Bill Cook, former village employee

By ALEX COSTELLO

Former Rockville Centre Village Administrator Bill Cook was scheduled to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on March 4 after dying of heart failure in his Garden City home on Jan. 7 at the age of 75.

Cook worked in the village for nearly 20 years—first as the Director of Recreation when he first came to the village in 1967, and eventually as the village administrator in 1980 until he left the village in 1986.

“He was a very dedicated guy, a very loyal guy,” said Tony Brunetta, the village’s current Superintendent of Parks and Recreation (the current name for the position Cook held). “Always into his work and believed in doing the best that could be done. If you’re going to take on a job, do it right.”

Cook, like many other village employees, served in the Armed Forces for many years of his life. He served a combat tour in the Army in Korea, and afterwards got a commission for the Marine Corps and worked mostly in Garden City.

Brunetta was already employed by the village when Cook came. Over the years, the two developed a close friendship. And when Cook was promoted to village administrator, he left Brunetta at the helm of the Recreation Department.

“Tony [Brunetta] was actually groomed by Bill [Cook] to become the new Director of Recreation for the village,” said former RVCPD Commissioner Jack McKeon, another friend of Cook’s. “When Bill left, he said, ‘There’s only one man for this job, and that’s Tony Brunetta.’” Brunetta, though, was a little nervous to be taking over the job.

“It was challenging at the beginning,” he said. “I guess people on the outside looking in saw something in me that I guess I didn’t see in myself.”

Brunetta was not the only person in the village whose career path Cook affected. It was Cook who told first McKeon he should interview for the RVCPD.

“Bill Cook actually organized the interview between me and then-chief Robert Ouler,” said McKeon. “I went on the interview, and Bill Cook was actually responsible for me choosing the Rockville Centre police, and also because of his friendship, he’s probably also responsible for me going back into the Reserves.” McKeon, like Cook, served in the Army in Korea. However, after that, McKeon accepted a commission in the Navy.

“So Bill had a hand in a lot of our careers. He got me started, he got Tony started, and many others, too,” McKeon said.

After he left the village in 1986, Cook worked briefly as the Administrator of Parks and Recreation for the Borough of Queens, working under then-mayor Ed Koch. However, when Koch lost his reelection bid, Cook lost his job. But he soon took another job as Director of Parks and Recreation—this time in sunny Bermuda, where he stayed for ten years.

“A funny thing he said to me, in order to keep the peace, whenever you had a drink at the pub, you had to say, ‘God bless the Queen,’ otherwise it’s an insult and you get yourself in a lot of trouble,” said McKeon. “He had to break that habit when he got back to the U.S.”

Cook is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, as per his request. The reason for the delay between his death and his burial, his friends explained, is that setting up interment at Arlington takes some time. And then snowstorms shut down the metro Washington, D.C. area, where Arlington is located, for days, pushing back the burial even more.

Cook was described by those who knew him as a very honorable and loyal man.

“There’s not too many guys like him anymore,” said McKeon. “His handshake was his bond. If you shook his hand, you didn’t need a written contract. I’m talking about the finest Marine Corps honor. He was a man of honor.”

Comments about this story? ACostello@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 207.