BANGOR, Maine — She’s never been shy about speaking her mind in city council meetings, fighting for multi-million dollar public projects and battling a nationally syndicated talk-radio host in her political career.
But last year’s unusually cold winter is sending longtime Bangor politician Patricia Blanchette packing before the end of her city council term, headed south for Florida.
After being elected to eight council terms and four state legislative terms since 1987, Blanchette confirmed Monday that she has placed her Bangor home on the market and purchased a house in Dade City, Florida.
Her new home is just eight miles from her son’s home. She also has a niece and a sister-in-law in Florida, she said.
Blanchette, 72, attributed her decision to leave the state of her birth to its bitterly cold winters, but called Bangor a wonderful city filled with good people.
“You know how somebody is standing on the edge of a cliff and something happens to push them over? Last winter pushed me over the edge of the cliff. I can’t take it anymore,” she said when asked Monday why she was leaving Bangor.
She went on to say she feared she would end up in a nursing home if she slipped on ice and broke a hip and that the warmer climate would add years to her life.
Blanchette plans to depart for Florida on Tuesday, 13 weeks before the end of her current term.
She said she does not plan to wait for the sale of her Bangor house because she does not want to get caught in another Maine winter.
Blanchette does not plan to officially resign her position on the council, calling the remainder of her term an overdue vacation. She has served as an elected official in some fashion since 1987.
“It’s been a privilege really to serve the city of Bangor. We’ve done a lot. We’ve come a long way from when I first came on,” she said. “I’m very proud of what we’ve done and some of the people that I’ve served with have turned out to be very good friends.”
Blanchette’s council seat is expected to remain vacant the rest of the term. City Solicitor Norm Heitmann said legal notices that must be published in advance of a special election make replacing her impractical.
Anyone elected to replace Blanchette would end up serving just a few weeks at most before they would face re-election in November, he said.
Bangor councilors are paid $2,000 annually for their service in quarterly installments of $500.
Assistant City Solicitor Paul Nicklas said he was not certain whether Blanchette would receive her final installment, since she was not officially resigning her post.
Asked for her most memorable moment on the council, Blanchette said it was when she insulted talk radio host Don Imus in 1997, calling him “rude, crude and very offensive” when a local radio station asked to adorn the city’s 31-foot-tall Paul Bunyan statue with a T-shirt reading “Welcome to Bangor, Mr. Imus!” for his inaugural broadcast in Bangor.
While the city had previously allowed the local Shriners to place a fez on Bunyan, Blanchette countered that Imus was hardly the Shriners.
The incident caused a public and on-air flap between Imus, Blanchette and others in the city.
Alleging that Blanchette had erroneously suggested he is not charitable, Imus responded on air, calling her “a frigid hag” “an ignorant nitwit,” and “a moron” and later saying in an interview “we’re going to tear down that f——— statue.”
Blanchette did not back down though, saying she did not care what he said and would not welcome him to Bangor and that, if she wanted “X-rated pornography,” she would rent a video.
Blanchette said Monday that she had put her foot in her mouth when she insulted Imus. “You know, open mouth, insert feet. It wasn’t one. It was both,” she said.
Asked what she was most proud of, Blanchette said working to make the downtown parking garage and the Cross Insurance Center realities.
“If we hadn’t made the bold decision to build [the Cross Insurance Center], it wouldn’t be there now and never would be … because that’s a lot of money for this town to invest, but it’s well worth it, and it’s going to pay off,” she said. “We’re a destination instead of a pass through, and that’s a good thing.”
Blanchette, a former grocery store bookkeeper, leaves Bangor three years after the death of her husband of 46 years, James Blanchette. She said she has no immediate plans to return to Maine.
“I’m going to miss so many people here. People have no idea what a wonderful, wonderful staff we have in the city of Bangor,” she said. “We are so lucky.”
Follow Evan Belanger on Twitter at @evanbelanger.