Letter to the editor: I support Cabrillo name change — Sentinel has it all wrong

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

To the editor:

Dear Matthew Wetstein, president of Cabrillo College —

As a part-time Cabrillo College student, a retired licensed board-certified California medical doctor and a Santa Cruz County taxpayer, I strongly support the college’s decision to remove “Cabrillo” from the name.

Similarly, I also strongly support the U.S. Department of Defense’s moves to remove and replace the names of U.S. military bases named after Confederates who fought against the nation.

Issues of history and identity matter.

I’m writing to you now in part because (although I’m not a Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper subscriber), I’ve seen (and strongly disagree with) a few of Stephen Kessler’s Sentinel editorials lambasting the idea of any name change and Mr. Kessler’s assertion that it should “be clear by now from popular pushback — letters to the Sentinel are running overwhelmingly against — this has been a serious mistake.”

To say that Mr. Kessler’s personal opinion, or a few letters to any newspaper or website, should drive any policy whatsoever defies common sense.

It should be obvious to anyone that subscribers to the Sentinel represent a very small minority of Santa Cruz County residents. And it’s clear that the Sentinel has not done a survey of a representative sample of its subscribers.

For the past 10 years, I’ve walked my dogs in my Live Oak neighborhood every morning around the time of newspaper deliveries.

On our normal route, I pass a total of 65 single-family homes, three very large apartment complexes and two small apartment complexes, for a total of around 120 housing units.

One home gets the Wall Street Journal, one gets the San Francisco Chronicle, and only three get the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Even if every one of the three Sentinel subscribers each wrote a letter to the editor, they’d still be a tiny minority — only 2% — of my local community.

Please be so kind to share my comments with your trustees and/or whoever is active and responsible in the name-change process.

Thank you,

Marc N. Manger, M.D.
Live Oak