Latest news with #Haddon
NZ Herald
6 days ago
- Business
- NZ Herald
Young Grower of the Year 2025: Jack Haddon wins Pukekohe regional title
Crop manager Jack Haddon has won the Pukekohe 2025 Young Grower regional title. Haddon, who oversees the cauliflower and cabbage operation for Balle Brothers, pitched his skills against three fellow contestants to take the title last month. He will now compete against six other regional winners in Horticulture New
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Planners approve additional data center buildings, with acoustic conditions
The Frederick County Planning Commission has approved the site plan for three more buildings on the Aligned Data Centers project, with limits on noise. The Aligned Critical Digital Infrastructure Facility features four buildings and an energy transformer yard on 74.89 acres near Adamstown. The Frederick County Planning Commission approved the first data center building in May 2023 and the transformer substation in March 2025, according to county records. Building 1 will occupy the southern-most location on the site, followed in order by Buildings 2, 3 and 4 heading north, according to county records. Buildings 2, 3 and 4 total 1.15-million square feet. The commission approved the submitted plan unanimously on Wednesday with the following additions: a 22-foot-tall concrete wall enclosing Building 3, as well as along the east sides of the generator yards for Buildings 2 and 4. Sound concerns The data centers are 24-hour-a-day operations, requiring significant infrastructure to cool machines and have backup power available. Jessica Baker, technical program manager for Aligned, said generators for the site planned for a worst-case scenario — total power loss — an outcome that has been 'very few and far between' at other locations. 'Most of our sites, we very rarely see the generators run outside of monthly testing,' Baker said. Emily Piersol — an acoustics consultant with Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon, and Williams, an international design and consulting firm with corporate offices based in Carrollton, Texas — said the acoustic report her team performed considered 84 rooftop chillers per building for Buildings 1, 2 and 3 and 56 rooftop chillers for Building 4. Baker said it is standard for Aligned to have chillers on the roof and generators at the ground level. The plan was for 164 generators on site between the four buildings, according to Piersol. She said her team analyzed the three step-down transformers within the transformer yard portion of the substation, as well. Planning Commissioner Carole Sepe said she remembered screening required for acoustics from the Building 1 plans, but saw no concrete panels in the drawings for the three additional buildings. 'Where's the concrete panel screening?' she asked. She said the plans as she read them included mainly chain-link fence or perforated screens, with concrete only included in one partially screened section. 'All the generators should be closed, not with just a metal fence,' Sepe said. 'The only thing that should be open is just the access to it.' Sepe said she was not concerned about the buildings, but about the fenced generator yards. Baker said she agreed with Sepe's concerns about how the concrete walls were not clear enough in the presented plans. Piersol said her model factored in a concrete screening wall south of Building 1; a chain-link fence between Buildings 1 and 2; visual screening by the loading docks; and visual screening with 'acoustical properties' north of Building 4. She said that noise is measured not at the property boundary, but at the nearest agricultural property near the intersection of Ballenger Creek Pike and Manor Woods Road. Piersol said the analysis found the sound levels on the east and west sides of Building 2 would be 70 A-weighted decibels — the limit for industrial uses — and thus did not require sound screening. She said the study considered a 22-foot concrete screening wall around the generator yard by Building 3, between the building and transformers. Piersol said the noise by the generator yard at Building 4 was less than 70 dBA and thus did not require screening walls. She said the difference came down to the fact that the physical building screens the noise from the generators at Building 4, but not Building 3. Additionally, Baker said the walls along the east could be designed to have aesthetic qualities in addition to sound-dampening ones. ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS Access to the site will come from Manor Woods Road until Quantum Place South is opened to traffic, with the goal of being able to build each building in phases through the secure access point to the site, according to the records. The plan called for 226 parking spaces, when only 90 were required by code, according to county records. Part of that offsets the proposed six large loading spaces when 115 were required. This was due to the expectation that there will be less pedestrian movement because it's a secure facility, according to the records. Baker said this parking arrangement better served shift changes for workers of a 24-hour-a-day facility. Additionally, the plan calls for 10 bike racks and 20 total spaces, meeting county standard. The racks will be uncovered, according to Graham Hubbard, a planner for the county. Baker said she was open to discussing bike rack protections, to encourage alternative commutes to the site. Hubbard said the lighting plan for the three additional buildings would be the same as the previously approved for Building 1. Graham Cannady, project manager for Corgan, a Dallas, Texas based architectural firm, said his firm was not the original architect of the project but would gladly incorporate rooftop screening to ensure continuity throughout the project. 'Same thing goes with the yard screening,' he said. 'If that is required, we will gladly add the additional screening if necessary in lieu of chain-link.' Following a question from Planning Commisioner Sam Tressler III, Baker said it would be possible to finish all four buildings by 2028. 'Market conditions and customer demand drive what that ends up looking like,' she said. Baker said Aligned already has an end user lined up for Building 1.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SC bill would require schools to excuse some extracurricular absences
House Education Chairwoman Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, talks with staff during the House's organizational session on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024 at the Statehouse in Columbia. (Mary Ann Chastain/Special to the SC Daily Gazette) COLUMBIA — South Carolina public school students could not be considered absent for participating in an off-campus club activity during the school day under a bill advanced Tuesday in the House. Also given the go-ahead by a subcommittee was a bill dubbed the 'Educator Assistance Act,' which teachers' advocates named a top priority in keeping teachers in classrooms. The bill passed the House unanimously last year but never got a hearing in the Senate, though its sponsor is optimistic this will be the year it passes. One re-introduced bill that was never taken up last session would require school districts to adopt a policy excusing students for attending certain extracurricular events. Many schools already excuse students for attending school-sanctioned activities, such as club trips. At others, though, students must choose between being marked absent and skipping events that happen during the school day, said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Patrick Haddon, R-Greenville. Future Farmers of America members, for example, sometimes attend conventions or exhibitions that take place during the school day. Requiring schools excuse absences to attend those would give the 15,000 or so students enrolled in the club a chance to learn things they might not otherwise, said Troy Helms, state director of agricultural education at Clemson University. Experts could teach in SC classrooms without certification under pilot program 'We're teaching something that will allow students to get outside the classroom, compete against others, while at the same time being exposed to industries that are out there,' Helms said. The bill only covers 'work-based learning experiences,' listing Future Farmers of America and 4-H as examples. A certified teacher would have to be supervising the activity, and students would be required to make up any work they missed. Students who attend those conferences and other events might have a leg up to pursue career paths in which the state needs more professionals, such as agriculture, Haddon said. 'It's very amazing what it does for these kids, to get them ready to go into the workforce,' Haddon said. As the state tries to recruit and retain more teachers, the Educator Assistance Act could address several concerns that cause teachers to leave the profession, advocates said. The bill would cut down on paperwork by making teaching certificates permanent, eliminating bureaucratic hurdles involved in renewing it through the state Department of Education every five years. Districts would also be required to include in teachers' contracts their minimum salary for the next school year before they commit to staying. Teachers are asked to sign those contracts by May 10, before legislators have passed a final budget and school districts have decided on salaries. That means teachers often have to sign onto their position without knowing how much they'll be making. 'I don't know many jobs where you'd sign a blank contract and agree to work somewhere,' said House Education Chairwoman Shannon Erickson, the bill's sponsor. 'I think it shows a lack of respect for our teachers to require them to do that.' Unlike the version of the bill the House passed last year, which would give teachers wiggle room to bow out of a contract after seeing their final pay, this version would require districts to give teachers an estimated pay schedule before they sign their contract. In some cases, teachers also don't know what subject they'll be teaching or what school they'll be assigned to before the school year begins. Current law requires districts to notify teachers of their assignment by Aug. 15, but with more schools starting earlier in the year, that means some districts aren't giving their teachers enough time to prepare. The bill would also require districts to give a reason for reassigning a teacher part-way through the school year in an effort to keep teachers' plans and students' experiences consistent. That was something Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association, has experienced firsthand, she said. One year, as she was going on holiday break, her district notified her she would be teaching chemistry when she returned — a subject she had never taught before then, she said. Other teachers have been given even less time to prepare lesson plans, she added. 'We do hear stories about that all the time,' Erickson said. Erickson, a Beaufort Republican, said she's hopeful that changes, such as requiring districts to give an estimated salary in teachers' contracts, will assuage senators' concerns enough to get the bill to the finish line. 'We really, really need to show our teachers how much we care about them and treat them like professionals,' Erickson told the SC Daily Gazette. 'It's a basic thing they are asking for that we should be giving them.' SC teacher vacancies decrease but remain above pre-pandemic levels, report finds The rules have gained significance in the past year, as schools grapple with continuing teacher vacancies, said Patrick Kelly, lobbyist for the Palmetto State Teachers Association. Although the number of vacancies decreased this year, it remains higher than it should, Kelly said. Legislators are already working to address the pay problem many teachers cite as one of their biggest concerns, having raised the minimum pay for first-year teachers to $47,000 last year. Gov. Henry McMaster is calling on legislators to raise that again to $50,000 this year. That means it's time to look at teachers' other major problems, including what they see as a lack of support, a lack of time to plan and a lack of respect, all of which the bill would address, Kelly said. 'This year, it is essential,' Kelly said. Both bills advanced to the full House Education Committee.
