I got this in my inbox on Monday:
Dear Community Members, Friends and Allies:
Civic Clubs, Super Neighborhoods and other community organization’s ability to meet using Houston City College (HCC) facilities is being prevented due to a new policy requiring liability insurance coverage.
Mandating nonprofit community organizations which do not impose fees or dues on members who cannot afford to pay for participation to carry liability insurance that can cost upwards of $3000 per year or $250+ per meeting is WRONG.
We received no response to any proposed alternate workable solution (i.e., waiver of liability) and have yet to receive the new policy and details regarding minimum coverage requirements in writing.
It is also problematic that we cannot verify the authenticity of the communication that was received as it did not contain a signature of the author or sender (see below).
We ask that you show up to the scheduled Community Partnership Meeting at HCC North Forest Campus (6010 Little York Road) on this Wednesday, July 30th at 2pm to express your feelings in-person and reach out to the appointed District II Trustee by sending an email to Board Services at board.services@hccs.edu or calling at 713.718.8398.
We cannot allow our community who paid for these facilities through their tax dollars to be treated this way.
That email was sent to (I presume) a bunch of folks including myself (it was sent via BCC). It included the email chain that the sender had with HCC, first with a contact at the HCC North Forest Campus and then with the HCC General Counsel. This is from the email they received from the General Counsel:
Thank you for your interest in using HCC Northeast College’s facilities to support your community-focused activities. We truly value the partnerships we have built with local organizations, such as yours, and appreciate the positive contributions you make to our broader community.
As part of our ongoing efforts to ensure consistency and fairness across all campuses, we have aligned our facility use requirements with standard risk management practices used throughout higher education. Specifically, we require that all non-college groups — whether governmental agencies, elected officials, nonprofits, social or civic organizations — provide proof of event insurance (liability insurance) when requesting to use our facilities.
This insurance protects not only the College but also your organization and your individual event organizers should an unexpected incident occur. It is a standard requirement across colleges and universities and is a best practice recommended by both legal and risk management professionals in higher education.
To help explain why this insurance is required, here are a couple of common examples. If someone attending your event were to trip over equipment or supplies that your group brought in and they were injured, they could hold your organization or individual organizers responsible for medical costs or damages. Likewise, if someone became ill from food served at your event, they could seek compensation from your organization. Since the College is not responsible for these types of incidents and is legally immune, having your own event insurance protects your group and its members from having to cover these costs out of pocket.
Previously, we understood that Super Neighborhood groups were covered by the City of Houston’s Self-insured insurance program; however, the City notified the College last week that their insurance will not cover Super Neighborhood groups.
It may be more cost effective for your organization to buy event insurance for all the dates that you intend to hold meetings at the College and complete one facility rental agreement.
This is extremely misguided and wrong-headed. I don’t know if the impetus for this change came from the city or from HCC – that email suggests it came from the city, but it would not shock me if the city later claimed that this was a misinterpretation on HCC’s part of what they actually said – but either way it’s ludicrous to expect local organizations like Super Neighborhoods to pay for liability insurance so they can have access to a meeting room. I don’t know if this is a real change of policy brought on by an ill-conceived attempt to save money or just a screwup, but either way it needs to be reversed. Those of you that are free on Wednesday at 2 PM, you might want to attend and speak up about this.