Rory Lancman spends $93,000 to win Long Island library board seat

Poltics makes for strange book fellows.

Rory Lancman, a former New York state assemblyman and city councilman, dropped more than $93,000 to run for a seat on the Great Neck Library Board, state elections filings show.

The unpaid trustee post was part of a hotly-contested 2022 race Lancman fought against rival Christina Rusu, a crime analyst for the NYPD, who said she spent “maybe a thousand dollars” in her quest for the job.

With a huge cash advantage, the career politician won by just 57 votes — 1,683 votes to Rusu’s 1,626.

Lancman hired Berlin Rosen, the heavy-hitting New York City Democratic consulting firm, for $28,236 to help him win the suburban slugfest.

He paid another $39,028 to a consultant BryantBystrov. Campaign attorneys at Harris Beach took home $7,476.

Lancman papered the posh Long Island town with signs, mailers and booklets. His own Great Neck home was thoroughly decked out in Lancman signage.

The cash came out of an old committee he formed during a an unsuccessful 2019 run for Queens District Attorney.

Rusu said the eye-popping campaign sum was inappropriate for the local race.

“I wonder what he is looking for? What does he want to accomplish with this? I guess we will see in the future,” Rusu said.

Library elections are usually sleepy affairs, but this contest was unusually nasty. The race even led to lawsuits.

“Freedom of expression ain’t free. And we were up against a very well organized and very well funded right wing machine that was trying to take over the library board and have books removed,” Lancman insisted. “The books they were attacking, they were claiming they were pornographic, or grooming kids to be transgender.”

Lancman insisted his opponents had received significant outside financing, which they had not been required to report.

The pol — who was later elected president of the board by his new colleagues — and fellow trustees oversee the library’s $10 million budget and operations. They also decide what programs and capital projects to pursue.

“I’m proud of the resources I put in,” Lancman told The Post. “And given how tight the race ended up being, I probably should have spent more.”