Celeste Racette, founder of Save Century II, enters race for Wichita mayor

Celeste Racette, a former fraud investigator and founder of Save Century II, is entering the 2023 Wichita mayoral race.

Racette will challenge incumbent Brandon Whipple, whom she supported in 2019. She said he lost her support because she feels he has failed to live up to his promises of ethics reform at City Hall.

“That’s the biggest problem I see right now with City Hall is they’re toying with ethics,” Racette said at her campaign announcement Friday. “Ethics have to be clear-cut, straight, and you have to follow them.”

Racette’s professional background includes work as a bank regulator and investigator for the FDIC. She helped uncover a predatory payday loan scam involving CashCall and Western Sky following the financial crash of 2008.

“I’m not a lightweight,” Racette said at a recent meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club, a Republican civic group that meets downtown.

Two dozen supporters gathered for her announcement at the Law Enforcement Memorial outside City Hall, where she promised to apply her financial acumen to the city budget.

“We want more of a voice in city government and how finances are handled,” said Racette, who was born and raised in Wichita. “That’s why I’m running for mayor — to be the watchdog of our finances and to provide financial oversight to public over private interests, to enhance public safety and to save Century II.”

Racette, a longtime Democrat, cut ties with the local Democratic Party in 2021 over the party’s handling of an ethics discussion surrounding Democratic City Council member Brandon Johnson’s vote on a $4 million federal grant. She is now unaffiliated.

“We’ve never cared with Century II if you’re a Republican or you’re a Democrat or you’re unaffiliated or you’re a Libertarian,” Racette said. “It has never mattered, because the one thing we have in common is we love this city. We care about Wichita.”

Racette can trace the moment she decided to step into the fray of local civic engagement: the first public engagement meeting of the Riverfront Legacy coalition, where she was asked to take down a Century II display she had set up on an empty table at the Wichita Boathouse.

“The red flag was, all of the sudden, public interests weren’t important. Private interests were,” Racette told the Wichita Pachyderm Club. “It definitely set off my examiner’s mind.”

She has spent nearly four years pushing back, usually against incentives packages to private businesses and developers.

“I watch the Wichita City Council meetings that are televised, and she is equipped with the knowledge of finances,” said Lynda Rathbone, who attended Racette’s campaign announcement. “She has the skills to read and understand budgets, and what she has done for all of us is expose so much with our city rot.

“The backroom, under-the-table deals, shenanigans with favored people. — she’s going to give us our city government back.”

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