Roseville city attorney investigates ethics complaints
The Aldine Street right-of-way controversy continues
What happens when an ethics complaint is filed and what does it mean to violate the city’s Ethics Code?
This process was put into action over the past few weeks after two residents filed ethics complaints against city council member Julie Strahan, alleging she violated the Roseville Ethics Code with comments made during the April 21 public hearing regarding vacating the Aldine Street right-of-way.
The complaints allege that Strahan’s relationship with her sister-in-law influenced her to speak up in favor of not vacating the right-of-way and requested that Strahan recuse herself from future votes on the matter. Specifically, the complaints alleged violation of Section 3M of the Roseville Ethics Code, which states:
“No Public Official shall take an official action or attempt to influence any process which will benefit any person or entity where such Public Official would not have otherwise have taken such action but for the Public Official's family relationship, friendship, or business relationship with such person or entity.”
The complaints were submitted to City Attorney Rachel Tierney via email on April 23 and 24. When complaints alleging ethical violations by elected officials are filed, the city attorney will investigate. If the complaint is about a public official who is a city employee, the city manager will investigate.
Tierney conducted an investigation into the allegations and concluded that Strahan did not violate the Ethics Code with her statements or actions at the hearing.
On May 14, Tierney presented her investigation to the Ethics Commission, which voted unanimously in agreement with Tierney’s findings. On June 2, the city council also voted unanimously in agreement that Strahan had not violated the Ethics Code. Strahan abstained from voting.
Here’s the context:
City staff are recommending vacating a strip of land that has been reserved for city use in the area between the Aldine and Ryan intersection and Roselawn Ave and returning it to the adjacent property owners. All eight property owners adjacent to the right-of-way (ROW) are supportive of this recommendation. Five residents from the surrounding neighborhood spoke up at the hearing against the vacation, saying they liked using an informal trail through the strip to connect the neighborhood with Roselawn Ave.
One of the residents speaking in opposition to vacating the ROW was Linda Strahan, Julie Strahan’s sister-in-law.
During the council discussion, Julie Strahan identified her relationship with her sister-in-law and expressed her support for considering maintaining the trail as an official city pathway.
“I realize whenever we encroach what someone perceives to be their space, it can be challenging. But I do think it has been the footpath for a long time, and I would advocate for keeping it. I have really enjoyed using it for the last 20 years that I've lived in Roseville,” Strahan said at the meeting.
Over the course of the council member discussion with one another, Public Works Director Jesse Freihammer, and the city attorney, it became evident that the city council wanted more information before making a decision. Freihammer suggested tabling the decision until city staff could gather more information about the informal trail, since staff had not been aware that residents were using it that way. Mayor Dan Roe also wanted clarity on some language in the resolution, which Tierney could not answer because it had been drafted by her colleague.
Following the discussion, Strahan made the motion to table the decision on whether to vacate the ROW in order to get clarity on the language in the resolution and give city staff time to gather more information about the trail.
The city council voted unanimously to table the decision. The Aldine ROW vacation resolution is coming back to the city council for discussion on June 16.
The Ethics Investigation
Tierney presented her investigation to the Ethics Commission on May 14.
The Ethics Commission includes one representative from each of the six standing commissions. Their role is to serve in an advisory capacity to the city council on matters involving the Roseville Ethics Code, administer the Ethics Code, conduct annual ethics training for city council and commission members, and perform other duties and functions or conduct studies as specifically directed by the city council. At the May 14 meeting, all but the representative from the Finance Commission were present. City Manager Pat Trudgeon was also present.
In the Ethics Code, section 3 paragraph M, public officials are prohibited from taking an official action or influencing any process that would benefit any person if such action would not have been taken “but for” a family or other relationship. Any ethical violation must be shown by clear and convincing evidence.
Tierney concluded that there is not clear and convincing evidence that Strahan’s action of moving to table the consideration of the vacation of the ROW, would not have taken place “but for” her relationship with her sister-in-law.
Tierney explained that there was no allegation or evidence that Strahan or her sister-in-law would “financially benefit from a city council decision to deny the vacation.” And if the “benefit” of not vacating the ROW was the use of a public trail, it would have far reaching implications regarding any decision about improving or maintaining a public park, trail, sidewalk, or other public amenity that city council members or their relatives may use.
“This is not for any one person’s benefit if that trail were to be put into place. This is a public trail for anybody and everybody to use it,” Trudgeon said during the Ethics Commission discussion.
In order for it to be a violation, Tierney said the decision about the right-of-way vacation would have to be solely for the benefit of Strahan’s sister-in-law.
Further, Tierney told the Ethics Commission that city council members are elected to city council as residents of Roseville to represent Roseville, and that they are meant to use their experiences as residents of the community they live in to influence their decisions.
In her report, Tierney wrote, “Ethics codes are not intended to remove elected officials from participating in the day-to-day life of the communities they represent. Rather, they are intended to prevent public officials from using their position for personal gain.”
Tierney explained that the Roseville Ethics Code goes significantly beyond any sort of legal concept of conflict of interest, which almost always looks directly at personal financial benefit.
“Being a member of a city council or a member of a board or commission, you hold this position because you live in this city. You can’t detach yourself from everything that exists in the city. So you have to hold all those things together. I think that’s why financial benefit is usually the focus,” Tierney said to the Ethics Commission.
“Whether one person would prefer one thing or another, that’s too remote to draw a conflict,” Tierney said.
City Council Discussion
At the June 2 city council meeting, Tierney summarized how she conducted the investigation and her findings for the council. Council members Wayne Groff, Robin Schroeder, Matt Bauer, and Mayor Dan Roe each spoke up in agreement that no Ethics Code violations had occurred.
Strahan’s only comment was that all city council members had voted unanimously to table the discussion of the Aldine ROW at the April 21 meeting.
"The crux of the matter is that it was a motion to table it for further information, so there were no violations in my opinion," Groff said.
Both Bauer and Schroeder made comments regarding the importance of city council members being "impartial."
“The residents do expect the public officials to be impartial on issues that come before us and having a council member testify as a resident and also vote on an issue is unusual and it could cause confusion, but it did not cause an ethics violation,” Schroeder said at the meeting.
Bauer agreed that there was no ethics violation.
“It’s important that residents hold elected officials to a higher level . . . Council members use the resources and the environment and the things we vote on every day. It’s important for residents to know that when we come to these meetings, we’re impartial to it,” Bauer said at the meeting.
Roe concurred that there had been no violation of the Ethics Code, but disagreed with Bauer and Schroeder’s comments about impartiality. He emphasized the importance of council members being able to freely share their rationale behind decisions they intend to make and that personal experience as residents of Roseville is part of it.
“As was noted, we live in this community. We use the streets. We use the pathways. We use a lot of the facilities in our community and we’re part of neighborhoods. We see our neighbors. We see homes and we see businesses and how they are operated. That can influence the decisions of a city council member,” Roe said to the council.
Roe said that in addition to agreeing with the technical analysis of the investigation, he did not want there to be any kind of “chilling effect” on public officials sharing their rationale or personal perspectives in decision-making conversations.
The Roseville Reader followed up with City Attorney Rachel Tierney, who clarified that the purpose of an Ethics Code is to put some definition around the concept of impartiality.
Being impartial doesn’t mean a city council member can’t express their opinion or share their rationale for making a decision based on personal experience as a resident of Roseville, so long as their actions don’t violate the Roseville Ethics Code.
The city council will be revisiting the Aldine Street right-of-way decision at the June 16 meeting, which starts at 6:00 p.m.
Correction 6/4/25: A previous version of this article incorrectly said the June 16 meeting was "next week." The article has been updated.
Learn more
Naomi Krueger
Read the Roseville Ethics Code
Watch the May 14 city attorney’s presentation to the Ethics Commission and commissioner discussion here.
To read the ethics complaints, investigation report, and supporting documents, check out the June 2 city council meeting packet.
Watch the June 2 City Council meeting discussion:
