Karen Schaffer, a Dakota County Attorney, Running For Roseville Council

Karen Schaffer, an assistant attorney for Dakota County and a 35-year resident of Roseville, is running for city council for the third time since 2006.

“I would like to become and think I could become a collegial member of the city council,” she said. “I’m familiar with government so I can take my life’s work and put it in the service of the community that I like.”

Schaffer said her No. 1 priority is “working to protect and diversify our tax base,” noting that office building and some types of residential housing add more money to the city’s coffers than they cost to support.

She is an active member of the League of Women Voters, and she said she participated in the Imagine Roseville project and took a leadership role in crafting a 2008 comprehensive plan for the city.

Schaeffer said she is also interested in improving and maintaining Roseville’s parks and pathway system and in supporting open and transparent government, particularly around decisions of whether to spend city money or take out bonds to fund specific projects.

She said she disapproved of the city’s decision to take out a bond to fund park maintenance and that she would have preferred funding the project without bonds or putting the choice to the votes in a referendum.

Schaeffer, who is currently unmarried, has two children and four grandchildren and lives on the 2400 block of Fairview Avenue.