By approving all applications the city has received, Ravenstahl said he hopes to gain the cooperation of groups, whose plans to sleep in public parks and demonstrate too close to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center could lead to citations or arrests.
"We will work with those organizations to find a common ground," he said.
Delegates from 19 nations and the European Union will meet at the convention center for the Sept. 24-25 summit.
Advocates for protest groups voiced concerns that federal officials would overrule the city when security perimeters are set for Downtown.
"Is the city issuing permits that have been blessed by these agencies?" asked Witold "Vic" Walczak, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, who is working with protest groups. "If the Secret Service isn't going to agree with them when they set their security perimeter, then the permits aren't worth the paper that they're printed on."
Ravenstahl spokeswoman Joanna Doven responded that those concerns have been sent to the Secret Service, which is in charge of security.
"That's why this is a long, critical process. We don't want that to happen," she said yesterday. "In the letters that went out today, we basically said that you can march and do what you want to do Downtown, but we might not be able to say exactly where the march ends."
The city approved an application from the Thomas Merton Center in Garfield for protesters to march from Oakland to Downtown. The city, though, won't permit protesters to march to the convention center because the Secret Service will cordon it off.
There are two spots "within sight and within sound" of the convention center where protesters can go, but Ravenstahl declined to reveal the locations.
"I think it makes sense, but it also depends on where the perimeter is," said Melissa Minnich, spokeswoman for the Thomas Merton Center, a coalition of social activists. "It could very easily be in the middle of the Allegheny (River). When you leave it that vague, it could go either way."
With so many restrictions dependent upon the Secret Service, Minnich and others questioned whether "anything the city says really will have any meaning."
Ravenstahl said some groups applied for permits to use parks in the North Side and South Side around the clock during the days before the summit.
"The City of Pittsburgh's park system closes at 11 every night, and so their permit will expire at 11 every night. They will be allowed to protest from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.," Ravenstahl said.
Organizations that submitted applications were notified yesterday, the mayor said.
Sharon Black, 59, a Baltimore organizer for the anti-poverty group Bail Out the People, said her organization had yet to hear from the city Law Department or police about its application to camp in a park near Cedar Avenue in the North Side.
With buses being chartered to bring homeless people from California to confront foreclosure and urban policies, Bail Out the People is counting on the encampment to serve as a reminder to G-20 delegates about the plight of the world's poor.
"I would challenge the city's right to do this," said Black, one of a dozen Bail Out volunteers in Pittsburgh. "Obviously, we're going to have to discuss these developments."
Bail Out the People scheduled a 3 p.m. news conference today at Monumental Baptist Church in the Hill District, as part of a block party for activists and community leaders preparing for "March for Jobs" events scheduled for the week of the G-20.
PERMITS APPROVED FOR G-20 PROTESTS:
Point State Park
8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sept. 23
Participants: 10,000-17,000
Rally in Market Square
10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sept. 24-25
Participants: 500-1,000
March from the Hill District to Downtown
Noon to 6 p.m. Sept. 20
Participants: 100-500
Sidewalks of Fort Duquesne Boulevard
9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sept. 19-20
Participants: 500-1,000
March from Oakland to Downtown
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 25
Participants: 3,000
South Side Riverfront Park
Sept. 18-26
Participants: 50
Gathering at 11th Street and Waterfront Place, Strip District
8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sept. 21-25
Participants: 50-100