ROCHESTER, N.Y. — She’s been at the center of more controversies than she’s like to count, but she's not going away any time soon. Attorney Leticia Astacio announced her run for Rochester City Council over the weekend.

“Ultimately, I decided to do this because so many people have asked me to," said Astacio.

Astacio says she wants to run a respectful race.

“This is not a campaign that I want to run from a place of angst or to have anything negative or disparaging about anyone else, especially because it’s a city-wide race and I think it’s so important that as people of color we don’t disparage one another,” Astacio said.

The practicing attorney is hardly an unknown. She's made headlines numerous times. Many were not good ones. 

Astacio served a short stint in jail following a 2016 DWI charge. And the Rochester City Court judge was removed from her seat on the bench by a New York State Court of Appeals. 

“You can say that you don’t like me, you can say whatever, but you can’t say that I got any favoritism or that I didn’t take ownership or that I didn’t deal with the repercussions of my actions,” said Astacio.

Astacio is only looking forward, saying that her master's degree in social work and her law degree make her uniquely qualified for the position.

“I’m not a judge anymore and so that gives me the ability to not be silenced and to champion causes and issues that have always been near and dear to me,” she said.

Astacio frequently makes those causes known publicly and has joined the public, by becoming an activist during the protests in Rochester following the death of Daniel Prude. Astacio enters this second run for Rochester City Council with her only agenda focused, she says, on what she feels is best for the community.

“I think I would focus a lot on making sure that we changed or addressed some of the laws and the ways that they contribute to some of the systemic racism and also disproportionate effects to people that are socio-economically disadvantaged. Because it’s a race/class issue that we have in Rochester, it’s not one or the other, it’s often overlapping. And I think that you do that through re-allocation of funds and through assessing what’s working, what’s not, and emulating what’s already working,” said Astacio.

Thankful to supporters, Astacio is clear that she seeks unity and healing for her city.

“Part of my hesitancy to announce, to be honest, is the city has a lot of issues going on and I don’t want to make this the Leticia show. I think that often I just make good news whether I intend to or not and I just end up causing this frenzy and that’s, in large part, why I’m not running for mayor. Because we don’t need that. We need to unite, we need to focus on getting back to the issues that are important,” Astacio said.

Astacio is already encouraging people to vote in the June Primary.