School board raises Mello-Roos rates for Lincoln Crossing and Twelve Bridges

Aug. 8 @ 2:58 p.m. Clarification: This rate increase will only affect homes up to 2,200 square feet. During Tuesday night's Western Placer Unified School District school board meeting, the board approved increased Mello-Roos rates for new developments in Twelve Bridges and Lincoln Crossing. The rates for the new development and current resident with CFD's in the Lincoln Crossing area will increase from $0.5673 per square foot $0.5747 per square foot. The rates for the new developments in the Twelve Bridges area will increase from $7.07 square foot to $7.16 square foot. "Annually, we adjust the fee rate calculations of the community facilities districts based on the California Construction Cost Index," the school district's facilities director Mike Adell said. "This time, it was based on December 2017 and December 2018 in this case positively as construction cost index is at 1.3 percent." School board President Damian Armitage was the only board member to have some issue with the rate increase. He lives in one of those communities. However, Armitage voted yes with his fellow board members and the motion passed unanimously. During the meeting, Phoenix High School teacher and Summer Series coordinator Dan Alcorn gave a presentation of this year's Summer Series and also the new high school internship program. "It started with our youth development institute and getting to figure out how we reach out to kids, how do we reach out to the community, how do we reach our LCAP (Local Control Accountability Plan) goals and utilize our teachers because our teachers are awesome," Alcorn said. The Summer Series offered an array of classes for kindergarten to 12th-grade students to participate in for a fraction of the cost compared to other summer camps. "Animation station, STEAM activities, cake decoration, 3-D printing, mixed media art, farm to fork, teams robotics; We had a really interesting group of classes people could choose from," Alcorn said. According to Alcorn, some of the camps will become after-school programs during the school year, such as a bike riding club and a robotics club that will allow students to compete with other schools. Alcorn ended his presentation by inviting Western Placer Unified School District high school students from the summer internship program to talk about their internships. One of those students was Kevin Flores, who interned at A B Tools to learn more about engineering. "I personally wanted to do this internship more to get a good insight on the different types of engineering," Flores said. "I know that when I go to college, I want to major in mechanical engineering, specifically aerospace engineering." The Summer Series is looking to offer a three-week health and wellness program next year to accompany the current programs offered. The next Western Placer Unified School District school board meeting will be at 7 p.m. Aug. 20 in the Lincoln City Council Chambers on the third floor of City Hall, 600 6th St.