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NAMED BEST CAMPUS NEWSPAPER IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2022 BY THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Volume 160 No. 35 WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
SERVING SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
Students protest new dog park By Carolyn Brown PRODUCTION EDITOR
CAROLYN BROWN | SPARTAN DAILY
Students Against Sweeps, a San Jose State student-run campaign, held a news conference Friday morning at Columbus Park to protest against the city’s plans to build a dog park at the corner of Asbury and Spring streets. The news conference took place in front of 62 cardboard tombstones representing the 62 unhoused people who have died in Santa Clara County this year. “As of today, 62 unhoused individuals have been recorded dead at the hands of the city, which is on target to surpass the number of deaths this time last year,” said Angela Ramirez, a sociology senior and Students Against Sweeps member. “The reason that I say that it was at the hands of the city is because people pass away because of an inability to get proper shelter and or medical care.” Part of the issue is the city removing unhoused people from encampments. “The unhoused people that live in this community here, right where we stand, are being forced out to build a dog park,” Ramirez said. “A dog park. Seriously?” San Jose approved the building of a 5.5 acre dog park in February 2022 as part of a plan to remove unhoused residents from the flightpath of San Jose International Airport, according to a Feb. 8, 2022 San Jose Spotlight article.
Cardboard tombstones placed by a San Jose State student organization sit on the corner of Asbury and Spring streets respresenting the 62 unhoused people who have died on the streets of Santa Clara County.
HOUSELESSNESS | Page 2
SJSU students call for police accountability By Mat Bejarano STAFF WRITER
Students for Police Accountability met in front of San Jose City Hall on Thursday afternoon to call for more transparency about the Independent Police Auditor. The group was protesting the city’s Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support Committee’s decision to defer hearing the “Investigation of Police Misconduct in San Jose” report until June. The discussion aimed to delve deeper into the investigative branch of the Independent Police Auditor, according to a December 13, 2022 San Jose Spotlight article. Cole Mitchell, sociology and information science sophomore and member of Students for Police Accountability, said he wanted to discuss the committee implementing a strategy into having oversight of the police department. “They moved that particular conversation piece off this week’s agenda and moved it to June 15th,” Mitchell said. “So we are especially here today to say that they can’t just keep detouring, [and] that it needs to be addressed now.” San Jose City Council unanimously approved adding an investigative branch to the Independent Police Auditor to investigate police misconduct complaints last year, according to the same San Jose Spotlight article. Mitchell said he demands vice mayor Rosemary Kamei, who sits
on the Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support Committee, to do something with her power. “The community is wondering why you’re not taking proactive steps to preventing police misconduct,” Mitchell said. He said San Jose deserves a police department that is not going to hide its crimes. “We’re proactive, we’re taking steps and if they won’t do anything, we will,” Mitchell said. “We’re not going to stop calling for reform and organizing until they do something about this.” Sociology senior Kat Adamson, who serves as a member of Students Against Mass Incarceration, said there’s a stronger need for a better independent police auditing process. “The things that the police do sometimes are absolutely absurd and there needs to be someone who is having that oversight,” Adamson said. “And it’s really important to have it be independent and not an internal investigation.” She said it’s important to have transparency and the ability to speak to the Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support committee. “When they aren’t willing to talk about the meeting or about the agenda item it really delays the public’s knowledge of what’s going on and it makes it this really complicated process where no one knows what’s happening,” Adamson said. Sociology junior Joseph Namba, a ACTIVISM| Page 2
ALINA TA | SPARTAN DAILY
President Cynthia Teniente-Matson addresses her plan for the university future on Monday.
President discusses Transformation 2030 By Alina Ta STAFF WRITER
San Jose State President Cynthia TenienteMatson talked to members of the SJSU community about what plans they wanted to see in a new draft for Transformation 2030 during a campus summit on Monday afternoon. Transformation 2030 is a framework the university developed to create a roadmap to map its future ambitions, according to the strategic plan. “The goal is to assess and recalibrate the strategic plan Transformation 2030 in the local, regional and statewide contexts of 2023,” said Alison McKee, chair of the Academic Senate at SJSU. Teniente-Matson said she is focused on recalibrating and aligning the new draft of Transformation 2030. “I want us to have a fresh look at that as we go forward in my first 100 days here on campus,” she said. SJSU Provost and senior vice president
Vincent Del Casino said he and the university’s staff want to make sure the university is still pushing itself to get to the right place. “We had not stopped and reflected on where we were in relation to our overall goals and the outcomes underneath them to make sure that we’re still heading in the direction we want to head,” he said. Del Casino said the campus was most likely very different in comparison to what the university is like now. Teniente-Matson said she wants to invite everyone into the conversation of what the recalibration will look like. “I think it’s really important that we have [a] common vocabulary, common understand[ing] of our language, our common language,” she said. Del Casino said university staff are going to collect feedback that was given at the summit, use different tools to look for themes and to do analysis. Teniente-Matson said to collect feedback SUMMIT | Page 2