FLORENCE - While Linda Schaffer has not resigned officially as a Florence City Council member, she started to talk this week like a ex-councilwoman.

        Ms. Schaffer is leaving Council because she has purchased a home outside city limits in unincorporated Boone County. But she has not yet moved from her home on Kathryn Avenue.

        That means she doesn't know when her last meeting is. But she sees it coming.

        “It is hard,” Ms. Schaffer said of her leaving. “I enjoyed it. Everybody's been so nice to me.”

        The city has 60 days from the time Ms. Schaffer turns
       in her resignation to pick her successor. If they don't do it in that time, the governor picks.

        Her soon-to-be former colleagues are already missing her.

        “She's one of the best councilpersons I've ever served with,” Councilman Dale Stephens said. “She does her homework; she thinks things through.”

        Added Councilman Ted Bushelman: “She has a legal mind.”

        Ms. Schaffer was appointed in 1995 to replace William “Doc” Hudson, who died that year. She is an Erlanger attorney now, but when she took her seat for the first time six years ago, she was as nervous as a first-year law student struggling through Contracts class.

        “That was a big job and a big step,” she said.

        Voters apparently liked what she did. She won her own two-year terms in 1996, 1998 and 2000.

        Ms. Schaffer will miss voting on major issues in Florence — minor league baseball coming to Florence and the decision to build a $2 million aquatic center on land behind the government center on Ewing Boulevard among them.

        She did not divulge her stance on either issue, but she said the city's buying land for parks and green space is the accomplishment of which she is most proud.

        “There's still more information to be gathered,” she said of the ballpark. “They're just getting started.”

        Her political future is equally unknown. Ms. Schaffer is a registered Democrat, but she had more important things on her agenda.

        I haven't given (Boone County politics) a thought,” she said. “I'm still trying to move.”

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