By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez has agreed to take an employee relations course recommended by the City Council Standards and Ethics Committee last week, but only if the full Council votes to enforce its recommendation and only if it's in his neighborhood and only if his constituents can also attend.
Rodriguez got into hot water after allegedly poking a female Council staffer “between the throat and upper chest” during an argument at a budget discussion June 25. He hosted an emergency meeting Friday at the Fort Washington Heights Presbyterian Church to ask his community members how they thought he should proceed.
“The community has decided that I will take the course, and I am willing to take the course at any moment,” Rodriguez told the crowd of more than 150 people. “The only requirement is that the course be held in our community and that the 100 volunteers from our community take it with me.”
The meeting took place two days after the City Council ethics committee ruled that Rodriguez was guilty of inappropriately touching a staffer and unanimously recommended that he be suspended as chair of the Higher Education Committee. The committee also said that Rodriguez could regain his seat after taking 24 hours of an employees relations course.
The full Council will have a final say on the suggested sanctions after it reviews a report on the matter from the committee on August 13.
During Friday night’s community meeting, the second meeting of its sort since the scandal broke, Rodriguez once again denied any guilt, stating that he “did not touch anyone” nor “curse anyone.”
