Saint Paul 2008

Please note that this information is not final, and is not any kind of “insider information” from the City of Saint Paul, nor the United States Secret Service. It’s a best-guess estimate, based on familiarity with downtown Saint Paul and the realities of security planning for a national political convention.

First of all, this is the area of the convention, on the western edge of downtown Saint Paul:

The X is the Xcel Energy Center; RiverCentre is, of course, the RiverCentre convention complex; RWO is the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, attached to RiverCentre; SMM is the Science Museum of Minnesota, across Kellogg Boulevard from Rivercentre; SPPL is the downtown branch of the Saint Paul Public Library; SPH is the Saint Paul Hotel.

The RNC convention will make use of the entire RiverCentre complex, including the Roy Wilkins Auditorium and the Xcel Energy Center. The Saint Paul Hotel is the luxury hotel in Saint Paul, and has in the past provided accommodation for numerous presidents and presidential candidates. There’s basically no doubt the political elite will be staying here during the convention.

Here is the minimum possible size of the security perimeter, as we see it:

That’s the minimum possible to provide security for the event, and allow candidates, delegates, and the political elite easy access to and from the Saint Paul Hotel and RiverCentre’s somewhat hidden east entrance, through Rice Park. Realistically, the perimeter is going to be larger, perhaps something like this:

Here’s the logic: Across 7th Street, to the West of the Xcel Energy Center, is a large open parking lot, and - by the time 2008 rolls around - a parking ramp. In addition to convenient parking, t’s a virtual certainty that this lot is going to become the media area, a virtual forest of uplink trucks and antennas. Since corporate media are hated by the anarchist fringe almost as much as Republicans, they are going to need protecting, as well, lest multi-million dollar broadcast trucks get firebombed. Just southwest of this parking lot is a conveniently-located hotel, where media, as well as a lot of the delegates, will probably be staying. Providing security for that building seems like a no-brainer, lest delegates get hassled. Just North of the Saint Paul Hotel is actually a small open parking lot; given the dearth of surface parking in the area, we believe it’s safe to expect this to get co-opted as a police staging area. This map represents what we feel is the most likely security perimeter for the convention. However…

This represents our most pessimistic “reasonable” projection. Compared to the above maps, it annexes the private parking lot just North of the Xcel Energy Center, for obvious reasons, and it includes the Dorothy Day homeless shelter, whose clients are probably perceived as a security risk, and whose large, gymnasium-style building may well come in useful. It also extends the media security zone back a ways, into some park area that might be employed by television networks to construct temporary studio sets on-site.

In realistic terms, for all of these maps, the Science Museum and it’s parking ramp, which also serves RiverCenter and the X, are probably going to be included inside any security perimeter. Too, just southeast of the library is the old “Ramsey County Government Center” and now-closed Adult Detention Center. The latter could, conceivably be used to store unruly demonstrators, and is conveniently located to Harriet Island, which is across the Mississippi to the south, where we predict the majority of demonstrations and similar events will take place.

The geography of downtown Saint Paul makes the map look a little deceiving; from the Science Museum east along Kellogg, the south side of the road is bordered by a hundred-foot cliff. The green area southwest of the museum is part of the museum, and a hundred feet or more below the elevation of RiverCentre.