The current Ponderosa Middle School building will need to be replaced within three to five years due to its location on an active fault line, Klamath Falls City Schools Superintendent Keith Brown said Thursday.
Brown, KFCS operations director Daymond Monteith, KFCS maintenance director Jared Thompson and Ponderosa principal Brett Lemieux led a public presentation, tour and Q&A at the school Thursday. The tour highlighted cracks and buckling in the interior walls and floors of the building caused by the fault line shifting.
“The building is currently safe,” Monteith said. “That being said, because we are on an active fault, tomorrow that might not be true.”
The shifting has also led to numerous doors in the building becoming misaligned, a problem Thompson said maintenance crews have had to work throughout the year to mitigate.
The building has been monitored by structural engineers for about 25 years, and it was recently determined that moving the school to a more stable location was the best long-term option, Brown said.
The district plans to rebuild Ponderosa on a piece of property it owns adjacent to Steen Sports Park. Monteith said KFCS currently estimates it will need $120 million to complete the project and would obtain the funding through a property tax levy of $2 per $1,000. Brown and Monteith said the district hasn’t decided whether it will try to get the levy on the ballot for the May 2025 election.
Scroll down for more photos of damage to the building’s interior.
