Fountain Valley Official Hospitalized

Fountain Valley City Councilman Chuck Conlosh resigned from his job with the Huntington Beach Police Department last week and has checked himself into a local hospital, officials said Monday.

Fountain Valley City Manager Raymond H. Kromer said he and other city officials are awaiting word on Conlosh’s medical condition and could not comment on the situation.

Conlosh, first elected to the council in 1996, was reelected in November despite negative publicity over his insistence that he keep his loaded police-issue semiautomatic 9-millimeter Glock with him at council meetings. He also created controversy in October for not filing campaign-finance statements for 1997 and 1998. Conlosh said at the time the stories were leaked to the news media in an attempt to influence the election.

In August, Conlosh was exonerated by a federal jury in a 10-year-old civil case alleging that he and fellow Huntington Beach police officer John Cottriel caused a near-riot in 1990 by allegedly using excessive force against a man whose party they were breaking up.

Kromer said Conlosh did not attend for the council’s last meeting Jan. 16 and he did not know if Conlosh would attend the next meeting Feb. 6.

“We’re just waiting on the facts,” he said.

Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said Conlosh, a 13-year member of the force, resigned as a police officer with the department on Friday. He declined to elaborate.