Isabelle Kerner
Isabelle Kerner ran for election to the Seattle City Council to represent District 7 in Washington. She lost in the primary on August 1, 2023.
Kerner completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Isabelle Kerner was born in Seattle, Washington. Kerner earned an associate degree from Seattle Central College in 2014 and a bachelor's degree from American University in 2016. Her career experience includes working as an investigator.[1]
Elections
2023
See also: City elections in Seattle, Washington (2023)
General election
General election for Seattle City Council District 7
Bob Kettle defeated incumbent Andrew Lewis in the general election for Seattle City Council District 7 on November 7, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Bob Kettle (Nonpartisan) | 50.8 | 11,951 | |
 | Andrew Lewis (Nonpartisan) | 48.9 | 11,512 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 74 | ||
| Total votes: 23,537 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Seattle City Council District 7
The following candidates ran in the primary for Seattle City Council District 7 on August 1, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Andrew Lewis (Nonpartisan) | 43.5 | 8,114 |
| ✔ | Bob Kettle (Nonpartisan) | 31.5 | 5,888 | |
| Olga Sagan (Nonpartisan) | 13.0 | 2,429 | ||
| Aaron Marshall (Nonpartisan) | 7.3 | 1,372 | ||
 | Isabelle Kerner (Nonpartisan) | 2.7 | 502 | |
| Wade Sowders (Nonpartisan) | 1.7 | 323 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.2 | 46 | ||
| Total votes: 18,674 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
2019
See also: City elections in Seattle, Washington (2019)
General election
General election for Seattle City Council District 7
Andrew Lewis defeated Jim Pugel in the general election for Seattle City Council District 7 on November 5, 2019.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Andrew Lewis (Nonpartisan) | 53.0 | 18,336 |
 | Jim Pugel (Nonpartisan) | 46.6 | 16,122 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.4 | 152 | ||
| Total votes: 34,610 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Seattle City Council District 7
The following candidates ran in the primary for Seattle City Council District 7 on August 6, 2019.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Andrew Lewis (Nonpartisan) | 31.7 | 8,409 |
| ✔ | | Jim Pugel (Nonpartisan) | 24.8 | 6,566 |
| Daniela Lipscomb-Eng (Nonpartisan) | 9.8 | 2,591 | ||
| Michael George (Nonpartisan) | 9.3 | 2,460 | ||
| Gene Burrus (Nonpartisan) | 5.7 | 1,501 | ||
| Jason Williams (Nonpartisan) | 5.1 | 1,347 | ||
| Don Harper (Nonpartisan) | 4.8 | 1,265 | ||
| James Donaldson (Nonpartisan) | 3.1 | 824 | ||
| Naveed Jamali (Nonpartisan) | 3.0 | 788 | ||
| Isabelle Kerner (Nonpartisan) | 2.6 | 691 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 80 | ||
| Total votes: 26,522 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2023
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Isabelle Kerner completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Kerner's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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As a resident of Downtown Seattle, I have seen first-hand the escalation of violent crime, drug use, mental health crises, and camping. I do not believe the City of Seattle cannot continue to just talk, study, or spend their way out of any problem when it is the taxpayers who are footing the bill.
In 2019, I ran for this same position. Our Elected Officials are still talking about the same issues that were talked about in during the 2019 elections—four years ago.
I am not a career politician. I am not owned or chosen by any group or special interest. My sole commitment is to my constituents in addition to those who work or visit Seattle.
I believe that real ‘change’ is not about ‘adding cents’—it is about ‘common-sense’. Solutions must start now.- IMPLEMENT COMMON SENSE SOLUTIONS IMMEDIATELY that address the problems that have left thousands on Seattle’s sidewalks, streets, and parks where criminal activity continues to run rampant, open drug use is an everyday occurrence and mental health seems to continuously declining.
- IMPROVE PUBLIC SAFETY WHILE ALSO RE-BUILDNIG PUBLIC TRUST BETWEEN PUBLIC SAFETY PROVIDERS like SPD and SFD.
- ENSURE ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS ARE HELD PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY ACCOUNTABILE to the promises they make to their Constituents during campaigns when they then fail to deliver any results during their tenure.
I could report my car was stolen in King County and then it could be reported 'Abandoned' or 'Found' in Pierce County but niether agency would know if it is not entered into the WASIC databse (statewide).
Public safety is not just a Downtown specific issue— it is an issue all over the City. And while I understand that the economic majority including the groups led by Howard Wright III, who has ties and influence via the ‘Seattle Hospitality Alliance’, our King County Executive, and many others—there is no way to create a ‘healthy and vibrant’ Downtown when the only thing the ‘Stakeholders’ care about is the profit that comes from Tourism.
In my 27 years of lived experience, Downtown did not used to be like this. Businesses located in the Downtown corridor didn’t just rely on tourism. While they may benefit from the ‘Tourist Season’ — they also relied on people that lived in the Downtown area all year long. In 2019. 4 years ago when I first ran for election for Seattle City Council in District 7, there were already businesses closing due to crime, tax increases (LID), now even more. And this was before the pandemic.
In order to address public safety, we have to elect Leaders that actually care about the City and about Downtown. We need Leaders that are willing to speak out under pressure, that are reliable and that do not just ‘flip-flop’ last minute— or break the promises they make to the voting public during campaigns after they are elected. and not just their next term.
We also can’t just keep talking, walking, spending, or studying our way around these problems. I mean we are 8 years into an emergency that has been described as so ‘complex’— no one can solve it.
In my opinion, it was not and has never been ‘that complicated’. I would say there are a lot of people that have now gone out of their way to ensure that it is complicated.
There is so much talk about “We need a plan because this is a complex issue” . . . And I am living Downtown thinking, well at least I went to the work of proposing one— four years ago in 2019…
But that is the milion or billion dollar question. Where did the money go?
I think it is long overdue we address the root problems of mental health and drug addiction and if successful, that will lead to reduction in crime, homelessness, people on the streets, public camping, and cleaner streets.
We also need to acknowledge that some 'operations' in these encampments are actually just drug fronts, or human trafficking operations. I have seen it. I know it. So while I support housing-- you cannot just throw all of these people in a motel or hotel. There is active human trafficking happening even worse now.
We should use 'Enterprise Partnerships' - basically a rent-to-own option for people my age range or about so that they can accumulate and build the same welath that home owners do while also benefiting the 'owners' or 'partners' of such establishments.
I already take a different approach. It's called compassion and caring about people. Establishing rapport. Building trust. Simple respect and understanding. What we have now is either stupidity, enabling, or public corruption -- perhaps a corruption of all three.
And what I will say is that if there is one thing that drives these elections-- it is not the people. It is special interests that only care about profit for their private companies while billing the public for such 'ventures'. It's basically just a bunch of racketeering.
I would support imoposing a fine for littering and propose a brighter and more persuasive solution that would add more recyling and trash receptacles. I would support tax incentives for businesses to follow this idea.
No more bike lanes until there is a plan. Maybe literally making a visual model of the entire city as a prototype on a table before just throwing in these random special interest projects.
Stop investing in buses when the buses are not safe and even drivers are becoming ill from secondhand exposure to drugs.
Madnating the users and companies that supply these new scooters are fined each and every time they don't return it into a 'bike rack' liked station-- with HELMETS.
The bike groups might kill me for this but we had bike trails. I rode bikes all the time with my dad and sister. I have no idea when we decided to squeeze all this into arterial roads. I do not believe these 'bike lanes' are for some poor person from a marginalized community as has been promoted.
At the same time, the City of Seattle has a lot of policies in the Seattle Municipal Code (SMC) and those policies only work if there is a way to enforce them. So right now I think it needs to be a group effort that also involes pubilc-private partnerships, inspiring the next generation to join SPD or SFD instead of gangs.
I think that Seattle at this point is just at a really critical level that in 2019 I though was the bottom. I also believe that our public safety providers are doing their best, but that 'politics' should play a much lower role in 'chain of command' than it currently does.
In other words, I don't think Seattle can just 'write it's way out of the history book' -- our Elected Officials have now created in the last four years. I mean sirens, gunshots, people that appear dead after being revived by SFD, it just gets to you. It starts to effect everyone in some way or another. It is really sad.
My primary priority is to implement the solution I had proposed in detail in 2019. The main problem is public safety. drug addiction, mental health, lack of enforcement of pre-existing laws, increases in crime, and homelessness.
I really only have one priority and that is a solution which I believe should and could have started 4 years ago.
Hardcore drugs were really not part of the Seattle scene until Marijuana was legalized and policies changed. That is when I recall harder drugs hitting the Seattle 'scene'. I am not confident that by suing Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the City really accomplished much--unless people really believe we eliminated the 'opiate crisis' by bringing in Fentanyl.
I would support policies that criminalize illegal open drug use and consumption. However, I cannot control the Courts and the County Executive who runs the Jail. For that reason, I am going to defer back to the solutions already presented in 2019.
- Rosa Parks
- Albert Einstein
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Abraham Lincoln
- Thomas Edison
Unfortunately we don't have a lot of female business owners or leaders I can say I respect yet. i value people that were true to their beliefs and really stood for them--even when or if it cost them their lives.
This is not a job you sign up for without knowing the risks. Four years ago in 2019, I would say there are no risks.
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“You know who the best managers are? They're the great individual contributors, who never ever want to be a manager, but decide they have to be manager because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them.”
-Jobs
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“I have not failed 10,000 times—I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”
-Eddison
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“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?”
-Einstein
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“In spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.”
-MLK
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"I believe there is only one race - the human race."
-Rosa Parks
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"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."
-A. Lincoln
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“I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
Honesty
Effectiveness
Collaboration
Honesty
Integrity
Accontability
Ability
Capability
Anything you say, just putting yourself out there can create a vulerability. I cannot imagine running for office if I had a family or kids to protect. Especially given the police staffing shortage.
The only little known power is the Council's ability to appoint a vacant position. Which we have seen happen. Our current Mayor was the Mayor for like 1 day in 2015 before he quit his position in 2019 - leaving that seat vacant.
Right now I don't think the Seattle City Council really has much power. I think that there might be some 'higher-ups' at the County, State, and even Federal level that have power over their decisions. But that is why I believe it is meant to be a non-partisan race.
I mean I majored in Political Science so I've had a good amount of education in various politics. Which is also why I never actually wanted to become one. But the City of Seattle I came back to in 2017 was not the City I left in 2014.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Note: Community Questions were submitted by the public and chosen for inclusion by a volunteer advisory board. The chosen questions were modified by staff to adhere to Ballotpedia’s neutrality standards. To learn more about Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection Expansion Project, click here.
2019
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Isabelle Kerner completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Kerner's responses.
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
1. Solve Seattle's Camping Crisis Using Cargo Container Solution 2. Earthquake Proof Infrastructure 3. Traffic
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?
Anything that gets things done.
Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?
1. Steve Jobs 2. Albert Einstein 3. Sir Isaac Newton 4. Martin Luther King Jr. 5. Jeff Bezos
Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?
Civil Disobedience - Henry Thoreau
What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?
1. Transparency 2. Accountability 3. Honesty
What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?
1. Creativity 2. I'm not 'for sale' 3. Innovative Perspectives 4. Wide-Range Knowledge 5. Understanding
What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?
Fix the problems with solutions that consider ALL unintended consequences.
What legacy would you like to leave?
I would like to set an example that would change the way the entire country deals with public camping/homelessness, addiction, and mental health.
What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?
911 - I was 6 years old.
What was your very first job? How long did you have it?
Accounting Assistant - 2 Years
What is your favorite holiday? Why?
April Fools Day - It is funny
What is your favorite book? Why?
Alice
If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?
Alice in Wonderland
What is your favorite thing in your home or apartment? Why?
My art projects - They inspire me
What was the last song that got stuck in your head?
You're Somebody Else - Flora Cash
What is something that has been a struggle in your life?
PTSD
Are there any little-known powers or responsibilities held by this office that you believe more people should be aware of?
I do not know yet.
What kind of skills or expertise do you believe would be the most helpful for the holders of this office to possess?
1. Ability to compromise 2. Ability to agree to disagree 3. Ability to think outside the box
What qualities does this office possess that makes it a unique and important part of the local government?
It contains the keys for the City of Seattle's safe (which includes publicly owned land)
Do you believe that it’s beneficial for holders of this office to have previous experience in government or politics?
To some extent - yes. But, the game changes everyone after a while so I don't think politicians should remain politicians all their life.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2023 Elections
External links
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Candidate Seattle City Council District 7 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on June 23, 2023
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