Five new voices to join council

Albany lawmakers are more likely to challenge authority of Jennings

Correction: An earlier version of this story contained incorrect information about the race in the Fourth Ward. Barbara Smith was elected without opposition to succeed the incumbent, Sarah Curry-Cobb.

Brian Nearing, Albany Times Union, 11/17/05

ALBANY -- When Mayor Jerry Jennings starts a fourth term in January with what he described on election night as a mandate, he'll face a revamped Common Council that may be more likely to question what he wants.

There will be five new faces on 15-member all-Democratic council, with Corey Ellis in the Third Ward and Catherine Fahey in the Seventh -- representing party insurgents and others who have bucked the mayor.

The other new members are from the Fifth Ward, where Willard Timmons ousted incumbent Shirley Foskey, and the Eighth Ward, where John Rosenzweig, a Jennings appointee to the Board of Zoning Appeals, replaced David Torncello III, who often sided with the mayor and did not run again.

"You have a third of the council changed. That's a pretty big thing in one year," said First Ward Council member Dominick Calsolaro, one of the mayor's more vocal opponents. "It's good for the city, instead of having a bunch of yes people."

Calsolaro's major objections have been to what he sees as excessive city debt, and he expects to get some support on this from the newcomers. "We may see more more people questioning the city's borrowing," he said.