Robert Rodriguez to run for Melissa Mark-Viverito's City Council seat

Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez will announce Saturday that he is running for the East Harlem New York City Council seat slated to be vacated by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, according to a source close to the Rodriguez campaign. The Advance Group sent out a press release on behalf of Rodriguez Friday morning, noting that he would make an announcement Saturday afternoon at the Johnson Community Center. The release did not specify what sort of an announcement Rodriguez had in mind. The assemblyman has been publicly weighing a run for Mark-Viverito’s seat, which she must give up at the end of the year because of term limits. Other candidates for Mark Viverito’s seat include: Diana Ayala, deputy chief of staff for Mark-Viverito; entrepreneur Tamika Mapp; educator Edward Santos; and Edward Gibbs, who claimed he would have been the first ex-criminal offender in the Assembly if he had won a 2010 bid for Rodriguez’s seat.