Cain Park Manager Suspended, Ordered to Take Anger Management Training Following Outbursts With Staff

Trombone Shorty and Big Boi at Cain Park in June 2024. Credit: Emanuel Wallace

Out of the several incidents that come to mind when Jessica Rosenblatt recalls her past manager, Ian Hinz, the time Trombone Shorty came to town was one of the most vivid.

Rosenblatt, Cain Park’s marketing assistant at the time, thought of the night of June 20, 2024 as one veering on implosion for Cleveland Heights’ signature outdoor music venue. The concession stands were backed up. The coolers were malfunctioning.

“It was chaos,” Rosenblatt recalled in an investigation last June. “The restrooms ran out of toilet paper. They ran out of cold drinks. The lines around the park were very long.”

Then, Cain Park’s point-of-sale system went down; an employee began using her personal Venmo. Which, Rosenblatt said, put manager Hinz into a tizzy. Venmo, he said, was not allowed at Cain Park. And neither should there be “insubordination.”

“He said, ‘It wasn’t their jobs to have opinions,’” Rosenblatt recalled. “Their jobs were to do what he said.’”

Such perspective of an otherwise jamming summer jazz concert in a venue known for its quality was echoed among three other Cain Park employees who, in an investigation paid for by Cleveland Heights, painted Hinz as a my-way-or-the-highway boss with a relatively short fuse.

Hinz, who was assigned the role in late 2023 by recreation director Kelly Ledbetter, violated city policy by using anger and intimidation to coax employees into running Cain Park, that report said. Whether it be through pounding his fists at meetings; removing employees’ office doors; or, after getting word of an worker applicant’s denial, “screaming so loud that [another employee] was about to call security.”

Cleveland Heights City Hall is no stranger these days to managing complaints of a hostile work environment. Earlier this month, Scene reported on accusations that Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren’s wife, Natalie McDaniel, was a factor in what seems to be a tumultuous work culture at City Hall.

The Cain Park turmoil has added to the problem.

On June 27, 2024, after receiving four letters of complaint about Hinz’s anger issues, HR director Tanya Jones notified Hinz that he was under an investigation by Clemans Nelson & Associates, a consulting firm in Akron. Hinz had been general manager for less than year, yet wasn’t a stranger to Cain Park operations: he was the park’s operations manager from 2011 to 2016, and served as artistic director for three seasons, his LinkedIn page reads.

At least two employees mentioned in the investigative report summary suggested Hinz’s behavior stretched before taking his helm. Behavior that only seemed to become more unprofessional as general manager, as two said of a meeting in spring 2024 when Hinz and crew were trying to decide on an appropriate quantity of understudies for a piece of theater.

Hinz thought Cain Park should hire just two; the others thought four was a better number.

“The screaming was so intense that they simply submitted to Mr. Hinz to keep him from getting angrier,” the report reads. The employee told the investigator that, “she feels Mr. Hinz has always been this way.”

Cleveland Heights’ Cain Park in an undated photo. Its general manager, Ian Hinz, was the subject last year of a months-long investigation into his behavior with staff since he took the job in late 2023. Credit: Cain Park

In his rebuttal to the consultant, Hinz denied most if not all of the outbursts that led to the investigation in the first place, placing blame rather on a lack of representation at City Hall, an urge to perfect Cain Park, and the tension borne by the complaints themselves.

Not exactly the anger.

“Mr. Hinz admitted that he is not always ‘flowery,’” the report reads, “and that he is not ‘intentionally intimidating.’” Hinz was then asked if he finds himself intimidating. “He answered it was just the way he is.”

It wasn’t good enough for the consultants.

“It is my finding that Mr. Hinz’s behavior and outbursts of anger did violate the city’s policies,” the investigator found. And that Hinz “has the potential to lead to additional complaints or concerns, morale issues, disruption, and potential liability if unaddressed.”

Come February, Cleveland Heights City Hall addressed Hinz’s behavior—harassment that “creates an intimidating, offensive or hostile work environment” the city found—by recommending a multi-pronged punishment that was confirmed at a city meeting on February 25.

Former City Manager Dan Horrigan (who would quit a month later), Jones and Parks & Rec Director Andres Gonzalez recommended, in that February 25 meeting, that Hinz receive a five-day suspension, take anger management training, sign onto a performance improvement plan and a “last chance agreement,” and be reassigned to another city role.

A March 26 disciplinary notice, signed by Seren, confirmed all of the aforementioned points of punishment for Hinz except his reassignment.

“While you shared your perspective” with the city, the notice reads, “you did not accept responsibility for your actions.”

In a phone call with Scene, Rosenblatt, despite leaving the city last August, ultimately let down by how Cleveland Heights handled the complaints against Hinz.

“The mayor allows this hostile work environment to happen by letting [him] stay in his role with a slap on the wrist,” she said.

“It’s costing the city and the taxpayers money, right?” she added. “Every HR outside consulting firm this guy brings in to investigate costs them.”

For it’s part, Cleveland Heights, in a statement to Scene, defended Hinz and contended that media stories about the incident were unnecessary:

Ian Hinz is a valued and productive member of the Cleveland Heights team. With his staff, he organized a banner year at Cain Park in 2024, and he is leading them in putting together an impressive 2025 season, which we’re excited to share with residents and the media. Hinz and the rest of the Cain Park staff are also playing a critical role in the long-needed, long-deferred investment in Cain Park’s infrastructure and physical space.

The investigation referenced and subsequent disciplinary action have been officially managed. It is neither City policy nor fair to any of our employees to comment publicly about internal human resource matters because we value our employees’ safety and well-being. While the City does not control what is shared in the press and on social media, it does not condone the use of individual identities portrayed in stories without expressed consent. As in any work environment, internal matters deserve discretion and privacy.

The investigation into HR complaints and any resulting discipline or training is motivated by the same reasons we are not participating in the conjecture and asymmetrical reporting found in social media and now traditional media. We are dedicated to protecting employees from unwarranted public scrutiny and potential abuse.

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