Berea Mayor Kleem’s amazing survival skills

This blog’s 2011 award for Most Unlikely Political Survivor goes to Berea Mayor Cyril Kleem. He came back from memory loss, medical leave, and two small-town-weird investigations to trounce his opponent in the Democratic primary yesterday.

Until this winter, if anyone outside Berea had heard of Kleem, it was probably because he was one of the guys Jimmy Dimora couldn’t corrupt. The 37-year-old mayor is the second cousin of Ferris Kleem, best known as the guy who allegedly bought Dimora a hooker. Cyril Kleem shows up briefly in prosecutor’s court filings as Public Official 7 – but, as with Ed FitzGerald’s PO14 cameo, that doesn’t mean what you think.

The charges say Dimora and Frank Russo tried to get Ferris Kleem to nudge his cousin toward the worker’s comp organization of their choice. But Cyril didn’t change Berea’s worker’s comp company. Now he’s trying really hard to let everyone know he and his crooked cousin are estranged. They even had it out in public at the Berea City Club this fall.

The mayor’s troubles started a couple of months ago. Olmsted Falls asked the Cuyahoga County’s sheriff’s office to investigate why a “mystery truck” owned by Berea turned up in Olmsted Falls on Christmas Eve. Who was the man who ran back to the truck and sped away when spotted? A Berea cop said he thought he saw Kleem’s car parked at City Hall next to the spot where the truck had been.

Kleem said he wasn’t the guy and that cell phone records and the timing of the police officer’s shift proved it. But the mayor also said his memory of Christmastime was spotty because of his medical conditions — lupus, arthritis, and figromylagia — and depression and suicidal thoughts brought on by his medicine. He said two medical leaves had set him straight and insisted he was fit to serve. The next day, city council president James J. Brown announced he was running to unseat the mayor.

A month later came a second investigation. Berea police confirmed they’d contacted a good friend of Kleem’s because of a tip about a possible break-in. The woman said she saw someone inside her house Jan. 6 and thought it might be Kleem, but she wasn’t sure. Kleem called it a false, dirty campaign rumor. The police soon closed the investigation. Now the word is the two inquiries involved the same woman's current and former homes.

The Plain Dealer called Kleem’s behavior “bizarre” and endorsed Brown. The Sun paper stuck with Kleem, saying he had a record of accomplishment in Berea and a better vision than his opponent. The voters must’ve agreed and decided not to hold the mayor’s health problems against him. (Here's a letter from a supporter claiming Kleem wiped the floor with Brown at their debate.)

It sure makes for more drama than the biggest race for mayor yesterday, over in Parma. That race made almost no news, and in the end, the Parma political establishment came out on top once again. State Rep. Tim DeGeeter, protégé of current mayor Dean DePiero, won the Democratic primary, beating county councilman Chuck Germana by about two to one. It’s the third time DeGeeter has followed DePiero up the career ladder – he also succeeded him in the state house and Parma city council. The Plain Dealer says DePiero and Ted Strickland recorded robocalls for him.

So when DePiero and Bill Mason leave office, their political faction (call it a machine if you like) won’t retire with them. They’ll become the wise men in the background, while DeGeeter will become the go-to guy in the southwest burbs.

With DePiero leaving, who'll be Parma's next mayor?

Now that Bill Mason and Dean DePiero have decided not to run again, who'll be the next king of Parma politics? We'll find out soon. Three experienced Democrats are running to succeed DePiero as mayor of Cleveland's largest suburb: Chuck Germana, Tim DeGeeter, and Mickey Mottl. They'll face off in a May 3 primary.

It'll be an interesting election. DeGeeter, a state representative, is a Mason-DePiero ally. Mottl, former state rep and son of a former congressman, was once a rival of DePiero's. Germana, the former Parma city council president, is somewhere in between.

Germana is probably the best-known outside Parma, thanks to his seat on the new county council and his failed bid for its leadership. He's a solid, reliable guy, the type of mayor Parma was used to having before 2003, when it elected DePiero, then a 35-year-old rising star. If Germana wins the primary and the November election, he'd leave the county council after only a year. When he talked to the Sun News last week, he sounded like he hadn't expected DePiero to bail.

Lots of people didn't. But there are two good reasons DePiero is getting out of politics instead of heading to Congress or Columbus, as Bill Mason once told me he might.

One was foreshadowed in early 2004, when I visited DePiero in Parma City Hall for my profile of him, "The Flamingo Kid." On the way into his office, he introduced me to his administrative assistant and former campaign manager: Vince Russo. Nice guy, very young. I think I asked him if he was any relation to the other political Russos, and learned he was Frank Russo's son. I shook his hand and figured that with that then-golden name, he'd be elected judge within 10 years.

Instead, Vince's brief stint at Parma City Hall linked DePiero to the county corruption scandal five years later. It turns out Frank Russo bribed J. Kevin Kelley to stay out of the 2003 mayor's race. "In exchange for PO2 convincing Kelley to withdraw from the mayoral race, Kelley's opponent gave a thing of value to a relative of PO2," the Kelley charges read. Everyone knew the feds were hinting about DePiero, but he denied any wrongdoing.

The second reason DePiero's leaving is his family. I know, they all say that. But take a look at the Plain Dealer story about his announcement. Below the requisite scandal summary, we learn that DePiero lost his dad and a niece and nephew last year, and that his mother, Roberta (whom I interviewed about Parma in 2009), recently suffered a stroke. Reason enough not to make a bad year worse by spending it traipsing around town, running for re-election, having to answer Frank Russo questions everywhere you go.

So, with DePiero leaving the corner of Ridge and Ridgewood at year's end, and Mason retiring after 2012, who'll command the Parma wing of the Democratic Party -- the remains of Mason's machine, the southwest-county faction that stretches at least from Parma and Old Brooklyn to Berea Municipal Court? My quick guess is DeGeeter -- Mason's support will still help a lot in Parma itself -- but I wouldn't count Germana out either.

To read "The Flamingo Kid," my 2004 profile of DePiero, click here.