COEUR d’ALENE — In 16 days Sandi Bloem will complete her third term and 12th year as Coeur d’Alene’s first female mayor — the longest term anyone has served in that position.

And, she has no regrets.

“Absolutely no regrets,” Bloem said. “I’d do it again. These were the best 12 years of my life. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Bloem said she realized earlier this year that if she was going to try something new, at the age of 71 now was the time to step aside and pursue other opportunities.

“I have mixed emotions. I am going to miss my city family. I am going to miss a lot of things,” she said. “But I know I made the right decision for me and my family.”

Bloem said she plans to focus on the jewelry store she owns, and spend more time with her family. She said she does have a private sector opportunity that she wants to take advantage of. The opportunity is not a secret, but it is not developed enough for Bloem to feel comfortable announcing it quite yet.

“It has nothing to do with politics. You can say that,” she said. “The politics part of this job is what I didn’t like. I never wanted to be a politician, and I really am not a politician.”

That is what drew Bloem to the position of mayor, she said.

“Fortunately, when I ran the first time it still felt very nonpartisan,” she said. “That is what I liked most about it, I didn’t want to be put in a box and have people think I am one way or another before they even had a chance to meet me and hear my ideas.”

She said she was able to work through her first term as major before the political divide started to develop at the local level of politics.

“Then it became more about what party you were affiliated with,” she said. “Had that been the way it was the first time, I am not sure if I would have ran.”

Still, her first run was the toughest election she had. She ran against Steve Badraun and came from behind to win it. After that she faced Joe Kunka in two elections that were civil but somewhat more political.

She can still remember the day she decided to run for mayor. As a member of the city Planning and Zoning Commission, she had been asked a few times to run for office, but declined. Bloem wanted to wait until her children were grown before taking the leap.

Then one day, as she driving to Seattle, when then-Mayor Steve Judy called her on her cell phone.

“I remember that vividly,” she said. “Steve said ‘I’m not going to run and I wanted you to be the first to know.’ He was kind of saying it’s your turn, so to speak.”

Bloem said, for some reason, she decided right there on the spot that she was going to run — but she knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

“I had a couple of people — and they were both gals — who said they would really like to vote for me, but they didn’t think it was a job for a woman,” Bloem said, adding that growing up in a family and neighborhood full of boys, she always felt she had an equal opportunity to do anything.

When she won and took office, she it was little scary at first.

“I don’t know what anyone can do to totally prepare themselves to be mayor,” she said. “(Teddy) Roosevelt said it’s hard to look like a cowboy when you don’t know how to mount your horse.

“There have been several times in my life when I challenged myself to do something outside of my comfort zone, my box, and this was one of them.”

Bloem led the city through a major growth spurt and a terrible recession. Despite the tough times, she said the city always had opportunities.

The city was instrumental in bringing about a new library, the Salvation Army Kroc Center, McEuen Park, and much more.

But she also led through some very tough projects that didn’t make the grade. The partial closure of Sherman Ave. for a botanical garden, and the annexation of Blackwell Island were just two of those, she recalled.

Whether they were built out or not, many of the projects got politically heated and sometimes downright nasty. While some relationships may have been strained, Bloem said she didn’t take any of it personally.

“One of the reasons I felt I could run is that I am capable of owning what I should own, and letting go of what is not mine,” she said. “It isn’t like it doesn’t hurt when you hear something untruthful, or take a below-the-belt hit or someone says something unethically, but I knew I could disown it if I needed to.”

She said she learned very quickly that she needed to hold on to who she is, and really understand who she is, so she could look in the mirror each morning and be OK with that.

One of the most notable changes in politics, Bloem said, was the advent of social media. It changed the way people communicated to get things done.

“It’s a day-and-night difference between the time I started 12 years ago and now,” she said. “Twelve years ago almost all communication happened eye-to-eye. We made a connection. We didn’t just communicate over social media outlets — not even knowing who each other was.”

Bloem said blogs and other electronic communications have made a “huge difference” in political discourse.

“When you read an anonymous comment online and its not truthful, or it’s directed at your family, there is not much you can do about it because you don’t know who the person is.” she said. “I don’t believe that same person would sit across from me face-to-face, eye-to-eye and say the things they can say behind an anonymous screen name on a blog.”

Bloem believes social media has its place, but in politics it makes getting things done much more difficult.

“It is just so much harder to get anything done when you don’t sit down at the table and lay out the things you believe in and try to find those things that are similar and then try to get to a decision,” she said. “We need to figure out how is it we live with this, and what are the new rules.”

Bloem said she knows of some potential new candidates who would love to run for office, but they are hesitant to run because they don’t know if they could deal with the social media side of politics.

The mayor said she doesn’t have just one moment that she treasured most. Some of her best moments she recalls were facilitating leadership in the community, which she calls her teaching moments.

If she had to pick just one project she was most proud of, Bloem said the Kroc Center would be at the top of her list.

“Nobody believed we would get this. We were the smallest city in the nation to get one of these, and it is now the most successful one they have,” she said, adding that the community support was unprecedented and the $8 million that was raised was an all-time record.

“I feel because of this community and the team I had to work with, yeah, I think Coeur d’Alene is a better place today,” she said. “Coeur d’Alene has always had a sense of community. It’s not like us to not be the best we can.

“I am proud of our community. I didn’t do it. I am proud of the team, but the credit goes to the community.”