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Contact Gurumantra Khalsa
Listener Candidate for the KPFK Local Station Board
Statement
The “Guru’s Mantra” is the sound of creation. It is the breath behind our thoughts as we speak them into existence. This has never been more perfectly manifested than by Pacifica and KPFK,

My virtual question is “what could be?” With KPFK and our immediate challenges, my question is, what would it look like if KPFK, formed a Community Development Organization? If ownership is at least 51% community owned, it qualifies for certain funding sources.

What would it be like if KPFK had a physical location to house operations? What if that facility functioned as a shared community space leveraging existing community relationships running through KPFK and Pacifica? What if that facility also provided for the expansion of local programming? What if our media and archive training programs were the source of untapped revenue streams? What if we built a messaging platform that amplified local stories as part of a global Pacifica network?

We won’t know the answers to any of those questions until we start asking them. We won’t ever answer them until we address our immediate circumstances. We need a backup plan. I bring my word and experience to propose we explore other options that may solve our ongoing solvency issues while we focus on rebuilding our listener base.

There are social impact investors looking to invest in all sorts of public benefit projects. What if those investors shared KPFK’s interest in literacy, media, and community driven projects, and they funded a building purchase including maintenance, operations and costs? What if all shared utilities, including our transmitter costs were included?

Our increasingly precarious financial circumstances are more than our staff and volunteers can hope to overcome. Yet they continue giving their gifts of head, heart, and hands by refusing to let our collective breath stop.

If KPFK was part of such a Community Development Collaborative, how much could we redirect back into staff and programming? I am running for the listener board to find answers to these questions. Together we will find opportunities hiding in plain sight. In service to this endeavor, I bring my experience from the various roles I have had including:

• Founder World Be Well Organization, a nonprofit focused on land conservation, cooperative workforce, regenerative community economic development. Start up funding provided by Community Action Partnership of Riverside County
• Publisher, Nutrition News. Award winning, advertising free consumer publication. I had to marry the writer to get my subscription. That brought me from Chicago into KPFK’s broadcast area.
• Founding member, Eastside HealZone Collaborative
• Founding member Grow Riverside Initiative
• Inaugural Advisory Board Chair, Riverside Food Systems Alliance
• Riverside Agricultural Water Rate Task Force member
• President, Friends of Riverside’s Hills. Successful in over twenty lawsuits preserving voter approved greenbelt ordinances.
• Co-Chair, University Neighborhood Assn.
• Two-time Board Chair, Riverside Neighborhood Partnership
• Co-Chair, Riverside County Nutrition Action Plan. Healthy Eating Committee
• City of Riverside Community representative to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Cities Initiative
• General Contractor

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