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Los Osos general manager’s days appear to be numbered

December 6, 2015
Kathy Kivley

Kathy Kivley

By KAREN VELIE

Following a review of Los Osos Community Services District General Manager Kathy Kivley’s performance and an investigation into misappropriation of funds, Kivley spoke with legal counsel and quickly left the Dec. 3 board meeting.

A CalCoastNews’s analysis of district payroll found Kivley has been collecting pay for more administrative leave days than her contract allows. She has also been receiving more holiday pay than her contract permits, documents show.

In addition, a recent audit of the district found Kivley engaged in questionable accounting practices during her first year on the job. San Luis Obispo County Auditor-Controller Jim Erb sent a letter to Los Osos board members saying the findings of the audit should be of great concern to them.

In October, the district board voted in closed session to hire Jim Gardiner to examine the allegations that Kivley misappropriated district funds.

Before the closed door session to review the audit, Director Louis Tornatzky’s wife, Lynette Tornatzky, blamed CalCoastNews and local activists for Kivley’s problems.

After the closed door session, district legal counsel Mike Sietz asked Kivley to speak to him at the back of the room. Kivley then grabbed her purse and left.

At the end of the meeting, Los Osos activist Julie Tacker, who first discovered the alleged financial wrongdoings, spoke with Seitz.

“Seitz told me that Gardiner had found the same financial irregularities that I had found,” Tacker said.

At the end of the closed session discussion over Gardiner’s report and Kivley’s performance, the board reported no action. It is expected the board will call for a special meeting in the next few weeks to finish the discussion into Kivley’s continued employment.


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The Board needs to take responsibility for this also. They hired her, they clearly didn’t keep an eye on her, and now they are going to pay for her to go away. Didn’t they do any homework before they hired her? What the heck are they doing as board members? Certainly not keeping an eye on the ball.


CSD needs to cease. Shut it down. Worthless bunch of yahoos!


Kively’s departure from Atwater just before arriving in Los Osos…. fine job on vetting this one out…. are you people totally brain dead?


http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/local/article3270386.html


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Only the best and brightest for government jobs in San Luis Obispo County. Our local corrupt politicians only hire criminals or that is top city leaders with tainted past, including felony records. This way they can always leverage the pawn to do their bidding. Now which top level executive in local government has a felony conviction?


What City in San Luis Obispo County has a convicted murderer working for them?


What City in San Luis Obispo County has an HR Director that was relieved of their duties from their past employer for embezzlement?


Does anyone even care anymore?


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That would make a great poll or quiz someplace, to see what the people know.


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Remember when the SLO City hired someone unqualified for the position (can’t remember the actual position) and that meant someone MORE qualified wasn’t able to feed their family and they simply said “that’s how we often do it” absolutely admitting to Nepotism and not giving one flip who was affected.


Happiest place on earth? IF you’re one of the swing dicks in town. Let them eat cake!


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Just two years and two months ago.


The only winners were Kivley and Seitz. The ratepayers overpaid for an underwhelming performance.


http://calcoastnews.com/2013/10/los-osos-hires-district-manager-during-contentious-meeting/


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You get what you paid for.

A good professional GM should be paid $150,000+ plus benefits for what the public expects here.

You pay less, you are expecting less… not saving a dime in the long run.


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Paying her more would not have made her better at her job.


Plus, she WAS paid more . . . because she paid herself wages and benefits that were not available.


SHE chose to take this job at the wage offered. Don’t deflect her responsibility in this.


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Top pay doesn’t ensure top level work, nor does it ensure ethics. Look are Bernie Madoff?


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She was paid more, at lot more, at her previous job, the job she got fired from before landing in Los Osos. What part of the vetting process is the CSD board unable or unwilling to do? What happened to checking background, references and all those sorts of details? Or, did Atwater simply seal the records in an agreement that she would leave without a fuss if Atwater gave her glowing references. The system, that system, sucks. Everyone is deathly afraid to disclose anything about anyone and thus we end up with the worst of the worst moving to the top until they do it again.


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Let’s get rid of Seitz at the same time, that family has sucked enough money out of Los Osos. Seems like for legal counsel we are always in legal trouble, maybe self creating paychecks.


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I have just learned tonight that the LOCSD Board put Kathy Kivley on PAID Administrative leave. There’s to be a Closed Session meeting this Thursday, to discuss “anticipated litigation.”


It appears Ms. Kivley is fighting for her severance, or more.


Stand strong LOCSD Board you have an iron clad case against her.


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Where did you get your law degree Julie?


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Out of a box of Cracker Jack.


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I’m referring to the CCN comment guidelines below in response to your guess:


“Comment authors who…..attempt to expose the real names of any anonymous commenter will have their comments deleted and risk account deletion and user banning.”


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I’m referring to the CCN comment guidelines below in response to you


“Members of the public are limited to one (1) account for the purposes of commenting on CalCoastNews.com. Members caught violating this provision may have any of there accounts: deleted, disabled, consolidated and renamed, as we (the site operators) see fit.”


When you create new accounts (after the loss of your old account because of personal attacks) and attack the same person every time, it’s obvious who it is.


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Every single story in the Slo County of someone getting caught shows a few things.


1. Whoever gets caught gets paid to leave.

2. The people that catch them get in trouble.

3. it’s consistent that they have gotten in trouble in their last jobs. how many times have we seen the idiot that just got busted was released from their LAST job for similar infractions so, the tax payers say “Welp, we better try again” and Boom.. Guess what happens? Yep, history repeats itself.


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