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1 BEFORE THE MISSOURI GAMING COMMISSION

2 OF THE CITY OF ST. CHARLES

3 STATE OF MISSOURI

7 IN RE: Public Hearing

12 BE IT REMEMBERED that the above-entitled matter

13 came on for public hearing at St. Charles City Hall, 200

14 North Second Street, in the City of St. Charles, State

15 of Missouri, on the 25th day of April, A. D., 2001,

16 commencing at the hour of 9:00 in the morning of that

17 day, said hearing having been called to order by the

18 Chairman and the board members of the Missouri Gaming

19 Commission of the City of Jefferson City, Missouri

20 pursuant to the issuance of due notice to all parties in

21 interest, and the following is the transcript of the

22 record made of all proceedings had during the course of

23 said hearing.

Concannon & Jaeger St. Louis, Missouri (314) 421-1000

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1 A P P E A R A N C E S

2 L. C. Ullery - Chairman

3 Robert Smith - Vice Chairman

4 Lynne R. Nikolaisen - Secretary

5 Dr. Muriel W. Battle - Commission Member

6 J. Joe Adorjan - Commission Member

7 * * *

8 I N D E X

9 SPEAKER: Page:

10 THAD MCCANSE ...................................... 8

11 MIKE YOST .................................... 14, 16

12 HAROLD HENDRICKS ................................. 20

13 SISTER RUTH SPEH.................................. 40

14 TOM CAMPBELL ..................................... 46

15 JACK GALLOWAY ........................... 48, 67, 110

16 TOM CARR ................................. 49, 53, 61

17 PAT STERRETT ..................................... 52

18 BERNARD KEMP ..................................... 57

19 TRACY WALKER ..................................... 61

20 CHRIS RICE ....................................... 62

21 STEVE ROBERTS . 70, 76, 79, 82, 85, 96, 103, 106, 110

22 JIM LOVE ..................................... 72, 78

23 PAT RENO ......................................... 77

24 LARRY GIESING .................................... 79

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1 * * *

2 I N D E X

3 SPEAKER: Page:

4 PAIGE WARREN ..................................... 82

5 PAT LAMPING .................................. 83, 95

6 ED KEMP ...................................... 86, 88

7 CHARLIE BECKER ................................... 97

8 LAURA SCHMUTZ ................................... 101

9 FRANK ROLAND .................................... 103

10 STEVE KING ...................................... 104

11 SAM ROSS ................................... 109, 110

12 GORDON KANOSSKY ................................. 112

13 JOHN FINAMORE .................................. 116

14 GEORGE STADLER .................................. 118

15 DIANE SAYRE ..................................... 132

16 KATHY BRODERICK ................................. 139

17 PATRICIA CHURCHILL .................... 141, 147, 172

18 CLARENCE GREENO ................................. 146

19 RICK WILHOIT..................................... 155

20 JAMES ZWEIFEL ................................... 156

21 MIKE BRADLEY .................................... 157

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1 MR. ULLERY: Ladies and gentlemen, can we

2 come to order, please? Ladies and gentlemen, can I have

3 your attention, please? Let's come to order.

4 Angie, after you call the roll, I have a comment

5 or two.

6 MS. FRANKS: Chairman Ullery?

7 MR. ULLERY: Present.

8 MS. FRANKS: Commissioner Smith?

9 MR. SMITH: Present.

10 MS. FRANKS: Commissioner Nikolaisen?

11 MS. NIKOLAISEN: Present.

12 MS. FRANKS: Commissioner Battle?

13 MS. BATTLE: Present.

14 MS. FRANKS: Commissioner Adorjan?

15 MR. ADORJAN: Present.

16 MR. ULLERY: We have a very long, large and

17 I'm sure interesting agenda today. For you that make

18 presentations, I believe I understand you've been

19 allotted a certain amount of time; you must adhere to

20 that. I really enjoy being in St. Charles, but I am not

21 sure I need to stay another evening. So we've got a lot

22 to cover, and you've been told a time, and you must

23 watch it. Okay? Thank you.

24 MR. SMITH: I have one question. Kevin, do

25 I understand correctly we're supposed to use our

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1 microphone?

2 MR. MULLALLY: That's correct.

3 MR. ULLERY: Well, the audience can't

4 understand what that's all about. There's three big

5 signs up here that say please use your microphones, and

6 Commissioner Smith hardly ever does. I'm not sure the

7 signs will work anyway. Kevin?

8 MR. MULLALLY: Mr. Chairman, if I may,

9 before we get to the first order of business, make -- I

10 guess in my old job with the senate, we referred to it

11 as a point of personal privilege. Because of the

12 audience assembled here -- and it appears we have a

13 number of groups supporting a number of different

14 positions, I think now is a good time to thank them

15 for -- over about the past two years for working through

16 a number of important issues. For the most part, the

17 people involved in these issues have conducted

18 themselves with civility and decorum. However, over the

19 last couple of weeks we have noticed some of that

20 conduct beginning to erode. And I know that members of

21 the staff and this Commission have been called immoral

22 and corrupt on a couple of occasions which is

23 disappointing.

24 So I would just encourage everyone to try to show

25 some respect for other people who, although they find

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1 this issue emotional, have views that are different from

2 yours, to try to maintain that level of decency and

3 decorum that we've seen over the last couple of years.

4 I know this Commission demands that the members and its

5 staff conduct themselves with professionalism and

6 decorum at all times, and we hope that others will as

7 well.

8 MR. ULLERY: Thank you, Kevin. Well put

9 and I think probably necessary at this point. These

10 things do get emotional. We understand that.

11 We're sitting up here as a Commission, and we're

12 vulnerable to criticism and so on and so forth like

13 everybody, and, justifiably, we should be criticized

14 many, many times. I think anybody that's doing their

15 job is going to make some errors and so on and so forth,

16 but, quite frankly, as most everybody says, we're doing

17 the best we can, and we feel like we're going in the

18 right direction, and we certainly are addressing each

19 and every issue. Enough said on that particular

20 subject.

21 MR. MULLALLY: The first item on the agenda

22 materials will be under Tab A in your Commission Book.

23 It will be the Consideration of Hearing Officer

24 Recommendations. The first matter is Hearing Officer,

25 Thad McCanse.

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1 MR. MCCANSE: Mr. Chairman, members of the

2 Commission, this case is simple but troubling. Joan

3 Smith, who's been working for seven years as a blackjack

4 dealer for the casino, had a prior DWI conviction. She

5 was involved in another accident, apparently, after

6 drinking and left the scene and ended up with two felony

7 convictions, one for leaving the scene, one for DWI.

8 She had been a blackjack dealer for seven years. She

9 pled guilty. She was given a suspended imposition of

10 sentence and ordered to perform community service work

11 and to carry out various conditions of her probation

12 including quitting drinking, all of which she has done.

13 She has not yet completed her probation. I think it

14 lasts for perhaps five years. But up to the time of the

15 hearing, while she had been doing everything right and,

16 apparently, had turned her life around. The only

17 problem is -- and her employer wants to keep her.

18 Apparently, a reliable blackjack dealer is not that easy

19 to find, and she had a good record. She wants to keep

20 her job, of course.

21 The only problem is that there's no discretion

22 left to the Commission under the rule and under the

23 statute on a plea of guilty to a felony even though

24 there's a suspended imposition of sentence which is the

25 rule provision. The employee is disqualified no matter

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1 what other circumstances may exist. It's a little

2 disturbing that the Commission has no discretion in this

3 type of a case, but, apparently, it does not.

4 Now, had she had a little better attorney -- or

5 had she had an attorney, there probably was a way to get

6 around this and at least preserve her job, and then it

7 would have been up to the Commission to determine

8 whether or not to do so. As it is, I see that there is

9 no discretion left to the Commission. There was one

10 flaw, one hitch.

11 Apparently, the wrong form letter was sent out

12 and she was told that her application for an

13 occupational license was being denied. Well, she had

14 had one for seven years, and it's renewed on her

15 birthday which is February 15th. The notice was --

16 well, the hearing was just after February which, in

17 effect -- she's still working, as far as I know. And if

18 we're considering her application, you could argue that

19 she could stay there until the next time that it is up

20 for renewal except that the statute is pretty

21 straightforward and the rule is straightforward that a

22 person convicted -- who has pled guilty to a felony and

23 has been convicted of a felony is no longer entitled to

24 work in the area of the casino operation, that is, where

25 the gaming is taking place.

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1 So I did tell her that I would bring up her post

2 conviction record and -- to the Commission, but I also

3 added at the end of it that I thought that she ought to

4 be looking for another job which was not what she wanted

5 to hear. I have no choice but to recommend that her

6 license, Occupational Level 2 license, be revoked.

7 MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, could I ask a

8 question?

9 MR. ULLERY: Mr. Smith.

10 MR. SMITH: As I understand it, Mr.

11 McCanse, a suspended imposition of sentence, in effect

12 -- at the termination of the probationary period, then

13 there's no record of a conviction?

14 MR. MCCANSE: That's correct, but that

15 doesn't take care of the plea of guilty.

16 MR. SMITH: Yes, I understand. The problem

17 is really the rule rather than the statute. The statute

18 doesn't say -- does it say --

19 MR. MCCANSE: The statute does refer to a

20 plea of guilty.

21 MR. SMITH: Oh, the statute does, too?

22 MR. MCCANSE: Yes. Now, as I say, if she

23 had had a lawyer -- there was a prior case where they

24 withdrew the plea of guilty, had a suspended imposition

25 of sentence and that rule wasn't raised in that case so

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1 the employee -- I think the Commission ruled that that

2 employee could continue.

3 It's a little bit discouraging. I really feel

4 for the lady, but I think that there's no choice, either

5 under the rule or the statute or under the state of the

6 record.

7 MR. SMITH: I think you're right from a

8 legal point of view.

9 I'm wondering -- I guess what we need to do,

10 Kevin, if we want discretion, is to change both the

11 statute and the rule to cover that situation.

12 MR. MCCANSE: If you do want to do it. I

13 would like to see some discretion in the Commission.

14 Also, there's another rule that referred to the

15 application for renewal of an occupational license in

16 which, if it's going to be denied, the Director notifies

17 you all, the Commission, but not the person involved and

18 not the casino. It seems to me the rule does fall short

19 there. We were taking a look at the rule at that time.

20 That, apparently, didn't happen in that case.