Tonight the Ethics Reviews Commission voted 6-0 to reprimand former City Rep. Claudia Lizette Rodriguez for abusing her City gas card privileges.
Specifically, she violated Ethics Ordinance 2.92.030(A.1) by using her official position “to secure unwarranted privileges or exemptions” for herself, relatives, or others; and she violated 2.92.030(A.7) by utilizing City resources “for personal benefit or the personal benefit of any other person or entity.”
A letter of reprimand is the most severe penalty permitted by law since Rodriguez no longer holds City office. If she were still in office, the Commission could have opted to recommend her removal.
Shortly before the Commission meeting, she issued a press release announcing she would not attend, exclaiming “Go ahead and issue your reprimand. I am not impressed.”
WILL SHE REIMBURSE THE CITY?
On May 7, 2023, Rodriguez posted a video on Instagram in which she displays two cashier’s checks amounting to $5,300 (what she spent on gas in 2022) and declares: “I am prepared to pay [back to the City] the full amount if someone can show me again where I did something wrong.”
Well, now that it has been shown that she did something wrong, will she make the taxpayers whole?
PHOTO CREDIT: Newsmax, 11/6/22