Great Neck resident and former state Assemblyman Rory Lancman was named the new executive director of the state’s Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority, officials announced last week.
Lancman, who represented the state Assembly’s 25th District in Eastern Queens from 2007-2013, will now be part of a state-budgeted commission tasked with establishing a more effective operational model for how the organization serves Long Islanders.
The power authority currently contracts its day-to-day operations to PSEG: Long Island. Officials said they are required to present their restructuring ideas to the legislation before Dec. 31, 2025.
Commission officials, including state Sen. Kevin Thomas, state Sen. James Gaughran and state Sen. James Sanders expressed excitement at joining forces with Lancman, praising him for his previous governmental work, which they said will serve the group well in its’ work.
“I congratulate Rory Lancman on his appointment to the LIPA Commission,” Gaughran said. “His career in public service has been widespread, and I know he will continue to put consumers at the center of his work.”
“As a newly appointed member of this commission myself, I am looking forward to working with Rory Lancman, my former colleague in government, as he serves as its new executive director, a role for which he is well qualified,” Sanders said.
Lancman said Long Islanders and residents of Queens deserve to have accessible, reliable and cost-effective electric service, lauding the establishment of the commission and expressing his appreciation for his appointment to the group.
“I look forward to working with the commissioners, the advisory committee, and other stakeholders to help the commission fulfill its mandate to provide the Legislature with ‘the specific actions, legislation, and timeline necessary to restructure LIPA into a true publicly owned power authority,” Lancman said.
Lancman, a trustee candidate in the Great Neck Library District’s upcoming October election, said the appointment to the commission will have no impact on his campaign. Aside from serving as a state assemblyman, Lancman also served as a member of the New York City Council before moving to Great Neck last year with his wife Mojgan, the first Iranian-American to be elected as a state Supreme Court Judge.
He also served as a statewide special counsel for ratepayer protection, presiding over a meeting where New Yorkers expressed their experiences with the Power Authority’s service following Tropical Storm Isaias in August 2020.
During that meeting, LIPA CEO Thomas Falcone described Isaias as a “management failure.”
“Every failure that occurred during this storm could have been prevented by competent management,” Falcone said during the meeting. “I want to share with you an internal email from a PSEG employee from mid-July, just three weeks before the storm. The employee stated to his boss that the outage management system, the key system that failed during the storm, was quote, ‘not even managing on a day-to-day basis, and we are definitely not prepared for a weather event.’ That was three weeks before the storm.”
PSEG estimated that 420,000 of its customers across the island lost power during or following the storm, with an estimated 15,528 customers having to wait more than a week for their service to return.
