Seriously: State Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Bloomfield, is "elated" the G-20 is coming to Pittsburgh.

He just thinks some civil disobedience may be in order, that's all.

Mr. Ferlo told an audience at the University of Pittsburgh Wednesday night that the G-20 summit needed a "little civil disobedience" and reminded them that United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard had characterized the summit's world leaders as "criminals."

"I hope I don't get thrown out of the Pennsylvania Senate" for saying this, Mr. Ferlo joked in remarks made during the intermission of "The Point of Pittsburgh," a theatrical presentation featuring music, images and readings from a book of the same name by Charles McCollester.

In a phone interview yesterday, Mr. Ferlo called the G-20 summit "a positive development for Pittsburgh," and said he looked forward to helping arrange tours for delegates and journalists -- perhaps in a "green" trolley -- of the city's environmentally sustainable buildings and projects.

But, Mr. Ferlo added, he also hopes that protesters' voices will be heard during the event, preferably in a peaceful "free speech" venue near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, where leaders will be meeting.

"I feel a great need that we as a community provide an opportunity for those who are less than thrilled with the politics of those countries who these individuals represent," he said. "I don't think they're going to address issues of equity and economic control," he said. "This is not a group that has the interests of working people at heart."

So, he's readying a proposal for a free speech zone -- an area for protesters with a stage and a public address system -- near Liberty Avenue, perhaps between the Doubletree Hotel and 10th Street.

"We need to take the offensive locally, so that legitimate, peaceful, Democratic protest be allowed. I just don't want a situation where we're naive about the right of people to protest individual issues."

Mr. Ferlo has some experience in political street theater. A longtime activist before entering public office, he was once carried bodily out of a City Council meeting and, in 1991, chained himself to Oakland's the Syria Mosque in an effort to prevent its demolition.

"I haven't really changed," Mr. Ferlo said. "If folks like myself don't begin to think, talk and speak locally with the executive branch, there will be a terrible vacuum as we go into that weekend."