ShareThisThey're coming by the thousands, bringing tents or sleeping bags, and the city of Pittsburgh is running out of time to figure out where they might camp, and how close they can get to the G-20 summit.
That was the message activists brought to the Pittsburgh officials, as they met this week with lawyers and demanded answers. They learned that wearing masks to protests won't subject anyone to citations, but carrying pipes or chains might.
Kim Teplitzky, of Three Rivers Climate Convergence, said her group is bringing in "up to 500 people who will want places to stay" before and during the Sept. 24 and 25 gathering of world leaders.
The message she's hearing from friends nationwide: "We're coming to Pittsburgh. ... If we don't start telling the people who are coming in where to go, they're just going to hit the streets of Pittsburgh, and who knows what will happen."
Ideally, her group and others, including Code Pink, want approval for "tent cities" in Point State Park or Schenley Park in Pittsburgh.
"We do not encourage camping in the parks," said Joanna Doven, a spokeswoman for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. "We are assessing the situation."
Teplitzky and others argued that giving people a designated place to camp would be more sanitary, and easier to police, than forcing them to fend for themselves. She said the groups have the materials, manpower and know-how to put up "a space that's safe, and that's family friendly," for bring-your-own-tent activists.
Representatives of the groups said that the city countered with concerns that camps would be expensive to police, might disrupt preparations for The Great Race on Sept. 27, and could become swine flu breeding grounds.
Calling a sustainability-focused camp a breeding ground for swine flu is "absurd," said David Meieran, a veteran protester who attended the meeting. "They are deliberately trying to limit our numbers."
"They acknowledged that we do have the right to be seen and heard" by the world leaders at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, said Pete Shell, of the Thomas Merton Center's Anti-War Committee. He said his group wants to present the leaders with solutions to global problems that will stem from a People's Summit the week before the G-20 summit.
This week the Secret Service released maps of a security perimeter around the convention center, which will block vehicles from some areas and pedestrians from a smaller bubble. "Now that we have the hard perimeter, we just have to understand what that means in terms of people ultimately having the ability to engage in protests," said assistant city solicitor Yvonne Hilton, adding that the city will sort that out with the Secret Service.
American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania Legal Director Witold Walczak, who attended the meeting, stopped short of setting a deadline by which the city must decide, or face court action. "Time's running," he said.
He said he knew of two permits that have been formally granted ---- one for a Bail Out the People March the weekend before the summit, and another for Code Pink's use of an area near the convention center on Sept. 21 and 22. State Sen. Jim Ferlo has also been given indications that a green economy event will be allowed in the park on Sept. 23.
This week in Washington a small band of climate change activists targeted a news conference held by Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato to call attention to the slow process of getting protest permits in what may have been the first organized G-20 protest.
As Ravenstahl delivered opening remarks to reporters and photographers at the National Press Club, a trio of young protesters spread a banner behind him that read: "Why is the greenest city silencing green voices?"
They were ordered out by Catherine DeLoughry, head of communications for the Allegheny Conference, and escorted from the building. Several minutes later, two more youths unfurled a similar banner and were, again, escorted from the building.
Ravenstahl responded that his office granted eight protest permits and the ones that are still in limbo must be reconciled with the Secret Service..
"It is a concern of ours that the activity, protests, et cetera will outshine or overshadow the good story of Pittsburgh, but all we can do is continue to tell it and all we can do is make sure that those protesters are given the ability to have their First Amendment rights heard," Ravenstahl said.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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