Handing in his badge

Inspector Joe Carbonette, 72, has served in the Valley Stream Auxiliary Police Department for nearly 50 years and has commanded it for 30, but the longtime village resident is handing in his badge this April.

Deputy Inspector Richard Vela will take his place.

“I think 49 years is enough,” Carbonette said. “I think I paid my dues. It’s time to spend some time with my wife.”

Carbonette, who will also retire from the village’s meter department after 12 years of service, said he wants more time with his wife, Victoria, now that the couple will both be retired. “I thought, let me start enjoying life a little,” Carbonette said.

In 1961, Carbonette said a friend of his who worked for the village and the auxiliary police, asked him if he’d be interested in joining the force, and the rest is history. During his 49-year tenure on the village’s auxiliary police force, Carbonette has seen 11 different U.S. presidents, served under 11 village mayors and four village justices. The auxiliary police are tagged as the eyes and ears of the police department. They are unpaid, volunteers who handle traffic control during village parades, serve as security at village court, and patrol the village nightly.

Before Carbonette joined the meter department in 1997, he worked as a letter carrier for the Freeport Post Office for 33 years. He retired from the post office in 1992, and Carbonette said he relaxed for about six months before he began feeling the urge to work again. His wife had not retired yet, so in 1997, he began working full-time for the village, in addition to his nightly auxiliary police responsibilities.

Now that Carbonette will have some free time on his hands, he’s got a few ideas on how he’ll spend his spare time. “I’ll probably aggravate my wife,” he said. “My wife has been retired from the county for about a year, so I gave her a year on her own. We won’t do anything too big. I got the house the way I want it, now it’s time to enjoy it.”

Village Justice Robert Bogle, whom Carbonette has worked with for the past 24 years, said that he will miss Carbonette, especially his sense of humor. “He’s always been very accommodating,” Bogle said. “He’s flexible, pragmatic and he’s got a dry sense of humor that I’ve always liked and enjoyed.”

Carbonette said that the thing he’ll miss most about his role with the auxiliary police are the people. Though some people may view working in the courts as stressful, he said, he enjoyed dealing with the different personalities he encountered and working with village employees.

He added that he’s comfortable leaving the post under the command of Deputy Inspector Vela, but he wouldn’t rule out returning to the force for one more run. “If I want to come back, they told me the door’s open,” Carbonette said. “In six months, if I see I’m bored, maybe I’ll come back for two days a week.”