The Life and Legacy of Former Assemblymember Martin “Marty” Luster

By Assemblymember Anna Kelles 

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of author Anna Kelles and are not representative of the thoughts or opinions of Tompkins Weekly. 

On November 28, 2025 former Assemblymember Martin “Marty” Luster passed away at his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Marty represented the 125th District in the New York State Assembly from 1989 to 2002 and was a man who truly embodied the essence of what it means to be a public servant. I always saw him as someone who felt perfectly matched to this community, thoughtful, courageous, principled, and, thankfully, a little ahead of his time. He brought a lawyer’s clarity, a neighbor’s humility, and a deep sense of justice to his work in Albany, and he never lost sight of the people and places at home in Tompkins and Cortland Counties that he was elected to serve.

During his fourteen years in the Assembly, Marty chaired the Committee on Mental Health, where he championed the expansion of community-based mental-health services, improved patient protections, and strengthened support for New Yorkers with developmental disabilities. He pushed for greater state investment in mobile crisis outreach teams so people in acute distress could receive help in their homes and communities rather than being funneled directly into hospital or law-enforcement settings. He also advanced early mental-health parity efforts, pressing insurers to cover treatment for mental illness with the same level of support required for physical health conditions, a principle that helped lay the groundwork for parity protections. Marty strengthened due-process protections in involuntary-commitment proceedings and worked to raise statewide standards in programs serving people with developmental disabilities.

As chair of the Committee on Libraries and Education Technology, he secured early funding to bring broadband, digital research tools, and technology support to public libraries across the state, with a particular focus on rural and low-income communities. He worked to secure fairer state funding for SUNY and Cornell’s statutory colleges, supported the creation and growth of institutions like the Sciencenter and Kendal at Ithaca, and helped authorize the Ithaca Children’s Garden so that generations of children could learn and play in nature along the waterfront.

Marty also understood that environmental health and clean water are fundamental to community well-being. He worked with residents and local leaders to advance protections for safe drinking water, including state support for the hamlet of Jacksonville in Ulysses after decades of groundwater contamination from historic fuel spills had compromised private wells. His advocacy helped elevate the need for long-term infrastructure investment to protect public health and ensure that communities facing environmental harm were not left behind.

Even after leaving the Assembly, Marty continued to serve, as Ithaca’s City Attorney, as an of-counsel attorney and teacher, as a supporter of worker and community education projects, and, in later years, as a photographer and writer who poured his love into his adopted coastal community in Gloucester while staying closely connected to his roots in Central New York.

As the current Assemblymember for the 125th District, I know that I am walking a path Marty helped to lay down. Our community is stronger, fairer, and more imaginative because of his decades of work on mental health, education, civil rights, environmental protection, and community institutions. I am profoundly grateful for his example of integrity in public life and for the way he showed that you can be both a fierce advocate and a kind, accessible neighbor.

My heart goes out to his wife Barbara, to Brian and the entire Luster family, and to all who loved him here in the Finger Lakes and beyond. May his memory continue to inspire us, and may we honor him by carrying forward the values he lived, of justice, compassion, environmental stewardship, and a deep commitment to the common good.

Assemblymember Anna Kelles represents the 125th District in the New York State Assembly.