Bender to run for Blanchard's council seat

At 67, Jane Bender has been adamant during the past year that she would call it quits this November after completing eight years on Santa Rosa’s City Council.

Then her closest friend on the council, Bob Blanchard, called her a month ago and asked her to seek the council’s permission to grant him a 60-day leave so he could gain the strength needed to battle the cancer that finally took his life Saturday, at age 70.

“I told him then that if he needed to step down from the council for any reason, I would run for his seat,” said Bender, who formally announced her decision to run at the end of Tuesday’s late night council meeting.

“I did it because I love him as a friend. It just came out of my mouth because I knew what the council and city meant to him,” said Bender, whose own term expires this November.

It wasn’t about politics, she said. “It was looking at what Bob cared about,” she said, including economic development and improving downtown Santa Rosa.

“I want to help carry on the things he was going to do in his last two years on the council,” she said.

In addition to Bender’s seat, the four-year seats of councilmembers John Sawyer, Lee Pierce and Carol Dean also are up for grabs in the November election.

The council recently decided the two years left on Blanchard’s term should be filled in that election as well.

So far, 11 people including all the incumbents have announced plans to run for those four-year seats. Others also have expressed interest.

Asked about Blanchard’s reaction to her offer, Bender said “He just grinned.”

“And then he looked at me and asked what did my husband think,” Bender said. And then they laughed.