Robert Kettle | |
|---|---|
 Bob Kettle, 2024 | |
| Member of the Seattle City Council from District 7 | |
| Assumed office January 1, 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Andrew J. Lewis |
| Personal details | |
| Born | New York |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Sarah Dunne |
| Residence | Seattle,Washington |
| Alma mater | |
Robert Kettle is an American veteran and politician elected to represent District 7 of the Seattle City Council.
Kettle was born in New York to a working class family. [1] After graduating college, he joined the United States Navy, becoming a Naval Intelligence Officer and rising to the rank of Commander. [1] After retiring from the Navy, Kettle and his family moved to the Queen Anne neighborhood in Seattle, where he became a stay-at-home dad to support his wife's work as a civil rights attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington. [2] [3]
Prior to running for Seattle City Council, Kettle was active in the Queen Anne community as a member of the Queen Anne Community Council board, and chair of its public safety board, as well as a member of the West Precinct Advisory Council, the Queen Anne Block Watch Network, and the World Affairs Council Seattle. [2] [3] [4]
Kettle ran for city council in 2023 against incumbent Andrew J. Lewis. [3] There were four other challengers in the race, which included Piroshky Piroshky owner Olga Sagan. [5] In the August primary, Lewis and Kettle advanced to the general election, with 43% and 31% of the vote respectively. [6]
Kettle was labeled a "centrist" and a "moderate" with the focus of his campaign being public safety and addressing rising crime in the city. [7] [8] He blamed Lewis and the council for the "permissive environment" that had been created through their policies, including support for a 50% cut to the Seattle Police Department. [9] [10] Kettle supported hiring more police officers, cracking down on public drug use, and alternative responses to police. [4] [7] Lewis would state that his support for defunding the police was "a mistake" and that he backed Mayor Bruce Harrell plan to recruit more officers. [4] [10]
Kettle received backing from business and real estate lobbyists, including the National Association of Realtors, as well as some Republicans, like city attorney Ann Davison and former Sacramento Kings basketball player Spencer Hawes. [11] [12]
In the general election, Kettle won with 50.78% to Lewis' 48.91%. [13]
Kettle was first elected to a council with a majority of moderates, a switch to the previous progressive city council. [14] [15] He was appointed chair of the public safety committee, and released his "6 pillars" to address public safety in the city which included, hiring more police, additional legal tools, and collaboration between different government entities. [16] [17] Kettle supported various bills to increase police officer hiring, including changing the police test to have a larger candidate pool. [18]
In conjunction with councilmember Cathy Moore Stay out of Areas of Prostitution (SOAP) legislation, Kettle sponsored a bill to create Stay out of Drug Areas (SODA) zones. The bill originally created two areas, one in Downtown Seattle and the other in Little Saigon, that would exclude people with previous drug related charges from those areas with enhanced trespassing orders. [19] In committee meetings, citizens were vocally opposed to the legislation, and people were removed from the meeting after causing a disturbance after the public comment period abruptly ended. [20] [21] Both the SODA and SOAP bills passed out of committee, with amendments adding additional SODA zones. [20] [21] At the full council, the public comment was extended to accommodate the more than 100 people who signed up to give testimony and the bills were both passed on a 8-1 vote. [22]
As of 2025, Kettle serves on the Council's Public Safety Committee. He voted for a bill to repeal the city's ban on police use of blast balls. During the meeting on repealing the ban, he the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison to "under deployment" of personnel, saying “As you know, in detention prisons, at Abu Ghraib, a lot of bad things happened because of the under deployment.” [23] [24]
Kettle lives in the Queen Anne neighborhood with his wife and children. [3]
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is responsible for the whole city except for the campus of the University of Washington.
Bruce Allen Harrell is an American politician and attorney serving as the 57th and current mayor of Seattle, Washington. He was a member of the Seattle City Council from 2008 to 2020. From 2016 to 2020, he was president of the city council. He was acting mayor of Seattle from September 13 to 18, 2017. He was elected mayor in his own right in the 2021 Seattle mayoral election, becoming the city's second Black mayor, and its first African-Asian American mayor.
Michael McGinn is an American lawyer and politician. He served as mayor of the city of Seattle, Washington, and is a neighborhood activist and a former State Chair of the Sierra Club.
Jenny Anne Durkan is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and politician who served as the 56th mayor of Seattle, Washington. She is the daughter of Martin Durkan. Durkan is a member of the Democratic Party. After earning her Juris Doctor from University of Washington School of Law in 1985, Durkan began practicing law as a criminal defense lawyer and civil litigator. In October 2009, President Barack Obama appointed her United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. She held that position until September 2014.
Timothy L. Burgess is an American journalist and politician from Seattle, Washington. He was a member of the Seattle City Council from 2007 to 2017, and served as Mayor of Seattle for 71 days in late 2017. Prior to his political career, Burgess was a radio journalist and Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer.
Sally G. Bagshaw is an American politician. She was a member of the Seattle City Council from 2016 to 2019. Before being elected to city council, she had been the chief civil deputy prosecutor in the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office for eight years under Norm Maleng.
Kshama Sawant is an Indian-American politician and economist who served on the Seattle City Council from 2014 to 2024. She was a member of Socialist Alternative, the first and only member of the party to date to be elected to public office.
The 2013 Seattle mayoral election took place on November 5, 2013, to elect the mayor of Seattle. Incumbent Mayor Michael McGinn ran for re-election to a second term in office.
Nikkita R. Oliver is an American lawyer, non-profit administrator, educator, poet, and politician. They were a candidate for Mayor of Seattle in the 2017 mayoral election, but finished third in the primary with 17% of the vote. Oliver was defeated again in an at-large Seattle city council race in 2021.
Tammy Janine Morales is an American politician from Seattle, Washington. She was elected to represent District 2 on the Seattle City Council in November 2019.
Jacqueline J. "Joy" Hollingsworth is an American politician, businessperson, and former basketball player. She is a member of the Seattle City Council from the 3rd district, having been elected in 2023. She played basketball at the college level for the University of San Francisco and later the University of Arizona. She served as an assistant coach at Seattle University. Hollingsworth is now part of her family's local marijuana business, The Hollingsworth Cannabis Company, which is based in Washington.
Daniel Aaron Strauss is an American politician who serves on the Seattle City Council from District 6. A native of Seattle's Ballard neighborhood, he previously worked as an aide to local politicians, including Seattle councilmember Sally Bagshaw.
Andrew Joseph Lewis is an American politician and attorney who served as a member of the Seattle City Council from District 7. He was an assistant city attorney before his election to city council and worked on political campaigns.
The Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), also known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, originally Free Capitol Hill, later the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), was an occupation protest and self-declared autonomous zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The zone, originally covering two intersections at the corners of Cal Anderson Park and the roads leading up to them, was established on June 8, 2020, by people protesting the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The zone was cleared of occupants by police on July 1, 2020.
Pine Street is a major east–west street in Seattle, Washington, United States. It travels parallel to Pike Street between Downtown Seattle and the retail core to Capitol Hill, the Central District, and Madrona.
Sara E. Nelson is an American businesswoman and politician serving as a Seattle City Council member from Position 9. A member of the Democratic Party, she defeated Nikkita Oliver in the 2021 election. On January 2, 2024, the city council voted unanimously to appoint her City Council President upon the retirement of Debora Juarez.
Tanya Woo (胡清雅) is an American politician from Seattle, Washington. She ran for Seattle City Council in 2023 in District 2 against incumbent Tammy Morales but lost by a narrow margin of 403 votes. Woo was then appointed to the city-wide District 8 seat in January 2024 but lost that seat in the November 2024 special election to Alexis Mercedes Rinck.
Rob Saka is an American lawyer and politician elected to represent District 1 of the Seattle City Council, which encompasses all of West Seattle.
Cathy Moore is an American lawyer and politician elected to represent District 5 of the Seattle City Council. She was a King County Superior Court judge from 2017 to 2022.
Alexis Mercedes Rinck is an American politician who has served as an at-large member of the Seattle City Council since November 2024. A member of the Democratic Party, she defeated incumbent appointed Council member Tanya Woo in the November 2024 special election.