As city designers and architects dream up a new waterfront, the Seattle City Council is gearing up to replace its spine.

At today's 2:00 pm full City Council meeting, council members will debut legislation directing the city to put a 30-year bond measure to replace the crumbling waterfront seawall on the November ballot. Some have speculated that a bond measure would be padded to help fund the waterfront park, however, a city hall source—who asked not to be named because the legislation hasn't been introduced yet—says that's not the case. "Nothing will be tacked on," the source says, "this is simply to ensure that downtown doesn't crumble into Elliott Bay."

Although the resolution introduced today doesn't cite a specific number, the source says the 30-year bond is likely to be in the $250 to $270 million range. (For example, a $250-million bond would impose a 12-cent tax per $1,000 worth of property for homeowners—meaning a $400,000 homeowner would pay about $48 a year.)

The full cost of the seawall replacement is estimated between $310 and $390 million. City officials are currently looking for other funding sources to bridge the millions-dollar gap.

In May and June, the council will take public comment on the bond, settle on an amount, and iron out the details for fully funding and constructing the new seawall in the midst of digging a big-ass tunnel while juggling other capital projects around the city. In July, the council is slated to vote on forwarding the seawall bond measure to voters.

It will follow a $122-million public-library-saving levy and (likely) a $200 million levy to replace our shitty King County Juvenile Court on the August ballot. That might seem like a lot of projects vying for funds within scant months of each other but a) it's really not, and b) our liberal voters tend to approve worthy public projects that fund things like libraries, juvenile courts, and underwater walls that keep the core of our city from sliding into the fucking bay.