Danny Bilyeu has always been hard to categorize. He’s been around forever. I first met him when he was a realtor for Michael Saunders. People who don’t like him refer to him as a “handyman” who pals around with the developers. At any rate, it appears that his pro-development votes have cost him the election. His words are unapologetic, though. He says he wants to thank the developers. “I have never been bought,” he states. Then he addresses the commissioners. “I hope you have better luck with the neighborhoods. I’ll be praying for you.”

He and Kelly hug as they pass in the aisle, then Kelly takes his seat. Next to the other commissioners, he looks shockingly young. The first order of business is to elect a new mayor. Lou Ann Palmer wins. This is what Kelly has been hoping for. Her work in Tallahassee on the city’s behalf will be bolstered if she has the title of Mayor. The second order of business is to elect a vice mayor. Kelly Kirschner wins. Kelly then makes the remarks he’s been working on all morning in his head. He thanks his wife, Tracy, and his campaign workers, then says he will “strive to bring you the utmost in customer service.”

New mayor Palmer then sums things up. Actually, first she introduces her aunt in the audience, then she sums things up. “We have to restore confidence in the commission,” she tells everyone. “The election indicated it’s not there.”

“Not my election,” says Fredd Atkins with his trademark chuckle. Mayor Palmer tactfully refrains from pointing out that he won by only 200-plus votes over a little-known opponent.

The story of Kelly Kirschner is one of becoming. After all, what has he done but get elected to the city commission? But his story is emblematic of Sarasota. It does much to explain the soul of the town, its worries, its conflicts and its values.

Like most of us, he was born “up North” (a phrase constantly used in Sarasota and usually referring to a terrible place we emigrated from) in Stamford, Conn., in 1975, but moved here at the age of nine months. His parents, Kerry and Jane, decided to leave the corporate lifestyle and start anew in the sunshine. They bought a business, Blue Heron Fruit Shippers, complete with a roadside stand near the airport, and a big old Spanish house right on the bay. The house sat on an acre of land and cost a then-staggering sum of $150,000.

I didn’t grow up in Sarasota, but listening to those who did, I get jealous. The small-town atmosphere, the swimming, the fishing, the bay as their playground. Kelly played football with the Ringling Redskins and went to Cardinal Mooney High School, along with his older brothers, Kent and Sean, and his younger sister, Katie. His grades were good and he dutifully took piano lessons. He went on to get a degree in foreign service studies from Georgetown University on a full scholarship. There was a catch, though. He had to manage the basketball team. “I was basically the water boy,” he remembers. One of his duties was to “baby-sit the jocks” and keep them out of trouble, though sometimes he got in trouble with them.

His political life began after college, when he served with the Peace Corps in Guatemala. His specialty was community development, and discovering the ways things are done politically in a small village was eye-opening. They had a “strong mayor,” and the disadvantages to this system—the corruption and lack of “transparency”—robbed the citizens of any real power. It was a lesson he remembers well.

Just before he went off to Guatemala he began dating Tracy Topjun, another Sarasota native and daughter of Randy and Bonnie Topjun. Their long-distance relationship survived both the separation and Tracy’s father’s death, and in 2005, they were married. With his Peace Corps stint behind him, Kelly and Tracy settled into the life of a young couple with slightly counterculture values. Tracy began working as a nurse/midwife, and Kelly became product manager at Bio-Pro Research, a local company which manufactured a stain remover for pet urine called Urinoff. It was a “green” product based on biodegradable enzymes. Along with their three dogs and one cat, they moved into Tracy’s 50-year-old Florida ranch house in a neighborhood just east of downtown, behind Sarasota Ford and very close to Sarasota High, called Alta Vista. It has some young professionals at the lower end of the pay scale, but it is basically working class and not in the least fashionable. The downtown high-rises are plainly visible from its sidewalks and back yards.