What Will the Mayor’s Race Be About?

On Friday, Celeste Racette, the founder of Save Century II and a woman who has made herself a constant presence at City Hall over the past few years–especially when anything related to Wichita’s finances or policy decisions that implicate the ethics of those on our city council are being discussed–declared that she would run for mayor. The tagline on her website? “I’ll Restore Your Trust in City Government.” Her focus, clearly, is on issues of financial oversight and ethical integrity–both of which she says she had hoped to see improve under Mayor Brandon Whipple, whom she supported when he ran in 2019, but neither of which she thinks has.

The interesting thing is that in making this argument, Racette is putting herself in the same shoes Whipple once wore, since “transparency” was his central argument against the incumbent mayor, Jeff Longwell. Whipple’s accusation then (as you can see on his old website) was that City Hall under the Longwell administration had become “a place of insider deals made behind closed doors,” while Racette’s accusation today is that City Hall has lost the trust of Wichitans due to “insider handouts, poor judgment and backroom deals.”

The particulars are different, of course. Whipple’s tenure hasn’t involved anything like the secret deal Longwell orchestrated to tear down Lawrence-Dumont Stadium and build a new one solely to attract minor league baseball to the city, much less the seeming favoritism involved in the city awarding hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts for a new water plant to Longwell’s friends. Rather, Racette’s case builds on what she sees as Whipple’s refusal to hold City Manager Robert Layton accountable when it comes to its how the city and its staff maintains or invests in its public assets (or, with unfortunate frequency, excuses itself from doing either, or entrusts private entities to do such work on its own), particularly as regards landmark buildings like Century II. She also accuses—with at least some supporting evidence—that the city council will never be forced to take the people’s demand for reforms seriously so long as those who invoke the public interest use it to, in her view, protect their own claimed political prerogatives (by employing arguably anti-democratic interpretations of Home Rule) or personal interests (by bringing into city government organizations individuals with personal ties to the councilmembers or the mayor). Hence, the need to clean house.

Given Racette’s prominence among those suspicious of the often-hidden details in the financial arrangements the city makes, and the huge number of such arrangements which deserve scrutiny, it’s likely she’ll be able to make extensive and constructive use of the still widespread presumption of corruption and short-sightedness in City Hall. Whipple, as the incumbent, likely won’t be able to. So what will be his argument for re-election be?

Since one of the few complaints that have actually come before the—only now barely beginning to function—Ethics Advisory Board involves the Mayor himself, that might not be an accomplishment he chooses to focus on. But he’ll be able to claim some arguable successes; leading the city through the pandemic certainly counts. And like all mayors, Whipple will be quick to point to the (not extensive, but nonetheless real) successes he’s had in what, in this day and age, is usually, unfortunately, the primary job of urban politicians: leveraging state and federal money so as to attracting businesses to, and expand the businesses within, their city.

Beyond that, I also suspect Whipple will lean into the progressive politics which his own history as a Democratic state legislature leads many voters to associate him with anyway, his complicated but ultimately successful push for a city-wide non-discrimination ordinance being foremost. In recent mailings from the mayor’s office, his support for continued efforts to expand Medicaid and combat domestic violence are highlighted, as well as how those efforts are “drawing opposition from insiders.”

Whipple has always been open about his willingness to think in a more explicitly political, and therefore partisan, way when it comes to city government, though he hasn’t used his position to advance any serious plan for changing the city charter and thus making that willingness less controversial. I definitely wouldn’t expect to see such proposals during the campaign. But since the opponent most observers expect to be his main challenger—councilmember Bryan Frye—is a well-connected Republican, trying to present his progressive beliefs as entwined with his role as mayor, despite its official non-partisan character, may be helpful as a way to sharpen distinctions.

And don’t forget the “mother’s milk” of politics here: money. Racette’s crusade to save Century II connected her with diverse individuals and groups around Wichita, including both the political left and right, and her determination to run a resolutely non-partisan campaign will likely inspire many of those civic-minded folks to stick with her and financially support the effort to get her message out. But political parties, for all their flaws and all the ways their roles in American politics have changed, remain a highly effective tool for connecting with and motivating voters and donors. Frye’s Republican connections will no doubt serve him well–even if he never puts the GOP elephant on any of his mailings–should he run, as will Whipple’s Democratic ones. Though Racette, as a former Democrat who has the support—or at least the sympathy—of several important local Democrats that, like her, have felt burned by Whipple’s sometimes combative style, may be able to complicate those connections.

Or perhaps it won’t matter, because perhaps the mayor will choose to avoid that approach entirely. Wichita may be changing, but it’s certainly still not a liberal city, and after the exhausting public meetings over the non-discrimination ordinance, no one knows that better than he. Still, with his best arguments from 2019 possibly being turned against him by a passionate outsider like Racette—very much as Whipple himself was an outsider to city politics when he first ran—the political aspects of his campaign, despite the consternation they cause to those who insist (sometimes hypocritically) that party agendas have no place in city politics, may be essential to him. Time will tell.