Bob Shaffer: 'Principled, Thoughtful, Responsive'

For the first time in eight years, Bob Shaffer will not be a part of the city council when it meets Tuesday night. Shaffer chose not to run for re-election, and Joannie Clausen was elected on Nov. 8 to fill his absence.

At the Dec. 20 city council meeting, each of the council members, including Mayor Loomis—whose last day in office is also today—spoke on the record about Shaffer's time in office to the people in and to those watching the meeting on TV.

All the members of the council spoke about their experience working with Shaffer, and on behalf of the council, Paula Pentel spoke in detail about the work Shaffer did before presenting Shaffer with a silver bowl "in appreciation for his dedicated service and commitment to excellence."

Here are the words from the council members, the mayor and from Shaffer himself.

Council Member Paula Pentel:

Bob served on the board of zoning appeals starting in 1994 up through 1998. He joined the planning commission in 1998.

I came to know Bob in about ‘94/’95 when I was the planning commission’s representative to the board of zoning appeals.

I’ve known Bob a while, but I also know Bob from my brother’s house where he said he knew a lot of things about me because he knew my brother.

Bob came up onto the planning commission in 1998, and he served until December of 2003, and then Bob was elected to city council.

During his time on city council, he served on the Northwest Suburban Cable Television board, served on the I-394 joint task force, the Caring Youth Recognition Board—DeDe Scanlon will take over for him on that.

He’s been part of this joint water governance task force, which is an amazing thing that Mayor Loomis and others have managed to create where we sit down and talk regionally about some of our water issues instead of just over the contract time.

Bob is principled, thoughtful and responsive. We don’t always agree, but we are always friends at the end of the day.

Council Member DeDe Scanlon:

Bob, we have a history together from when we first went door-knocking.

It has been great. You have brought so much energy, knowledge and strength to the council, and it’s going to be missed terribly.

Council Member Mike Freiberg:

I met council member Shaffer while we were both door-knocking eight years ago. I wasn’t sure what it would be like to work with him. I was surprised when we were the two that both got elected.

But it’s been a lot of fun working with you over the last eight years. We haven’t agreed on every issue, but I respect the way you presented your opinion. I think you’ve done it with honesty and integrity, and I appreciate that.

Mayor Linda Loomis:

It’s been a pleasure serving on the council with you, and I appreciate the perspectives that everybody brings to the council table, and not that I appreciate yours more than anybody else’s, but Bob has always got a rational, reasoned way of looking at things and explaining the reasons that he believes what he does, and I respect that greatly.

Bob Shaffer:

I don’t know what to say after all of this.

I appreciate the time—eight years has been an incredible ride of ups and downs and everything in between.

There’s things I love, things I didn’t love. Certainly tonight (dismissing the Human Rights Commission) wasn’t a real positive meeting, but we have to conduct the business of the city and that’s what we do.

Being on the council is not easy. I’m sure the new council members and the new mayor will find that to be the case as well.

There’s a lot of hard decision that you have to make, and over the years we’ve made a lot of them.

We’ve also made some fun ones, too. Swearing in police officers, swearing in fire department people, our commissioner, the various events we got to and attend, the people we’ve met…

I never knew a lot of people in this city and yet now I know a lot of people.

It’s a great experience, so thank you very much for my experience and being able to be on this council.