Dunedin proposes hiring PR firm to promote new brand to tourists

Months after launching a new city logo and slogan, Dunedin city staffers are looking into the cost of hiring an advertising or public relations firm to help promote the new brand.

The proposal will be presented to the City Commission Thursday, along with a briefing  on the final marketing plan crafted by Wilesmith Advertising and Design (which designed the new brand).

Under the first phase of the brand rollout, Dunedin installed street banners featuring the new image and magnetic decals for city vehicles, among other things. For phase two, Wilesmith is recommending that the city wraps funds into its 2014 budget for billboard or airport advertisements, as well as embark on agressive social media and mobile marketing campaigns. ...

Ugly, overweight or just plain uncool? You're also unwelcome at A&F

Trying to drum up business for your clothing empire? Do you:

A) Use that old and busted marketing ploy of appealing to big spenders via creative print, radio and television advertisements? OR...

B) Alienate half your potential customer base, thus making them clamor for your product even more?

If your name is Mike Jeffries and you’re CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, option B is apparently the new hotness....

Pinellas agencies make four more sex-trafficking arrests

LARGO — Law enforcement agencies announced four arrests Monday in two separate human-trafficking rings that they say dispatched local women and at least two juvenile girls across the Tampa Bay area for prostitution.

Donell Jenkins, 21, alleged ringleader Antron Smith, 30, and his girlfriend Stacy Jo Bumgarner, 28, all of St. Petersburg, are accused of forcing two teen girls into prostitution....

Two men accused of operating Pinellas-based human-trafficking ring

CLEARWATER — The women, recruited from strip clubs and trained as prostitutes in a Pinellas County brothel, were offered drugs to fuel addictions that would help hold them prisoner.

If they refused the drugs, authorities said, they were controlled through sexual assaults and brutal beatings.

Their captivity in what Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi called "modern-day slavery" ended with the Friday arrests of two men authorities say were leading a Pinellas County-based human-trafficking ring involving at least 16 local women....

Dunedin struggles to balance budget without cutting service levels

DUNEDIN — As the city works to craft next year's budget, officials are finding that even the most basic departmental requests are threatening to break the bank.

With all the cuts the city has made during the recession, Dunedin finance director Karen Feeney says city officials are running out of options. The general fund budget alone has plummeted from $33 million in 2007 to an anticipated $23.5 million in 2014, she said....

Owner of Dunedin Nielsen property testing waters on zoning change

DUNEDIN — When Nielsen Media Research moved 1,600 employees out of its 211,000-square-foot office complex on Patricia Avenue, restaurateur Pat Illiano watched the area around it slowly devolve into a "ghost town."

"There's no reason for anyone to drive up Patricia whatsoever," said Illiano, owner of Umberto's of Long Island. "Anything that will go in that place right there is better than what's been there the last eight years."...

Busing of Dunedin students through busy intersection still not resolved

DUNEDIN — Two state agencies have weighed in, yet it's still anybody's guess whether busing will actually cease next school year for more than 50 San Jose Elementary students.

In late March, the Florida Department of Education told city and Pinellas school officials that the state Department of Transportation would need to study whether State Road 580 near the entrance to downtown is too dangerous for students to walk across....

Dunedin promotes literacy through free book exchange sites

How many times have you been ready to cash out at a restaurant or store, and either contributed or benefited from the “Take a Penny, Leave a Penny” jar?

Well, Dunedin has adopted that same concept – albeit, with a slight twist and on a much grander scale.

Library officials on Tuesday morning unveiled their first “Little Free Library,” a box where the public can reach in and grab a free book and, hopefully, pay it forward by leaving behind one of their own.

The 2x2 box, located on the Pinellas Trail beside the Dunedin Historical Museum, is the first of at least five Dunedin plans to roll out across the city.

The idea, said Dunedin library director Phyllis Gorshe, is to promote literacy, especially among children, teens and adults who are not regular library patrons....