Jolley Trolley Scales Back Circulator Service to Compete on Clearwater Beach

Jolley Trolley president Bob Longenecker, a one-time critic of low-speed vehicle use on Clearwater Beach, recently launched a service using slow-moving electric vehicles, scaling back an earlier plan to issue circulators to the north county coastal route.

Bob Longenecker once lobbied against low-speed vehicle use on Clearwater Beach for not being safe. And with new laws in place, Longenecker, president of the Jolley Trolley, recently launched a new service using slow-moving electric vehicles. In May, he touted a plan bringing a circulator service to areas served by the trolley, including its coastal route through Dunedin, Palm Harbor and Tarpon Springs. He planned to use ADA compliant vehicles that cost about $18,000, and wanted a full roll out of the program using 14 of them. However, the Jolley Trolley On Demand program he recently rolled out is only available on Clearwater Beach. The service uses golf-cart type, slow-moving electric vehicles that are not ADA compliant, and also a vehicle…

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Outback Bowl Foes South Carolina, Michigan Coming to Clearwater Beach

The annual bowl game brings festivities and fans of the Gamecocks and Wolverines to town for Clearwater Beach Day on Dec. 30.

Steve Spurrier is coming back to Tampa. The one-time Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback brings his South Carolina Gamecocks to play the University of Michigan Wolverines in the Outback Bowl Jan. 1 at Raymond James Stadium. “It's one of my favorite cities in Florida,” Spurrier said in a release. “It probably will be beautiful weather down there, it usually is.”  According to tradition, this year’s game also features a series of events leading up to it, including Clearwater Beach Day, where the teams, marching bands and cheerleaders enjoy the surf and sand, participate in contests and events from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 30 near Pier 60. The bowl game features the nationally ranked teams from the SEC and Big 10. The Gamecocks (10-2) are ranked …

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RNC Dolphin Art Project Inspires 'Hunter'

Dunedin artist Dee Rodriques and her husband Chris Torunski are putting the finishing touches on Hunter the Dolphin, a six-foot stained-glass sculpture that is part of a Clearwater public art project for the Republican National Convention.

Dunedin artist Dee Rodriques showed off the countless cuts she sustained on her hands and fingertips since Monday. They are painful evidence of the blood, sweat, tears and hundreds of hours of stained-glass work that went into Hunter the Dolphin, one of 38 original fiberglass dolphin sculptures awarded to area artists as part of a Clearwater public art project for the Republican National Convention. (Clearwater announced late Thursday that the number of dolphins would increase to 50 because of the project's increasing popularity.) "We've been burning the midnight oil," her husband Chris Torunski said while working inside their studio at The Institute for Creative Arts. They have until midnight Friday to finish, and as of Thursday afternoon…

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Good Neighbors

Patch Cleans Up Clearwater Beach

Patch removed 20 bags of trash from the mangroves at Clearwater Beach Recreation Center on Tuesday morning. Some interesting items included wood planks, countless bottle caps and a toy stroller. Clearwater editor Jared Leone provides a firsthand look.

Removing 20 bags of trash from the mangroves at the Clearwater Beach Recreation Center on Tuesday morning proved to be a sweaty endeavor. As the official sponsor of the Clearwater Beach Recreation Center complex, Clearwater Patch is helping to keep it clean. So when we got word of all the trash and debris that Tropical Storm Debby washed ashore there, my colleagues — Editors Sunde Farquhar from Palm Harbor Patch, Katie Dolac from Dunedin Patch, Melissa Lattman from Largo Patch, Assistant Local Editor Jeffrey Rosenfield and Assistant Regional Editor Jason Bartolone — and I agreed to join forces and embark upon a quest to clean it up. When we arrived early Tuesday morning the Clearwater Beach recreation supervisor greeted us and explained …

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