The St. Paul Police Department issued a detailed permit today laying out the parade route that protesters will be allowed to utilize on the opening day of the Republican National Convention. Marchers will be permitted to walk from the Capitol down Cedar St., proceed across 7th St. toward the Xcel Energy Center, and then circle back on a triangle of streets adjacent to the convention location.

“We believe we have struck that difficult balance that we’ve been looking for between free expression and safety and security,” assistant chief Matt Bostrom, who is overseeing RNC security, told reporters at a press conference this afternoon. “I believe it’s unprecedented access to the event.”

According to Bostrom, protesters will not be segregated from the Xcel center by barbed wire, as was the case at the Democratic convention in Boston four years ago. “If there is something there it would be a material that you can see through and you can hear through,” he said. “And we’re not going to mess with that.”

The assistant chief also insisted that parade security will be no different from other large gatherings in St. Paul. “Unless we get some confirmation that there are people in that route who have ill intentions, we’re going to staff this the way we normally staff parades,” he said.

The city issued a preliminary parade permit to the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War in March, but the authorization lacked specific details on when and where protesters would be allowed to gather. The coalition filed a lawsuit against St. Paul in U.S. District Court, arguing that the vague parade terms violated the group’s constitutional rights. A hearing on the suit is slated for Friday.

It’s unclear what impact the newly issued permit will have on the litigation. “I don’t know,” Bostrom said when asked about the lawsuit. “As you probably understand, I can’t comment on that.”

Lawyers for the protest group raised a couple of remaining issues with the new permit. Bruce Nestor said his clients have concerns that the parade route will not physically accommodate all of the protesters and that they will be required to pass by the Xcel Energy Center no later than 2 p.m.

“They believe that will segregate the marchers from the majority of the delegates, the main activities of the day, as well as really segregate the marchers from the main media coverage in the evening,” he said. “The city is willing to grant freedom of speech to the Republican convention to disrupt traffic and put a considerable burden on the police. I think our clients believe that this is a grudging concession to the right of citizens to let their objections be heard.”