It seems obvious that the revelation that Karen had been human enough to misjudge her ability to safely operate a vehicle after consuming a bit more adult libation then she should have, fails a comparison test with this willful attempt to destroy her candidacy to serve on the Roseville Council. This comparison being a measure of the intent of the individuals involved in these two actions.

While the accusing finger clearly doesn't have a name on it, the person behind it has has made a willful, and presumably sober one, to only wish to rescue us from what they would like us to believe is an unstable person. Common-sense adds a second and more likely motive. That of attempting to enrich someone else's vote total at the expense of Karen.

I would like to ask anybody who is reading this, to truthfully answer the question of whether or not they too have ever driven a vehicle under the influence of anything proven to distract their attention from the task at hand?

Yes, this includes the use of a cellphone, also proven to be as dangerous as anyone under the influence of alcohol, yet we remain threatened while awaiting action by our state legislature for statute action against the influence of this more common distraction.

So, will you be guilty of blindly reacting to this attempt at political manipulation?.

Please remove the extra 'has' in the first line of the second paragraph and add the word'far' after word 'this' in the last sentence of the next to last paragraph.

I know absolutely nothing about Karen Schaffer. I do know that a DWI these days does not connote the 'Drunk Driver' stigma that it once did. Settle down, she had an extra libation and drove. Have you?

This is a non story.

If there is a group of people out there talking about this and raising questions about it , then it becomes a story. It's not the kind of story we like to write. But it seems to me there is more to be gained by getting this out on the table and letting candidate Schaffer respond and it putting to rest as opposed to it becoming a whisper campaign.

To me Karen Schaffer's one lapse of judgement is totally irrelevant to whether she should be elected to the Council. What I do find relevant is that a few anonymous residents are so worried that Karen will be elected that they will raise this issue surreptiously so that her campaign is damaged and the rest of us focus on one personal mistake rather than the real public issues Karen is running on.

I would suggest that most Roseville residents have made significant mistakes in their lives which do not disqualify them from holding public office. We elected a president who had a drunk-driving conviction, and the recently-appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco was arrested for a similar offense last month, and the American voters did not reject his candidacy nor has the Vatican dropped its Archbishop nominee.

So I would suggest that Roseville voters look at the candidates public record and the issues their campaigns are raising, and not let a few self-righteous prigs hiding under their anonoymity divert us from the real issues confronting our community.

Gary Grefenberg

I am thankful to learn that Karen is human and makes mistakes just like the rest of us. Although I wasn't positive I wanted to vote for her before, she has just earned my vote!

First of all, she originally plead not guilty to this charge, so her claim that she "did not challenge the charge" is untrue. Furthermore people who simply have a one-time lapse of judgement, she claims, or simply had an "extra libation" as another commenter opined, do not get whiskey plates. According to Minnesota statute a person may get their license plates impounded if they are a repeat offender, if their blood alcohol level was 2 times the legal limit (severly intoxicated) or there was a child under 16 year of age in the vehicle. According to the police record she will be on probation until 2014. We ought to hold our civic leaders to a high standard, not a relative standard based other peoples' bad behavior. It's unfortunate that one comment mentioned that the drunk driving has lost its stigma as I'm pretty sure the families of the victims of drunk drivers still feel the pain.

Jerry, I've asked the folks who sent me the email to identify themselves or tell me something about themselves. I am waiting for a response.

I did not send the orginal message. I never post anonmously. The court record is included in the pdf above.

There seems to be a lot of self-righteous, unnamed people out there who really get there "kicks" on ruining the reputation of good, hardworking people, like Karen Schaeffer by smearing their reputation with what was nothing more then a "mistake" she made by drinking and driving! Granted, I don't necessarily condone that type of action or behavior and it should be taken seriously, I just don't think society should judge her and ruin her reputation on one mistake! In this case, because she is running for public office all of the unknown bashers come out of the closet to reek havoc all in the sake of political gain, or this case potential political loss. These people are pathetic to say the least. If you or I were not running for public office, or a high profile position, this story/editorial wouldn't have even been raised.
Case closed, lets get back to talking about the issues more important to Roseville Residents.

It is common practice to plead not guilty. A challenge and a plea are two different things. She pled not guilty, most likely on the advice of her lawyer. I really fail to see how that is relevant. I think this may backfire on the folks who leaked the info. I'm voting for Karen.