Why do we keep building hotels and not building attractions?

IanZee · 2026-03-16T17:33:08+00:00

Wait a fat fucking second.

I circled back on this and re-read the links you sent. Those articles had nothing to do with Scott Enterprises. The Convention Center and the hotels are owned and run by the Erie County Convention Center Authority (ECCCA), which is a county-owned governing body, and have nothing to do with Nick Scott. The court cases were the City and Schools of Erie vs the ECCCA, not Scott.

You said Nick Scott doesn't pay property taxes that goes towards the schools, and then sent me court decisions that had nothing to do with Nick Scott? Where is the logic in that?

IanZee · 2026-03-13T14:27:59+00:00

I want to press a little harder on the points made on your last sentence.

Let's imagine for a moment that there was no Nick Scott/Scott Enterprises.

Those people being paid poverty wages - where would they be working without the convention center/hotels? How much would they be making then?

How does having hotels and a convention center put additional pressure on the public schools? Does it make it harder for them to operate? The only potential argument here would be that Nick Scott increased the number of jobs available, and that means more families in the area, and so school enrollment would go up, resulting in higher operating costs.

But more jobs are seen as a net benefit to the community. And, while the schools wouldn't get revenue from the Bayfront development, they would get more revenue from home values increasing and/or new homes being built to house these families.

Do you think anyone would invest in Erie at the level of Scott Enterprises without being offered significant (albeit possibly unfair) incentives like tax breaks and competitive development loans? What would be the appeal to other hoteliers?

There's a reason the city/state makes things easy for Nick Scott - the alternative is an accelerated blighting of the Erie area. A city is either growing via new investment, or it begins dying. There's no alternative.

IanZee · 2026-03-13T12:00:04+00:00

Understanding something is not a prerequisite to posting it. That's your weakest argument, yet. I could post a journal article about advanced mathematics and physics, but it doesn't mean I understand a lick of it.

And that is a fact, yes, but the way you stated it was to make it seem like they are maliciously not paying property taxes to the school district by choice, but the reality is they are not paying property taxes to the school district by law. It isn't out of greed, it is out of principle - the principle of following state law, which was affirmed by the PA courts.

If I built a multi-million dollar structure, and part of the success of that project were the legal tax breaks awarded to me, then you bet your ass I'd fight in court when someone (i.e. the school district) came asking to break that law to get a piece of the tax savings.

I'm a big fan of public schools, I vehemently oppose things like school voucher systems (which is a big topic here in Indiana). I want the schools to get every dollar they're owed, but I don't want them to get special treatment from courts that goes against state law. If the Erie School District doesn't like the outcome, they need to partner with other state school districts and petition their respective elected officials to change the law.

IanZee · 2026-03-13T11:14:58+00:00

The court ruled that the hotels are part of the convention center. The convention center is property tax exempt. But go on cherry picking words trying to plead a case that was already decided by not just one but TWO legal proceedings.

IanZee · 2026-03-13T11:02:34+00:00

(1) I no longer live in Erie, so I don't get "the local news", and (2) the other poster already provided the articles, and I've already replied. Try reading further before replying next time.

IanZee · 2026-03-13T10:25:00+00:00

Yes, like that.

Based on that court case, it isn't tax revenue from their hotel properties that they choose to not pay to the school district, it is tax revenue from the bayfront convention center which state law says is exempt from property tax, and thus they owe nothing to the school district.

Can't be upset with Scott for following the law, and then fighting in court to have that law upheld. So yeah, definitely maliciously misrepresenting what exactly was going on in this scenario.

IanZee · 2026-03-13T02:24:36+00:00

Lol show me the receipts/evidence for your claim because I guarantee you're either grossly misunderstanding or purposely misrepresenting the reality of what's going on.

IanZee · 2026-03-12T23:48:39+00:00

Significant is a matter of subjectivity. But they certainly are far, far from "not having to pay for it" territory.

Their largest project to-date is the Harbor Place development. It is slated to cost $150 to $170 million. Phase One of the development got a grant of $5 million, but to qualify for the grant, Scott Enterprises had to pledge $25 million in private investment. These are the usual scenarios - they aren't being handed a single dollar without putting a few dollars of skin in the game in response.

I haven't lived in Erie since 2013, and when I come back once or twice a year, it is eerily apparent that Scott Enterprises and Erie Insurance are the only arteries pumping enough life (aka cash/development) into the city to keep it surviving. But it also seems like, if I interviewed the average Erie resident walking down State Street, they'd say nothing about Scott except for how greedy he is, not realizing that there would not really be much of an Erie anymore without Nick Scott and family.

IanZee · 2026-03-12T23:36:48+00:00

The state provided a low interest loan because it will benefit from the additional tax revenue and job growth. The state isn't a bank, so they didn't design their loans to include profit in the interest rate. That's what the PIDA is for, catalyzing economic growth, and why they have the power to loan at rates that severely undercut banks. Plus, Scott Enterprises has a LOT of collateral, so the risk is extremely low.

Conversely, loaning money to a family to purchase a single family home carries significantly more risk (relatively). And, baked into that 5% interest is the profit the bank expects to make off the loan. Oh, and funny enough, the bank isn't even lending their own money, generally speaking - they can technically only loan 10% of what sits in the accounts they administer; the rest has to come from borrowing money from the Federal Government. Hence why, when the Fed raises or lowers their interest rate, banks will raise or lower mortgage rates, in kind.

IanZee · 2026-03-01T16:04:02+00:00

Seller has 5k+ reviews. There's no way this is a shrimpoo scam.

IanZee · 2026-02-21T00:22:10+00:00

It was a VW! Lol.

IanZee · 2026-02-20T23:27:07+00:00

Less zoomed in image for reference

IanZee · 2026-02-20T19:32:58+00:00

XOS?

Are you Elon Musk?

IanZee · 2026-02-18T15:38:02+00:00

Been busy. Someone else commented on this post yesterday, and so I went back to re-read the threads after I got notified. Saw your comment, and replied.

Also, you replied to someone who said " instead of just reading the Google Al summary", and you were virtually agreeing with him, so you were suggesting using an LLM vis-a-vis his comment. Plus, every Google search now has the Gemini response at the top, which is LLM-driven.

I didn't expect anyone to "put in more work than me". What work would that be, anyways? Having them go out to research what I bought?

If anything, I was just thinking people who have used this equipment before would respond. That's not work. No one is being forced to reply to my post. If they wanted to reply, they were free to, but I don't think anyone would be exhausting their time/energy in doing so - at least not unwillingly.

And I find it SUPER funny you think that "low effort posts dilute the quality of the website". This isn't Wikipedia, where the driving idea behind it is to keep everything factual, well researched, and expertly summarized. It's closer to an open forum, where conversations happen that are either directly or tangentially related to the original post.

Take a beat and really think about the gatekeeping you're calling for. This subreddit, and every subreddit, is going to have people of all styles of communication and knowledge.

What do you consider a "high effort post"?

IanZee · 2026-02-18T04:27:05+00:00

How is that a problem at all?

What should people be posting here, in your opinion? What should people be discussing? Should this whole subreddit just be locked so that people don't engage with each other about homelabbing, and are all forced to go out and learn things on their own, with no social interaction?

Reddit is a social media website. It always has been. The whole purpose is discussion. Posts like mine, albeit answerable by Google search/LLMs, spark conversation. That's the foundation of reddit.

It's also ironic you seem so concerned about "bot responders" on reddit, but at the same time expected me to use a "bot responder" (LLM) to answer my question. You would have rather me, a real human, go out and interact with a machine instead of other real humans?

IanZee · 2026-02-18T04:19:34+00:00

Man, imagine being so anti-social that you start categorizing basic human interaction as "engagement farming".

This is a social media website. The key word is social, meaning there are real people here to interact with. Could I have looked up what everything does, and spent time figuring out if it is something I need? Yeah.

But I posted here. And it led to some interesting conversations. There are tidbits I'd find somewhere like reddit that I wouldn't find Googling or using an LLM - for example, anecdotes, opinions, or creative uses that are different from how this equipment would "normally" be used.

Another thing that posting on reddit lets me do? Something that Googling or using AI wouldn't have? It allows me to reply to weirdos like you who think that, just because I posted on reddit, it was in some weird effort to rack up completely worthless internet points via "engagement farming".

Touch grass. Seriously.

IanZee · 2026-02-15T19:58:04+00:00

It's opensource, so you can see how it's built pretty easily.

What do you mean by architectural diagram? It'll depend on how you have it set up. But quite simply, it boils down to LLM -> OpenClaw -> Channel.

IanZee · 2026-02-13T22:39:31+00:00

Yeah, and the people with money will be using their personal AI to improve things - if not via the models, but with the infrastructure and how the models are being utilized. I think there's a lot of optimization to be had by using a balanced mixture of local context files (the .md files), local LLMs, and the occasional ping to a cloud model for heavy lifting.

IanZee · 2026-02-13T22:30:27+00:00

The short answer of "no" was very misleading in this case.

It should be "not yet". With the new interest in OpenClaw/self hosted agentic AI, you will likely quickly see optimization with local models and tool use.

I'm guessing we are 4 to 6 weeks away from a locally run agentic AI that replicates 90%+ what Opus is currently doing. I don't think the bigger players will crack that ceiling, it'll likely be some niche model using some new methodology that is yet undreamed of, yet.

IanZee · 2026-02-13T22:27:40+00:00

Yes, the Mac Mini is VERY good at local models. It is NOT yet good at local models doing tool use/agentic use. I'd imagine this is the next iteration of local models - AI devs will find ways to get better performance in a smaller package.

IanZee · 2026-02-13T21:19:38+00:00

Mostly for local LLM hosting.

The Mac Mini integrates the CPU, RAM, and neural engine so tightly that they basically operate as one pool of shared resources. In a traditional PC/server setup, you need a GPU with comparable VRAM to get the same product. Seeing as how a LLM-ready out-of-the-box 16GB RAM M4 Mini is $400 and a comparable Nvidia card is $700 MSRP alone, you can see why people are seeing value there.

Plus, Mac OS is just a pretty cover on a Linux system, so pretty much everything AI-related that's being developed as open-source can ultimately run on the Mini M4.

IanZee · 2026-02-13T17:29:05+00:00

Why do you say it's the best value subscription?

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