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Something doesn't smell right in the Town of Portland, and it isn't coming from the grape vineyards.
Apparently, someone wants to build an artificial intelligence data center on 44 acres of Lake Erie waterfront property at the former Sugar Hill Golf Course. And the Portland Town Board, in what appears to be a remarkable display of enthusiasm for a project nobody seems to know much about, voted unanimously to express its general approval.
My first question isn't even about the company behind the proposal. It's about the idea itself. Who looks at Portland, with Lake Erie stretching out beyond those beautiful vineyards, and thinks, "You know what this place needs? An AI data center."
The company behind the proposal is called WEED Inc., a publicly traded cannabis company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. WEED Inc. owns another company called Four Winds of Lake Erie LLC, which holds the deed to the former Sugar Hill Golf Course.
According to its own financial reports filed with the federal government, WEED Inc. had just $1,066 in the bank as of June 30, 2026. That's right. A little over a thousand dollars. The company hadn't earned a single dollar in revenue during the first six months of the year, reported liabilities exceeding $1.4 million, and had accumulated approximately $86.5 million in losses over its history.
In other words, this is a company with virtually no money coming in, substantial financial obligations and a long history of losing money.
Of course, WEED doesn't necessarily intend to construct the facility itself. It may be looking for investors, development partners or someone willing to purchase the property. Which brings us to the first important question: Who is actually behind this proposal?
In December 2025, WEED announced a partnership with a company called Remergify Inc., which specializes in helping struggling businesses restructure and monetize their assets. In the same announcement, WEED advertised the Sugar Hill property for sale for $2.1 million, quite a jump from its more than $477,000 purchase price in 2021.
Three months later, that same property was being promoted as the future home of an AI data center. That's an interesting sequence of events, wouldn't you say?
Remergify also has interests in AI-related investment opportunities, including proposed micro-data centers. Whether it had anything to do with the Sugar Hill idea remains an unanswered question.
Now let's visit Portland Town Hall.
According to the minutes of the March 11 meeting, Supervisor Richard Lewis received a telephone call from a realtor asking him to put something together concerning a proposed data center. Lewis has said he believes the development would benefit Portland through additional property taxes.
Fair enough. Every small town needs revenue, and economic development is certainly worth pursuing. But surely there's more to consider here than the potential tax receipts.
The board voted 5-0 to express general approval for the concept, subject to further review.
Did nobody on the board--even for a moment--wonder about the electricity requirements, the potential noise, the environmental impact or what such a facility might look like on the Lake Erie shoreline? Did anyone ask whether an industrial development of this kind was compatible with the character of Portland?
The town subsequently explained that no detailed plans had been submitted and that its resolution wasn't final approval. But here's the problem: Eight days after WEED announced the data center opportunity, the company issued another announcement describing efforts to find investors, development partners and potential buyers, prominently featuring Portland's board resolution as part of the company's strategic opportunity.
In other words, a local government's preliminary expression of support had become a selling point in a publicly traded company's promotional material. Was that what the board intended?
There's nothing inherently improper about trying to increase the value of a property. But when a town government's expression of support becomes part of that marketing effort, residents have every right to ask questions.
Who first proposed the data center? Who would finance and construct it? Who would operate it? And what, exactly, would Portland receive in return?
We haven't even discussed the extraordinary electricity requirements of large data centers, their potential water consumption, cooling infrastructure, noise or the question of who might pay for necessary utility upgrades. Not every data center is the same, of course, and without detailed plans we can't know precisely what this one would require. Which makes the board's early enthusiasm all the more puzzling.
And let's not forget this: According to reporting in Data Center Dynamics, Portland previously opposed New York State's interest in purchasing Sugar Hill for a state park because officials wanted to preserve the property's potential tax revenue.
I understand the desire for additional revenue, but there must be some consideration for what makes a place worth living in to begin with. Portland is one of the loveliest communities in Chautauqua County. Its vineyards, farmland, wooded hills and spectacular Lake Erie views are part of the character of this region, and once that character is compromised, it's not easily restored.
And it certainly means knowing who's behind the proposal before offering a unanimous expression of support.
I'd like to see the communications between town officials, WEED, Four Winds, their advisers and the unidentified realtor. I'd like to know who first suggested a data center, who is financing the proposal and whether anyone has studied the potential impact on the surrounding community.
Most importantly, I'd like to know why the Town Board was so quick to embrace a concept about which so little appears to be known.
Portland officials have every right to pursue economic development, but their first responsibility is to the people who live there and to the long-term interests of their community. Additional dollars in property tax revenue won't mean much if the town sacrifices something far more valuable in the process.
And when a company with $1,066 in the bank starts promoting an AI data center on some of the most desirable waterfront property in Chautauqua County, I think a giant dose of skepticism is not only appropriate, but necessary.
Margot Russell is a weekly columnist for The Post-Journal in Jamestown.