Rural 7 Station 11 & Roads in Ponderosa Park

Ponderosa Park’s county Roads

Recently, Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer had a discussion with Ponderosa Park’s homeowner association (PPOA) President, Larry Gourley. Sheriff Songer shared his opinion during that discussion that since a county building (Rural 7 Firehouse 11) had been located within Ponderosa Park, our roads were no longer private but open to the County.  What few tools that Park residents had to combat trespassing, speeding, and so forth were no longer valid.  In fact, as county roads, our once private roads are now open to the public yet we the residents will be paying for `road maintenance’ entirely.

While most Park residents do respect and observe the Park’s speed limit, many non-residents do not. Our main east-west road is Golden Pine.  Golden Pine connects two paved roads, Pine Forest to the west and Pipeline to the east.  Non-residents use Golden Pine as a short cut to access the Bonneville power line area immediately north of the Park.  Non-residents use that area for target shooting putting Park residents, their property and possessions in peril.  Non-residents towing trailers full of motorcycles, ATV’s and snowmobiles, through the Park to race in that same area.  They again refuse to observe the speed limit coming and going.

Park residents are limited in what we can do to address trespassing, speeding, wanton and careless firearm use, and so forth that affects our safety, our property, possessions, and our property values.

Within the Agreement between Klickitat County and Rural 7 Fire and Rescue, signed in 2010, the owner of lot 12 leased a portion of his property to Klickitat County so that a new, Rural 7 firehouse, could be located within Ponderosa Park.  At the time, an owner of property adjacent to our Parks main entrance would also have offered some of his land to locate the new firehouse.  In the end, for whatever reason(s) lot 12 was selected.