By all accounts, Debbie Lime knew exactly what she was doing. So when she decided — in December 2001 — to host a gathering for Cuyahoga County Commissioner candidate Peter Lawson Jones at her home, she knew that what she calls “the Parma machine” would not be pleased.

In Lime’s view, this machine is run by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, a former Parma law director, who, she’s convinced, is working to control the politics of Parma by hand-picking candidates and using his office to unduly influence events in Ohio’s 7th largest city. And Debbie Lime is nothing if not hell-bent on thwarting Mason’s grand plan.

That’s why she’s running for mayor of Parma this November, and that’s why she threw down the gauntlet in late 2001 by choosing to go against Mason’s long-time friend and political ally, County Recorder Patrick O’Malley, who was squaring off against Lawson Jones to fill the open county commissioner slot made vacant when Jane Campbell was elected mayor of Cleveland.

Although this modest coffee klatch —backdropped by Christmas decorations and attended by around 50 people, including Democratic Party County Chairman Jimmy Dimora — was not exactly a Rubicon crossing, it was clear that Lime’s die had been cast squarely in opposition to Bill Mason’s, something few, if any, Parma pols were willing to do.

To make a long story short, the diminutive O’Malley’s campaign for commissioner was a total disaster — low-lighted by his appearances before black precinct folks on the East Side in which he asserted that he was actually a “blacker” candidate than the Ivy-League-educated Lawson Jones, who was, in O’Malley’s judgment, African American in skin color only. With many of their high-profile supporters deserting them along the way, Mason and O’Malley were crushed in a landslide vote by county precinct members.

“Pat made a fool of himself, and he and Mason lost the power struggle to Dimora,” says a former county Democratic Party officeholder. “That ended any hopes they had of taking over the county party.”

Mason had used his Parma base — acquired first as a city councilman elected in 1991, then as the city’s law director in 1993 — to gather enough political juice to get appointed to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s position in 1998, following then-prosecutor Stephanie Tubbs Jones’ election to Congress. Along the way, Mason, O’Malley, Brook Park Mayor Tom Coyne, and others, formed what was known as “Democrats 2000,” a group with designs on becoming the dominant force in county politics. What was left of D-2000 went down in flames — with a Yuletide assistance from Debbie Lime’s coffee klatch — courtesy of O’Malley’s ill-conceived commissioner campaign.

“THIS IS A WATERSHED ELECTION FOR PARMA,” says Lime, a long-time Democrat, who is running for mayor as an Independent. “If I win, I’ll be taking off Mason’s right arm.”

That particular appendage, according to Lime, would be Democratic Ohio State Rep. Dean DePiero — who is running against her, with Mason’s support, for Parma’s top job.

Debbie and Dean are a study in contrasts. Lime, an outspoken member of Parma City Council for the past 12 years, is what used to be referred to — in the way long ago time that Parma still sometimes embodies — as one tough dame who knows her way around Parma power-lunch watering holes like the legendary Jigsaw Saloon, and isn’t shy about mixing it up with the good, and not-so-good, old boys. Think Ethel Merman as legislator.

DePiero, who at one time was the minority leader of the Ohio House, looks like he stepped out of candidate central casting. Expensive suits, perfect hair, Parma Holy Family/Holy Name-educated, Marshall Law School competent and make-sure-I-look-you-in-the-eye earnest — DePiero is right at home at the slick Blue Moose disco/sports lounge where Parma powerbrokers shimmy in to wheel and deal. Think Ben Affleck with brains.

Despite their differences, one thing the two candidates agree upon is that Parma has an image problem — one that the city of nearly 90,000 appears to have rightfully earned. First and foremost is its reputation for being a racially insensitive community.

Start with the fact that there were no black residents, at all, in Parma until the 1970s. Add onto that the 2002 settlement — in favor of the NAACP — reached in a 12-year-old lawsuit against Parma, charging that the city used discriminatory hiring practices. Mix in an ugly cross-burning incident on a black families’ lawn several years ago, and the fact that as of last year, there were still only two blacks on the city’s 550-person payroll, and you have, as DePiero noted, “a racist stigma” attached to Parma, one that he vows to change.

Then there’s the matter of the police force and the scandal that blew up earlier this year regarding sick leave and overtime abuses in which, for example, some officers collected sick leave and overtime pay on the same day. One officer claimed to have worked the equivalent of 8.8 hours per day, 365 days a year and earned in excess of $100,000. These practices cost the city an estimated $300,000 over two years. Then when Mayor Gerald Boldt proposed a wage freeze to crack down on these practices, traffic enforcement fell by more than 90 percent over the next five months, and criminal citations went down by half, costing the city more than $600,000 in the 15 months prior to January 2003. As a result of this scandal, Safety Director Bob Dybzinski resigned earlier this year, as did Police Chief Mark Manning, and in May, Parma voters overwhelmingly voted down a $1.8 million renewal levy to support police forces.

“NO MATTER WHO GETS ELECTED MAYOR THIS YEAR,” says Parma City Councilman John Stover, “a charter is the only thing that will bring meaningful reform and change to the city.”

Parma is the only municipality in Cuyahoga County that doesn’t have a city charter — a situation, according to Stover and many others, that results in a multitude of problems. That’s why an initiative — with a slate of about 50 people competing for 15 spots — creating a commission that would be responsible for writing a charter is on the ballot this November. With almost everyone in favor of the idea, it’s a good bet that the commission will be formed and a charter would be adopted.

Debbie Lime agrees, but cautions, “Thirty years ago the first charter amendment was proposed and it went down. Then in 1993 another one lost by 42 votes when City Treasurer Jack Krise — part of the Parma machine — lit-dropped the city saying if you vote for the charter, your taxes will be raised. The charter was going to combine the auditor and treasurer positions into one finance director. Krise thought he’d lose his job so he led the charge against it. This year he’s on the slate to get elected to the commission.”

According to Stover, who has been on council since 1992 and was the primary sponsor to put the charter proposal on the ballot this year, the lack of such a document robs Parma from having home rule — with no capacity to make long-term plans for capital and infrastructure improvements, and unable to even develop year-to-year plans on sewer, water lines or ward projects.

Both Lime and DePiero agree that the current set-up is disastrous for critical city planning.

“All we do is run by the seat of our pants,” she says — while he refers to the situation as “the go-put-out-the-fire plan.”

Equally debilitating is the reality that, absent a charter, council cannot advise and consent on appointments — allowing the mayor, for example, to appoint anyone he or she desires to positions such as safety director without any confirmation process.

There are no minimum qualifications for many of the jobs, making an ideal environment for blatant nepotism. Once these individuals are appointed, council has no oversight capacity regarding them.

“In the case of the police overtime scandal,” Stover says, “council would have relieved the safety director, but we were powerless to do anything.”

While Mayor Boldt, who is retiring after being in office for nearly 10 years, can freely appoint almost anyone to certain key jobs, other critical positions — law director, auditor and teasurer — are elected. Another, police chief, is appointed by the mayor, but only as dictated by the civil service list. Such a mishmash of elected and appointed officials of varying qualifications — coupled with a council that can’t confirm or remove anyone nor effectively plan much of anything — has resulted, Debbie Lime argues, in rampant patronage, scandals, inefficiency and a city dominated by “a good old boy” network, the most recent leader of which is, of course, Bill Mason.

“I’VE BEEN IN OFFICE FOR ABOUT NINE YEARS,” DePiero says, shaking his head and laughing, “and when I came in, people were talking about the old Parma political machine. They still are.”

While to DePiero, all the rumors of the power of Parma’s political machine are greatly exaggerated, to Debbie Lime these are not simply empty suburban legends — they are the factual basis for why she is running for office. And she can quote chapter and verse as to who begat whom and who is in bed with whom and who will benefit from what and why so-and-so got fired, and when everything is said and done the name that keeps popping up in her charges is Bill Mason.

DePiero, who was hired by then-Parma Law Director Mason in 1993 as a clerk, is familiar with Lime’s assertions and downplays the part Mason is playing in his campaign.

“Before I got into this race for mayor, Bill called me and told me I shouldn’t run,” he says. “His role is much more limited than many would think”

It would be a gross understatement to state that Lime disputes DePiero’s soft selling of Mason’s involvement.

“Bill Mason will die if I win as mayor,” she says, then levels a number of charges itemizing Mason’s — and other elements within the Parma machine’s — efforts to defeat her campaign.

According to Lime, Mason is pressuring individuals in law firms not to donate to her campaign, threatening them with the loss of county contracts. At the same time, she contends, all the part-time lawyers in the city’s law departments are advised to contribute to DePiero’s campaign.

“It’s a big network,” she says. “To get a job, you donate.”

DePiero barely honors these charges with a response, saying there is nothing to them and leaving it at that.

Lime also points to the packet of negative information about her that is being taken around to various local media outlets and sees a Mason connection. Jack Desario, who is a paid consultant to DePiero’s campaign, is alleged to have shopped this package to the Plain Dealer and possibly a few other media outlets. Desario co-authored with Mason a recent book about Sam Sheppard.

DePiero acknowledges Desario did opposition research on Lime for him and, when pressed, “assumes” that Desario took this information to several news organizations, but steadfastly denies that he instructed Desario to carry out such an endeavor.

Other claims made by Lime include that she is being followed by the police while she campaigns door-to-door; that her children have been harassed; that there always seems to be a police car in front of her house; that the police released her Social Security number and did a national security check on her. While these incidents may be related to her taking some strong, visible positions during the police overtime scandals earlier this year — such as calling for police to punch time clocks and leading the drive in council to hire an outside law firm to investigate the police department — she is convinced that this kind of surveillance is a result of her candidacy’s threat to the Parma powers-that-be.

Lime also predicts that people who have her signs in their yard will be threatened and that one of her supporters — a city hall employee — has already been advised by a Mason crony to remove a Lime bumper sticker from a car.

“They need to eliminate me to continue their plan,” she says. “People are afraid to say anything.”

Responding to Lime’s charges that she and her supporters are being harassed. DePiero shrugs, “It’s a joke. She’ll say anything to get elected.”

“DEBBIE CAN BE A LITTLE paranoid,” says a former high-ranking Democratic Party county official, “But I’d guess that a lot of what she says is true about those pressure tactics. She’s about the last person Mason and that Parma crowd want to see as mayor. She’s not afraid of them and would really shake things up.”

Just about everyone with knowledge of Parma politics admits that this race is a classic example of an “outsider” candidate going up against a candidate running with the heavyweight support of the county Democratic Party, and many of the Parma officials who have exerted power and influence over the huge suburb’s politics for at least the past 10 to 15 years. But there is a difference of opinion among political observers as to exactly how atypical or insidious this so-called machine really is, and how Machiavellian a figure Mason really is.

According to a one-time member of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Executive Committee, Lime should not be surprised that influential figures are lining up against her.

“Debbie is running as an Independent, what does she expect?” he says. “Of course [County Auditor] Frank Russo, Dimora, and a lot of the party big wigs are supporting DePiero. They’ll help him raise a ton of money. Their only goal is to get their guy elected. And they’ll play a little rough to get it done. So will the Parma Democratic establishment. That’s politics.”

This source also downplays Mason’s effectiveness in being able to produce as big-time powerbroker, noting that he failed in his effort to defeat Mary Rose Oakar in 1999 with his hand-picked State Senate candidate, Kevin Kelley; was unable to help defeat Michelle Stys for Parma City Council despite going door-to-door for her opponent; couldn’t convince the county party to endorse Bill Bradley for president in 2000; and failed miserably in his attempt to get Pat O’Malley in as county commissioner.

“Don’t get me wrong, the county prosecutor has huge influence and Mason uses that influence as much as he can,” the former Executive Committee member says. “He just hasn’t done a very effective job of either wielding countywide power or improving the prosecutor’s office. He botched the investigation of the Catholic Diocese and the abusive priests. Budget cuts have left him with a bunch of entry-level prosecutors and people who can’t get better jobs. And it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t have the clout to get others elected.”

“PARMA NEEDS TO ELECT SOMEONE as mayor who’s willing to get their hands dirty, “ says Debbie Lime. “I don’t think Dean would. Mason would just tell him what to do.”

“I’m not beholden to Mason,” DePiero says. “I’m my own man and I’m not afraid to go in there and make some heads roll.”

With the main thrust of this election clearly being Lime as unfettered-insurgent-ready-to-rock-the-boat vs. DePiero’s connected-guy-unafraid-to-buck-the-old-guard, it’s critical to keep in mind that Parma has the same deep-seated problems that many of the older, inner-ring suburbs have. Parma is shackled with an aging housing stock, abandoned dwellings, fleeing homeowners and businesses, a recession-wracked economy, a decaying infrastructure, dwindling services and a crisis of confidence. It also has a charterless, rudderless city government that, by almost everyone’s analysis, is rife with patronage, corruption and inefficiency.

In fact one of the few things both Lime and DePiero agree upon is the frequency that Parma residents tell them — as they campaign door-to-door — they plan to move out of the city.

“People are pissed,” Lime says. “I’ve never seen more homes up for sale.”

DePiero notes, “I have a lot of people telling me they don’t think Parma is a good place to raise a family.”

The election of either candidate is no guarantee that Parma’s dire circumstances will be remedied. And then there’s the matter of the charter commission, who is elected to it, and what kind of document they come up with. Debbie Lime is convinced that if she is elected and the “machine’s” slate is voted in, that the resultant charter would minimize the mayor’s power and perhaps install a city manager government. But she contends that this same slate would produce a document granting more power to the mayor if DePiero gets elected.

With this in mind, Lime has incorporated an unusual strategy into how she advises people to choose charter commission members from the 50 names on the ballot. “I tell them to vote for the names of people they don’t recognize,” she says. “I tell them not to vote for the Jack Krises. They need to vote for the autoworker, the housewife, the teacher from around the corner. Those are the people who should be running our government.”

JUST LAST WEEK it was announced that special prosecutors are looking at 25 Parma policemen — about one-quarter of the force — in a criminal investigation relating to the sick leave and overtime abuses of the past few years. Once more, Parma has made bad front-page news and, once again, its citizens have an opportunity to choose the people who’ll run their government come November 4. And in the mayoral race, the choice couldn’t be starker.

Both candidates have solid credentials and certainly it’s possible that each could improve the city’s situation, since it can’t get much worse. However, it’s just as likely that Lime, as unbridled outsider, could run head on into a recalcitrant power structure ready to fight to the death — while DePiero, as insider agent-of-change, could find himself rendered impotent in the face of the entrenched forces that helped get him elected.

It may be overly simplistic to characterize this contest as one between the railing reformer and the Parma machine’s man. But don’t tell that to Debbie Lime. And, no matter what the outcome, don’t expect her to be hosting any coffee klatches this Christmas for Bill Mason.