Klamath Falls council approves design contracts for F‑35 support projects with National Guard Bureau

The Klamath Falls City Council on Monday authorized two cooperative agreements with the National Guard Bureau to advance design work for F‑35 support projects at the local airbase.

Development Service Director Ian Bazzi told the council the first agreement is a design contract "It's a $2,700,000 design contract ... and then approximately a 30000000 dollar construction that would be bid and started construction in 2027," and said the city's fee for the design portion is "another 104,000." Council voted to authorize the city manager to execute military construction cooperative agreement number W912JV252 in the amount of $2,714,400.

Bazzi also presented a separate facility sustainment, restoration and modernization cooperative agreement for "Allied Support Sunshades," describing the design cost as $282,880 and saying the design would run through September 2026 with anticipated total construction of about $3,000,000. "This would bring their number of projects, the MCCAs that we're doing to 10," Bazzi said, noting Klamath Falls has taken a lead role in managing design and construction work for multiple Guard projects.

Councilor MacLenn asked about the city's workload as the number of projects increases; Bazzi said staff opted to contract design work when in-house capacity would be exceeded, adding that the city uses contract inspectors and consultants to scale up during construction.

Both authorizations were moved, seconded and approved with affirmative votes from the council. The approvals enable the city manager to execute the agreements and begin the funded design work; Bazzi said construction bidding would follow the design phase and that construction likely would start in 2027 for the weapons facility.

The contracts tie local planning and permitting resources to federal military construction schedules and funding. The council did not record further public comment on the agreements during this meeting.