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Monday’s City Council meeting might seem like a re-run. All of the topics up for discussion will sound familiar, but that is because they have either been long put off from other meetings or requested by the council as future agenda items.

As part of the consent agenda, Council is expected to give the go-ahead to execute a contract with Steven Thompson to become the city’s next manager. He was picked as the top candidate in a special-called meeting Tuesday after a two-day interview process.

Council is also expected to discuss options for lift station construction staging, a long-vetted topic from the last regular council meeting held April 7. Council received a presentation from Public Works Director Rony Joel at the time that highlighted three options, all of which Joel warned had specific pitfalls.

Staging for lift station construction, a two-year project, requires several lots for storage of both equipment and fill dirt. Joel told council they could elect to operate the construction out of vacant rented lots, out of city land set aside for the future Veterans’ Community Park or out of the city’s south water treatment plant, tucked between Mackle Park and a residential neighborhood.

Unsatisfied with any of the options, council asked Joel to look into the costs of staging the construction off-island. Placing the operations on the island could cost as little as $30, per new sewer customer, or as much as $80, according to Joel, based on the option chosen by council. He warned that using off-island land could be significantly more expensive, and the residents of upcoming sewer districts would absorb the costs.

On Monday, council will discuss the range of options researched by Joel since the last meeting. The Eagle was unable to obtain materials on those options because the full agenda packet was not ready by deadline on Thursday.

Council is also expected to discuss installation of street lights on South Collier Boulevard, though the item was initially to put off until council budget workshops beginning in May. At a Feb. 19 meeting, council was originally asked to approve a $319,000 contract for the electrical design and installation of the specially-ordered lights through funds from the five percent electric franchise fee.

The expenditure was originally approved by council in May 2007, but the current council asked at the February meeting to put the item off, citing concerns about continued use of the franchise fee to fund street light installation.

But the street lights matching those along the rest of Collier Boulevard have been delivered and are in storage. A funding crunch led council to put off the installation until budget talks could paint a broader picture of the city’s overall monetary state.

An April 4 email from interim City Manager Dana Souza to the council outlined possible alternative funding sources.

City attorneys recently recouped money from a two-year-old $228,000 bond where the contractor did not perform the contracted work. Roughly $28,000 from the fight will have to cover attorney’s fees, Attorney Alan Gabriel said, leaving the city $200,000.

In an email by Joel, forwarded to the council by Souza, Joel suggests using that recovered money from the Collier Creek Dredging Bond to fund the street light installation.

“I would like to have council ... consider the transfer of $95,000 to complete the construction of the street lights along S. Collier Boulevard between Winterberry Drive and Collier Court rather than at the May 19, 2008 work shop,” Joel wrote. “The installation of the lights were planned in conjunction with the reuse line extension (currently underway), and new funding has become available that did not exist when this was last discussed by council.”

Joel also stated in the email that the current depth of Collier Creek is adequate, and the $31,000 left over from the project could be added to the amount recovered from the bond.

He suggested in the email three options to fund the street lights: using funds from the Construction Contingency Fund, totaling more than $1.6 million, mostly for Collier Boulevard Construction; using the bond refund; using a $95,000 South Florida Water Management grant abandoned by another city and given to Marco; or a combination of those options.

Joel confirmed on Thursday that he still planned to present those funding sources as possible options.

Council will also discuss a long-awaited item on how to make the island more dog-friendly. Past discussions will be aired out, including a 2006 discussion of a Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee report on the feasibility of an off-leash dog park. Council decided not to move forward with the project at the time.

Councilor Ted Forcht alluded to those talks during a March 17 meeting when council asked that the topic be placed on a future agenda.

“It was brought up two years ago and it went down in flames hard,” he said.

At the very least, council is expected to discuss the possibility of allowing leashed dogs into city parks, with some restrictions, including the length of the leash, prohibitions on areas such as playgrounds and requirements to pick up pet waste.

City Public Information Coordinator Lisa Douglass said council will likely examine another proposal drafted by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee from 2004 that addressed that dilemma, plus look at current rules regarding dogs on Naples city park property.

Finally, council’s first business item is a familiar one, but one not yet approached by the new city council. It is a request for a conditional use permit to add three condos to a commercial property at 23 Front Street.

Council members sworn in just a month ago fielded many questions during their campaigns about their approaches to mixed use development. Monday’s meeting will be the first litmus test of just how tolerant the council is as a whole regarding mixed use conditional permits.

The property, home of 4,100 square feet of retail space inhabited by Island Bike Shop, is owned by Matt Walthour. The request was originally aired before the city’s Planning Board April 4 and approved unanimously.

Marco Island City Council meets at 5:30 Monday in the community room of the Marco Island Police Department building, located at 51 Bald Eagle Drive.