Ex-chief’s mark on Getty, Cal State

Re “Investigators Secretly Mined Munitz’s Records,” Sept. 2

The probe of Barry Munitz, the former chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust, reveals his destruction of at least the Getty museum’s reputation if not its finances. He is the same man who, as chancellor of the California State University system in the 1990s, instituted policies the destructive effects of which continue to this day. Many of the university’s current problems are the result of his direction, including funding anomalies, the huge increase in administrative rather than teaching positions and now the intransigence of the Cal State administration in negotiating a decent contract with the faculty.

The Getty will recover; I’m not sure that the Cal State system will.

MARGO KASDAN

Seal Beach

Kasdan is a professor emeritus at San Francisco State University.

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So the Getty Trust paid $4 million in legal fees to recover $2.25 million from Munitz. The late J. Paul Getty would not be pleased; that’s a very poor return on investment. I’ll keep these big numbers in mind the next time I spend $6 for a tuna sandwich at the museum’s cafeteria.

RUSS CLAMPITT

Long Beach