“Listening Is Part of the Job.” Jonathan Cottrell Enters Race for West Hollywood City Council

It was Pride weekend Saturday afternoon and Jonathan Cottrell was where he often is — at GYM Bar with his husband Erik, keeping the place humming.

GYM Bar has become one of the most talked-about bars on the Rainbow District stretch since Cottrell and Braverman took it over in 2024. Whether it’s the place to watch the Dodgers win the World Series twice or catch Heated Rivalry — the HBO Max gay hockey drama that turned GYM Bar into a weekly destination — there’s no denying this place is winning the game.

Regulars and residents alike have seen him there in the early mornings too, laptop open, power drill in hand, all before he heads to his day job at ESPN. When something breaks he fixes it. Then he writes down how he did it so it doesn’t break the same way twice.

He just fixed a table. Now he wants more people sitting at it.

Cottrell, co-owner of GYM Bar WeHo at 8919 Santa Monica Blvd. and a senior software engineer at ESPN, has entered the 2026 race for West Hollywood City Council.

“I don’t have all the answers,” he said. “What I do know — we need to bring a lot more of us to the table.”

The Long Way Home

Cottrell was born in France to American parents who spent years doing humanitarian and community health work around the world. The family moved constantly — France, Cambodia, several other countries. His mother homeschooled him. Watching his parents work shaped how he thinks about community.

“The real work is when you sit down and see how you can help people take ownership of their community and grow it,” he said. Listening, he said, is the job. Not showing up and telling people what they need.

He eventually enrolled at McGill University in Montreal, where he studied joint physics and computer science. He came to California with a plane ticket and six weeks of rent, co-founded startups, and spent eight years at Google working on Gmail. He’s now a senior software engineer at ESPN, a division of Disney.

He moved to West Hollywood from San Francisco after meeting his husband, Erik Braverman, on a trip to Puerto Vallarta. Braverman has lived in West Hollywood for more than 30 years. Cottrell said he knew quickly this was home.

“I found my forever home,” he said.

He and Braverman bought GYM Bar WeHo in 2024 through Bravecoot Ventures LLC. Braverman is a senior vice president with the Los Angeles Dodgers. They married at Dodger Stadium in January 2022. Beyond the bar, Cottrell serves on the City’s Public Facilities Recreation and Infrastructure Commission, is a founding member of the WeHo Business Task Force, and sits on the Chamber of Commerce board. The couple also leads their HOA board, a role Erik has held for more than 20 years.

A Baby on the Way

The two are expecting their first child this summer.

Ask him how he feels about it and he laughs. Excited and scared, he said — and he quoted Sondheim to make the point. “Into the Woods. Little Red Riding Hood.” That’s where he is with it.

It’s the same feeling he had when he and Erik bought GYM Bar two years ago knowing nothing about the bar industry. They leaned on their staff, their neighbors, their community. The village showed up. Now a baby is coming into that same village.

“There is so much love and affection,” he said. “It’s the village baby.”

He said that experience — running the bar, sitting on the commission, watching West Hollywood up close — is what finally pushed him toward this race. And with a child on the way, he said the stakes got very real very fast.

“We want to raise this child here in West Hollywood,” he said. “I do not want to go somewhere else.”

He said West Hollywood’s founders left something real behind he wants to protect and build on.

“We have these longtime residents and City founders who have bestowed this amazing legacy on us,” he said. “I think we can do even more.”

What He’s Hearing at Ground Zero

GYM Bar sits at the center of the Rainbow District. He sees it all. He’s heard it all. Cottrell said he hears from residents, regulars, and neighbors every day. The concerns he hears most are public safety and the unhoused — and he said the unhoused conversation is more nuanced than people might expect.

“A lot of the comments aren’t even about the sidewalk challenges,” he said. “People are genuinely concerned. Is it humane to let someone sit on the street for hours and nobody does anything?”

He said if what the City is doing isn’t working, it needs to keep iterating. He pointed to San Jose as a city making real progress and said West Hollywood should study what’s working there.

On street vendors, he said the state law protecting them was written with real purpose and he respects that. The intent was to help lower-income and recently arrived residents enter the formal economy. But he said entering the formal economy shouldn’t mean permanently staying outside of it.

“We can build legislation that says you have 15 days to register,” he said. “We work within Sacramento law. It allows us to go after bad actors.”

He said he has seen vendors dumping oil into storm drains and has heard reports of break-ins. He said that behavior needs consequences. He’s submitted public comment letters to the council with his legal analysis of what the City can and can’t do under state law.

What He’s Running On

His four platform areas are public safety, affordability, small business vibrancy, and free accessible public spaces. On public safety he uses the phrase “safety as care.” The goal is to actually help people. All the City’s agencies — the Sheriff’s station, fire, city staff — need to work as one.

“We need the City, the Sheriff’s station, fire — all different agencies — but we need to operate as a cohesive whole,” he said.

On affordability he said West Hollywood is in a crisis. Renters are at the center of it. The people who are the heart of this city need to be able to stay.

He also wants to retool WeHo Engage. The City’s civic feedback platform has lost momentum, he said. Residents should be able to weigh in continuously. That input should feed real decisions, not sit in a drawer.

“I want us to listen as part of the job,” he said. “Not just say this is what you need.”

On SB 79, he kept it simple. The state housing law has West Hollywood residents on edge. He said the City can’t afford to sit still on it.

“This is a clear case of needing absolute community input,” he said. “We need to continue to build upon this city in thoughtful ways.”

Before You Go

At the end of the conversation we asked him what he wanted people to know.

The 2026 race is bigger than his own campaign, Cottrell said. Go meet all the candidates. Hear everyone out. Make up your own mind.

“I want to be able to earn everyone’s vote,” he said. “But I want everyone to have the chance to decide — not because of some external forces, but because they deliberately heard from every single one of us directly.”

Getting him in front of people who haven’t seen him yet, he said, is the most valuable thing supporters can do.

Cottrell is on Instagram and Facebook @Cottrell4WeHo. His campaign website is cottrell4weho.com.

This story is part of WEHOonline’s ongoing candidate profile series ahead of the November 2026 West Hollywood City Council election. We’ve published profiles on Kyle Brazeal, Kody Christiansen, and Jonathan Wilson. Next up is Tatyana Tsikanovsky. To date, invitations have also been extended to Larry Block, Helen Krieger and Stephen Post. All candidates are welcome.