County of Lake working on plan to purchase Kelseyville Senior Center
- Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A plan currently under consideration by the county of Lake would give the Kelseyville Senior Center the unique distinction of having been purchased with funds provided by the county government twice in a 20-year span.
The timing of the proposal from District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska, which first went before the Board of Supervisors in August, was notable as it was just 20 years before — in July 2002 — that the escrow to purchase the center from the previous owner closed thanks to funds the county budgeted to make the purchase possible.
However, until shortly before it was first discussed publicly by the board in August, neither Pyska nor county staff seemed to be aware of this previous purchase — despite having conducted “due diligence” on the proposal.
What’s been revealed of the current plan in public so far is vague beyond the idea of helping to “stabilize” the senior center’s operations and have the building available for other uses.
And, so far, a center official said negotiations with the county haven’t started.
The funds will come from American Rescue Plan Act funds. The county has received $12.5 million in ARPA funds and has set aside $1 million to help stabilize the county’s senior centers.
The board first discussed the plan regarding the spending of the ARPA funds on Dec. 21. Staff had reported there would be community input on the plan and how the money has been spent, but so far there haven’t been any of note.
What’s been revealed so far is that the Kelseyville Senior Center plan could end up taking the lion’s share of those ARPA funds set aside to target senior center needs countywide.
Despite the numerous unknowns, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in August to appoint a negotiating team for the county consisting of County Administrative Officer Susan Parker and Assistant County Administrative Officer Stephen Carter.
That’s ahead of being able to answer critical questions about how the property would be operated.
As for the county’s due diligence on the plan, Parker revealed little of it at the Aug. 9 board meeting beyond simply identifying the building’s current owner as the Kelseyville Seniors.
No other specifics of the plan were offered then or, more recently, during the county’s late September budget hearings.
In response to a question from Lake County News at the August meeting about who would operate the building, Pyska said the county would operate it after the morning use by the seniors, who would get to rent it from the county for continued use.
When asked by Lake County News about the estimated cost to run the facility on an annual basis, Parker said they didn’t know.
Pyska said she has spoken to the center board and the Area Agency on Aging about the proposal.
“It’s an aging building,” she said, noting it’s difficult for the nonprofit Kelseyville Seniors group to manage the repairs and maintenance.
Pyska said it could be used as a community center, explaining that Kelseyville doesn’t have a community center or a library, and it could also be used as an outpost library now that the county also has a new bookmobile coming.
She said there’s a need for Kelseyville, and the plan is for the county to purchase the building and operate it.
“This is an investment that we want to make in our senior centers and into our seniors,” she said, noting the Kelseyville Seniors group is struggling to keep up with deferred maintenance.
The board followed up at that meeting by voting unanimously to move forward with negotiations and holding a closed session discussion with county negotiators, from which there was no reportable action.
Lorna Sue Sides is the Kelseyville Senior Center’s executive director, as well as a leader of the Citizens for Healing, the group advocating for changing the name of Kelseyville to “Konocti,” and wants to put an initiative on the March 2024 presidential primary ballot to do it.
Sides told Lake County News that Pyska approached them in the summer of 2021 with a proposal for the county to purchase its buildings with ARPA funds with plans to keep the senior center operational, increasing the footprint of the building and adding library/community space.
While Pyska’s public statements painted a picture of a struggling senior center, Sides told Lake County News that the group is stable.
“We don’t need to do this. We’re solid,” she said, standing in the dining room of the center on a summer Monday, as about a dozen people were having lunch.
Sides said Kelseyville Seniors Inc. is fully solvent and its buildings are in good condition.
Lake County News posed several additional questions to the county following the board’s August approval about what information it had about the center’s financial status and the history of the building.
In response, the County Administrative Office said it was just beginning the process and that the county would request financials and other documentation soon.
At the same time, the county’s response to the questions indicated that county officials were not aware of how the building was acquired by its current owners.
History of the property
County property and historical records show that the building at 5245 Third St. that now houses the Kelseyville Senior Center/Event Center was built in 1965 and it is about 2,150 square feet on a lot that measures 0.16 of an acre.
The property began to house the Kelseyville Post Office the following year, where it remained until Jan. 27, 2002. The building was privately owned and leased to the Postal Service.
The U.S. Postal Service built a new Post Office at 5500 Gaddy Lane, which was first occupied in August 2001, said Evelina Ramirez, a Postal Service spokesperson.
Ramirez said the lease for the building on Third Street was terminated on April 27, 2002.
Both Retired County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox and retired District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown confirmed to Lake County News that the county helped the Kelseyville Seniors group purchase the building.
In the 2001-02 fiscal year budget, the county of Lake had reserved money to purchase and renovate the building. In May of 2002, the Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $200,000 — $165,000 to purchase the building and $35,000 for renovations — to the project.
Escrow closed on the building on July 23, 2002. A front-page story on July 27, 2002, in the Lake County Record-Bee explained how the building was purchased with the aid of the county of Lake.
Similarly, county records show the property’s ownership history. The grant deed for the sale listed the estate of Thomas Joseph Weiner as the seller and Kelseyville Seniors Inc. as the buyer.
However, there also was a second document recorded at that time, a short form deed of trust and security agreement for the county grant which had made the purchase by the seniors group possible in the first place.
At the time of the August board meeting, county officials appeared to be unaware of that document — or the previous part the county had to play in buying the building 20 years ago — in their responses to Lake County News. Cox said at that time he also had communicated with county officials after seeing the article Lake County News published about the board’s planned discussion on the building purchase.
Rob Brown told Lake County News that he approached Congressman Mike Thompson about funds to assist the center before the 2002 purchase.
At the Board of Supervisors’ meeting on April 13, 2004, Thompson gave the board an update on federal and local issues, and presented a check in the amount of $89,415 for the construction of a new kitchen at the Kelseyville Senior Center to Gene Kyle, according to board minutes.
Separately, a book printed by the Government Accounting Office on appropriations for the federal 2003 budget confirmed that funding, rounding it up to $90,000, and stating that it was to be used “for renovations of a facility into a senior center.”
Lake County News spoke with Marilyn Westfall, who was president of the senior center board at the time of the building’s purchase and initial renovation but is no longer involved.
“We need a place of our own,” she said, which was the impetus for pursuing the project.
Westfall was unable to recall specifics of when certain improvements were made.
However, she said she and her husband and other volunteers did a great deal of the initial renovation work, including removing the old floors due to the asbestos in them.
Her husband did the cabinetry and they painted the building. The renovations were completed within a couple of years, she said.
The 2007-08 Lake County Grand Jury Report completed an oversight report on the center “to determine if best practices in regards to bookkeeping and financial policies were being followed.”
At that time, the report said the center had a new kitchen but that it served no congregate — or in-house meals — and Meals on Wheels programs for this area were provided by the Lakeport Senior Center, which is still the case.
The report said the county of Lake contributed $2,000 that current fiscal year to the center’s operations, which were estimated to cost $10,000 annually.
The grand jury also found issues with the center’s financial procedures, and said there was no evidence at that point of a current Federal 990 filing or state filings.
“The center’s operations are more similar to a social club rather than a full-service senior center,” the report said.
Later center officials sought to remedy that. In August 2010, the center submitted to the IRS three years of Form 990-EZ filings — for 2004, 2005 and 2006.
Those reports were filed by Judy Cardinale, who was treasurer for 10 years, from about 2008 to 2018.
She said that before her tenure, the center had failed to submit the IRS filings and was in danger of losing its nonprofit status.
Cardinale told Lake County News that the major renovations to the center were done by the time she joined the center’s leadership, although she believed the kitchen renovations were done sometime around 2005.
“I had to reconstruct all the records,” she said.
The center’s federal tax filings that Cardinale helped put together give an idea of when the main spending occurred. For 2004, the filings indicated that approximately $77,002 was spent to “renovate and maintain” the building. In 2005, the center reported renovation and maintenance costs totaled $19,183, and in 2006 those costs were at $8,840.
More recently, Cardinale said the new laminate floors were installed and the interior painted before she left the center’s board.
The center today
Sides said they are used to running the center on a very small budget, but declined to give specifics due to pending negotiations.
The center has no paid staff. Sides said all work is done by volunteers and individuals who are part of the Ability Road skills training program. There also is a volunteer handyman.
They do not pay property taxes, and most of the supplies they use are donated by board members.
She said they do pay a bookkeeper for services, utilities and insurance.
The board has grown in recent months, with members now numbering five, she said.
Estimated costs to run the center for the 2021-22 fiscal year are just under $10,000, meaning that the center’s frugal management has kept its annual expenses close to what the grand jury estimated 15 years ago.
Sides said they have no intention of curtailing any of senior-centered activities if the center is sold.
The center lost about $2,000 since the beginning of the pandemic, Sides said. “Most of our income comes from rentals, so we were impacted, but I feel we sailed through the lean times due to our very low overhead and a small COVID grant.”
Over the summer the center had a couple of unexpected gifts from the Kelseyville business community and their rentals are starting to pick up, Sides said.
“I do want to go on record stating that our buildings are in good condition and KSI [Kelseyville Seniors Inc.] is fiscally sound,” she said.
The Kelseyville Senior Center still doesn’t use its kitchen to cook congregate meals for the seniors that use its services. Rather, it serves meals provided by the Lakeport Senior Center.
The Lake Family Resource Center, or LFRC, has overseen the Lakeport Senior Center since July 2020.
Lisa Morrow, executive director of both LFRC and the Lakeport Senior Center, said there is an informal agreement between the two centers.
Morrow explained that the Lakeport Senior Center holds the contract from the Area Agency on Aging to provide nutrition services to its entire service area, which includes Kelseyville, and under that contract has a meal count that it is contractually required to provide.
She said they bring hot food to the Kelseyville Senior Center so they can serve their clients there. Kelseyville does not have to pay for the service.
“We’re delivering meals to them, hot food to them, Monday through Thursday,” Morrow said.
During a late summer visit to the center, this reporter counted about a dozen people having lunch at a time, with people cycling in and out.
Sides estimated that they serve between 10 and 22 diners at their lunches five days a week.
Morrow said they used to also provide meals on Fridays, but they’ve had to cut back to four days a week due to staffing and volunteer shortages.
As a result, Kelseyville Senior Center has been seeking out food from local restaurants and caterers to fill that gap on Fridays. Over the summer, Sides said the Kelseyville Business Association had begun to step up to help find food donations for the Friday meals.
The issue has continued into the fall, with Sides noting the center held a meeting in October to discuss it. “We are going to continue to cobble together Friday lunches,” she said. “But we are working on something more stable and hope to have a solid plan by the first of the year. Looking for sponsors offering cash, prepared meals, groceries, or labor. We do have some solid commitments. Asking for quarterly donations, but one time donations will be graciously accepted.”
In addition to meals, Side said the center has a card day and an art afternoon, and they hope to be able to resume their Tai Chi program soon.
Minor upgrades have been made to the building, including new commercial grade laminate flooring that was installed within the last several years.
The kitchen is small but sinks and counters from the upgrade more than a decade ago appear in very good shape. Sides said they would expect to get new appliances if the county purchases the building.
Today, in addition to the original building, there is a small modular building that sits behind it along with a storage area that, altogether, is about 800 square feet.
Sides said the proposal she’s discussed with the county would include removing the modular and extending the original building back to the property boundary and over the area that now includes several parking spaces.
Based on those initial discussions with the county, Sides said the figure suggested for the building’s purchase was around $200,000, with the county anticipating that it would spend $500,000 to expand the building’s footprint.
She said she and the rest of her board are open to negotiating with the county regarding the sale of the center’s buildings.
Sides said she will be involved in negotiations and hopes to have two other board members present.
“Our final decision will be based on what we feel would best serve the senior population of Kelseyville, both now and into the future,” she said.
Asked in the weeks after the initial discussion about that total figure of $700,000 for purchase and renovation reported by Sides, Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein told Lake County News in an email, “It is quite premature to assume any terms are final. County staff have identified potentially-qualifying expenditures in support of Lake County’s other Senior Centers, and we look forward to partnering with those Centers’ operators to determine what County investments are most appropriate soon. Nothing is appropriate to announce at this time.”
However, by the time the county’s final budget hearings rolled around in late September, that $700,000 figure was listed in the capital expenditure projects.
County plan appears to be moving forward
Following the approval of the $353,392,512 county budget on Sept. 22, Rothstein confirmed to Lake County News that the $700,000 budget figure included for the senior center project “is inclusive of any negotiated purchase price and renovations.”
He added, “However, this is only a set-aside at this point; due diligence is still being conducted, and those findings will inform the course ultimately taken.”
As for whether library services might be offered there, no plans there have been introduced publicly.
County Librarian Christopher Veach told Lake County News, “I have been included in discussions with Supervisor Pyska and the County Administration office about the possibility of providing library services at the Kelseyville Senior Center but have nothing new to share at this time.”
As of this week, negotiations between the senior center board and the county still haven’t started. However, Sides said there are aspects of work that have been taking place since the board appointed the negotiating team.
That work includes an assessment of the building and an inspection conducted by county staff. The county then hired an out-of-county company to do another inspection at the end of August, Sides said.
Sides said the county has a contractor doing a bid on the necessary repairs and that the county was waiting on that bid, or estimate.
“I think the negotiations will start after this last report comes in,” Sides said. “Everyone has commented that the buildings has good bones.”
Last week, Lake County News asked Pyska about the status of the project, at which point she said in an email that the county was still conducting due diligence and “it will come back to the Board at a later time.”
Lake County News also asked if she was aware that the county of Lake in 2002 had provided the funds for the Kelseyville Seniors to purchase the building and renovate, and if there been any alternate consideration of simply asking the group to allow the county to use the building and cover utilities rather than be paid money for a building they didn't purchase on their own in the first place.
Pyska referred those questions to Parker, who she said had been conducting the due diligence.
“Yes, we are aware of the funding provided as it appears on the preliminary title search,” Parker said in an email. “We will be reviewing all options to provide to the BOS for consideration.”
Editor’s note: The story has been corrected to state that rather than all work being done at the Kelseyville Senior Center by “one volunteer,” it is done by volunteers, plural, along with assistance from the Ability Road skills training program.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.