are good things happening here we would like to be part of that and we'd like to be in a community that is prepared to work with businesses we believe that the concerns that have been raised that we can work through and answer those things we can I can answer the water quality and issues that exist there we met with D at your request DP is looking forward to seeing our plans because they know our Engineers they know our team and they know what we can do to a given sight same with traffic you have a problem at this intersection before we're here we're going to pump resources into studying and analyzing looking at it and trying to figure out what the solution is that so I stand before you counselor because I believe that John Stephan Bas State racing and our entity can be good partners with this community to improve and leave this place a little bit better I'm sure I don't know about your grandmother but my n told me me leave everything you touch a little bit better we will leave this parcel this location better than we find it that's a promise question um thank you for the presentation how many communities have you tried to implement uh tra race race track so I personally Bas B St race Bas State racing this this is the first community that b State racing has tried to do the previous group of people who were a group of investors invested a bunch of money to look at it and they gave up on it and they gave up on it because the equation to build a track is just too long and it is very difficult you're building a 1 mile strip 70 ft wide um I spent a lot of time with the horse community and got to know them and to believe in them and to recognize the value the Track Place places on them that $4 million in purse money flows through the track to those owners uh one of uh a former client of mine at South Downs who's been very active in this worked with the horse Community to do something and asked me to meet with some investors and some others to talk about I did and I decided to take the project on and to become part of it because I believe in it I believe that it can Preserve your open space it can become your largest taxpayer it can be a good uh uh corporate citizen in your community and can contribute more to the community than what it takes out of the community so Bay State itself this is Bay State's first project Commonwealth racing which was a different group of investors after suff Downs closed so suff Downs closed when it closed there were a bunch of different groups around the state up on the NorthShore South Shore western Mass different groups of horse owners that started to look at putting a track together most of those failed because they couldn't get the investors to come up with the money to build the track they were horse owners that wanted the track because they wanted the purse money to flow through the track I brought to the table with Sig ganger and others the investors and the resources to be able to make it happen [Applause] M presid may ask another question can I ask question a followup question um so of the 28 million in capital that you plan on um investing on at the site what what percentage of that is going to be the track per se so a big chunk of that will relate to uh trap related activity I can't tell you off the top of my head but it could be 7 or 8 million uh a lot of it is things like fencing you'd be amazed how expensive it is to put in a mile of fence on either side of a track um so there's a lot of money that goes into guard rails and fencing and making a site secure in addition to that we will spend money to renovate the existing house we'll spend money to renovate the existing barns we'll build a gazebo we'll deal with mitigation and parking and the other issues the soft costs the engineering the legal the architecture on the site could be 12% of the project I I share that with you because I want you to understand and appreciate that this isn't you know someone with the back ho and a pickup truck there's an enormous amount of engineering and architecture that's designed that's going to go into your planning board and into your Conservation Commission that's going to lay out what are the options for storm water management how are you going to deal with storm water on the site how are you going to take that storm water and ensure that before it finds its way back to the ply Brook which Finds Its way into the reservoir which Finds Its way into Crystal Lake which Finds Its way into your water supply how do we make sure that's a lot of engineering and a lot of discussion and this cost associated with and I appreciate your resp respon I just feel you know I personally have sat through a lot of um time share where you you can go on vacation for a week and you can go to Paris and and call up and get it in next week and then you get the time share and you're like wait a minute I can't go so I just feel as though this is a presentation of what is and what could be and not necessarily real realistic expectations of the project so Council I would say is everything we've laid out we're not only committed to do we have talked with the assistant city solicitor about putting into the host Community agreement so that we are required to do that and if your Conservation Commission isn't stringent enough in looking at the water quality D made clear to us be prepared to prove to us that you meet the state regulations for Zone a and for the overlay Protection District those aren't promises empty or otherwise those are requirements that a state agency is going to require us to do as part of our permanent process that's providing we approve racing that's correct but the point I'm making to you is all of the development is controlled by them thank you excuse me nobody can hear downstairs it's all you can't interrupt thank you at this time we are going as a point of order we have a public hearing scheduled for 7:30 we're we going to take a brief recess at 7:30 I'm going to open up the public hearing and recess the public hearing and then I will go back and open up this current meeting um and we will finish this meeting as um the counselors will have their chance to speak I again appreciate everybody's patience as the meeting for technical reasons had to start about 20 minutes late um it is being live streamed on Channel 8 the glitch did get fixed with um the uh TV station and so I just wanted to give that information as well um but right now we will are going to recess the meeting it will uh reopen after I have re opened and recessed the public hearing and we will finish this meeting this evening once this meeting is finished we will reopen the public hearing and we will have the public hearing as scheduled um that is a point of order and that is something that I'm required to do so as of right now this meeting is recessed until after 7:30 thank you yeah here we go e e e e e e Mike 15 I want you to come in here and give me a thumbs up e e you're good C this is a meeting of the Garder city council for the purpose of a public hearing regarding item number 11317 the public hearing notice reads as follows the advertisement for a public hearing as described above would provide as follows pursuant to General Law chapter 128a subsection 13A The Gardener the city of Garder city council will hold a public hearing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday July 23rd 2024 at Garder City Hall in the city council chambers room 219 95 Pleasant Street Garder Massachusetts 01440 with Perry auditorium at Garder City Hall available as an overflow room should the city council chamber reach capacity to hear the matter of Base State racing llc's application for horse racing operation at 827 Green Street and specifically the following vote shall a track of land located within the limits of the city of Garder now opened by the gamma Incorporated located at 827 Green Street comprising approximately of 114 Acres also identified as assessors Lot number r42 d211 and more particularly described in Worcester registry of deeds book 6379 2 and page 211 and situated on the easterly side of Route 140 other otherwise called Green Street be approved as a location of A running horse racing track where race meetings laid out and conducted by lenses under Mass General laot chapter 128a will be held or conducted anyone wishing to be heard May sign up beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday July 3 23rd 2024 through the conclusion of the public hearing at the place designated above and also refer to the gardener city council public hearing rules and procedures listed below adopted March 18th 2013 interested persons May attend the hearing and give oral comments or they may submit written comments until 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday July 24th 2024 by mailing or emailing Elizabeth Doran assistant city clerk 95 Pleasant Street Gardner Mass 01440 E dorger ma.gov a copy of the submitted application is available for public review at the City Clerk's Office room 1 121 during the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on Fridays or electronically at www . Garder d.gov an informal meeting of the gardener city council will be held on Tuesday July 23rd 2024 at 6 p.m. at Gardner City Hall in the city council chambers room 219 95 cousant Street Gardner Mass 01440 for a presentation from Bay State racing LLC on their application as described above with Perry auditorium at Gardner City Hall available as an overflo room should the city council chamber reach capacity the informal meeting notice and packet is posted outside the city clerk's office and electronically at www.gardner.com Gardner city council public hearing rules and procedures adopted March 18th 2013 number one the city council president will call the public hearing to order and read alloud the public hearing notice number two the city council president will call upon the petitioner to summarize the proposal number three the city council president will then ask for anyone wishing to testify to please raise their hand be recognized then State their name and address for the record excuse number four comments from anyone speaker are limited to 3 minutes number five the testimony must be on the merits of the pending question otherwise the testimony will be ruled out of order number six the petitioner shall be granted the opportunity to reply to questions and comments if desired number seven modifications to the proposal must be submitted in writing number eight attendees Desiring a second opportunity to present new testimony will be given an opportunity if in the opinion of the presiding officer time allows repetitive testimony will not be permitted number nine the petitioners and persons offering testimony May submit written comments to the city council president number 10 upon completion of testimony the city council president shall close or continue the public hearing to a Time slpl certain by Voice vote city of Gardner Elizabeth Dorne assistant City cler the clerk will please call the rooll council Brooks res coun coun pres coun pres coun pres coun pres coun pres pres presos Pres pres presus pres here quum is present at this time I'm going to recess the public hearing as we ran over from the previous informal meeting this evening so we can open up the informal meeting we will finish the remainder of the informal meeting and close that and then I will reopen the public hearing the public hearing is now recessed for the informal meeting is now called back to order we will continue with the questions from the counselors um to the petitioner counselors counselor thank you madam president folks please silence your phones if you can please be sure to turn them off if you can't silence them thank you councelor T thank you uh I have two uh questions uh what the first one is what is the minimum number of thorough breads necessary to hold a race and what happens to the track and land if base State fails and is unable to arrange races at all to to not being able to commit to the number of thorough breads necessary to have a race what happens to the gaming license also thank you for your question counselor um to conduct a race a race uh is usually somewhere between six and 10 horses usually you have a race eight that has between 8 and 10 races so over the course of a weekend you need 100 horses that would come to the facility 150 horses that would come to the facility uh depending on how many races how competitive if uh and the like and as I said to you one of the challenges in Massachusetts today is there are not a lot of horses so it will take time for that population to grow as the fos populate your second question which is uh what happens if we're not successful we have a high degree of confidence we will be successful in part because we have a large organized group of horse owners and horse Raiders behind us and we have the Commonwealth invested in making the purse money and the revenue to make that happen if this entity at some point 3 years 10 years 30 years ceases to race as is the case then the track will return to a horse farm it's zoned uh it it can be used for what it is zoned for and is currently the site is perked which I know is a question I'm sure we'll get to at some point you're not going to build build a bunch of houses on the site you're not going to build commercial on the site there's no water and sewer directed to the site so this site is going to Resto return to some sort of residential agricultural horse farm use thank you and second question thank you madam president uh you've received a letter of support from the AFL CIO president I assume that this means that you're required to hire Union contractors to construct um the track and and the land um but um what about the 25 15 to 25 uh staffers that are going to be there year round will they be Union um will there be a a pathway for the 100 or so temp workers uh to be to full-time employment and what will their wages be like all good questions thank you um we're committed to using a uh organized labor as part of our process every project I've done in my my 35- year career has been a union project you have trained professional safe workers uh we've met with the population of workers in this community and there is a large number of uh workers in this community and there are contractors that service this area so we feel very confident that we can locally source and pay prevailing wages meaning we're paying life sustaining wages to our workers in terms of the 5 to 25 they're not likely to be workers in part because they're going to be people who do things that are not traditionally in a union particular Union bucket and we would hope that people who come here to uh work on a temporary basis would become permanent employees we would hope that people who are interns here from the community college or from uh uh um um uh UMass Stockbridge would find their way into the pipeline not only to work here but to work for one of the horse farms around the Commonwealth that want to do that if you're a vet tech student at the mount and you come to our facility and you get paid to work there on a part-time basis as a student or whatever else you may very well find yourself working there or you may find yourself meeting one of our horse owners and I use John as mopis I've used his name so I'll stick with him you may find that you want to work at John on the asopos uh Farm in um Pitsburg and work as part of the training that occurs there so we'll hopefully find people Pathways to work there you'll also see a growth in small businesses in the area like blacksmiths there's a husband and wife that were the blacksmiths at um suff Downs there are some in the area they'll probably have to take apprentices on they won't work on on site but they'll come to the site on a regular basis as part of it and there'll be a fee for service same with veterinarians same with other folks who provide certain services that are unique and specific will grow their business as part of that um and if I could I'd just like to answer a previous question that I didn't answer completely because I I I heard it a little bit differently the Bay State racing this is their first project in Massachusetts it's the investors first project in this Commonwealth racing which I was associated with as an attorney Commonwealth racing looked at Sturbridge and uh Hardwick those were different projects and I'm happy to talk about both of those projects but Bay State as a entity was not involved with either of them nor with their investors did I answer your question I'm sorry it's okay councelor did you have any more further questions just I I do but I have just one follow just cuz you mentioned Mount White Community College a few times and I work there I'm just wondering who you've talked to specifically at the mount so we've met uh at least I think three times with the president with the head of uh the the dean and the director of the uh Veterinary Tech program and a couple of others one of the positions has changed in the time we first started meeting and talking with them and we've talked with them about the kind of collaboration we could do with large animals one of the things they've asked us to consider on the site is to keep to continue to keep chickens on the site because part of the Vette Tech program they have there involves chickens and they would like to in in addition to large animals horses have chickens and we have agreed to do that thank you counselor any further I could I can I ask more questions or let's go to some other come back to me come back to me yeah is there any other counselors councelor hugin thank you madam president uh thank you Mr Stephan for your time and trying to answer our questions uh I do have a couple quick questions with some small multiple parts to them uh it was my amendment to our original um that led to the D meeting so thank you for having that meeting in such a timely fashion would you just quickly mind summarizing any of the changes that are going to come about as a result of that meeting uh would your initial HCA be updated to reflect that and is that something we get to see those are great questions thank you and thank you for encouraging us to go see DP I think it was very productive and helpful not only to us but to the community to see that someone is looking over and watching to see what that is and as a footnote I personally having served where you sit and having served in the legislature and have working as an attorney and as a government professional I take your comments seriously something's important to you it's important to us and we're going to figure out how we can answer your question so relative to D I think we learn I don't know that we learned a lot because we have experts that deal with d when we walked into the room the D professionals recognized the licensed professionals who were with us so it's not like we're walking into the room with strangers we're walking into the room with people that they recognize as experts in their given area um it was a good review for me um of the rules and regulations of the process that we need to go through and some of the safeguards we need to look at there are some very specific things that we are going to need to do on this site to make sure that we are as the Director of D said providing a topnotch um storm water management that means we're going to have to have our Engineers work in design and we're going to have to construct swes and Rain Gardens and the like so that the water water before it leads the site goes through some kind of treatment that's an improvement over where it is today we're also going to have to deal with manure which is going to have to be collected contained in some kind of building like what I showed you and it's going to have to be removed off site that's an improvement over most horse farms in Massachusetts because they're not required to follow that necessarily in addition to that I didn't talk about and I intended to talk about fertilizer we are a a track that's going to be used one or two weekends a year we're not a golf course with a putting gream that has to be fertilized constantly and watered constantly in addition to that we're heavily regulated and we we will use only what is required and needed and we'll use organic fertilizers at a minimum and we will not store fertilizer on the site so we will not run into an issue with regulations that are concerned about the storage of fertilizer we've agreed to put that with with your with your solicitor into the host Community agreement in addition to that we have agreed to put the requirements for Zone a both the prohibitions and the things that are permitted through certain processes all in the host Community agreement it doesn't make them any more legally enforceable but it puts it in one document clear in in front of us and it gives the community an added enforcement mechanism through contract so we're committed when when I stand in front of you and I say something we're prepared to sign a document that says we'll do that thank you um and my other just quick question for you similar to to this I guess traffics obviously come up a lot it's a concern for all of us um if the study you know if and when we if when we get to any studies and they do find that say we need to add traffic lights or something do we know who is on the hook for that is it the city is it your organization um and are there other studies you know you had mentioned that your organization would help pay for an independent study is there anything else that hasn't been mentioned that you know might be looked at or be an option for us to get your help on uh should we even get to that point for studies sure so the normal process for developments or development like this is you get the use approved so if we were a restaurant you'd go to the council get the zoning approved and then you would go to the planning board the Conservation Commission for their approvals in this instance we've committed to go to the planning board to do a full-blown traffic study it might cost us $250,000 is that a fair number Rob Y and it'll take us a few months to go out and they will uh Rob Naji who is with VHB who is a professional in this area we will study all the traffic in that area we'll go to the planning board before we do the study and say Here's the study we want to do sorry for my back um and then we'll go and we'll conduct the study after we conduct this as we conduct the study this the city will hire at its Choice a peer review firm so you hire a different engineering firm that works for the planning board for the city and they will review the work that goes forward it's a very typical process and one will do the study look at the methodology look at the study and then come back and then we'll look at what are the conclusions that we need to address to deal with it is it a race day situation where we need to have a police officer in a given area do we have to change a traffic pattern do we need traffic lights do we have to do it we are on the hook for any improvements that are relative to what we need to do to operate our facility and we are comfortable and confident in terms of the roadway part of selecting the site you were asking earlier about the selection of the site counselor part of that selection is it's on 140 which is directly off the route two we don't have to go through we look at other sites in Fitchburg and lemonster and other places where you had to get to a farm that maybe had some attributes that were different but it didn't have the kind of access that off of one 40 site hats and the kind of infrastructure um so that plays a role in terms of uh site selection and I spoke with Senator Brewer who when he was chair ways of means had worked on the Reconstruction of that roadway cuz I asked him one day I saw him why is this roadway constructed to this level he said well I was chair of the budget committee so you had some influence with your Senator obviously yeah I hope that answered your question thank you y thank [Music] you further questions comments Council Brooks thank you madam president I I've got like couple of three questions that that are I'm looking for an answer and then another question to follow up on it if if I may um you've talked about approximately 500,000 in Revenue coming to the city and I always like Revenue coming to the city and it's two parts as I understand it there's 230,000 which is coming as a pilot and that to me is pretty straightforward because it's it's in Le of property tax real estate tax um 230,000 uh would be about $15 million in value on the property you're talking about investing 25 million in the property so it kind of all makes sense and a pilot would be money that we negotiate and comes right into the city so that's 230,000 the other payment is 240,000 now I'm not going to quibble over the fact that 230 and 240 equals 470,000 and not 500,000 what I am struggling with on the 240,000 it says it's a percent and a half of simal cast Revenue so is that additional money you would be paying or does the statute require you to pay it so that's a great question question um first of all there are the 500,000 is an estimate based on you also getting Revenue associated with other taxes that occur in the community but if you notice I can't lift my right arm above this it's because the assistant solicitor I think has broken it and he's convinced me that the 240 should in fact be treated like a pilot payment and we should be committing that to the community as part of that rather than the vagaries of a statute that has changed a few times and we have agreed that we will treat it in that fashion we haven't worked all the language out on it but we will come forward and we will put the revenue to make sure that it's there and it's clear that that reference in that statute has changed a couple of times and it requires a change in the local Aid formula if it does great we'll figure out an offset to deal with that but we're committed to that revenue and uh guaranteeing it and um so I'll stop there all right and and that you know I guess the second part of my question um it the the host agreement talks about coming through state aid and so my question there was is this like coming if if it's a required payment is it coming to us like meals tax or the local option hotel tax or is it coming through the unrestricted General government assistance so the answer is it would be it it it doesn't EX exist today Okay so we've agreed to pay what is not in the statute today which was in the statute and to the first part of your question the valuation of this site would not be $25 million or $28 million based on that the value of this site uh Walmart spent more than that building on the site it's based on income and what you look at I understand that I don't have a problem with 25 and the value is 15 that's okay how it works I just how the assessors work so we would look at that in addition to that uh the mayor and the solicitor have asked us to look at an escalator as part of that and we've agreed on an escalator correct me if you think otherwise that would would be equal to whatever the tax levy changes in a given year so if the average taxpayer is going up 2 and half% we would go up 2 half% if the average taxpayer is getting no increase we would get no increase if it's a 1% increase we'd get a 1% increase so we would travel the same exact way that every other taxpayer in the community would travel except that we would start with a larger base okay and and the the so that language just to be clear the language that you're looking at in there won't be in the final version because we'll guarantee those dollars okay and the and the the 240,000 which is the 1 and a half% of simal cast Revenue when when would you expect that that money would start to flow to the city would it be immediately or is it is it in the year or two years or 5 years or it would flow in the first fiscal year in which we are in business that we open which and when would you expect that to be so our timelines have been thrown back because our process has delayed we initially thought we would race in uh November of 205 and we may be able to depending on whether we can make time up in permitting in construction there may be some things that we can do after we acquire the site that don't require us to go through the process so for example if we purchase the site from Gama and we want to renovate the house that we own we go and apply for building permit we don't have to go through site plan review or conservation to do that so some of the things that we need to do we may be able to get some time that happens on if we cannot race in November of 25 the next race would race date would probably be in the late spring of 26 which would be like May June which is still in the fiscal year of fiscal 26 26 so the first payment to the city would be in fiscal 26 and every year that the facility is opened and licensed that payment would be due and payable to the city okay and that would be for one weekend of racing or two weekends or three correct because as I went through in our economic model we're we're not making money off of we're losing money money hard for folks to comprehend our revenue is coming from outside of Garder but because of the racetrack in Garder which is dispersing the $4 million to horse farms it's enabling us to have under state law the privilege to receive a small percentage of those wages that occur around the country so that's our Revenue stream all right thank you thank you Council General thank you madam president thank you for the presentation um on Council Brook's Point um the 1.5% of the simoc cast fees that was the two $240,000 that was in the agreement correct so is that now the floor and if the 1.5% is higher than that in the future the city gets more so the 1.5% is no longer in the statute okay and there is a local Aid uh the communities that were receiving dollars that was transferred into their local Aid account which has happened in the last couple of years which I have to say is quite smart on their part because they can see them losing that Revenue so they've built it into their local Aid so that they continue to get that Revenue even though they won't have a track that will be there okay so they won't lose that money and to make it easy rather than going through a formula that everyone doesn't understand with Revenue that can fluctuate we've agreed to in essence because we haven't finalized the way we look at it treat it as a larger pilot payment so that there is guarantee so if you want to do RS Revenue anticipation notes because you want to use it for a particular purpose then as a pilot payment you can then use the contract and the payment as a means of then going and using the dollars you can't do that when it's one and a half% of something gotcha and it would grow each and every year based on whatever the tax rate tax rate go uh couple more questions if you don't mind quick one on the D the enforcement um how often do they come out and review the site to make sure the water you know is being treated correctly the manure is being removed is there a timetable for them they come out every month every week so when you're doing a project they review the project thoroughly and they review it and then you have to get a completion of certificate the the water quality certificate and you do the same with the Conservation Commission I don't know that they have a schedule for review um but they have the ability to review it at any time okay I see the engineers nodding yes so just like your Conservation Commission if there's not an order of conditions that exists once it's satisfied you then have to continue to satisfy that order and they can inspect it as they choose but there's no set inspection timable that they come out even once a year okay no um and but but I will tell you this from talking to the director and the deputy director if a counselor or the city writes them a note and says can you please go look at this they seem to be very constituent oriented and they'll send someone out and they'll come take a look at it and one last quick question you mentioned non-horse racing um and non-horse related events there about weddings festivals um with it being zoned agricultural and that being uh the horse racing aspect fitting into I guess a car vote if you will in the agricultural section would there be able to be non um non horse related events on the site ever so that's a great question uh I think we'd have to look at that we were asked to look at whether we would sponsor an event once a year at least for a local team or charity or something else and we're happy to do that the city wants to tell us we can't do it then sorry team charity we can't do it but that's not our primary piece of it that was something that we were asked to look at as part of it and I guess we'll just have to look and figure out whether a non-agricultural related event fits within the Zoning for they in I don't know I don't have an answer to that question but we'll look at it and we'll try to find an answer for you I appreciate it thank you uh councelor T thank you uh Madam president uh just a few uh the questions earlier um I was just looking at my notes uh when I asked about how many uh horses would need need how many thorough breads would be needed for a race you said 8 to 10 and then you said there would be 150 horses on on site during a race weekend how many races are there that that would need to be 150 so I said 6 to 10 so a race would have six to 10 horses in it and a race card would have 8 to 10 races on it so there could be 8 to 10 races in a day there could be six to 10 horses in a race and you could have a variable of horses you can do the multiplication and figure out over three days if every horse runs One race every horse runs two races how that all fits into the math of that and it will vary based on how popular the races the conditions the volume of horses and so if you got a lot of volume of horses you'll have a lot of races that have 10 horses in it okay if you have a small you could have a whole lot of races that have six horses in it thank you so it it's a range and I was not I was trying to give you a sense of magnitude not a sense of precision okay just one one quick um last thing there's a lot of wooded area in that area I'm just wondering how much of that wooded area you're estimating would be clearcut to build the racetrack and the parking lots so the parking lot would go into the area that's open now so there's no trees associated with that at least I don't believe there are um the wooded area that's in the back we're talking about a 70ft strip being built into the wooded area around the hill you will not be able to see the race other than by cameras from the start finish line on the other side of the track CU it's on the other side of a hill I don't see why we would remove the trees that are on that part of it we will remove the trees where they will be like you have on one of your slides the uh Amphitheater they won't will remove trees there it may be the Architects have shown us a couple of different examples it may be that we end up keeping some trees in that area as a canopy for those um and it depends dep on what they see I've walked at the site a few times in that area and there are some significant trees there are a lot of less significant trees and so if they encounter a large Oak they may be inclined to figure out how do we keep this tree and make it part of our canopy for what goes in there if it is um less significant so turn but that's a sight related issue we have the mayor has asked us about this through the solicitor we've agreed to plant more trees uh 500 trees throughout the community as part of our effort to replace trees further further questions comments from the counselors councelor tyros thank you madam president uh very briefly I just want to State the reason uh for my initial question and the reason why I was unsatisfied with it uh because I received an email from a constituent and I think the rest of the council did on July 12th from uh former city councelor James Walsh uh with the information from the secretary of the Commonwealth's website that based racing only has one individual named for all roles with the company so that's why I was trying to find out more information about the company's structure and operational uh aspects of its business um and I noticed uh we received an email today actually from a former city councelor Walsh as well that he had sent an email to the contact information for Bas day racing on July 15th and hasn't received the response so you have one constituent to respond to as well um but my my question is uh my second question is what is the defition fully operational for the host Community agreement and it's perent to the location because we are talking about you know 2 to 5,000 individuals coming to Garder for this site is fully operational One race weekend of three days and are all the studies and reports and figures based on three race days one weekend or is based on 20 race days six to seven weekends because that I mean we live in New England right that's that's the entirety of our summer potentially that we could out this impact to the community unless you're going to race in the winter no right um so thank you for your question uh first I would say if you can forward to us Council Walsh's email to us we have responded to each and every email that we received and I have reviewed and we've gone through that and there have been dozens and dozens and dozens of them and we have not missed an email so if an email if it was sent to the wrong address or whatever send it to us we'll respond to it we respond to everything we get in terms of our corporate filings it's very typical if you're no attorneys when you do corporate filings you have a lead investor and the lead investor is the person who is the person responsible for the entity I'm not listed on the LLC although I do have a small piece of the LLC and when we go to the gaming commission they will look at all of our sources of financing including traditional financing like Banks and uh hedge fund or whatever whatever source of funding we have so there will be review of the corporate structure and entity as we proceed um and your last point um was what what is the definition of fully operational in the poost community agement so my arm is still not working all correctly um your uh assistant solicitor raised that issue with us as you raised it appropriately and we've agreed to take that language out the language that it was not put in there to be uh uh unclear it was put in there to mean the point that Council made which is when do we start our payments we start our payments in the year we're operational so we've taken that language out and and made clear that when we're operational that is when it starts so it's not fully operational to be defined or you know how many days or whatever it is when we're operational and operational is a race that's one race thank you so that year we're we're do counc T yeah in regards to the one two or three um races throughout the quter of the year and then when we doing your presentation you've stated no more than 20 days how does that correlate if we're talking about three race days one two or three the multiple at best I figured could be 16 where does the 20 come into play so uh the most you'd have in three weekends would be nine days there is a state statute that sets as a goal from the legislature that we race 20 days a year we have gone to the racing commission and told them that's an unrealistic goal the horse Community has likewise done the same thing and it has a waiver provision in it which has been used in the past and we would ask for a waiver again we in our host Community agreement lay out the number of weekends that we will ask for in the first five years and we lay out that we will come to you and and tell you before we go to the gaming commission and ask them for race days so we're trying to be transparent and clear in terms of race days um but at the same time the gaming commission is going to ask us as one of their questions why can't you run 20 days and the answer to that question is there are not enough horses there's not enough purses and it is too expensive $4 million is enough to have a good weekend of racing for purposes of the horse Community we might be able to stretch it into two weekends which would be we think would be good one in the spring and one in the fall getting beyond that seems very difficult to achieve if at all based on the purses that are available which is a fund that comes from the state and it's not growing it's remaining steady and number two the number of horses that exist in the community so I don't see us getting beyond that I say that because legally we need to go to the gaming Commission because the number of race days is their prerogative so I can't tell them I've entered into an agreement that says I'm only going to two days because I have to go to them and I have to ask them to give us a waiver for that we've entered into a contract with you which lays out those weekends thank you do any of the counselors have anything further to comment or question councelor Heath thank you madam president um I'm not really familiar with the horse racing World um it's not my nature to know anything about it um the only horse racing I've done is at a carnival or Six Flags squirting the water in the thing and and to be honest with you my six-year-old beat me last week but we won't talk about that I think she cheated but how much water is used at the horse races the reason why I asked that is because every May June we're in a water drought April maybe I don't remember um and I can't even water my lawn so how much water is used and will it affect us did you use our water are the water trucks that come up to wash the tracks things of such so we will be required to apply for a well we will be required to put an Arian well in in on the site and that well will service the property there is a well currently on the site but it is on the other side of the property and we would likely put one on the other side of the property so we could service it uh we're not talking about watering this like a golf course we're talking about when these are the grass is for starting we're going to water it we may water it in and around a race weekend but other than that mother nature is going to provide water for the track all right and then as I may and then when we have those droughted Springs Summers or when we're not at full capacity on our city water what do we do with that we'll have to take if if if we don't have any water we'll have to take and get a truck and go get a truckload of water from some place we can get it and card it into the area there are there are um steeple chases or other races that go on in the uh in a wooded area and they bring in water on a truck so the answer is can we get a water truck and fill the water truck with water from someplace where we can purchase water yeah but we'll follow whatever it is that's required of us that is all thank you thank you counselor any further comments questions from the city council any further questions from the city council okay um thank you Mr stefanini appreciate it [Applause] there's nothing further from the council at this time on the topic of the informal meeting then as I said earlier this evening um this is just a housekeeping measure uh I'd asked if anyone was recording the meeting in Perry Auditorium Brandon Huey of at Grace Court and also Steve Wendell from wgaw recording the meeting and then also as I also said earlier this evening there is no vote this evening on this item however as with any informal meeting a regular practice is for the council to take a straw vote and for the public there is um a straw vote that again is a regular practice of city council informal meetings it is an unofficial vote that is conducted as a test of an opinion to get a sense of where the council stands on an item and I'm going to propose that we take a straw vote so the topic on the topic of the meeting excuse me topic of the meeting is item number 11317 a vote to determine if a of land located at 827 Green Street be approved as a location of A running horse racing track where race meetings laid out and conducted by lenses under Mass General Law chapter 128a will be held or conducted so a yes on the straw vote is that you would allow for there to be horse racing and a no on the straw vote would be that you would not allow for there to be horse racing again this is unofficial this is just to get a sense of the council coun Brooks uh yeah just a point of clarification because this is a straw vote are we required to vote or may we abstain you can obain okay thank you any other comments from the Council on the straw vote okay Council Brooks no councelor hlin no councelor tunos no councelor Heath no councelor tyros no councelor darn lawitz no counselor Mac no counselor tone no counselor Harden no and I also vote no that would be knows as a straw vote unofficially on this vote this evening to get a sense of the council One Last Time anything further to comment or questions from the council thank you to the representatives from base State racing we appreciate your presentation if you being here this evening answering our questions and providing information to us hearing nothing further the meeting stands adjourned and the public hearing which was scheduled for 7:30 which again we went over we had technical difficulties appreciating everybody's patience for a long evening here but thank you for allowing us to conduct City business as we are elected to do so uh we will begin the public hearing at 8:30 and everyone who is here to be back in this room uh we will begin again at 8:30 so please take the time to do what you do you need to do now thank you the Tuesday July 23rd 2024 public he public hearing of the gardener city council is called back to order we previously read the public hearing notice we previously took the roll call there is a quorum present is stated by the clerk at this time I will request a summary of The Proposal from the petitioner Bas State racing LLC we had an informal meeting earlier this evening for the public watching and the informal meeting earlier this evening was also on item number 11317 Mr stefanini you can come forward can use the microphone right there thank you Madame President for the record my name is John stefanini and on behalf of the owners investors the uh various groups here this evening the mass Breeders Association the New England horse Owners Association um thank you for the opportunity Madame President counselors City Garder to be heard and to give a presentation I won't won't go through the same presentation that I did before but just quickly um if I could um skip ahead Community process we start the community process with a discussion of use which is why we're here after we go through that we would need to get an ex and execute and negotiate a host Community agreement with the mayor we'd then have to go to the gaming commission and go through that process of applying then if we're fortunate we would go to the gardener Conservation Commission and planning board for purposes of review of parking and wetlands and the like and when that's done we would have to go to the Department of envir Environmental Protection for a water quality certificate to ensure compliance with all rules and regulations we would then go through the building process and then we would become operational our vision to continue the breeding training racing that has occurred on this site from 1875 started by Dr Andrews and to expand it to cover thorough bread racing in addition in replacement of standard breads which is the existing track that is there today the track site itself about a third or half of the site is covered under Zone a and water protection which has heightened regulations uh on the right side of the site you see the Pearly Brook just off the east side of the site the west side of the site is is where the racetrack would be located around the hill and the Uplands that are there there would be stands that would be built into the hill that would be a grass Amphitheater the track itself 70 ft wide would be a 1em strip it would be Turf we would race one two three weekends a year um and when we're not racing the site would be used for retirement program for horses a breeding program for thorough breeds um next slide Community Partnerships we have talked with about uh collaborating with GMA on therapy and treatment dealing with local educational facilities in terms of collaborating with their student programs on Vette Tech and uh animal programs promoting and working with local businesses to grow their business businesses as they exist on the site and contributing annually to local nonprofits to grow organizations that make a difference in the community we would instantly be the largest taxpayer in the community at 500 approximately $500,000 a year which would escalate uh over time that would make us two and a half times the largest taxpayer in the community today in addition to that we will collaborate as a member of of the Chamber of the regional tourism Bureau with local businesses to make sure that our customers our facility is using local businesses we would invest $25 million in New Capital in the site to construct and modernize the facility that exists there to improve the storm water management that exists on site um we would create 15 to 25 permanent jobs and 100 temporary jobs and we would agree to plant 500 trees throughout the community we would preserve the open space and connect to the north central pathway next slide in addition that will support local agriculture that's local farms that hay and do other things keep going um just a couple of Q&A just to touch upon which I touched on before wetlands and water protection we will be required to collect Main maintain in a covered facility and remove off site manure we will improve the um rainwater groundwater runoff on the site the DP director when we met with her said this site would benefit from top of the line storm water management and we are committed with the engineering firms we have to designing and building a top-of-the line storm water management so the water quality in this site is improved horse welfare I'll leave that to the horse owners to talk about as they go forward but Massachusetts has always been a leader in horse safety and force treatment leading the nation in anti-doping and anti-s Slaughter Provisions in addition to that the site will have a 247 Security on the site and we will be subject to new regulation from the new federal entity created HSA the horse Integrity Safety Authority traffic we're fortunate to be on one 40 which is a relatively uh recently upgraded uh roadway in addition to that we will do a full traffic study and we're committed to paying for the mitigation associated with the use of the facility including state and local police officers and other forms of mitigation this tells you a little bit about our business model while we break even in breeding and retirement programs and we lose money in racing operations we generate our money on cell phones people who wager offsite people who wager all over the Commonwealth on Races that occur all over the country we get a small piece of that as a condition of our license the wagering on this site will only be on Race days those one two or three weekends a year you'll never be able to wager on a sports wagering facility a Red Sox game a Patriots game and the like we'll generate our re revenue from that wagering out of state and we will spend that money in the community as part of our business thank you we look forward to answering your questions and as the questions I'll get up towards the end and answer questions that have been asked of us thank you open meeting recording notice any person may make a video or audio recording of an open session of a meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium subject to reasonable requirements of the chair as to the number placement and operation of equipment used so as not to interfere with the conduct of the meeting any person intending to make such recording shall notify the chair forth with all documents and Exhibits used or referenced at the meeting must be submitted in duplicate to the chair as they become part of the meeting minutes pursuing to General Law chapter 38 subsection 20 is anyone in here recording tonight's meeting yep can you just um state your name if you can actually come over to this microphone this time state your name and the organization please with uh I'm with WBZ in Boston it's 1170 Soldiers Field Soldiers Field Road thank you thank you anyone else recording the meeting if there is anyone in Perry Auditorium recording the meeting you can head over to the table over on the right near the exit Brandy is there and you can give her your name and address for the record or your organization for the record and I will announce that as I receive it thank you we will begin in a moment with the first person who has signed up to offer testimony this evening first I would like to acknowledge some procedural matters to ensure that each person has a fair and um has a fair opportunity to testify this evening each person was given a card with a number on it when they signed up to offer testimony we consider this card to be your ticket and to keep it with you you will be asked to provide it at the city council chamber when it is your turn to offer testimony I will call each person by name and card number when they turn to offer testimony approaches if you're seated in per auditorium at that time when I state that your turn to offer testimony is approaching I'll call your name and card number you'll exit Perry Auditorium through the door to the right of the stage and go to the council chamber when you arrive at the council chamber you will be seated to wait for your turn to offer testimony if you are seated in the council chamber at that time when it is your turn to offer testimony that I will call your name and card number at which time you will go to the podium in the council chamber when you arrive at the podium you can begin your testimony by stating your name and address for the record and then offer your testimony each person has 3 minutes maximum to offer their testimony there is a timer right on the laptop in front of the assistant clerk where you will be a able to see where you are for time and she will be keeping the time and after you have offered your testimony you will either Exit the council chamber to go back to per Auditorium or to be seated here if that's where you were sitting and then the next person will be called to offer their testimony if you lose your number or you can't remember your number you can visit the clerk in the hallway outside the chamber or if you in Parry Auditorium you can head over to the clerk who is located next to the exit on the right of the stage outside the chamber that is in all of the information that we handed this evening when you signed up um but I did want to make it clear this evening that I will be calling people to um come up we have plenty of Staff here to help people uh uh be directed to the council chamber and to offer their testimony and it is our goal to offer a fair professional and uh timely public hearing this evening to be sure everybody is heard so with that we're going to begin with numbers 1 through 10 number one Michael Nicholson number two two Phil broer number three Bruce Spa there is no number four number five Gerald selir number six Dorothy leblan number seven Russell leblan number eight Deborah Ali and there is no number nine number 10 Carla waj ktz and number 11 Bruce Chester so first if you are in any of those numbers and you're in par Auditorium please head up to the council chamber if you are here this evening we will begin number one Michael Nicholson thank you very much Madame President and counselors for the opportunity to speak to you here this evening uh I'd also like to thank the many residents who reached out to my office uh who uh expressed their concerns their uh support their uh objections to this project one way or the other uh the Administration has submitted over 120 Pages uh to the city council in the last month so I'd like to keep my comments focused on uh certain other aspects of The Proposal the Imp ta to the city uh and information that residents have reached out to my office and asked questions on I think one of the things that Gardener been making a large concerted effort in lately is making sure that we are a more business-friendly Community not by saying yes to every business that walks in the door but allowing a process to take place in which we work with and sit down with anyone who's interested in coming to Gardener and calling Garden their home be it a home for a resident or a home for a business and making it so that we are a uh Community that's willing to work with people and see see what impact and symbiotic relationship we can have with each other in that process uh the question's been asked uh by my to my office from several counselors and members of uh the public as well too what does the $500,000 uh that has been proposed to the city on an annual basis mean and how does that relate to what we can do here uh I would uh certainly not be opposed and it's something that if the council chooses to move forward with something we would certainly be willing to work with on a special revenue account uh for that fund that has been suggested by some of the counselors um $500,000 a year equates to about 100,000 homes that we have here in Gardner with the average home uh right now excuse me Mr Mayor can you please turn off your cell phones and Silent your cell phones folks thank you thank you please continue um so to answer the question that was asked what does $500,000 mean in terms of what revenue is for the city that's about 100,000 homes with the average home and Gardener right now uh paying around $4,500 a year in taxes uh so certainly a special Revenue fund for special projects capital projects certain things like that could be put forward uh in terms of working with businesses who are willing to come here again it's something that we've made a highlight of my Administration uh and the city as a whole uh in making sure people know that Garden is a place to be welcomed be open for business but things still have to be vetted and processes still have to be followed and input from the public absolutely taking into consideration and I think that's what we've seen here this evening I think that's what we've seen throughout this process that if there's a process outline so that people get a chance to voice the concerns people get a chance to talk about what they feel like and businesses to make their pitch for the city that's exactly uh how things should work uh and what we've given the opportunity for today uh again as I've said earlier as I see the time is running short now uh there is 12 120 pages of information in your packet that's already been submitted as well as correspondence for myself here um and if there's any further questions in between now and the next city council meeting on August 5th if that's when the council chooses to vote uh my office is always uh ready to be reached out to and answer any questions that may arise along the way uh from any of the residents in the city and any of uh counselors again uh with my email at mayor Gardner - ma.gov or at 978 6321 uh 63149 I will happy to get all that information thank you thank you thank you madam president number two Phil broer folks I also want to remind you as well I should have said it at the beginning um just be sure to speak directly into the microphone um just to be sure that the recording picks it up thank you hi I'm Phil broer I live at 182 Road and uh I've been around this town for about 70 years now uh for the record um I am opposed to the horse racing facility and gambling at 827 Green Street as I'm sure you're all aware there are a number of communities in M that have turned down horse racing proposals and there are valid reasons for each of those communities Gardner has issues with significantly greater environmental impact I will Briefly summarize my main items of concern as it relates to the proposed operation one is water quality pearly Brook which borders this property feeds the city's primary drinking water supply and is a significant concern the size and scope of the proposed facility only make matters worse it is a known fact that once the water supply is compromised it may never be reclaimed this is a significant issue traffic we've all talked about the traffic tonight Route 140 Green Street is already a very busy road with a considerable accident and death rate enough said uh zoning change um a significant change of operation from what we've seen for last number of years at b blank farms and with GMA um I'd be very interested to see what you know what how this gets approved and what happens going forward uh another another source spot for me is is you know everybody's talked about the uh horses and how well they're treated uh I I think I think overall the um ethical treatment of the animals is still a question in my mind um the reports of abuse seem to come from reputable sources and I believe concerns concerns are well founded uh overall I do not believe that this proposal has been properly vetted we all know that lack of appropriate project analysis usually winds up costing the taxpayers a approval of this proposal will have disastrous results for the present community and future generations to reiterate my position I oppose any changes that will allow horse racing and gambling at a27 Green Street thank you thank you number three Bruce bua just want to take make a quick announcement the meeting is being recording in periodic torium by Brandon Huey at five Grace Court and Garder and Aisha Kum of 243 Waterford Street and Gardner thank you thank you hi my name is Bruce spra I live at 64 Wheeler Street Gardener my concerns are number one the water and nothing against any of the city council but I don't believe that any of you have foot put footprints on the ground up there it is a lot of wetlands so there is no way that they're telling you what they're doing is going to let that not be polluted there's no way secondly everybody's talking about the traffic on 140 it's been my experience from a kid growing up whenever there is an event somewhere nobody wants to be shuttled in everybody will be parking on Stone Street Parking On The neighbors's Lawns us all calling the police having cars removed and that's going to cost the city more money otherwise excuse me the other thing is is that seven other communities in this State have turned these people down so Garder do the same tell them to Giddy up and go back to Boston thank you thank you there's no number four number five Gerald selir this mik here yes Gerald stal 39 High Street South Gardner Madam president members of the council the primary Duty and responsibility for elected officials in a small City like Gardner and that includes the mayor and the council the number one responsibility is to ensure the public health and the public safety of its residents everything else is secondary if you don't have good health and safety the rest of it doesn't matter the basic foundation for a community like Gardner's public health is to have a robust public water system that supplies adequate quantity and quality of water to meet the basic needs of its citizens and its fire protection for well over a 100 years this area where the development is proposed constitutes a natural water tension watershed area that has supplied the quality and the quantity of water for the city of God and upon which we rely today the property involved as I said lies smack in the middle of that and earlier this evening in their presentation the proponents cavalierly mentioned that well uh we're in this and so isn't the hospital and the cemetery and the golf course all three entities were developed decades many many decades ago before there was a federal clean Waters act and before there was a Massachusetts Wetlands protection act so I'll thank you I'll make it very quickly in closing let me say that any elected official who votes in favor of this proposal without first doing their due diligence and getting the results of hydrological studies and traffic studies and environmental impact is a disgrace to your oath of office and renders you unfit to hold public office thank you thank you we will move on to the person in uh the next person in line but I would also like to call the following numbers to the chamber uh to be ready to testify number 11 Bruce Chester number 12 Timothy St jeene number 13 Sheila heglin number 14 Paul Deo number 15 Robert R Schwarz number 16 Mia young number 17 Colleen odonnell number 18 Brenda Dill number 19 Carol Tibido number 20 elanar gash number 21 John hos hard number 22 Scott Graves number 23 Steven Rockwood number 24 Loren Peabody number 25 Carolyn kamuda number 26 Janna mcferson number 27 Corine Smith number 28 Garder mcferson number 29 Nancy Bello and number 30 K excuse me Katie Stevens so numbers 11 through 30 if you're not already in the chamber please make your way up to the chamber we will continue with number six Dorothy LeBlanc Council Madam president and members of the council my name is name is Dorothy leblan a resident of 208 Stone Street and a longtime resident of Garder I am not one of the residents That Base State racing spoke to I am here to oppose the proposal of Bas State racing at 827 Green Street in Garder my first concern like many citizens of Gardner is the drinking water supply that is fed from Co Pond which runs along the side of the property of 820 7 Green Street into pearly Brook and then into Crystal Lake Reservoir in my opinion this is an environmental issue that will affect our drinking water Watershed land fernal pools and wetlands as the butters to the property proposed by Bas State racing site we are very concerned that our own wells will be contaminated with the use of fertiliz fertilizers and chemicals that will will be used to treat the horse race track these chemicals will leech into the groundwater and pose a high risk to health and safety issues for all keeping our water safe from contaminants is an extremely pertinent issue and should be considered and not ignored secondly the traffic is a major concern Route 140 is not designed to accept the influx of additional traffic adding hundreds of cars sh shuttle buses trucks and horse trailers RVs vendors and equipment on a race day to an already accident prone area causes grave concern for the residents the pedestrians and cyclists Route 140 at the Green Street and Stone Street intersection is already very treacherous without the addition to all these vehicles my third and last concern is the noise and level and privacy that will come along with the proposed Race Park the noise from the horse tracks daily operations as well as racetrack events and festivities will impact the quality of life not only for us but for all our residents on Stone Street our home that we have lived for the past 38 years is situated within 500 ft of the property at 827 Green Street the peace and quiet we currently enjoy with a significant factor in the choice we made to purchase and live on Stone Street for all these years I hope you will take not only my concerns into consideration but all the concerns made here tonight thank you for your time thank you number seven mad president point of order point of order councelor I I must ask I know emotions are high but we must remain cool comment collection Ed that the applausing the crowd noises we must remain fair and Equitable to all those presenting to make sure we get through this evening if we might be able to restrict that would help us go through this process thank you counselor noted thank you number seven Russell leblan I'm you second your wife that that works number eight Deborah Al Ali Aly hello first i' like to speak of Sterling suff Downs a closed horse racing track the owner was found guilty of polluting 123 square miles of water in watershed the pl pollutants initially went into sails Creek Bell Isles salt marsh various other waterways and eventually into Boston Harbor EPA investigators found storm water contaminated with number one manure two turbid brown runoff um going into sales Creek with elevated levels of pluen such as ammonia suspended solids animal waste with excess nutrients and pathogens excuse me Deborah can you speak right into the microphone I'm sorry thank you okay all of these um are poisoned to our drinking water why do I mention suff Downs Richard Richard Fields a major investor in Bay state was the owner of suffect downs do you want someone who destroyed water in Wetlands on such a huge scale coming into our cities I don't thank you there is no number nine number 10 Carlo waj ktz good evening everyone um my name is Carla wtz and my husband and Bob my husband Bob and I live at 280 Stone Street I am not one of the residents that spoke with Bas State about this issue we've lived at this location for 44 years and our property directly AB buts the property at 827 Green Street we've spent 44 years working on our property and our home making it ready for resale as we age and if this proposal goes through our property is worth not what it should be I have the same concerns as many of you do about the water issue our well especially and if our well is Tainted then ultimately the city water supply will be tainted then there is that impact of the traffic the add traffic that we will see on 140 which is an already dangerous roadway and there are additionally many more concerns but I'm also concerned about the wagering that was mentioned in the brochure and Mr Stephan told us a bit about that tonight but I feel that there are still many unanswered questions regarding the sports betting licenses racetracks and sports betting licenses are tied together in Massachusetts gaming Law chapter 128a and 23n and they would automatically be eligible to apply for the sports betting wagering license which I think is the underlying issue why they're trying to sell the city on this proposal why why else would they be spending so much money to build this track if it's only going to be used a few days a year we were told at the last presentation at Williams and again that horse racing and simoc cast do not make a lot of money Bay State wants those two sports betting licenses so they can make millions of dollars while destroying our Watershed land our forests and Wildlife and threatening mine and my neighbors sense of security thank you for listening thank you number 11 Bruce Chester number 11 Bruce Chester number 11 Bruce Chester number 12 Timothy St Jean my name is Timothy St genene I live at 418 Stone Street um I could give a lot more than the 3 minutes that I'm allowed um but I'll hit you with some bullet points uh traffic on 140 is a nightmare we all know that uh traffic study isn't just the number of cars it's the type of vehicles any body that drives I drive to Cambridge and Boston pretty much daily for work I travel route two I never see anyone hit in the back of an 18 raer when they get onto the highway you see it a quarter mile back as the traffic slows cuz people aren't paying attention so it's not the number of cars that Bay State would be bringing in it's the type of vehicles you have horse trails all these things pulling up there is no merg in Lane right there so what are they going to do they're going to have to slow down on 140 directly to get into their property it's going to cause backups you're going to have accidents there that's all said about that um I'm going to hit the bullet points of what Bay State proposed to you guys in the 188 pages of documents that the of page that they gave to you guys um MX do says there's no notable accidents that's a bunch of bull um let's talk about the numbers that they're actually talking about Bay State says on well that part's talking all of the state so we won't even go into that one um we talked a lot about horse racing days but what they haven't mentioned is in their own thing at this facility their analysis according to their people that did this research is talking about SE 70 other events which according to this is going to result in 82,500 visits from non-massachusetts residents a year see it sounds like a lot more cars than what they're proposing in their traffic study uh retirement Farm comp that's another 7,000 out ofate visitors a year again a lot more traffic than what's really proposed on horse racing days um um substantial acreage ideal site is approximately 600 acres of continuous land they have 114 which they've emitted a third to half of it would be unusable so they're going from 600 acres of Ideal property down to 80 far sub substantial less um key assumptions in their analysis they're talking about 75 days of racing during the typical season nine races per day 675 races a year um they're speculating 3,000 visitors a day which doesn't line up with the other numbers that were already presented how can you make a informed decision when their facts that they're presenting to you guys don't even line up with their own information um the host agreement I won't get much into that because they already said that that has to get Rewritten again but there was discrepancies in that as well um I don't think you guys have enough information to really make an informed decision um again a lot of contradictory things in our own information of the 188 pages of documentation that they submitted to you thank you thank you m president yeah may I respond you can resp I I would wait till the end to respond there are a couple of things that just deserve a quick response the first is the citations in that are to the UMass study they're not this project and it says directly they're talking about the UMass study which is dealing with a project that is 70 events Etc this project is a component of what is envisioned in that it is not talking about us the second thing I the second thing I would Mr if you're second thing I would say is Richard Fields is not an investor and he's not involved in this project you've gone over your three minutes but since he did choose to speak you can come up and do that we we have asked the proponent to to wait till the end and but again in this case having some facts and some information I'm going to allow it but I'm going to ask that we wait till the end till everyone has spoken if you have anything else that you want to add to it Mr Stephan I just want to be sure that we can wait till the end I'm happy to respond every want thank you but we also have people who need to speak and I want to be sure that they able to do that I mean again I I just read it word for word is how they've written it and it's specific if I find the right page and the the ones that I pulled um it's specifically says this facility this facility is talking about this facility the fac facility that's in the study which is 10 or so years old that study that report in that study is not relative to us it's relative to a vision for what that facility could do the Horse Park other major components first class escorter facility which is what you're proposing to the city council it's a component of that study but it's a generic study not relative to us so so why submit because it's on point with the kind of activity that okay gentlemen not specific I'm going to end this here I think this is I think that the point has been made I think we can do a followup afterwards if you're okay with that sounds good thank you thank you next um she uh she already knows she's already saying number 16 Sheila heglin come on down my name is Sheila heglin I live at 340 Stone Street and I was not spoken to by Bay racing I'm sorry I apologize number 13 Sheila number y you are number 13 I said you were number 16 so want anyone in the audience talking number 12 just went you were number 13 Sheila hin okay please continue all right so I am concerned also about the water greatly it's one of our precious resources but I'd like to speak a little about um not just the water but the Watershed wetlands and the flow or the disruption of the flow of surface water and to let you know that every household on Stone Street and Wheeler Street has a well so we don't get city water but we do have wells um I gave the council a map and the green line the on the map is the John Eaton Road and that's what I am going to refer to John Eaton Road is a paper road that goes from Stone Street through the woods to the 140 uh bike path but it also abuts the gamma property and yeah in 2015 the bike uh committee wanted to put a bike a paved bike Road 10 ft down John Eaton Road they hired a independent company to analyze it and assess it for Wetlands surface water and Watershed at the end of the assessment they could not put it down because of wetlands surface water and Watershed now that's a 10 foot paved road that people were going to ride bikes on well John uh the gamma property that you see on your uh map they were talking about digging into the Hillside and the hillside is right below John Eaton Road the other thing is that there are the blue lines on the map and those blue lines refer to public surface water protection area and there's a lot of blue lines on that map so if you can't put a bike path on the prop John Eaton Road to destroy or disturb wetlands and surface water what's going to happen when they start digging in for Access roads for uh increasing the size of the track I probably assume that it's probably going to have something to do with the wetlands the Watershed and the disruption of the flow of the surface water um the one last thing I want to say is that when I asked a lot of people to sign uh to call email the counselors um many said yes but a lot said no and one of the things I asked them was why and they said that they do what they want so please don't make them correct thank you number 14 Paul Deo away sorry base State racing please state your name and address oh I'm sorry po de May nine Willis Road and the lovely city of Garden of Massachusetts Bas State racing a limited liability Corporation made a statement that Gardener is a poor community and they are absolutely right as a matter of fact Gardner is an environmental justice community of 73.4% due to its poverty level which covers is 76.9% of gardener land mass the property of gamma at 827 Green Street and Gardner and the proposed hor track is entirely within the environmental justice zone for the city of Gardner because of this it falls under the environmental justice guidelines and permit procedures of the Commonwealth Massachusetts this prop racetrack should go through meepa the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act office for scrutiny of the environmental hazards in a watershed protection Zone environmental justice populations are those segments of the population that the executive office of energy and environmental Affairs has determined to be most most at risk being unaware or unable to participate in environmental decision making or to gain access to State environmental resources or are especially vulnerable sadly most local government officials including those in Gardner have no clue what environmental justice is or the mandates by the state to protect this class class of people Mike Nicholson and the city council have failed to notify the 73.4% environmental justice population are the risk to the public drinking water supply on which they rely for drinking cooking and bathing the proposed Racetrack and gambling facility at 827 Green Street is entirely within Garder acfer and drinking water protection Own It ABS py Brook which connects C Pond and py Brook Reservoir two of three of garders major surface water supplies this property is the headwaters of the otter River Millis River and Connecticut River the proposed RAC trck is a direct threat to all of these bodies of water The Gardener city council is under no time frame to approve or reject this proposal and should refer it to the public welfare Public Service public safety committees for study and report in addition the city council should mad president This president's taking away from his neighbors Mr Deo you need to Mr you reach your three minutes pleas finish paragraph you reach please George you've reached your minutes you've reached your three minutes please finish I'll be back number 15 Robert R Schwarz I'm Robert ashwar from 268 Coleman Street Garder um from all the people I see in this room I don't see any of them that have ever owned horses or worked on a horse farm uh never mind even care to take care or do anything with horses I myself have owned a horse and I've worked on a horse farm for 2 years all right um what bay States approving um I think is great um I don't know if anybody in this town knows there is no Watershed or any protection on that farm for the last 150 years nor have they had a problem in 150 years for the aquafer they're willing to propose to make sure that they don't have any uh problems with the water and aquifer as well never mind they've got hundreds of of checks and balances that they need to go through can they do it I don't know but if they're willing to bring in $25 million to make that farm that's been raising horses for 150 years never mind they're not planning on increasing the amount of horses on that farm on on other than the days of racing how is that going to hurt Gardener that's my biggest question but they've got so many things against them I wish them the best of luck but I'm not against it you know the people that own horses they start around $10,000 they go up to a million it costs the owners minimum of $11,000 a month to just take care of them not counting the training the jobs that they could bring in great the the help that they could bring in the veterans that have pstd and other problems um the handicap that horse farms help on a regular basis is huge until you see it for yourself um I wouldn't turn it down because if they're willing to do all these extra things after hours or during the regular hours when they're not racing it helps the community a great deal and I really concerned about the Watershed but guess what they got a record of 150 years without a problem and they don't have anything done they're willing to go forward for the next 150 years and have a reason and a way to be checks and balances to make sure that they don't have a problem so I'm sorry I know you all you guys are going to hate me because I'm for this and I wish him the best of luck thank you thank you Mr Schwarz we're gonna take a brief recess e e e I don't know right now I'm sorry I'm just like going to call the pul heing back to order beginning with number 16 Mia young or Maya young hi Mia young 4 to was Street Gardener at first I couldn't wrap my head around the thought of gamma selling their property to investers looking to build a horse racing facility gimma is an organization that provides services for those with addiction horse racing is associated with gambling which is listed as an addiction as well and often leads to substance abuse after spending weeks researching and trying to understand why gamma would provide an opportunity for the racetrack to oper great and Gardener I was able to understand better this sale would also allow gamma to move into a bigger facility and Gamma would receive a multi-million dollar donation they've been re receiving donations from the base State before we even knew about this new proposal it's all about the money it's always been about the money One hand washes the other in this case b St will help to create more addicts which will benefit gamma as every person they take in brings more money thank you thank you number 17 Colleen odonnell Colleen O'Donnell 21 Washington Street Garner Mass I don't really have a whole lot to say other than I I know I've been on farms I grew up on them and there's a lot of waste and I don't know how you're going to get rid of it truthfully um I don't think that it's a good idea too close to the wed that many animals in one place chickens horses it doesn't mix that's all I have to say thank you number 18 Brenda Dill hi my name is Brenda Dill I live at 32 P Street in Gardner I was born in Gardner and I've lived here all my life uh my great-grandparents grandparents parents and I have lived here paid taxes here since the early 1900s raised our families here we've had family members that are firefighters police officers registered nurses we've contributed to this community um my entire family and I oppose horse racing and Gardener and request the city council vote against it we believe in making a living without harming other people animals or the environment we are a community where people who actually live in Gardener support businesses schools and healthare jobs that feed back into the community future Generations depend on our informed decisions today number two I'm a registered nurse and I've treated patients in hospitals for drug and alcohol withdrawal and Associated physical and mental illnesses we don't live in a vacuum everything and everything we do affects others around us let's promote businesses that help our citizens through education protecting our environment and preser reserving our water please vote no to horse racing thank you number 19 Carol Tibido my name is Carol Tibido I live at 1353 Green Street on 140 and my home it AB buts the area where this proposal is um stated what we have is um an area with water and the Watershed and the city's second backup for water so that's my main concern however other concerns like increasing crime traffic issues other things this is about six houses from my house and so I have a a personal interest in making sure um my voice is heard um I just have a few notes um the my husband is retired military and you know as far as veterans we don't in pstd somebody mentioned but we don't want chemicals and I know they say there's no chemicals but we don't want interference with our property we want to have a peaceful home peaceful neighborhood and I see that any agreement between the city and Bay State is going to be ambiguous because some promises are an impossibility such as setting the number of days that there will be races each year the gaming commission my understanding is they are the ones that set how many races are to happen each year and they just said earlier that they would um have certain amount of races but they don't have control over that and once Gardner if they do votes then we have no more control over what's going on over there and also if there is a um motion to have a vote earlier or another time than August 5th I ask that you would not have a motion and that nobody would U be in favor of a motion of changing that date I think more time is needed overall and if the land becomes an issue and the state ends up shutting down the racetrack or something because of some violations which somebody earlier alluded to were occurring at suffect Dons with some of the investors um if something like that happens in the future it's out of hands also as a city and um earlier we were asked to think of this Hillside at 140 as um you know a place to put your picnic blanket like T um like Tanglewood well this isn't Tanglewood and also the nice sales pitch is not research thank you thank you number 20 Elanor gamar Elanor Gage 21 Norman Street when I look at the land and I heard Mr stefanini say that they were going to be working on a hill uh there's natural gravity it rains whatever goes on top runs down and it will run into our Watershed land any disturbance to any to topography in that area will destroy our water I beg the council to seriously consider whether we want healthy people in the city of godmer or sick because their water has has been polluted thank you thank you number 21 John hoard my name is name is John hoard I live at 332 Matthew Street in Gardner I've been a resident of Gardner since uh 1985 I'm asking the city council to vote no on the horse track proposal on a27 Green Street horse racing is a dying industry since the year 2000 41 horse tracks have closed 26 of them just the last 10 years only 22 states in the US still have thorough bread horse racing well some may claim that this track has these tracks have closed due to economic losses of horse racing we can we can see in polls in major newspapers that Americans do not want cruelty to animals any longer and they don't support horse racing as a sport in fact our own Massachusetts citizens by majority ballot voted out dog racing back in 2008 due to the cruelty of the sport we have to ask ourselves why seven towns in Massachusetts said no to developers building horse tracks in their in their towns 2018 uh Lancaster 2018 Raleigh 2019 great barington 2019 wereham 2020 Plymouth 2021 sturich 2021 Hardwick 2002 I'm sorry 2022 hardwood why did the the last thorough brid track suffix Downs close down in 2019 because people in the state don't want thoroughbred horse racing there are over 1,000 horses that die every year on racetracks and training facilities and in their stalls in the US take a moment to think about that would we be okay with if a thousand humans athletes died each year so that we could watch the sport and gamble on it right race Bay State racing says that they're ensuring the safety and integrity of horses in their plan however the sources that they have given for the protection brings concerns the New England Horsemen's bivalent Associates is focused on Racetrack workers and lobbying the state for more dollars for race purses not on the safety and well-being of each of the horses the safety integrity and Safety Authority hisa is tied up in court issues without that it will even exist in the next few years let alone be enforced now these protections do not guarantee horses will not be drugged and run to collapse as we have all seen in national news year after year on famous horse tracks across the country do we want to uh do we want horse deaths on our hands because we think these developers promises are going to benefit our city we need to be objective educated about what we're inviting into our community we cannot don't make any mistakes that this is a huge commercial horse racing operation being proposed here where horses will die this is not a small therapeutic horse riding out outfit why gamble on dying industry one that hurts animals the environment and the rates of addiction we have so many good things to going on in our city we do do not need a horse RAC trck and Green Street this is why I'm urging a no vote for the horse RAC track at that location additionally I have sent in written testimony with all cations support these facts thank you for your time thank you at this time I would like to call the following numbers to come to the council chamber as you will be the next to testify after we finish up the numbers we've already called number 31 Joyce Vincent number 32 Mary Marsh number 33 David antea number 34 Kevin Bailey number 35 Edmund Bido number 36 Anthony rerio number 37 Kimberly Blake number 38 Lane Ro Mitchell number 41 Pamela blank number 42 Martin gray number 43 Harrison Williams Jr number 50 Amy hope number 128 Peter Sargeant number 129 David hman as a technical note not all of the numbers were given out in order just in case anybody's wondering we will begin I'm sorry we will continue with number 22 Scott Graves hi everybody they call me Scott Graves I live at 69 Lake View Drive in South Garder um I'm always was interested in the procedure so basically what happened here tonight was that city council took a straw poll which is not required but usually I was on city council for 16 years usually what happens is the city councilors have a little discussion first so you can so the citizens can get a sense of where they're coming from we have no idea why they all voted not no idea whatsoever the presentation was unbelievably great it was an excellent presentation if I came from another city I'd say get these guys in here it sounds it sounds great the gentleman um had an answer for everything and for the life of me I can't understand why any of the city council has voted no but straw Poes mean nothing so we know that the mayor wants this project otherwise we wouldn't be here because um the statute requires both the mayor and the city council to approve the location that's what you guys have to do you have to proove the location not the use the location so the mayor's going to exert a lot of pressure on the city councils if he hasn't already so Isis suspect that and Craig Craig's not here so Craig won't have to change his vote but five other people will have to change their vote which I suspect will happen because the mayor and the proponents will come in and say what concern did you have and some and one of the councils that voted on will say well I had this one concern and they'll fix that concern so that brings me to what I hope the city council does is and I hope you get the host Community agreement before you vote because the gentleman can say I'm committed to this I'm committed to that I'm committed to this commitment means nothing until you sign your name to the bottom line on that contract so the city council and I used to say this when I was on city council I used to call the city solicitor say I want to see the host agreement or whatever agreement we had to that was related to the project that we had to approve or disapprove so get the host agreement first the final version of it look at it yourself so the citizens can see it because you get to have that before you vote um and uh the other thing is you you only hear one side of the story on these things you only hear you and it's the presentation was unbelievably overwhelmingly convincing but the citizens don't get to hire their expert the city council don't get that you guys don't get to hire your expert so it's a one side it's like going to court and and hearing one side of trial the plaintiff gets gets up and makes the argument the defendant has no chance whatsoever to say anything so um I think the city council has ways to hire their own experts I know there's money in the budget for that I'm sure the mayor would be happy to um get you that U because you only have one side of the story um so be careful I made a bad decision with the sludge landfill the mayor gave us all kinds of information that looked great made led us to believe that there was only one choice to make so I v I voted for it no it's an example that once you guys vote on the topic of the meeting you can't change your vote after so it's just an example that be careful what you vote for because you can't change it after thank you sorry about that but it's true thank you number 23 Steven Rockwood Steven Rockwood 310 Pearl Street I was going to just get up here and yield my time but I decided not to how many of you have been up to the k Pond area everything from Co Pond toward 140 pearly Brook Wilder Brook that all flows into pearly Brook if we get crap and I mean that crap in our water we will not get the crap out of the water thank you for your time thank you number 24 Loren peab buddy Loren Peabody three Jackson Park Garder counselors I am opposed to using 827 Green Street as a site for a racetrack it is not a matter of supporting the sale of private property or of reaping the rewards promised by base State racing BSR should they become the new owners it should not be about the fears of potentially worse land use occupying it if bsr's offer to gamma is rebuffed we have been told by gamma that they will remain on site it is only to me about protecting the very important vulnerable and sensitive site shown on the official city maps as surface water protection overlay District our past City fathers protected this large area and I believe you should too and continue to while researching I found this on mass.gov it directly ties horses and surface water drinking Supply together using 310 CMR 22.0 quote title housekeeping protecting public health and drinking water Public Water Supplies both groundwater and surface water are regularly monitored for water quality to ensure that good clean water is delivered to the consumer however water treatment can be costly to the consumer therefore the water supplier's goal is to have as pristine a raw water supply as possible to guarantee quality water at a minimum cost end quote I'm sorry if I didn't say quote 827 Green Street has been in use as a horse site for many years with the use of fertilizers open manure piles and runoff the science of what was deemed safe and allow in common use changes I ask whether the risk of adding to the insults that have already occurred on the land are offset by the rewards being offered by BSR my answer is no and I hope that your research has led you to the same conclusion the Central Mass AFL CIO issued a letter which includes in part quote the footprint of this project will be real and long long lasting end quote I know what they want it to mean I know what I want it to mean and for what it could mean what do you want it to mean what frint pit will you leave behind this decision affects everyone present or not think the river rat race in Athol billy goat boats in Orange and all the way to the southern end of the Connecticut River my family your family young old Elder not yet born I urge the city council to vote no on locating the track at 827 Green Street thank you for your consideration thank you number 25 Carolyn kamuda Carolyn commuta 400 plus Street Gardener as you all know and first of all I want to apologize to all of you for the mountains of emails that I have sent to many of you and some of the phone calls it's been quite a lot and it has been a year maybe a year and a half of me researching not only base State racing Commonwealth racing hard Wick Sturbridge great barington all of the different things that go together from all of these different communities how they voted why they voted speaking to people in all of those communities to to see exactly what you know was was going on and you know exactly what this horse racing was um I researched suff downs and why they closed I read about how many cars went to suffk Downs the day that they closed um I just have you know a wealth of information of which is very hard for one person to digest and disseminate to all of you and I know there are some people and councelor tyros I apologize for a horrible voicemail to you yesterday I was just overwhelmed with a few things and sort of spoke out of Turnal with the phone over just one minor little detail I guess it's a straw that broke the camel's back and it had nothing to do with you um I have a group on Facebook it has been in existence for over a year at first it was the no rezone 140 because I did not want that to be uh rezoned I worked with the people of the land trust Paul De Mayo Anna Wilkins of the land trust and all the things that went along the land I'm not much of a conservationist although you know I like clean water I like clean air I don't like um light pollution I don't like Wells being contaminated and I do believe there's a possibility of those Wells excuse me I should have brought water um Wells on Stone Street being contaminated every race and Mr Stephan can correct me on this on the gaming commission application from Hardwick they use $110,000 worth of fertilizer after every race weekend is that correct it is not uh it's on the gaming commission license application and that the farm that existed there was a farm that used fertilizer to do blue grass Al Alp and was continuing an operation and nonetheless I'm done you can you can finish that thought oh nonetheless U fertilizer weed killer pesticides lots of horses urine manure everything is going to go into the wetlands my friend uh bought a new truck and we drove by and it sat up high and all I can see is water right in the area that they plan to put the track not the old track but where they want to put the new track on the western side of that property along 140 so that's my thing thank you number 26 Jenna mcferson good evening I'm Jan mcferson I live at 77 Riverside Road good evening Council men women Madam president in this world we have certain basic things that is is needed to survive food air shelter and water knowing that we need these things to suain us in the mere fact that our water has a possibility of being contaminated would affect everyone here today the evidence is very clear that the Watershed can be contaminated which leads into pearly rock into Crystal Lake Crystal Lake being our city drink in water then would be compromised is this the chance you are willing to take the chance of your citizens of gter becoming sick due to the contamination is the Health and Welfare of your children your grandchildren and future Generations worth this proposal I can answer this question with no hesitation the answer is no you see there is no money in this world worth risking thousands of people's lives for such a proposal I urge all of you to vote no on this proposal for the Health and Welfare of all of your Gardner citizens thank you number 27 coren Smith hi my name is Karine Smith I live at 11 Greenwood Street in Gardner um I've only lived in Gardner for seven years I'm a newbie um and I thank you Madame President and the city council for this opportunity in which I I really think is an amazing exercise in citizenship um I have two um Curiosities two aspects of this project that I've been wondering about uh ever since it came into the public eye and uh maybe it's because I just don't have enough information but I'm curious um we saw a slide tonight that said there were 1,200 horse and hay farms in Massachusetts and I wonder in undertaking this project if anyone has surveyed those 1 12200 horse and hay Farms to see if any of those horse owners really want to participate in this property as a breeding and a a retirement and a a racing uh property or if it's a philosophy of maybe if we build it they might come just curious about that I wonder about that oh and I'm also here as a concerned resident I want to make that sure uh clear um the other thing that I'm wondering about is that um uh in the proposals um Bas State racing always says that 95% of their revenue is going to come from uh wagering on other races in other places electronically so if 95% of the revenue comes electronically that sounds like a computer and a tech job to me and I'm wondering why you need a physical facility for horses anyway and maybe there's a regulation with a gaming commission I don't know but if if it's almost all electronic that sounds like it could be done in an office again I don't know um just bringing it up uh again as a concerned resident thanks again for the opportunity thank you number 28 Gardener mcferson Garden M person 77 Riverside Road uh Council I hope you heard the cheers from the Chek seats back there when you guys all said no keep it that way don't let the near press you do what's right for the city to Garden this is a want it's not a need we don't need the money stop blowing the money Mr Mayor it's a want not a need thank you thank you number 29 Nancy Bello number 29 Nancy Bello number 29 Nancy Bello okay number 30 Katie stev number 30 Katie Stevens number 30 Katie Stevens number 31 Joyce Vincent hello Joyce Vincent 63 Sunrise Lane Gardener this idea of a racetrack coming to the city of Gardner is a big negative for obvious reasons our water supply to the councilors you all have a voice for the people and you have the power to vote no to this racetrack thank you thank you number 32 Mary Marsh hello my name is Mary Marsh I live at 150 Acadia Road uh esteemed members of the city council I'm very encouraged by the results of the straw vat that you took and uh I just wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you who responded to the emails that I sent at the beginning of the process and then right up to this um process I'm here this evening to let you know as you well know now um that I am opposed to The Proposal before the city council to allow Bas State racing to build a horse racing track and gaming facility at 827 Green Street the location that has been chosen is an environmentally sensitive area whose surface water drains into Ki Pond and pearly Brook which drain into pearly Brook Reservoir which is the backup reservoir for Crystal Lake and in times of drought it gets pumped out in order to maintain the Lush grass around the track herbicides to kill weeds and fertilizers to maintain The Lawns will be sprayed on those Lawns when there are big rain events which do happen with some frequency during the summer these chemicals on par with the carcinogenic Roundup will end up in our water and once there will remain to the detriment of any of the citizens of gner who cannot afford to drink bottled water along with the chemicals horse manure and the biological pathogens excreted in the manure and urine they there will likely be toxic runoff from the cars trucks campers and horse trailers which will be parked on an impermeable tar surface of a parking lot large enough to accommodate them and many other vehicles the gasoline diesel radi rator and transmission fluids and motor oil also stand to run off and poison our drinking water is this the Legacy that we want to leave for our children and our grandchildren at this point in B State racings quest to build a track and gaming center there's been no environmental impact studies and no traffic studies so aren't we kind of putting the cart before the horse so to speak I beg of you please do not make a grave mistake and allow this damage to happen to our drinking water our drinking water should be considered to be a more valuable commodity than gold because we cannot survive without it I was born and raised and Gardener and I live in the house in which I grew up what will happen to our property values when we no longer have safe drinking water in the 1950s is that my time that is your time you can finish your thought please okay I I just wanted to um say that I love this city I love the people in this city I love the lakes and I love the forest so I can't remain silent on this issue and I really do beg all of you please to vote no to horse racing on this parcel of land once our drinking water is polluted it's gone forever thank you so much thank you uh I do at this time want to make an announcement that if you hear if you speak here this evening you can also submit written testimony if there's more testimony that you'd like to give after the meeting and that is for any member of the public it is noted in the public hearing uh notice we will continue with number 33 David Ana my official number thank you Dave Ana 444 Stone Street um I've sent you emails all of the city councilors so you basically know my concerns against the racetrack I'm in agreement with the previous issues presented by the residents before me that were against the racetrack I did want to mention that in Gardener magazine B state had had their literature which included besides horse racing concerts and racing and uh renting out the facility and I was curious how many concerts and how many rentals they would be having throughout the year and how that would environmentally impact their facility thank you thank you number 34 Kevin Bailey uh my name is Kevin Bailey I'm 157 a street here on Gardner uh I've lived in my or have my home here for about 21 years I realized that Bay State racing has presented a proposal showing all the reasons that Gardener should allow the new facility to be built but they like any business are only going to show you what they feel the positive are they are not going to tell you what the negatives of their proposal are I am very happy and very pleased as most everybody downstairs in the auditorium was to hear you with the stwo of no you do not know how happy you made all those people down there and I pray that that stays that way I'm not going to beat the dead horse so to speak because everybody's talked about the water quality all I will say is with the water quality it is the most valuable you can have a nice school you can have great parks you can have a nice police station Public Safety if you don't have water and clean water you're not going to draw any business and you're not going to grow the city it is going to die if you look out in the western part of this country you have States going to court with each other over who can get what water because they are so strict in rationing it you're not even allowed to collect rain water in a water barel in California they are so strict about controlling every drop of water if we don't have clean water just closeup shop guys again I just thank you very much for the no vote we heard I know it wasn't binding and I just pray that you guys keep it that way thank you thank you number 35 Edmond Bido president councilors Mr talk just state your name and your address please for the record ah yeah Ed Ed B do 27 Ridgewood Lane thank you very encouraged by your straw vote tonight I'm encouraged by his by his STW a vote tonight and just in the in the time between now and when you have you actual vote don't let the numbers excite you the the money uh you know they're talking about $240,000 in a community impact fee 1 and a half% of the wages would back that out it comes up to $16 million but Mr Stephan tonight told us that they might be making 5 to 8 million so my figures that looks like $75,100 is only half of what they're what they're estimating and on the uh on the pilot the payment in L of taxes that 230,000 is locked in you know it looks good compared to a million doll uh assessed property now which pay which would pay 15,000 in taxes but they're going to invest $28 million I don't know if the value of the property will go up to to 28 million but if it did in those 5 years we'll lose a million dollars in taxes um there often your a responsible gaming program which makes sense because gambling can be a problem as can pot which we make money on now I don't know what's next Brussel I hope not and one other thing in the uh in the host Community agreement as part of the justification for for proving this it was mentioned that the citizens the voters of wler county in 1974 voted to approve horse racing in the county on that same vote or that same that same ballot there was another question that approved dog racing dog racing is no longer allowed here you know 50 years ago I wasn't even old enough to vote and now I'm an old guy so I we can assume that our cemeteries are full of people who thought racing was a good idea 50 years ago we not now thanks for your time thank youf at this time I'm going to call the next people to come up to the chamber to offer their testimony number 20 Barbara Kellogg number 202 Robin proudy number 203 Carolyn cers number 204 Paul umbrell number 205 Anthony spadia number 206 Steven bear number 207 Melissa Keithley number 208 Oliver Keithley number 209 Shan Hayden 210 Arlene Brown 211 David Kramer 212 Carol cassella 213 Jackson Stone 214 Kurt Thompson going to continue with number 36 Anthony rero Anthony rero 429 Parker Street Garden Massachusetts first of all I'd like to say that Garden's water is not good and is in crisis I have had to replace three water coils and a water system all within the last 10 years costing several thousand now this hust track is going to be in a watershed District we already have a hospital we have a junior college and we have a golf course and a country club and now they want to put a hust track in this little area which is in a protected watershed area now according to ruus University to the uh ecin Science Center a th000 lb horse will defecate from 4 to 13 times each day producing in 35 to 50 pounds of wet manure or 91 P ton pounds of manure a year plus urine that's just one horse think of that with 40 or even 100 horses and the problem with hospital with um hor Manor and urine is that it has nitrates phosphorus and potassium Garden of water system is already contain minated if you look at the last report with high levels of nitrate phosphorus and pottassium in fact we were listed by the D as being of high risk for runoff of contaminates from Leech a now even though they say they're going to ship this manure out what happens if it rains how many time how many hours is the manure and the urine going to sit in that ground getting in to the surface water it's going to go through to the dirt dir it and it's and it can easily reach our watershed area which can then go into our water supply this is extremely dangerous because our water system is already very very very fragile with contaminants and EPA puts out a um EPA recently put out a whole uh pamphlet on H racing tracks and water quality and one of the things that they caution is that there can be runoff of Lee chap from bacteria pathogens and toxins from hos manure and and urine and that's what we would be facing right now now I saw the diagram up here a little earlier but according to the EPA you're supposed to have a Wastewater storage structure and a and a um manure bedding storage area I didn't see any of that so I'm not sure if they're even familiar with this pamphlet or if they're going to follow it but there's a there's a boatload of regulations under the Clean Water Act for this and I don't know who's who's going to going to um watch them with all this the other thing I'd like to say really briefly is that many people in gardeners struggle I'll just wrap up many people in in Gardner right now struggle with addiction I think putting a racing track there is contrary to their best interest and to all the citizens of Garda thank you thank you number 37 Kimberly Blake hi guys so can you please state your name and address my name is Kimberly Blake thank you I live on 25 Baker Street former home of the illegal Greenhouse um so I don't have much to say everybody's pretty much covered everything um I just wanted to say hell yeah awesome you guys have done you know exactly what I knew you could do think you guys thought this was an easy City to Target and it's not going to be it wasn't and I do have to thank all the city councilors I mean it's just a straw V right now but I've always been I feel like your biggest critic sometimes and this has given me kind of a new outlook on you guys so I just want to thank you guys for that thank you number 38 Lane Ro Mitchell number 38 Lane Ro Mitchell number 38 Lane R Mitchell okay number 41 Pam La blank Pam La blank 91 champagne rad and Gardener um there are many issues that I'm concerned with but obviously the main one is the water issue um since it's our public water supply and it's critical to our health I'm very concerned that this endeavor will increase the risk of contamination to the surface and groundwater and once it's contaminated it is virtually impossible to correct and that really worries me and it should always it should also worry all of you that's all thank you thank you number 42 Martin gray number 42 Martin gray number 42 Martin gray number 43 Harrison Williams Jr good evening Madam president City Council Members Gardener residents my name is Harrison Williams Jr I live at 494 Pearl Street about a mile and a half away from where this proposed racetrack would be so I not in favor of this Racetrack and I want to commend you all city council members for unanimous straw vote of no many people here have already said what we totally feel and we don't want this racetrack we are Gardener we are Gardener we a garden a town June 27th 1785 a city January 1st 1923 we remain Gardener we are Gardener we are proud to be Gardener I've been out here for 44 years moved out here from Fitchburg Mass I love Gardener I don't want to see it change I don't want to see Gardener become something that it shouldn't be and that's a useless City so U many people have already said uh what they feel they've already done it due diligence and researching everything and uh I'm in total agreement with you and I I commend you kudos to you all for what you've said I'm not going to repeat any of the things that you've already said but this is what I feel right here that's it that says a lot I'm a man who always speaks a lot long- winded but this is what I got to say tonight this should be enough and that should be it thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to come up and speak my mind and I believe many of the citizens of Garden's Minds as well have a blessed day have a blessed night have a blessed year and if God has his way which I know he can because prayers mean a lot this racetrack will not come to the city of Gard we are a good City we do not deserve this thank you thank you number thank you number 50 Amy hope Amy hope 260 Baker Street a lot of folks know me by Lily and you're very confused right now because that's my nickname um I am not a daughter of gardener I come from a small Barrier Island in Southern New Jersey known as the Wildwood which some of you may have heard in the news recently because former president Trump rallied down there we were surrounded by water I grew up one block from the bay two blocks from the ocean water is precious you have no idea especially when you're surrounded by nothing but Brine and growing up as a kid sometimes a water treatment plant during a storm got contaminated and if you didn't have a bathtub full of water and all those jars that made you look like you know religious folks that store water in their basement um you can be in trouble so we all had water always on hand and racetrack doesn't need to be there that's our water supply and I brought something this is really embarrassing I just want to say this we've had a lot of plumbing problems since we bought our home seven years ago this is oil we have been through several coils it's going to cost $1,300 plus tax again to replace the one that's now busted again this came out of my kitchen sink okay this is oil yes there's some organic matter from when we plunged too Excuse Me Miss hope you have to relate this to the topic of the meeting so I understand you're on water but we got to relate it back to the to the whether there should be horse racing at 827 Green Street I don't want to interrupt you just want to make you aware that's very clear um but this is why I'm so concerned about the racetrack why there why in our water supply why there there is so much land and gardeners as somebody who lived here much longer than me pointed out why does it need to be in our water supply I am firmly against the racetrack because of the location all of the reasons aside the location is the problem we need clean water we don't even have it now thank you everyone for the opportunity to speak thank you number 128 Peter Sergeant thank you um I've lived in Garder longer than the current mayor excuse me can you please just your sergeant 19 Cherry Street Garder I've lived in Gardner longer than the current mayor as I think many many of you have and during my time here the water has gone from a City utility management by the city to a contracted business that the city pays to do what the city used to do during that time I've seen a bunch of great ideas that didn't really go anywhere and during that time our water has changed it was disclosed that the water was damaging copper and the heating coils and other parts of Plumbing that the hot water flows through complaints to City Hall resulted in no change and therefore a citizen sued the city the city didn't move to address the problem they defended by countering that the suit was brought too late and so the citizens of Gardner have paid for a Boston firm to fight this all the way up to the Supreme Judicial Court meanwhile Mr Sergeant I just need you to relate this back to whether or not we should allow horse racing 827 Green Street I understand you need to relate this back to the topic of the public hearing yes which is whether or not to low so if you're going to get there I got you got to get there and the city's addressing or failing to address a major problem sits there and we all are having to pay for it we're being sued by ourselves and we're going to pay for that when we lose the suit it's a class action suit now all we need is for something else to go on top of that and get the same sort of action or lack of action so the city government is supposed to work on behalf of the citizens has been fighting us for seven years in that suit now they want to bring prosperity to the City by managing to attract businesses that pay they they do not bring prosperity to the City by managing to attract businesses that pay workers more not even enough for them to afford the now astronomical rents being demanded they want to bring a horse racing track to a parsal of land that's largely Wetlands Wetlands that are the headwaters of our water here in Gardener the use would result in good engineering being put to to the test but we all know that engineering fails and that's what we live with is when people do all kinds of of engineering that's supposed to keep groundwater from flowing places you can't stop that kind of stuff it's all temporary no one has has seen an engineering that doesn't at some point fail and we're in a time of changing climate uh so a a plan like this needs 300 to 600 dry acres and it's our drinking water and once it's spoiled it'll never be good again uh it we we're all going to have to start getting jugs of water every week and buying that which is going to result essentially in a more expensive life for us if we do get our water damaged if we have to uh to purchase more water for drinking and that's like an extra tax hon us and and we all saw our property values assessed higher mine was 26% last year we don't need an extra tax thank you thank you number 129 David Helman that's time okay Madam president members of the council I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my voice heard please state your name and for the record thank you my name is David hman I live at 114 Rich Street I moved here in 2019 um I'm a I have two daughters two granddaughters that live here and like you've heard from a lot of my neighbors the water is a concern um not just for me but and all of you but also for our future generations and I think we should be responsible with our environment and it starts with water um I'm also an animal lover I have tons of animals I'm not convinced that the welfare and treatment of the horses um is actually you know I I I nobody's convinced me that they're not going to be taking care of the the way everybody says there I know there are reports that um go back and forth they you know but I just I'm not convinced and I guess I look at it this way if we're making dog racing illegal in Massachusetts which we have why are we allowing horses to be raced I mean aren't they essentially giant really expensive big dogs they're animals we should be considering that and I hope you guys do consider that I do realize it brings a lot of money but money's not everything um and to that point once Bay State gets there on once they get there sports betting licenses what's to prevent them from jumping ship and then what are we left with empty promises and reneged reneg deals and I I hope that the straw vote is an actual representation of what you're actually going to do I have confidence that you will I think you will I think you guys are smart um and I think you will do your due diligence and realize that um it's it's not for Gardener there are better ways for Gardener to to grow and that's really not one of them and you've heard everybody say that I I'm saying it and I I hope you guys consider that as well and that's it that's all I got to say so thank you again and have a good night all right thank you thank you we have reached the end of those Gardener residents that are signed up to speak this evening are there any other Gardener residents in the room or in the auditorium if there are please come up to the city council chamber that have not had a chance to speak yet this evening any other Gardener residents that wish to speak and give testimony this evening any Gardener residents that desire a second opportunity to present new testimony will be given the opportunity at this time repetitive testimony will not be permitted I show of hands you can come on up Madam president I would like to finish my last two uh paragraphs Paul De Mayo N9 Willis Road um as I said the Ganda city council is under no time frame to approve or reject this proposal and it should be referred to the public welfare public service and Public Safety committees for study and report in addition the city council should refer the proposal to the planning board Conservation Commission and board of for their import and recommendation this has not been done yet they haven't been asked to um for their opinion time is not of the essence here for the residents of Gardner and the surrounding towns who have not been consulted the Garder city council took an oath to represent the people of the city to the best of their ability approving this location as a commercial racetrack is not in the best interest of the 73.4 population of environmental justice um you have restored my faith tonight in the council with your straw vote and I thank you for that carry it over to the August meeting thank you very much thank you any other Gardener residents who would like to present new testimony be given an opportunity to speak for the second time please Timothy St gen 418 Stone Street um the only other thing I have a question at is when I look up that property on the Garder database it's zoned as R2 which I believe is Royal residential um I know there was about agricultural things and this and that I don't see how you can horses chickens pigs yes that's all agricultural I can agree with that horse racing I don't see just because it involves horses how does that consider it agricultural um that would be like saying a car dealership because they have cars can now put in a racetrack in their parking lot because it has cars in my mind I'm a logical person I don't see how you know just because it involves an animal now all of a sudden it's agricultural there's two different top um I don't know what the state has to say about that but again the zoning from when I look it up on the database says R2 um so I'd love to know how that can even be passed thank you thank you any other res Gardener residents wish to speak for a second time and offer new testimony okay we're going to continue number 2011 Barbara Kellogg I know Barbara Kellogg from the rural town of Holly Mass um I can answer the last question the Zoning for 837 Green Street is rural residential approval of this location for horse racing will necessitate a zoning change merely because there is some discussion in the agricultural statute that mentions money from casinos going to Massachusetts spread racehorses Bay State and its attorneys claim that betting on racehorses therefore is now somehow Agriculture and thus a commercial racetrack is agriculture and exempt from zoning Mass General law 23 chapter 23k section 60 which is part of the casino law of 2011 creates a racehorse Development Fund that's funded by casinos that fund is what pays the bonuses and programs that they are talking about in the agriculture statute chapter 23k is not about agriculture it's about casinos and gambling Mass General Law chapter 128 the agriculture statute does not govern wagering it merely codifies some of the Ben benefits from chapter 23k that casino law including the $4 million in purses we heard about a number of times today that could disappear tomorrow and disappear out of the agriculture statute it almost disappeared a month or so ago when Governor Healey's budget was to to um take away having that casino money go to racehorse development and go to local Aid or or other other purposes The Proposal in front of you is substantially the same as last year when they knew they needed a zoning change um and some examples um that come to mind are the Massachusetts Department of Revenue doesn't consider a commercial horse track to be agriculture it defines it as commercial Amusement I'm sorry commercial entertainment in the same category is an outdoor movie theater it's not in the agricultural category the Federal Department of Labor regulations specifically state that racehorse workers are agricultural workers until they set foot on a commercial racetrack property the agricultural workers are not agricultural um at the track and are subject at that point to the minimum wage and overtime laws that agricultural workers are not subject to back on the farm once they leave the commercial racetrack property they return to be being agricultural workers um so I would just say this proposal requires a zoning change because a horse racing track is neither residential nor exemp agriculture thank you thank you number 202 Robin proudy well if I fall asleep just smack me um I'm short um I'm G I'm kind of on Barbara Kellogg's wavelength here so I'm there's some things I have to skip because I don't want to repeat my name is uh Robin proudy I'm a resident of Hardwick my family runs a full-time farming business 300 acres I'm a veterinary technician by college education but I run a dog show kennel and a boarding kennel in Hardwick and I have seen the best and the worst of the animal world the details are in the fine print the Hardwick residents created this publication it is Thoroughly researched and it is fact checked you would do your due diligence by reading this most of it applies to your city and I have copies for all of you I keep hearing I heard in Hardwick and I'm hearing in Gardner also that uh Bay State racing continues to associate agriculture with their proposal that somehow breeding thorough breads will prop up all the farms and the farm businesses in Massachusetts uh There are 16 only 16 Farms listed on the mass Thor bread Breeders Association website currently and I can assure you that the racing industry has nothing to offer sustainable agriculture in Massachusetts barara just brought up the hor racehorse Development Fund um which I like to call the Beacon Hill racetrack fund uh Paul umbrell is quoted as saying it's the best kept secret because it's free money for the racing industry so you all know that the money comes from tens of millions of dollars of Casino re Revenue which should go to the greater good the citizens of Massachusetts including Garder yet the State House continues to hold this money for the racing industry you should have a problem with that so it is my strong opinion that bay State's proposal is absolutely unachievable on this land the continued reference to 150 years of agricultural businesses on it is ridiculous there has never been a general law 61a classification on the property which if you don't know what that is it's a Commonwealth of Massachusetts land designation which allows for a tax rate reduction if your land is used for agricultural business a minimum of only five acres and $1,000 Revenue which proves I'm pretty sure no one has ever had a viable Farm business on this property if you really want to go to the races go to Saratoga this is really bad for Gardener and if I may approach I will leave these with you thank you number 203 Carolyn sers number 203 Carolyn sers number 203 Carolyn sters number 204 Paul umbrell okay everybody hear me okay Paul umbrella 102 Stow Street w f Mass I am the executive director for the New England Horseman's benevolent and protective Association we are the oldest Horseman's group in the country and we support over a thousand members in New England um offering them forms of benevolence life insurance and other medical assistance um I'm going to speak quickly about the the actualities in the industry that concerns um horse racing safety um H now makes sure all tracks must follow the same standards that other tracks didn't use to follow H now imposes heavy fines suspensions and loss of purse money and even being prohibited from racing completely race day medications can only be given by state vets horses are inspected in the morning of the race they're monitored at The Paddock by the state vet and when they're at the Starting Gate they're also monitored and the State Vet has the authority here or she to scratch that horse there are now discussions about us using new technology using biometric data to monit the horse's overall well-being upon completion of a race the winner of the race as I think Mr Ste Ste stefanini testified to is that um urine and hair samples are tested um from the horses your stewards and judges also at the track authorized at licensed by the commission can also randomly pick one or two horses out of that race to also be randomly tested horse stalls tax rooms and vehicles can be randomly inspected unannounced the gaming commission has plain closed State Police monitoring the facility each licensed owner trainer and jockey must be fingerprinted and thoroughly vetted um our own racing director and the HBP itself have any right to refuse any horse that enters the grounds if we feel that um that particular individually trainer has um met any suspensions or fines so we have that authority to oversee that and we can ban folks we were the first in the country obviously to implement an anti-s Slaughter rule that Bann folks from racing who have sent horses directly or indirectly to slaughter we budget annually to rescue horses we'll continue to do that through the purse funding um I look at the site to retirement facility for any horse that needs after care um and can be retrained by staff to get them back into their second careers or new homes um I'm going quickly because I want to just respond to a couple of things as I was misquoted we the horsemen in 2011 instrumented the 2011 gaming act when casinos came to count town to take our industry away the jobs all the same people in this room that wake up at 5:00 every morning and take care of the horses and the gentleman earlier that said that we the horsemen with the sports betting bill pass pass the language to make sure that when the investors come to town they get sports betting simcast adws we were protected with building a racetrack to protect those JS our breeders in those Farms it's important to know that the UMass study I will provide the receipt we paid for that study to show legislation how important the equin industry is into to the jobs to this Commonwealth when the spill that happened at suff DS many years ago that we learned a lesson from and we now contain the manure in a contain facility with a cover and our Grooms don't let a horse go the bathroom and and um have manure without immediately picking it up we don't let him stand in it and I'll close with this thank you how many of you people put manure in your Gardens thank you thank you number 205 Anthony spadia Madam president distinguished Council my name is Anthony Spader I live at 42 fra Street in brain Tre I'm the president of the New England thid industry and had been for 30 years I wasn't going to speak after I heard the concern of the residents especially about the difficulty with us damaging or harming your water supply uh I wish I had an answer for that I wish I can sincerely tell you that I would not how to help you with that problem why I decided to speak instead of passing was because I think there's been so many misquotes I've been in the thorwood business 60 years I may not look it but I'm 81 years old I've bred raced I own a thorough breit Farm but the most important thing I know is that people in the backside of ever RAC track of the hardest working caring individuals you'll ever meet in your life I read remarks made by people in this town that those individuals are not the type of people they would want in their Community you were so wrong they're the hottest working people you'll ever meet our industry has been put out of business because of casinos the competition is very very difficult I'm sorry we've been turned down in so many communities but we are trying to establish something other than Racing We believe that many young people love thoroughbreads especially young girls we believe if a race track is run properly and I don't agree the way they have been run but if a track is run properly there are so many things we can offer to a community we're willing to fatten the part up for the citizenry of gardener by pledging some of our Revenue to also help but people don't realize is that thit racing today has lost a lot of its clout there's no problem with getting maybe six days of racing but you'll never get 30 days there isn't enough horses to do that many RAC trcks are closing but if you run a meat and give away a substantial amount of money and run limited days and do it properly it will exist and it will be successful but we cannot guarantee how we can solve your water problems we can't guarantee that I wish we could but our industry will do a lot of good things for your community if you allow it thank you thank you number 206 Steven bear my name my name is Stephen bear I'm from 272 uh Franklin sorry 272 Franklin Street belter Town Mass uh I speak for the horses um horses don't develop until they're about 6 years old their tendons are loose their bones are still soft and to race a horse from Age 2 to four is going to cause injuries tends to cause injuries um roughly between 700 and 800 horses die on the track the United States every year roughly about 2,000 horses die in their stalls on on the track and after the Track horse racing is on its way out and has to die horses don't want to run like that um that aside the footprint of the RAC trck I believe is too small for the area it's going to be in um you might want to look at that to see if that's going to be a problem or not I won't mention water water has been um washed throughout this whole place for a long time I will mention the water draw down it takes water to water the fields to water the horses you need jockeys that need a place to wash up in and who knows where the wash out from the trailers is going to go CU you can't collect that sludge in some sort of container I don't believe unless you have some sort of magic vessel um traffic studies yes they'll be there might be increased traffic that's not the worst of your problems the problem is that you have these heavy loaded axle vehicles that are going to R rip up your pavement so you'll be paying more money the to we paying more money and surrounding towns paying more money to fix the pavement because we have all these heavy axle tracks heavy axle Wheels going over the pavement it isn't meant for that it's not designed that way I'm a civil engineer for the state of Massachusetts I do build roads so I know that you have to uh rate your roads to handle what's going to happen to it so you going to have to do the roads over again um that you'll also have to look at um with the track with bringing in people to bet on things and to have these Festival days whatever not just talking about the people from Gardner you're talking about people outside also um and youth also particular in Gardener or outside Gardener how vulnerable to wagering um there's an addiction it gives you a a um an adrenaline or whatever it's called in your brain and um I'd watch out for the Youth so you can end up with more services including the older people too more services you're going to need to deal with addictions to deal with drug addiction um you're opening a can of worms it's not going to pay for itself the money whatever you're getting um from this 1% wherever it is that you're promised is not going to be enough to make amends for how much money you're really going to need to put out thank you for your time and I appreciate your listening thank you number 207 Melissa Keithley number 207 Melissa Keithley thank you I have to ask one more time though number 207 Melissa Keithley number 208 Oliver Keithley he left as well number 208 Oliver Keithley number 208 Oliver Keithley number 209 sha Hayden number 209 Shan Hayden number 209 sha Hayden number to10 Arlene Brown um we just if you can just adjust the microphone I can help you if You' like I just have to make sure all different heights thank you thank you I'm Arlene Brown I have a horse farm in uh reoboth Massachusetts um the farm has been in my husband's family since 1856 it didn't come into my husband's hands until the early 60s at which point it was in disarray since then we have cleared the land we've built three big Bond structures we've seeded Fields we've got a quarter mile training track we've made it into a first class horse operation we do we were doing our own haying in our own Fields there were four or five fields around the town that we would hay also my my children and my grandchildren all Learned to Drive in those fields we as soon as they were tall enough to reach the pedals we'd Pro them up with pillows and they drove the trucks while we did the Y picking up the hay my great grandchildren never will get that opportunity every one of those hay Fields is now sprouting a Housing Development that's why I feel we need something to help support the horses the horse farms in Massachusetts they're disappearing at an alarming rate thank you thank you number 211 David Kramer number 211 U my name is David Kramer I live at 30 Perry Lane in Weston Mass recently I joined the board of the Massachusetts Thor breeders as a board we have tried to resurrect breeding in Massachusetts I'm fortunately with no local racetrack we have faced an uphill battle as most of the Breeders have chose to leave the state and breed in other states that have racing like New York New Jersey Pennsylvania and Maryland that significantly impacts our farms and our agricultural Community the building of a racetrack is only a small part of the story a racetrack supports so many other businesses when we were racing in Massachusetts and a horse needed time off they went to a farm in Massachusetts when we bred horses it was done on a farm in Massachusetts as land values SAR and no racing being conducted these Farms are all in danger of being developed if you drive through any town in Massachusetts you'll see a street named Jones Farm Road or Smith Farm Road you take a look at down those roads and they will be lined with houses and the only reason that street is named something like Farm Road is because a farm used to be there we need racing to help these Farms survive and preserve open space from being developed I can't believe what people have said about agriculture a racetrack not being related to agriculture where do the horses come from they are born they are raised on farms these are people that work 7 days a week 365 days a year and they are not getting rich they do it cuz they love the sport and they love horses um last night I when I was writing the speech I um went through my Quickbooks and I looked at what I had spent over the last 10 years in my small stable I spent over $300,000 that was all spent in the state of New York on board veterinarian blacksmith all related all spent in New York and some lady mentioned about 16 Farms left yes we have 16 Farms because we have no racetrack we have nothing to support it you go to New York State there are thousands of farms and they are thriving and that preserves open space and creates millions and millions and millions of jobs and revenue for businesses being Farms fees stores everything related I asked you to please consider all the benefits of racetrack would have economically for the city of Garner and the benefits it will provide for the farms and residents of Massachusetts and no matter what happens with this Pro okay you can finish your thought thank you thank you number 212 Carol Cassell number 212 Carol Cassell number 212 Carol Cassell number 213 Jackson Stone number 213 Jackson Stone number 213 Jackson Stone number 214 Kurt Thompson number two 14 Kurt Thompson number two 214 Kurt Thompson at this time I would like to offer the opportunity for any of the attendees who would like to have a second opportunity to present new testimony at this time if there's anyone who is from out of town who wants to give any new testimony at this time doesn't work like used to what I fail to be able to say is that the emotional state of the people in Garder will also be affected by the track coming in when they have to deal with line lining up um to get places um to get to the hospital um it also will affect the housing market in Garder 2 um at one point I figured out which way would affect I think it's going to cause people not to be afford housing renting apartments whatever um because it'll it'll make the make the value of the houses I for how it works it's I'm not a good Economist but basically it's going to cause a problem with housing too and you don't want this Dark Cloud over Garder it's not a good thing thank you if there's any you can come on up if there's anyone who hasn't given any any testimony um or out of town if you want to speak for a second time go ahead remember just state your name and your address please sure um hi my name is hannahan uh I wasn't planning on speaking tonight but uh after hearing everybody speak uh yeah it was really inspiring to hear so you actually all of you and um I just want to say that the testimony uh for having the farm built in regards of it or I'm sorry for having the racetrack built in regards to it being legitimate agriculture I think is ridiculous um compared to what is happening there now um they are current Curr helping people recover from addiction and I think that that's wonderful it's doing something awesome for the community gamma is not a small company um they are I don't know why they are willing to sell that place uh that's kind of Beyond me but um it needs to Remain the way that it is it is serving the community and it's going to stop doing that and it's going to become something negative for Gardener it's going to become a shadow upon the personality of this community in a way that we don't need like we're okay we are not struggling we're not reaching like we need something so badly that we need to stoop to this level we don't need a horse racing track we don't need a gambling track we shouldn't do this we just shouldn't it's ridiculous and to take away what is already there is just absolutely insane to me we shouldn't do it that's all I have to say thank you is there any further testimony please come up thank you sorry I felt rushed before um I just want to mention a couple of things under that 23k where we were instrumental in the gaming act we the horsemen again we're instrumental in writing that language that a percentage from the casinos actually go to three different buckets for us the purses which is what fund the races to help our Horsemen breeders the Breeders themselves they get a percentage that's why we have one of the best programs in the country we try to support to get people to breed and save farm and preserve farms and then more importantly what I manage 4% of that goes towards Health and Welfare benefits to our trainers that are out there that can barely put which a lot of people today food on the table that have some form of benevolence when they need it medical assistance in old age so it's why we've been very instrumental in how we try to contribute to the Commonwealth in protecting and and legislatively writing that language you know and then in closing for us it's not about just running around for the purses it is about the preservation of the Farms the Breeders the jobs I personally want to which it was touched upon work closely and I've seen it with some of the equin colleges that there are students out there that want to get in the industry as internships with veterinarians um fers you know and even Farm managers so I just wanted to clarify those two points and I thank everyone for their time thank you thank you is there anyone here this evening who would like to speak yes you have a response after yes I in a court of law this would kind of like be your name and address again s okay lorine Peabody through Jackson Park Garden um but I've I mentioned to a friend that owns one of the small businesses is frequently mentioned and she hit the roof um I tried to explain that it was in a good context of trying to drum up business and that she's going to make a a week's worth more income and whatever but but she said that she would prefer that the name not be used and incorrectly a couple of times I might add because she hasn't she lives out of town and she hasn't had the chance to research so she's neither Pro or con but she was afraid oh well not afraid um she she just stated that at this point without the research she did really not want to be associated with one side or the other and more amusing because I know I can't necessarily really ask questions of Base date um but I'm wondering about the requirements for manure to be removed um which is what I believe Mr stefanini said because right now we have an issue with manure piles on the gamma property and if it's required like I said I'm I I I don't know whether it's a state or whatever but it it's already an issue now and I'd like to trust that as he said issues would be resolved and and never reappear but I don't know call me old and cynical but uh or doubting Thomas but for me the environment is just where it's at and it really can't be messed with thank you thank you I'm gonna just I'm sorry one more time there was another um hand up or a couple other hands up and allow um anyone else who hasn't had a chance to speak from my understanding there are no more people in Perry Auditorium everyone who's here is here in the chamber is there anyone else who would like to offer testimony this evening anyone also for a second time come on up my name is Kimberly Blake 25 Baker Street so my first speech was pretty quick um however I found out my son's asleep so I could stay a little longer um after listening to Mr umbrell speak I think that's how you pronounce his name um there's always been this you know these people spend so much money on their horses they wouldn't hurt something that they spend so much money on but we know that not to be true these people have disposable money they could just buy another horse and these videos that I've posted of abuse they're not you know these are it's abuse from today these are not old videos so it's still is very prevalent abuse does happen that's not just something I put out there to you know pull at heartstrings that was the thing I cared most about and then I'm not going to pretend like I knew about the water at first I didn't you I've not been a resident of a gardener for very long but you know after speaking to people who did know about the water that was pretty alarming as well I mean it's no secret that there's our water's not that great right now so taking any chance any chances there's just it just doesn't make anything any sense to me um I guess that's it um and I just again would like to reiterate that you know you guys showing up and all of the hours you spent on research and the meetings and just so much time away from your families and Barbara you know you're not even from Gardener but you took the time to come down um I mean we appreciated it and like I said they were approach these people did approach many communities before us they all said no for whatever reason I won't pretend to know what reason I know why Hardwick said no and there's a lot of people you know that are more interested in the revenue it's going to bring to Gardner and the jobs it's going to bring to Gardner but Gardner has made some significant improvements I believe we should sh sit back and wait for better and this is just not it thank you guys thank you anyone else wish you to give testimony for a second time Kevin Bailey 157 Ash Street Gardener just real quickly I didn't do the whole three minutes last time I hear a lot of like pulling on heartstrings you know the gardener needs to help the horse racing industry it's not Gardener's responsibility for every horse racing or or to be the horse racing Mecca of Massachusetts it so 16 or so Farms can raise more horses it's our your responsibility as our representatives to protect our resources water is big thing we've heard it the the the traffic on 140 nobody can debate that and no traffic light is just going to magically take care of it if it did we wouldn't have all the accidents at 101 and 140 out out there we have plenty of accidents and there's a traffic light so there's a whole lot of other issues with this but the idea that Gardener we all have to make you know horse help horse racing for the whole state that's just trying to lay a guilt trip and I hope you guys don't fall for it thank you thank you anyone further want to offer any testimony who was present this evening is there any further testimony on up hello my name is Aaron Kell uh 322 Pro Street um I'm really proud of all of you guys for voting now I thought oh I shouldn't sign up to speak cuz my mouth will run away and I'll say something too spicy but I'm very proud of you all for for uh voting no for your straw vote and I hope that no will be your real vote too um I grew up in Gardner left Garder went to Texas came back to Garder and now I am learning one one of the crafts to preserve in Gardener I love this place I don't want to see Gardener turn into a uh a horse racing town just because we did it in 1870 doesn't make it right um my mom almost died on 140 in 2005 it's a very dangerous road um our lives were forever changed on 140 when she got hit head on on right by Matthew street so I don't think that that road I I personally don't ride my bike on the road anymore because too many of my friends have gotten run over and killed on their bikes so I used to ride on 140 all the time I won't do it anymore it's too many people texting trucks are too big too many Angry Men um I really want to continue to staying Gardener and do the craft that I'm learning um and usually I'm like oh my God Gardener wants to like put all of our poop in the river oh my God how embarrassing but like I was very embarrassed that this horse racing facility was even proposed but I'm very proud that you guys have all voted now and I hope you continue to vote now and not just on this parcel but all Parcels in Garder because I don't think we need this I think if you want to know how to raise more taxes you should ask the artists of gardener thank you thank you any further testimony anybody else wishing to testify for a second time or for a first time one last call anybody here president wishing to give testimony this evening okay thank you all for that per the public hearing rules and procedures the petitioner is granted the opportunity to reply to questions and comments if desired uh Mr stefanini if you can go to the podium it's probably the best spot thank you first um Madame President counselors um and citizens who came to testify thank you thank you for taking the time to look at our proposal to listen to it to ask questions and to think about it I cannot argue with putting good health and safety above all else I can't I can't argue with the emotional arguments around water quality and the problems that you have what I can ask you to do is look at the facts and I've got some specific questions and comments that I'll raise but I wanted to share with you a few trips along the way as part of this conversation one of our engineers in this project is somebody who was born and raised in Garder and started to sensitize the conversation around water in general not relative to this site in general in the community and the importance of it as part of that we brought on Haley and Aldrich which is the first water quality firm in the country a person from MIT and Harvard founded in 1957 and Mark Haley who is a 72-year-old engineer who has represented countless numbers of municipalities State across the country and helping them deal with their water quality we started to have a sidebar conversation about what the water quality issues were in this community and Mark Haley looked at me at one point and said John give me $50,000 and I'll tell you how to solve the water problem in Garder $50,000 and he walked through how in Cambridge they had the same exact issue 20 years ago with components in water heaters not the pipes the components and he walked through the chemical analysis and the science of it we started to follow this train of thought are you concerned about the water quality in the site I asked these folks you're going to spend $9 million dollar on engineering and design to make sure that there are swales that go with the manure not just that picture but that picture that I showed came out of a brochure similar to the one that the gentleman who came up here showed from the state and it lays out how you lay around to clean the water to deal with it which by the way is not occurring in farms in this city and across the Commonwealth it will occur on this site cuz we will pay for it we will design it and we will be required to in addition to that I asked Mr Haley what else would you do and he went through specific testing that is very expensive and how you would go about figuring it out are we contributing to that not a chance okay so I appreciate that water quality is a High issue and it exists in the community we're prepared to come forward with revenue and expertise to help solve that problem not to contribute to it but to contri be part of the solution in dealing with water quality we don't want to deal with the facts well we don't deal with the facts in addition to that a gentleman said to me I mentioned John asimacopoulos as an example in Fitchburg he and his son train horses and they said well the families moved to Florida they can't train horses the son would like to train horses in in Massachusetts but there are no farms and as the Farms disappear and by the way the town of Hardwick and the City of Garder both independent solicitors and counsel looked at the zoning and the zoning in the state law this is an agricultural purpose maybe it isn't growing lettuce but it's an agricultural purpose as part part of what goes on here number three so we give an opportunity and that's not a heart tug number three animal safety we all have watched the videos and advertisements for dogs that are abused and to donate to programs I love my dog I've had six seven dogs in my lifetime there are bad owners and there are good owners Massachusetts horse owners have had a history of being good owners and driving the industry in a direction that matters this is not going to pollute the Connecticut River this is not going to pollute or deal with the issues you have with your water having heavy metal in it we're not putting heavy metals in the ground and we're heavily regulated and tested to deal with that we're happy to as part of our host Community conduct the studies that all Al Haley and Aldrich talked about as part of that they have I believe a good understanding of that and they've been doing it for municipalities since 1957 tracks closing suffk Down's closed because it's on two t stations in the middle of a city and the property is worth $153 million if you go to East Boston the community loved the track that was there and wish they had it today it's today permitted for 12 million square feet of development buildings on top of buildings someone posted something the other day something that I already know in the local community and said what does planville think about their track and they were shocked when people from planville said yeah we love it they're great they contribute to everything they're part of the conversation they create jobs we don't want to be bad neighbors we want to good neighbors I can't address the emotions and the and the things that are outside the facts but I can tell you the science and the engineering and how to deal with those issues wagering a lot has been said about wagering the 5 to 8 million is what we would make out of a wagering pool the UMass study is dealing with big concept of how to deal with racing and horses as an industry as a total we're dealing with one piece of that that study is not relative to us it's relative to what is occurring all over and all around us the process it's been commented about the process in terms of send this to the planning board and the Conservation Commission and everyone else and it' be great if you had answers to every single question that's not the state law it's not the process if we went to the Conservation Commission tomorrow they would say you're not legally before us until we have a project to go before them we can't bring a project before them when we went to D we had a nice pre-project meeting with them and they walk through rules and regulations they're not going to give their opinion on specifics until they see specifics your planning board if they start giving out answers to developers before they have the right to do that they're going to get sued the community is going to get sued they don't have the authorization to do that so the process starts here and then it expounds and goes forward um the dollars that come to the track from the state the state puts those dollars forward because they want to keep the tra the horse farms from being developed that's why the state put $4 million at hand not because they of their uh of anything else what can I tell you we will do before you vote we'll finalize an HCA you don't believe us this cynicism you've got emotions put it in your health in your host Community agreement and it becomes legally binding the regulations from D they're legally binding upon us our requirements to clean up and to provide groundwater improvements on the site are real your problems in the water system they're not because of this site all you have to do is look down the tributary and look at what's there and Mark Haley went down and said I advise municipalities let's follow the tributary down we're at the beginning of that process and everything else that's between us that's for you to figure out out as a community that's not our piece of this but we're happy to be part of that discussion there are a lot of numbers being discussed and I know it can be confusing because they don't relate to each other and it's hard when people relate numbers the numbers we've given you the presentations we've given you we stand by and they're there for your review I can't stand here and address any chance any possibility any risk that's a huge standard that no one can meet on anything I can't answer all of the issues and concerns about traffic riding a bike on 140 I wouldn't ride a bike on 140 but that isn't us we want to be part of the solution we want to be part of be a good Community resident we want to pay be the largest taxpayer in this community and provide you with A5 million dollar a year add up three or four of your largest complexes and that's what we would like to be the impact we're looking at one or two events the other events that folks talking 70 events that's from the UMass study that's not relative to us we offered the community to do one or two events for community activities if you want it we're happy to do it if you don't want it we won't do it but we're prepared to bring our resources our folks to the table and we are prepared to be legally Bound by the things we represent to you I think if you look at the facts and get beyond the emotion I think we have something that is to the benefit of the community and can be offered I can't address the world we live in today which has a lot of noise and that noise and anger we're not part of we haven't made angry assertions or tried to raise emotions we've tried to provide you with facts and all I would say is I'm grateful for your time I'm grateful for you taking and setting a meeting in the summer to be able to do this Madam president and counselors I appreciate your thoughts your continued discussion if you have questions call us we're an open book the facts are the facts the things we can deal with we will deal with and we will leave this site and this community better than we entered but I cannot solve all the problems that exist here so thank you for your time thank you for listening and thank you for people who testified here today I took notes and we walked through that and if folks have specific questions or issues they'd like to know about please let us know thank you as everyone has had the opportunity to offer testimony uh the petitioner has offered their uh summary of their presentation and also um their comments I would like to acknowledge that we have received counselor did you say somebody could make another we'll have one last opportunity to come up for the second time you have one last opportunity to come up for the second time would you like to testify the second time I'm so I understand we've spoke before the meeting thank you you are you can ABS you can come up for the second time yes hi I'm Carol from um you just want to put the microphone I'm sorry than you Carol chibo 1353 Green Street on 140 as I said I'm about six houses away from the proposal and I just want to say that even though I was shaky with my first standing testimony um that's just nerves it's not really the um me I'm going to just go on but not all of the testimony given today was um based on emotion there's a lot of realistic concerns that people have and yes some people have been here for you know decades so it's a little more important to them however the people are what make up the community and what they feel about things is important it's not just random emotions they're actually people that are researching people who are reading and finding out what's behind all this who's behind all this people want answers that um are believable and a sales pitch once again is not um research and I do think in my opinion that Bas state would be better served if they look at another property because that particular property is special in a lot of ways as everybody said so my opinion is they state if they found a property where there wasn't a lot of population or people or if they found a um place that people could go out like you mentioned earlier Tanglewood There Are Places um where there are major um you know forests and lands that would accommodate something like this and I know there's a lot going in on both sides of the issue yet I feel if Bay State moved on to another location where they would really because of the water and other people's concerns with traffic in that particular Corner they would better to serve themselves and Us by checking out where they could actually go that isn't going to interfere so much with people's um properties and concerns so that's my suggestion um I don't know what's going to develop in the next few weeks but I do say that that would benefit them more because the more people hear about this you notice more people are coming forward at one meeting I guess there was like 20 people but now there's like I don't know how many people spoke tonight but as this becomes more um visible of an issue especially um even real estate agents people like that people are going to be concerned about um values in their property and again the ambiguous language that might be in any type of community contract and the 500,000 a year promise it's not going to even St out till 2026 but even after that there's always a condition always an option always a way out always a back door to get away from your contracts I ask that you think about it as a council as a community but I also o asked that Bay State would find something with all the money they want to invest there got to be something else it's not in people's backyards thank you thank you as everyone has offered testimony this evening and have the opportunity to do so I would like to acknowledge that we have received written testimony from residents and that written testimony will be included in the record of the public hearing also just another another reminder that if anyone who was unable to attend this evening or preferred not to give oral comments would like to submit written comments they can do so until 4:30 uh tomorrow Wednesday July almost tomorrow almost today um Wednesday July 24th 2024 by mailing or emailing Elizabeth Doran our assistant city clerk at 95 Pleasant Street um here at City Hall or you can uh email her edor gardner. goov that will all be included also in the record of the public hearing uh we would also encourage uh citizens as well to reach out to your city counselors uh for any information that you would like for us to consider uh on this item additionally I would like to just acknowledge the straw vote that was taken at the informal meeting it was mentioned several times during the testimony the council took a straw vote which is an unofficial vote it is not an official vote uh the item still is active before the council but during the straw vote we are able to I'm sorry during the informal meeting we are able to take a straw vote which is a way to uh basically get an idea of where the council stands on an item it is a um it is a uh normal thing that we do at in at informal meetings in order to get a sense of where the council stands that was before the public hearing this evening and that's what people were referring to that straw vote was a 10 to zero uh no on the item and I just wanted to make that clear since people mentioned votes that it was not an official vote it was an unofficial vote I know many of the people tonight um said that but just for the public watching the public hearing who maybe were not watching informal meeting I just wanted to make sure that was clear um beyond that I would like to thank all of the citizens who were here this evening their patience with the technical issues earlier um it is my job to be sure that the public hearing is run by the uh different procedures that we have the laws and the rules and I did my best to do that and it was um made possible by the people here following the procedures that we had in place I want to thank everyone in the chamber the people who are in the per Auditorium this evening this is part of the process this is what we do and I can't thank you enough for showing up to offer your comments and also uh for being here this evening and um especially all the people who stuck it out till 11:30 at night thank you so much uh but it is really important to engage in City business and allow the council to be able to do so so thank you for that process thank you to the petitioners for being here this evening for your uh your uh presentation during the informal meeting as well as answering the council's questions and then for being here during all of the uh testimony and as well offering your comments and answers to your to questions um at the end uh of the the um of the testimony and beyond that I also just want to acknowledge all of the staff that was here this evening to help everything go smoothly and be sure that all of the citizens had the information they needed so that they were able to sign up and be heard at the public hearing it is incredibly important it's part of what we do and I want to thank them all very much because they were able to make this possible um um this evening and that is all I wanted to offer at this point at this point I would declare the public hearing closed thank you all very much