WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS on kitkat 4.4

I recently updated my android to a Kitkat rom, and to my dismay, my car dock app, Car Dock Home v3 no longer turned on my GPS. It only brought up the location settings page, and also didn't turn it off when undocking.  Apparently this is by design (see below). Now that author has a separate app that manages car dock settings, but I think he baked most features from that into the dock app.  ,From the settings app page:

Check GPS Enabled – If the GPS is not enabled upon docking, try to enable it in the secure settings, if that doesn’t work, show the user the Location & Security settings screen.

 I thought at first secure settings meant the Xposed module, but no it means the way android firmware apps (i.e. system apps) do it which is to use the permission WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS and do something in the API (I didn't look in to how).  The point is that non-system apps can't acquire this permission.  So the app should have worked fine if I made it a system app.  I never even noticed this becuase

There is also a known exploit to enable GPS using the back end of the power controls widget. I’ve taken advantage of that in the latest releases of this app. It will eventually fail when Google patches it up. The above ‘system app’ technique should still work in that event.

So I guess this was patched, but alas, moving it to the /system/app didn't help.  The solution was to put it in the new poorly documented /system/priv_app folder. Apparently, apps that previously needed to be converted to system apps to get some permission, now need to be in that folder. 

Hopefully this helps someone else get a previously working app functioning.