Government

Meet Councilmember Julie Strahan

Seeking diverse voices and new perspectives

Naomi Krueger

15 Sep 2025 — 9 min read

Roseville City Councilmember Julie Strahan | Photo courtesy of Julie Strahan

City councilmember Julie Strahan has a vision for a younger and more diverse city council that would better represent the unique identities, experiences, and neighborhoods of Roseville.

Strahan is in her second term on Roseville city council, first elected in 2020 and then again in 2024. She doesn’t intend to run again—although she admits she didn’t intend to run the second time either. She put her name in and planned to drop-out if another woman or a person of color filed their candidacy—but that didn’t happen. So she decided to commit to another term.

“We need a council that is younger, that is more diverse, that is equally men and women, and that represents not just one neighborhood,” Strahan said. In an ideal world, Strahan would like to increase the size of the council to seven members instead of five, which would open up more space for new voices. She would also like to see city council seats assigned to different city "wards" rather than all being "at-large" seats that represent the entire city. That would require more support from the rest of the council to make that happen, she said.

There are other Minnesota cities with seven members on city council, such as St. Louis Park (pop. 49,899); Northfield (pop. 20,790); and Blaine (pop. 75,172).

In 2022, Strahan ran for mayor against incumbent Dan Roe, who has been Roseville’s mayor since 2011. At the time, she felt strongly that Roseville needed new leadership, but the past few years of working with Roe on city council has changed her thinking on that.

“We have had some very positive interactions since then, and I feel really supported by him as a member of the council at this point,” Strahan said. Though she can’t rule it out entirely, she does not intend to run for mayor again. The next mayoral election is next year in 2026.

Strahan has lived in Roseville for over twenty years, where she and her husband raised their children. Her kids—who went to Parkview Center School and Roseville Area High School—were young adults when she ran for city council the first time. They were heavily involved in getting out the vote among their Roseville friends.

Outside of city council, Strahan leads the human resources department for a large senior care organization.

Recruiting the next leaders

Over the past five years, Strahan has been on the lookout for Roseville residents who may be interested in running for city council. She’s offered advice and support and tried to encourage various people to run, but no one she’s connected with has taken the leap yet. She recognizes that it’s a big time commitment, and not everyone’s work or family life is flexible enough to accommodate the multiple meetings and community events a month.

Strahan is proud of how the Roseville city council has made community engagement a priority. For instance, city council members make an effort to go to Discover Your Parks events in the summer to talk to community members. When Strahan goes, she says she tries to recruit people to get more involved on city commissions or running for city council.

“I think Roseville's ripe for some change and ripe for some ideas,” Strahan said.

If you’re interested in running, Strahan suggests starting long before an election season by getting involved in community groups, volunteering with the city, serving on a commission, or getting involved with your school’s Parent Teacher Association.

“You have to build some social capital from having that experience to know a lot of people in a lot of different spheres,” Strahan said.

She herself did not serve on a city commission before running for city council, but she was involved in the community in other ways, including working as a children's and high school choir director at St. Rose of Lima and volunteering with her daughters' Girl Scout troop.

Inspired to run for office

Strahan’s own decision to run was spurred, in part, by the 2016 Presidential election.

“I took it really personally. How could I have stepped up more?” Strahan said. “And so then I started helping with some local elections.”

That led to her deciding to run for city council in 2020.

In the wake of George Floyd's murder and the Black Lives Matter protests and unrest in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, some Roseville residents' BLM signs were stolen or vandalized. Some residents found dead raccoons on their property. Strahan, a city council candidate at the time, went right to one of the impacted residents' homes and asked her how she could support her. She didn't see this as part of her campaign—she was just acting as a concerned community member.

Strahan ended up joining with other community members, such as Roseville resident Huda Yusuf, and Do Good Roseville, to organize a rally.

The "Roseville Rejects Racism" event was put together very quickly, as an immediate way to support Black residents in Roseville, Strahan said.

The organizers met on Zoom and made decisions by majority vote, according to Cari Gelle, another Roseville resident involved in the planning. One of those decisions was to invite the “New Black Panthers” to accompany the rally as armed security.

Not everyone on the committee agreed with this decision, including Strahan. As a result, some rifts developed between community members.

“It was very messy,” Strahan said.

Strahan said the event was intended to be a way to support the Black community in the Roseville area, not to be anti-police. Hundreds of peaceful protesters attended the rally and march, including families and kids. (View photos of the event here.)

When she ran for office the first time, she sought endorsements from the DFL and labor unions, because she felt it was a helpful way to communicate her values. But, she changed her strategy the second time she ran.

“There's a misconception that if you're endorsed that somehow you only represent certain people. And in Roseville, I don't know how someone would vote. When they reach out to me, I have no idea who they are or how they would vote,” Strahan said. She realized that it’s easier to talk about solutions for problems in Roseville without letting political parties get in the way. And, she didn’t have the time to get involved with the political party on a larger scale.

Diverse Voices

Strahan’s commitment to community engagement and lifting up diverse voices has continued throughout her time on city council. She’s very pleased with how the newly formed Equity and Inclusion Commission (EIC) has come together and how intentional the members are being with building trust with each other.

The city council had a joint meeting with the EIC on July 14 and Strahan was impressed with them.

“I was teary at the beginning to see different people represent different people. You know, to have the sign language interpreter there and speak for someone who can't speak vocally, but really has clearly a strong vision of giving back to the community. That was just . . . I got choked up,” Strahan said.

Click here to watch the July 14 joint meeting of the city council and Equity and Inclusion Commission

The goal of that commission is to look at the city’s internal polices and make sure they meet the equity and inclusion expectations the city council has helped set.

Strahan mentioned that the EIC members emphasized how important it is to consider other perspectives and to try to see things through other people’s eyes, because Roseville is becoming more diverse every day.

“Even if it doesn't show up on the census, so to speak,” Strahan said. “You just have to go to the park on Sunday afternoon. The faces don't reflect people who lived there 40 years ago. Maybe they live in Roseville, maybe they don't. Maybe their family member does."

Roseville’s population is 73% white, but the school district population is much more diverse. In Roseville Area Schools, 40% of students enrolled are white and 58% are people of color. And while there is a higher percentage of senior citizens in Roseville than in other similar cities, the median age of Roseville residents is 42.

"We can't just be for the people who live here, because a lot of these people are future people who will live here or who want to belong here, and we have to keep doing our job by inviting them and including them," Strahan said.

Government Connections

Strahan is troubled by how acrimonious politics has gotten at all levels of government over the past several years. She wants people to remember that elected officials are just ordinary people and to treat your city council members like you would your own neighbors.

For the past three years, Strahan has served as the city’s community liaison with elected officials at the state level. The state legislators representing parts of Roseville include Rep. David Gottfried, Rep. Leigh Finke, Senator John Marty, and Senator Clare Oumou Verbeten. She also connects with Ramsey County Commissioner Mary Jo McGuire. Strahan tries to meet with these elected officials in order to communicate about the needs and issues facing the city. Sometimes this looks like meeting someone for coffee and other times it looks like showing up to an event and participating in public comment or asking questions.

“We don't have a lot of impact in each other's things, and yet we're so connected. What happens at one level trickles down to the rest of us,” Strahan said.

Update: This article has been changed since publication to correct information and provide context on how the Roseville Rejects Racism rally was organized.

Next City Council Election

The next city council election is next year, in fall 2026. Two seats, currently held by Councilmember Wayne Groff and Councilmember Robin Schroeder will be on the ballot. There will also be a mayoral election.