The Seaside City Council still hasn''t drafted a formal response to the Grand Jury report blasting the city for incompetent management. But it''s not that they haven''t tried.After Mayor Don Jordan delivered his personal response, the city got a letter on Feb. 11 from the grand jury recommending the council come up with a joint report. A mere five weeks later, on March 19, Jordan sent memos requesting responses from council members for a meeting in late March.

Last Thursday or Friday, the meeting was set for April 1. But, oops!, on Tuesday, March 31, it was discovered key individuals couldn''t be present. So the meeting was postponed to a date still to be announced.

Who says there''s a management problem in Seaside?

Dump ''em

Carmel''s Pacific Repertory Theater has closed its Seaside costume shop. When they opened Broadway Costumes, the group hoped to rent costumes from the site to defray the cost of renting the building for storage of their decade-old inventory. But the Broadway location was never regularly staffed, and costumers got few customers. Now there''s a new plan.

There still isn''t enough room in Pac Rep''s Circle Theater, downstairs at The Golden Bough to store them. SO, the bean counters have decided it''s cheaper to discard the old costumes and buy or build new ones rather than storing the used duds.

Where will the money be used? Rumors hint Pac Rep will be adding a staff member. (To build more costumes that they don''t have any room to store??)

Pianists'' Envy

Of the $100,000 The Carmel Music Society spent on a new Hamburg Steinway, probably $5,000 went to an overseas consultant paid to select the piano. Which sounds like a pittance compared to the estimated $40,000 the group could have saved by purchasing a New York-built Steinway.

One hopes this doesn''t set off a piano war like the purchase of Carmel Mission''s organ did about 15 years ago. After gawking gape-mouthed at the massive size of the Mission''s organ, several local churches felt compelled to buy big instruments to keep up with the Catholics--even if it meant shelling out for an organ oversized for their church.

But that''s natural--no one likes to think his neighbor has a bigger organ.

--Squid

Feed me! Squid is always hungry for inside news, gossip and weird tales. E-mail me at squid@coastweekly.com.

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