Mayor Mike McGinn and three members of the city council have written a letter to the Central Waterfront Partnerships Committee, which advises the mayor and the council on central-waterfront planning (including the replacement of the downtown seawall), asking the committee to "act quickly to provide recommendations" about picking a consultant to design the central waterfront and coming up with a specific list of projects that consultant should prioritize. The request, to which the committee has agreed, moves the deadline for recommendations from August or September of this year to the end of April.

The committee needs to speed up its work, according to committee member Cary Moon, so that waterfront planning can happen at the same time as planning for the seawall. Mayor Mike McGinn wants to put a bond measure to replace the seawall on the November ballot. If the seawall moved forward without a comprehensive waterfront plan, there's a chance that the waterfront could be bordered by a sheer wall, rather than a combination of walls, parks, public spaces, and natural shorelines.

"There was this concern among the committee that, wait a minute, we can’t design the seawall in a way that relates the city and to the waterfront without a waterfront plan," Moon says.

McGinn said today that he's optimistic the council will agree to put a seawall measure on the ballot in November. Mike O'Brien, a frequent McGinn ally, said he doesn't think the ballot measure (which McGinn originally proposed for August) "is dead. I still think there's a chance it goes on the November ballot."