Parma Mayor Dean DePiero

Recently elected Mayor Dean DePiero is a Parma native who served as a prosecutor and a Parma city councilman from 1995-1998. As a state representative, he served the 15th House district which included Parma, Brooklyn, Linndale and Middleburg Heights. During his time in Columbus, DePiero pushed for legislation strengthening laws against sexual predators and domestic violence offenders.

With recent scandals involving Parma police and a turnover of elected officials, DePiero is seen by many as a popular and welcome voice for reform. Cool Cleveland contributor David Tarditi sat down with Mayor DePiero for this exclusive interview. http://www.parma-oh.com

Cool Cleveland: Why did the people of Parma elect you as Mayor?
Mayor Dean DePiero: I think they wanted to see a change at the top level. I think they recognized the work that I had done as a local councilman and then as a state legislator for 5 years. They respected the work that I did and they thought I had the vision to move the city forward.

Do you think the people of Parma are ready for your leadership?
I think they are, it's been well received, we have made a lot of big changes coming in here, for the most part it has been well received.

How do you see Parma differently than your predecessors? What was your perception of Parma then and what is it today?
A lot of times in the past people have viewed us as the glass being half empty, whereas I say, the glass is half full of all the great opportunities we have here in the city. We are located so well within the county, with our location, you can be downtown in 10-15 minutes and you're close to interstates. There is a good tax base here and you have affordable housing with steady increase in property values which is good. People who make an investment here will make money, which is great. We also have great recreation programs; we have our own golf course and we have an exciting project with the Metroparks coming in, a deal that I spearheaded. The Metroparks is coming in and creating a 300 acre park, it’s going to be the newest reservation which will really help our city. So, I just see a city full of opportunities rather than a city that is losing population and dying.

And Parma has lost population, hasn’t it?
About a thousand. We did pretty good from about 1990 until 2000. We only lost about 1500 residents, which for an inner-ring suburb is pretty good. 1500-2000 residents I would say.

How do you see Parma playing a part in regionalism?
We are the 7th largest city in the state and we are the largest suburb in the county. Being so big and having so many people, having so many resources but yet having such a large budget also, we are almost forced to play in the regional game. Regionalism means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me, it means sharing fire resources and police resources through our SWAT team with other cities. It also means getting our service department together to do things together, like buying equipment. Those are the examples of regionalism that we can do, and it will save money. When people talk about regionalism, like what has been done in Minnesota, where you make one big suburb if you will, or one entity, combining cities or their governmental outfits is more radical and little tougher to do. I think of the areas that we engage in regionalism currently: regional transit, regional sewer district and regional SWAT teams. They all work well and we can learn from those examples; as it gets more expensive to operate cities like Parma, Lakewood, Strongsville, we have to look to do that in order to stay within our budget.

Is regionalism a priority, or a wait and see type of attitude?
I think it depends on what you mean by regionalism. The more radical approach, I don’t know we are ready to do that, and I don’t know that we need to do that. We need to be more regionalistic in our approach to things, like when we are spending money, or building a convention center or talking about services, for example.

It sounds like you are almost ready to play the game, looking at what we can share, like combined expenses between this city and another city.
Absolutely.

Or can we intermix the Parma police department with the Cleveland Police department...
No, that’s a little down the road; purchasing, services, equipment and facilities (shared recreation centers,) those could work, plus economic development departments, those could and should work. The other stuff is nice to talk about, but it’s not as realistic as people think it is.

Why? Police and Fire?
You have labor and union issues of who’s going to be in control of those departments. FBI stats show Parma as being the 17th safest in the country, people like that, they feel safe here; when you call the police they come, and when you call the fire department and ambulance, they come. The upside is those are the most expensive departments, they are the biggest part of our budget, police and fire. If we figured out a way to do it, we could save money, but logistically with the union issues, at this point I do not know. The unions would fight it.

What is the Union stance on Regionalism, and how might you may be able to get around it?
I do know they have come out and said they are against it. I’m thinking it's going to save us money in overtime, and it could potentially hire less, that way we could share facilities, which probably means less personal, less overtime dollars. That is something they are going to resist.

What initiatives would have to be in place for Parma schools to play with Cleveland schools on a regional level?
I do know there is a scenario where that type of arrangement would be supported by the residents of the school district. People like the Parma schools for the most part; they like the teachers and they like the facilities. My feeling is, the Cleveland school district is much different; they have different needs than a similarly situated suburban school district like Parma, or a suburban school district like North Royalton.

Are you saying a merger with a suburban school district may be in the future, although you do not see a merger with the Cleveland school district?
Yes, I think that's right.

How in the past has Parma been its own worst enemy?
We have not been progressive, we have not been willing to take chances, and we have put out the wrong image.

Tell us a little about that image?
I think we have put out an image we are not open, but I think this has changed a lot. I’m not talking recently, I’m talking about the past. For the most part we have done a good job over the last few years. The racial stigma we have always had, the stigma that we are a bunch of protectionists here - I think that been put out there - but I think sometimes unfairly so. We have not done enough to try to change that image.

How are you working to change that image now?
Everyday we engage in image building here. We try to do things that make people believe we're running a good shop here: we have a good honest police force, we have good recreation programs, we are open to different ideas and different cultures, we are progressive in our thinking, and we are not back in the 1970s. So it’s an ongoing type of approach.

How do you think the people outside of Parma view Parma today?
I hope they view it as place that's improving in a lot of ways. We are a better run, ethical government; we have good people in positions of power who are not a bunch of racists. We have good ideas and we want to bring young people here to live and work; we're a place that has nice parks, green space and things to do.

What are you doing to attract the younger type of person to Parma?
The home values are steady, you can make money on a house. There is good appreciation, good neighborhoods and it’s a safe city. The median home price is $110,000 - $120,000. Its affordable, taxes are low, but you get good appreciation. We have our problems, but we are safe compared to other areas and we have good recreation programs and parks. We also have pretty good schools. And you can be downtown in 10-15 minutes, depending on where you are in Parma. You can in Akron in 40 minutes or you can be on the east side in 10 minutes, and you can be in Rocky River or Lakewood in 10 minutes, so we are well situated.

As good as this is, how will you attract the culturally creative type of person that prefers art and coffee over manufacturing and dingy bars?
We are getting our first Starbucks at Ridge and Davis, between Ridge and Day Drive; we need to attract more of those. We have some darn good restaurants that have come in, like Luchitas, which is a great Mexican food establishment. We've also got the Schnitzel House, a brand new German restaurant. We're starting to approve some bars with outside decks, we've just approved a couple of them which is new for Parma. I’m chairman of the planning commission, so I’m looking for those types of places to get some night life coming here. Obviously, we are sensitive to the residential areas. When plans come before the planning commission, I’m sending these people back, saying we want to see a more creative plan, not just 4 walls and vinyl siding; let's get some brick in there, some stone, let’s see something creative. We are trying and the planning commission members really like that. They are saying, “Hey, this is what we want to do." We are doing a lot of things to spruce things up and to be more progressive.

Some people could see Dean DePiero as part of the old boys network. We see you hanging around with heavy politicians like Bill Mason, Jimmy Dimora and the like. How will you model yourself as a free agent and not let other influences factor into the city of Parma?
That is the thing, I do have a lot of good associations, not only in the county, but throughout the state from being a state rep, a former negotiator as Minority Leader of the House. Anyone that has seen me operate knows I am my own person, and I know there has been a need for change. When I came into Parma, one of the first things I did was replace all of the top directors. Some of those people were my friends and it was hard, but I wanted to show people that I was serious about what I was doing, I think that is a good signal. People like Bill Mason are up and comers who have a lot of progressive ideas about what we want to do in the city, as far as development and re-development. He’s also a Parma guy; I think some of those folks are an asset to what we are trying to do here.

How will you conquer that racial divide?
It’s an ongoing thing and I think we have come a long way. It’s something we have to do every day, how we act as public officials and how we act as a city. When we hire, it's important to keep in mind we consider African Americans. When there is an incident in the city, how do we react as a city to it? It’s a whole combination of things, as well as what are the attitudes? Do we have an open door policy? So it’s a whole number of things.

Is there another city or suburb that you admire locally or nationally that you believe Parma could emulate?
We are different, we are unique because of our size and where we are located. That’s a tough question, and it’s not fair to compare us, to say we should be like Brecksville because we are not Brecksville. Or Independence; they are situated so well, with all that tax money, it helps.

You mentioned you are sending people back to the drawing board because you want to see more creative ideas for creating a night life in Parma. Where do you draw those ideas from, and where do you draw your economic development ideas?
[The city of] Independence [Ohio] has done a great job, as far as economic development. As far as some of the night life, the creative places are Cleveland Heights, Lakewood and some other neighborhoods, like the Dublin area in Columbus, tThe Easton area off 270, even Downtown Columbus, they have their Arena District. It’s one of my favorite places, the Arena District and what that arena has done for that whole area.

When you drive the streets of Parma, it can look dingy and dirty. What can you do? What can City Hall do to create the initiatives to help business owners clean their store front, make it look attractive, give it that Brecksville shine?
We have to lead by example, our own buildings and our own parks, we have an ongoing effort to improve that. We have a lot of good things going on in our parks, and the front of city hall is going to receive some renovations. We need to let people know that we expect a higher standard when there are broken sidewalks, etc. We need to strictly enforce the code and work with the folks to let them know we expect these higher standards. We are doing that and it’s going to be a long process.

Will there be some store front initiatives to help these business owners?
I hired a community development director, Doug Dombroski, who was Cleveland Heights' community development director. He’s a young guy, my age, and he did the whole program over there. We are doing a pilot program this year, and then we’re going to jump in. We'll have new entrance signs into the city, so we're doing it, and we're getting there slowly.

Tell me about some personal things. Where does Dean DePiero hang out?
On the deck of my house mostly, where it’s nice and quiet. I also go to Corleones Restaurante and Wine Bar, it's a great Italian place to eat on Broadview; it's one of the best, and it's brand new. We also have got Luchitas, they're in Cleveland Heights, and Downtown Cleveland has one, ads well, that’s a new place we started patronizing. And they have done a good job at the [Parmatown] Mall with a lot of renovations lately. Eventually our Metroparks will have bike trails that will hook up to the towpath, which is a long range project. The Metroparks deal will be finished in the spring [of 2005]. When that gets in, we will have to think how we are going to link it up to the tow path, get that whole thing going.

You seem to have a handle on many things that most Mayors wouldn’t. Is it micro-management?
I’m not a micro-manager, I hired good people who make me look good, and I’m the kind of person who likes to be on top of things. I’m not a micro-manager but I want to know what is going on; I don’t want to be hit blind-sided. We have a staff meeting every Monday morning with my top directors and we have a financial huddle every Monday morning with all the financial people where we ask, "Where are we at this week?" It’s good to know you think I do micro-management, because 7 months ago I was clueless when I walked in here. Hopefully, 7 months from now, I’ll have even more knowledge and more understanding.

Talk about the first month or two months, how bad was it?
I wanted to jump off a roof.

Were you in over your head? Did you think you had made a mistake?
I always knew that if we calmed down we would be able to get a handle on this. We had a lot of new people who were good people, but we didn’t know what was going on; we were finding dead bodies everywhere so that was tough. We just did not know what to do. But we had an idea, so the first couple months were really tough. It’s still tough, but we got a handle on things. We started to work on some important projects now. About the 3rd and 4th month, it was "OK, this is what we want to do." But we are still busy, I don’t want to say cleaning up messes, but we are finding things we've got to correct.

Why does the media love Dean DePiero?
I don’t know if they love me, have you read Free Times? Everyone knows the media can turn one bad scandal in during your administration. I think hopefully they like reporting what is really happening here, that we are doing a good job and that we are turning things around. There have been articles critical of what we have done. I don’t have a problem with that, so long as they write it fairly, and it’s objective. They may not agree and there are going to be things that come up that the media may not agree with. The other thing is building a rapport, and returning phone calls and making my directors accessible to them when they want.

When you talk about economic development, you mention companies that may add 20 positions. What will it take to attract another Ford Motor or major corporation to Parma?
Parma has an industrial park that is not full, it's off West 130th Street. We are working on adding a company that will bring 40-70 high tech jobs into Parma. We are actively working to bring the company here, and I cannot mention any more details until it is finalized; we have to look at re-development also.

Interview and photos by Cool Cleveland reader David Tardidi (:divend:)