Parma City Hall — Local services in Parma

One Star – Would Give Zero If I Could

Ah, Parma, Ohio — the city that time forgot and common sense abandoned. If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to get fined by a robot while driving through a post-apocalyptic strip mall wasteland, boy do I have the destination for you!

Parma isn’t so much a city as it is a speed camera-funded money pit, cleverly disguised as a municipality. I rolled through this place for all of 10 minutes — didn’t see a single cop, didn’t see a single pothole fixed, but I did get a lovely surprise in the mail a week later: a ticket for going 36 in a 25 on a road that looked like it hadn’t been repaved since the Reagan administration.

Let’s be real: they aren’t interested in running a city here. Parma’s true business is automated extortion. The speed cameras are like gremlins hiding behind bushes, just waiting to pounce. Public safety? Civic pride? Hah! They’re too busy counting camera ticket revenue to care about that nonsense.

The aesthetic? Imagine a 1983 K-Mart collided with a Dollar General and nobody cleaned up the mess. The whole place feels like it’s in a perpetual state of beige sadness. It’s the kind of town where dreams go to get rusted out and auctioned off at a police impound lot.

Needless to say, I will not be returning to this dump. Parma can keep their cameras, their tickets, and their crumbling infrastructure. I’ll be spending my money in places that don’t treat visitors like walking ATMs.

Drive around Parma? More like drive AROUND...

The negative reviews of Parma the city kind of crack me up. People are complaining about unions, police thugs, etc., but I've experienced none of these things living here the past 5 years.

My experience: the people are nice, business is growing, the police and fire depts are highly rated, and my house value has gone up more than $30k in 5 years (I keep track of that).

Our roads SUCK though--people are right about that. Also, we have some real flooding issues because of a clogged sewer system, but come on, the taxes aren't substantially higher than other, safe Cleveland suburbs, and the cost of living in a city this size is pretty freaking reasonable. Do we need to fix our roads? Yup. Do we need to spend money in our schools better, oh yes. Is any city perfect? Nope. Parma's not so bad. Instead of hopping onto Google and hating on it, why not go out into your community and do something to...

Welcome to Parma, Ohio! Where the city administration asks you to pay your taxes in cash or check, and if you, like a modern-day person, try to pay with a debit card, they'll charge you a $35 fee because they live in the 1970s where debit cards are an alien technology and they prefer good old American paper checks from the 70s... Welcome to America... WELCOME TO PARMA!

Love the 2.5% tax... it's delightful, and love me a $35 processing fee to pay my taxes with a card.

Ohh and if you have a neighbor with a lovely dog that starts barking at 7am... don't expect the animal department to do anything about it. Had my sleep ruined for 2 years now, neighbor's dogs just never shut up... Filed probably 20 complains and nothing......