Spartan Daily Vol. 160 No. 40

Jeremy weighs in on his dream game purchases

Page 5

Spartans prepare for a five-game series against SDSU

Page 6

SJSU prepares for largest construction project to date

The Alquist Redevelopment project aims to create affordable workforce housing around two blocks from campus

By Matthew Gonzalez STAFF WRITER

San Jose State is expanding its presence in the downtown area with a new workforce housing project dedicated to faculty, staff and graduate students. The project is predicted to be complete by 2027.

The construction site is the Alfred E. Alquist State Office Building located at 100 Paseo de San Antonio, across from the Hammer Theatre Center and a two-minute walk from SJSU.

The Alquist site is 130,000 square feet and currently a minimallyused office building, according to a Facilities Development and Operations pamphlet.

The project is projected to be 300 feet tall and with 24 floors, according to the same pamphlet.

Charlie Faas, SJSU Chief Financial Officer and leader of the project, said rent prices for the SJSU community will be below market rate, which is a standardized rental rate as determined by property size, type of facility and location.

Faas said roughly half of the

housing units will be available to anyone and the other half will be dedicated to SJSU faculty and staff.

“It’s not so much today’s people, right, because today’s people kind of figured it out . . . people who have been here 10-15 years have figured out how to live in San Jose,” he said. “Anybody new that we’re recruiting are looking at us going, ‘OK, where’s my rent check?’ ”

Faas said when construction is finished, the project will aim to have 1,000 minimum units with roughly half of those units dedicated to the

SJSU community. He said his main inspiration for redeveloping the Alquist building was based on its underutilized nature. A year after first being denied control of the building by the California Department of Government Services, Faas was able to attain control of the building. He said the initiative to transform the space into affordable housing for the SJSU community has been maintained since its inception.

ALQUIST | Page 2

GRAPHICS COURTESY OF SAN JOSE STATE FACILITIES DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS

Top: Model of how tall the renovated version of the building that is scheduled to be built where the Alfred E. Alquist State Office Building is located.

Bottom: The Alquist Development plan is on Paseo de San Antonio and roughly two blocks from campus directly across the street from Ham mer Theater Center.

ALQUIST

Continued from page 1

The average rent price is $2,420, the fifth highest in the country, according to an article by fortunebuilders. com.

Robert Wood, professor of strategic management and chairman of the SJSU chapter of the California Faculty Association, said the committee he’s a part of felt inclined to get involved in the Alquist project because of the city’s slow housing development.

“Because of the radical underperformance of construction and permitting in San Jose generally, many faculty, like many students, have to cope with very high rents and house prices,” Wood said. “It’s simply because the city has not permitted the level of housing construction that other comparable cities permit.”

Faas said the expensive nature of San Jose’s housing market, paired with the average starting salary for faculty, forced them to move places far away from campus.

“Most of them [faculty] are choosing to live in Tracy or living down south of Gilroy and they’re making these long-ass commutes, hour and a half, two hour commutes to get here, it’s ridiculous,” Faas said. “And when they do those long commutes, what’s the quality of life they have?”

The cost of living in San Jose has made retention and acquiring new faculty more challenging for the university, according to an SJSU Alquist Redevelopment project webpage.

“And so that’s why [Alquist] is going to address that,” Faas said. “So people, at least on today’s faculty and staff, are looking to their future because, you know, they’re saying, ‘My replacement needs a place to live.’ So we want to keep that quality of education for our students.”

Kelly Snider, SJSU urban and regional planning director, shared a similar sentiment regarding the work commutes current staff and faculty face

“Let’s say you’re a parent or community member, [and] you live an hour away, it takes you two hours to get home on a Tuesday afternoon,” Snider said. “By the time you get home, you don’t have time to go to the local Chamber of Commerce meeting or attend the city council meeting in your hometown because you just spent two hours [commuting], so it reduces the ability to be members of their own community when they live so far away, so everybody suffers.”

She said some of the negative consequences of long commute times include childcare arrangement, distracted driving and elevated cortisol levels.

Cortisol is the human body’s main stress hormone, and an excess of this internal secretion can lead to a multitude of physical health problems, including headaches and heart disease, according to a Dec. 13, 2022 WebMD webpage.

Snider said raising a family in downtown San Jose provides opportunities to gain support from the surrounding community.

“Is living in a downtown neighborhood, you know, on second street in downtown San Jose a good place to raise a family? Unequivocally, yes,” Snider said. “We know that families get more support when they can walk to the local school and walk to the health centers and walk to the grocery stores.”

San Jose ranks as the second best place to raise a family, according to a May 19, 2022 U.S. News article.

She also said, while the building may not be suitable for a family, the location of the apartment would not be a problem for the family.

Wood said San Jose’s struggles with housing development started about 15 years ago.

In 2008, San Jose saw its largest annual drop in home prices in about 20 years, according to a Jan. 21, 2009 Mercury News article.

Wood said the then mayor Chuck Reed tried to mitigate the losses faced by the city by reducing the number of housing spaces.

He said he believes the Alquist project could be the catalyst for a broader housing proposal.

“[Alquist] needs to be the start of a project, it needs to be the start of a project for a program of the

university’s,” Wood said. “And the city needs to step up and realize that it’s not okay for them to build [and] permit so much less [housing] than other cities of comparable size.”

Snider said a large benefit of the Alquist project is the vibrancy it will bring to the downtown area.

“So [in] urban planning, vibrancy is usually measured in number of people doing something,” Snider said. “So if you have a park in the middle of town like Cesar Chavez Plaza, and then if the park is empty, then you would say it’s not vibrant.”

She said any sort of interaction between those living in the Paseo de San Antonio area and the businesses within that community would be in line with SJSU’s broader vision to intersect these neighboring communities.

Faas said generating more activity around the Alquist building area was taken into consideration when planning the project.

“You want to have the first floor or two activated in the building,” Faas said. “And what I mean by that is retail activation so whether that’s stores that are selling coffee or donuts, poke or wherever you might want to have or it’s exhibition space.”

One of the drawbacks the Alquist project may have on the nearby businesses is the intensive construction of the building itself.

“There are some businesses that are going to have an awfully big construction project in their backyard for several years,” Snider said. “There’s the movie theater,

and there’s little businesses behind the movie theater.”

Faas said, while noise and dust are a potential inconvenience, the construction of the new building is in line with what the future of downtown San Jose will look like in terms of edifices.

He said previous projects similar to Alquist have been able to come to fruition, making him confident that there will be no problem with the California Environmental Quality Act.

The act aims to inform governmental figures on the possible negative environmental effects of proposed activities to prevent notable damage, according to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research website.

“This is the largest project that San Jose State will probably ever do,” Faas said. “That’s the magnitude of it, and it’s probably one of the most important projects that we’ll ever do.”

Top: In downtown San Jose, the site of the Alquist Redevelopment project is roughly 130,000 square feet and is planned to have around 24 stories or more.

Middle: The building is a seven-minute walk from the Smith-Carlos Lawn.

Bottom: Alfred E. Alquist State Office Building at 100 Paseo De San Antonio.

PHOTO BY ENRIQUE GUTIERREZ-SEVILLA | SPARTAN DAILY

GRAPHIC COURTESY OF SAN JOSE STATE FACILITIES DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS

GRAPHIC COURTESY OF SAN JOSE STATE FACILITIES DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS

Experts advocate for Indigenous women

By Brandon Nicolas STAFF WRITER

San Jose State students, faculty, staff and guests raised awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the Spartan Memorial Chapel on Thursday.

The event, hosted by the Red Earth Women’s Society Group and SJSU’s Native American Student Organization, featured several panelists who shared their stories and experiences with losing loved ones.

Iesha Bayona, the executive assistant to the CEO & board of directors at Indian Health Center, opened the event with the performance of a traditional honoring song.

“During the song, I want you to think about somebody that you have lost, particularly to violence,” said Elisa Marina Alvarado, the artistic director at Teatro Visión and mediator of the event. “Somebody that has gone missing and you don’t know what has happened to them.”

Performing the “Strong Women’s Song,” Bayona said the song was credited to Anishinabe kwewag and Zhoganosh kwewag, two incarcerated women who, in the 1970s, were in solitary confinement in the Prison For Women in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

“This song has been carried on all over to remind folks of the resilience of our people,” she said.

Afterward, Alvarado invited individuals from the crowd to shout the names of relatives and friends who have gone missing, murdered or lost.

“This is something that we have to do in communities –too big, too heavy – for families alone or people alone to do the searching, to do the pushing of the police,” Alvarado said. “To try to get laws to change so that there is funding to do the special investigation . . . there is so much work to be done.”

Louise J. Miranda Ramirez, tribal chairwoman for the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation, began the panel discussion by introducing herself as the Mother of Green Star, a young girl killed at 14-years-old.

“Understand that the violence our women and children face –we are survivors of domestic violence,” Ramirez said. “It is time we teach our young men not to be violent with women –women are sacred.”

She said she was proud to see young student guests who attended the event because that means her culture, and the cultures of other Indigenous tribes, will carry on toward the right direction.

“I can only talk about the world as a minority,” Ramirez said. “We must fight – to protect ourselves, to protect our people and to protect our ancestors.”

She said she remembers seeing her father beat her mother at a young age, and calls for future generations to be different.

Apache tribal member Kelly Gamboa is the founder of the Red Earth Women’s Society Group.

“Marlene Bueno, that’s my niece,” Gamboa said. “She went missing for two weeks and then they found her body – beaten, mutilated and caught on fire –she was 17-years-old.”

She said her niece was a beautiful girl and thought Bueno was kept safe.

“That’s what started me on this journey of being a part of the Red Earth Women’s Society,” Gamboa said. “I want to stress that we have to quit desensitizing our children.”

After two weeks of searching for Bueno, she said her mother had a heart attack because they could not find her.

“Over the generations, we’ve been treated so badly and so poorly – we were considered subhuman for crying out loud,” Gamboa said. “And so it’s easy to dismiss us and it’s easy for

a woman to go missing and nobody is saying anything.”

She said one step toward advocating for the safety of Indigenous women, elders and youth is to change the way we think, talk and act in different communities.

“I’m not saying it’s right or wrong when it comes to nonIndigenous people,” Gamboa said. “But look at Laci Peterson – they made a movie about it –nobody knew my niece’s name, who she was or what family she represented.”

Makah tribal member Sonya Tetnowski is the chief executive officer of the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley and a member of the Not Invisible Act Commission.

The Not Invisible Act Commission is a cross jurisdictional advisory committee composed of law enforcement, federal partners, tribal leaders and family members of missing and murdered individuals and survivors, according to its page on the U.S. Department of the Interior website.

As part of the commision, Tetnowski helped create six committees to combat violent acts against Indigenous people, as well as provide services to get them back on their feet.

She said some of the committees include law enforcement and investigation that identify and respond to missing, murdered and trafficked Indigenous people, and which reports and collects

accurate trafficking data.

“Young girls and teens are praying as adults to avoid talking about pedophilia, child rape and the kidnapping and trafficking of our people,” Tetnowski said.

Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Sharon Rose Torres is the Native American team lead for the Native American in the Family Outreach and Engagement Program at the Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Service Department.

By 12-years-old, Torres said she had already been in seven different foster homes after being separated from her mother and sister at a young age.

“They were all non-Indian foster homes,” she said. “That means my role was to clean the house and I was a body to the men in the house – I was a maid and I was used a lot.”

Since returning to San Jose, she said she has been sharing her story over the past decade to raise awareness for the young girls in her situation.

“Those things should not happen to children and our children should not be targeted,” Torres said. “Especially those children in foster care that have nobody.”

Navajo Nation Tribal Member and public health junior Mahon Walsh is the president of the Native American student organization at SJSU.

Walsh said former SJSU president Mary Papazian held an address at the Martin Luther

King, Jr. Library, which included the proposal of a student success center for the Native American student organization.

“We knew, as a student group, our biggest priority is to have a space to come together and have programs and events like this,” he said. “To have some place where students feel visible and seen – not only for students here today, but students in the future.”

After years of the organization fighting for a student center, Walsh said he received a letter from President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, which featured a two phase program: an interim space for the student organization and the promise of a student center.

“Of course, long term, is phase two, which could take five to seven years,” he said.

BRANDON NICOLAS | SPARTAN DAILY

Panelists Elisa Alvarado, Iesha Bayona, Sonya Tetnowski and Louise Miranda speak at the new space for the Native American and Indigneous Student Success Center on Wednesday.

BRANDON NICOLAS | SPARTAN DAILY

Political science senior Luis Aquino, adjusts red dresses displayed to pay respect to victims of radicalized and gendered violence in the Native American and Indigneous Student Success Center on Wednesday.

Campus Voices: Star Wars Day

By Enrique Gutierrez-Sevilla STAFF WRITER

May 4 is a day “Star Wars” fans celebrate the franchise by saying “May the 4th Be With You,” culturally known as “Star Wars” Day, according to the “Star Wars” website.

“Star Wars” has always been relevant in my life since I was a kid.

My cousins introduced me to “Star Wars,” and when they came to visit, we would watch “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” series on Cartoon Network all the time.

I remember dressing up as a 501st Legion Clone Trooper in 4th grade for Halloween and I looked badass.

The 501st Legion is a clone army in the Clone

Wars of the Galactic Republic under leadership of Jedi General Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Commander Ahsoka Tano, and Clone Commander CT-7567, or Captain Rex, according to the “Star Wars” fandom site.

I was a big gamer growing up, and I would play many “Star Wars” games on my old Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Wii, including Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star Wars: Starfighter, Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, LEGO Star Wars, The Force Unleashed and the list goes on.

My favorite character in the “Star Wars” universe is Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I named my beagle Obi, short for Obi-Wan Kenobi, because the character is one of the main protagonists in the story and introduces Luke Skywalker to the ways of the Jedi.

“Star Wars’ has always been a pretty adamant important part of my life. I watched it a lot during my childhood which got me into space. R2-D2 was a cool guy, I looked up to him and his little noises, I wanted to be R2-D2. It expanded my imagination, I enjoyed collecting lightsabers so it’s a really nostalgic part of my life when I think about ‘Star Wars.’”

The Jedi Code is to not act for personal gain or wealth, but instead to seek knowledge and enlightenment. A Jedi doesn’t act out of anger, fear or aggression, but remains calm and at peace with the Force, according to the “Star Wars” fandom site.

“Star Wars” has always been something that’s brought my family together, whether it’s on the couch or at a theater.

I reminisce over “Star Wars” because it reminds me of childhood memories when I’d be on the edge of my seat enjoying the galaxy.

Below students at San Jose State discuss their views on May the 4th.

“For me the newer ‘Star Wars’ movie was a cash grab, I personally believe the newer movies suck compared to the old ones. Once they added themes of modern inclusiveness, I feel like they derived from the story and the overall quality of the films went down. The older ‘Star Wars’ films aren’t that great either but they’re just very nostalgic to me.”

German Dominguez sociology senior

“Star Wars’ means a lot to me. My dad used to always play ‘The Phantom Menace’ a lot and growing up I used to watch the VHS’ at my cousins house which made me grow up a Sci-Fi guy. It was another form of escapism.It just became such a fascinating universe.”

“I started watching ‘Star Wars’ because I have an older brother and my dad’s really into it. Being into Disney a lot, I like the area at Disneyland so that got me more into it but I’m not really into the shows because it’s a lot more time and dedication to the story.”

“It’s very important because in ‘Star Wars’ they use the Force to defeat the dark side and that’s how I overcome obstacles in life. Sometimes I have a bad day, I see it as a dark side and I use the Force to kick that bad day’s ass and turn it into a good day.”

Harrison

Haylock

GRAPHIC BY JILLIAN DARNELL

Alan Pompa Aguayo psychology junior

Alexander Shimon marketing senior

Alexis Victoria Villena industrial design junior

Follow Enrique on Twitter @mtvenrique

GRAPHIC BY VANESSA TRAN AND SAM DIETZ

Five great games you can’t buy

By Jeremy Martin SENIOR STAFF WRITER

While I have a pretty solid video game collection, I don’t have everything.

At almost every retro video game store I go to, I’m reminded of at least one game I want, but can’t buy because of how outrageously expensive games have become.

This is annoying, as I know where to get the game I want, but because I can’t just shell out the money to buy it, that video game remains just out of my reach.

The video game that continues to taunt me forever, as I’d likely never be able to pull the trigger on it. Here are the top five games I want that are just too expensive.

I will only be covering prices for the North American copies of each game, because that is what I would most likely find here at a retro video game store.

Shin Souseiki

Ragnacenty, otherwise known as Crusader of Centy in the United States, is a role-playing game (RPG) for the Sega Genesis that closely resembles the Legend of Zelda series, according to a May 11, 2020 YouTube video by Gaming Historian.

Crusader of Centy was the first game released during Sega’s Mega Role-playing Project, according to the video.

The game was one

of seven games to be released within the span of 10 months in 1994, according to the same video.

Sega put forth the effort after Nintendo’s role-playing video game library helped the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) outsell the Sega Genesis in Japan, a genre that was very popular overseas, according to Gaming Historian.

The game was later localized for the North American market.

To see current prices for many of these games, we must first make our way to PriceCharting.

PriceCharting is a website collectors in the gaming community commonly use to check the value of their games.

It even breaks down this info to show individual eBay listings that have sold of a particular game and the listings are separated according to several varying degrees of condition.

Crusader of Centy recently sold at $699.99 for a mint condition loose cartridge and $1,380.00 for a complete copy, according to PriceCharting.

This is one video game that has been taunting me for a while. I’ve seen it for sale at both Cartridge Cartel in Fremont and The Retro Fix in Campbell, two retro video game shops in the local area.

I explicitly remember The Retro Fix priced the game at $3,000, but that was a little while ago.

EarthBound is an RPG for the SNES.

EarthBound is the North American localization of the game Mother 2, the second game in the Mother series, a video game series that was only fully released in Japan, according to an April 25, 2018 YouTube video by Cinemassacre.

EarthBound has a cult following and follows Ness, a beloved Nintendo character who found his way into newer Nintendo video games such as the Super Smash Bros. series, according to the video.

If you’re in the market for a solid RPG and want to give EarthBound a try, good luck finding an original cartridge.

The game most recently sold on eBay for as much as $351.55 for a mint condition loose copy, and for as much as $2,995.00 complete in box, according to PriceCharting.

Luckily, there are easier ways to get this game nowadays and they don’t require you to pay so much money.

The game is also available to play through the Nintendo Switch Online service and is built into the newer and much cheaper Super Nintendo Classic Edition console, which is how I personally play the game.

Even so, the game collector in me would still love to one day obtain an original cartridge.

As a huge fan of both classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons and Nintendo, I would love to one day own The Flintstones: Surprise at Dinosaur Peak.

The Flintstones: Surprise at Dinosaur Peak is a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System with a pretty mysterious backstory.

The game was never sold in retail stores, being exclusive to Blockbuster, and was only available to rent, which in turn made it more rare, according to IMDB.

This game was most recently sold on eBay listings for as much as $1,899.99 for a mint condition loose cartridge, and $2,675.00 for a complete copy in the original box, according to PriceCharting.

Retro Rewind, a retro video game store in Milpitas, actually has a copy of this game.

I visited the shop this past Tuesday and I couldn’t help but look at the game in the glass case.

I was mesmerized at the fact that I was even seeing a copy of the game in person.

Throughout the years, I’ve come to really appreciate certain games for not only how good they are, but also the impact they’ve had on the

video game industry as a whole.

Because of this, I’d really like to have a copy of certain video games such as the black label Halo: Combat Evolved for the original Xbox and a black label copy of Ratchet & Clank on the PlayStation 2 in sealed condition.

Both these games were released in several different print runs.

The black label edition of both of these games reference their earliest printings and will feature the names of their respective consoles in a black banner at the top of the game case.

At first glance, you might think this would be easy – these games are pretty common and aren’t hard to find complete in their original box.

However, a factory sealed copy is much harder to find, and when you do find one, it costs a pretty penny.

Black label copies of Halo: Combat Evolved in brand new sealed condition have most recently sold on one eBay listing for $139.50, and a copy of Ratchet & Clank in new sealed conditioned sold most recently on another eBay listing for $549.99, according to PriceCharting.

I am a huge Pokémon fan who constantly makes an effort to obtain nearly every game that exists in the series.

However, the price of this video game perplexes

me as it’s technically not even a game at all.

Pokémon Box is a utility expansion pack, meaning that the game is meant to be used in conjunction with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, according to a Feb. 11, 2022 article by GameRant.

The expansion pack also has the ability to work with some other Pokémon games. These include Pokémon Emerald, LeafGrean and FireRed, adding storage for up to 1,500 extra Pokémon in any game the expansion software will work with, according to the article.

The game most recently sold on an eBay listing for $1,625.00 for a mint condition copy of the disc itself, with a memory card and the required link cable, according to PriceCharting.

On the other hand, according to PriceCharting, a complete in-box copy of the game has sold most recently on an eBay listing for the best offer given to the seller. However, one can only assume that it was somewhere close to $1,850.00, as this was what the seller was initially asking for the complete game.

This game constantly reminds me that no matter how hard I try, I will never catch them all.

BASEBALL

SJSU gears up for five-game series

Spartans will face San Diego State on unfamiliar territory

By Mat Bejarano STAFF WRITER

The San Jose State (20-20) baseball team looks to snap its three gamelosing streak as they take on San Diego State (18-22) this weekend.

The five-game series will include two doubleheaders, with Friday’s matchup being a makeup from March 10, in which the Spartans were up 2-0 in the third inning.

The Saturday doubleheader will make up the March 11 game, which was postponed due to poor field conditions.

SJSU is looking to get back into the win column after being swept in a three-game series by defending Mountain West tournament champions Air Force this past weekend.

In the final game of the Air Force series, the Spartans lost 24-12 and were outscored 42-19 in the three games

“I thought we did a good job of coming out and scoring first and then they put an eight spot in the first [inning],” Manager Brad Sanfilippo said in a SJSU Athletics Twitter video after the loss to Air Force.

He said he was happy the Spartans answered back, eventually taking a 11-9 lead in the fifth inning, but the pitching was not enough.

“I think that our guys learned some tough lessons in all phases of the game and take these lessons

home and [we’re] excited to get home,” Sanfilippo said in the same video.

In the only completed matchup between SJSU and SDSU, the Spartans won 7-4 on March 10.

Junior third baseman Dalton Bowling, RBI leader for the Spartans, hit 1-for-3 with 2 RBIs in his previous outing against the Aztecs.

Bowling is currently batting .296 and leads the team with 8 home runs.

SJSU won the previous seven contests against San Diego State, outscoring the Aztecs 49-32.

Junior right fielder Charles McAdoo looks to extend his sixgame hitting streak during the fivegame series this weekend.

The two time Mountain West Baseball Player of the Week comes into the series batting .345 while leading the team in runs and hits.

The Aztecs will enter the weekend

UPCOMING GAME

after sweeping the University of Nevada, Reno in a three-game series.

The Spartans, who are currently second in the Mountain West standings, will have a chance to move up in the rankings with a series win.

Despite being the home team, SJSU will be playing in unfamiliar territory.

The Spartans share their stadium with the San Jose Giants, a Minor League Baseball team, who have a series of its own this weekend at Excite Ballpark.

The Friday and Sunday match up will take place at Stu Gordon Stadium

in Berkley, while Stanford’s Sunken Diamond will host the doubleheader on Saturday.

The first game of a doubleheader against the Aztecs will take place Friday at Stu Gordon Stadium in Berkeley at 4:05 p.m.

On Saturday, SJSU will take on SDSU at 1:05 p.m. in Stanford. The Spartans will wrap up the series at 12:35 p.m. on Sunday back in Berkeley.

Follow the Spartan Daily on Twitter @SpartanDaily

Junior third baseman Charles McAdoo swings at a pitch against Saint Mary’s College in an 8-3 loss on March 15 at Excite Ballpark.

ENRIQUE GUTIERREZ-SEVILLA | SPARTAN DAILY ARCHIVES