Stillwater’s D.C. lobbyists eye Kaw water line, federal money for water projects

Stillwater utility trustees renewed the city's $79,200 contract with its Washington D.C. lobbying firm Nov. 2, the same night the firm reported $1 million in federal funding secured and $750,000 more pending in Congress.

The Stillwater Utilities Authority, whose trustees are the five members of the City Council, approved the one-year agreement 5-0 as part of its consent docket. Representatives of the firm, Murray, Montgomery & O'Donnell Partners, known as MMO Partners, then gave their annual report to trustees.

The city first hired MMO Partners in October 2022 to pursue federal money for water infrastructure, according to a staff report in the agenda packet. The contract has been extended three times, and the current agreement was set to expire this month.

"A lot of this is very much a long game with the federal funding," MMO Partners Senior Advisor Charles Thomas told trustees. "Things move fairly slowly, but they do move."

The contract

The agreement pays the firm $6,600 a month, according to the contract in the agenda packet. That is the same $79,200 annual amount the city approved in 2022, according to the staff report.

The new agreement splits the work 80 percent for water and wastewater projects and 20 percent for other city priorities. The Water Fund covers $63,360 of the cost, according to the agenda.

The firm's work under the contract includes a funding strategy report identifying federal agency programs that fit the city's projects, setting up and staffing meetings between city officials and members of Congress and federal agencies, monitoring and reviewing grant applications, and an annual report to the city.

City Grants Manager Shelly Crynes prepared the staff report, which said the firm's advocacy "has had a positive impact on federal funding made available to Stillwater for water projects."

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What the firm reported

The $1 million came through the federal fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill, signed into law Feb. 3, for the city's northeast transmission water line, according to the firm's presentation. U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas requested the money, and then-U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin also requested it, according to the presentation.

Once that bill was signed, the firm moved quickly to the 2027 budget, MMO Partners Vice President Kyriakos Pagonis said.

"Members requested congressionally directed spending or community project funding, also known as earmarks, at the end of February," Pagonis said.

Another $750,000 for water line improvements in the College Gardens additions, in the Westwood Overlay District bordering Oklahoma State University's campus, is included in the House version of the fiscal year 2027 Interior appropriations bill, Thomas said. Lucas requested that money.

The city recently finished rebuilding Monticello Drive from University Avenue to Admiral Avenue in the same area, a project that also replaced water and sewer lines.

That funding is not final. Pagonis said the House Appropriations Committee has passed all 12 annual spending bills, but the Senate has not taken up any of them. Thomas said the bill could pass after the election and before the end of the year, but more likely early next year.

The firm also reported that the city signed a letter of intent with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on its $30 million authorization in the 2024 Water Resources Development Act. An authorization makes a project eligible for federal money, but Congress must still appropriate the funds. Thomas said that authorization is for improvements to the city's Kaw Lake water line, and the firm and city staff are working with the Corps on how to break that work into phases for funding.

Since the early 1980s Stillwater has relied on a single 36-inch steel pipeline from Kaw Lake for all of its raw water, serving about 120,000 people in the city and surrounding areas. City officials have said Stillwater has less than a day's worth of reserve drinking water if that line fails. The city is separately building a 7-mile pipeline from Lake McMurtry as a second water source, backed by a $112.9 million loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.

Pagonis told trustees a 2026 version of the Water Resources Development Act, which has passed the House and a Senate committee, includes language that could change how the city uses that authorization. Now, Corps funding goes to the Corps, which manages design and construction, he said.

"If this language does get signed into law, there could be a scenario where the city decides to take the work on and then get reimbursed, sort of like a normal grant process," Pagonis said.

Stillwater's $30 million authorization falls under a Corps program that helps design and build local water and wastewater systems, according to the Congressional Research Service. Both the House and Senate versions of the 2026 bill would allow the federal share of those project costs to be paid as reimbursements to local governments that handle the work themselves, according to a September report from the research service. Most of that Corps assistance is split 75 percent federal and 25 percent local, the report said.

Pagonis also said a FEMA bill that has passed a House committee includes a new disaster mitigation grant program that would give states a larger role in choosing projects, though he did not expect it to pass this year.

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What's next

Over the next year, the firm plans to help finalize fiscal year 2027 appropriations and prepare the city's fiscal year 2028 funding requests, which Thomas said must be completed by the end of February. He said those requests could include money for the projects under the city's $30 million Water Resources Development Act authorization.

Mayor Will Joyce said he will travel to Washington in January for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting and again in March for the Yale Mayors College, and the firm will set up meetings during those trips.

The Yale Mayors College is a one-day roundtable for mayors held by the Yale School of Management's Chief Executive Leadership Institute, according to the school's website. The next session is set for March 1, 2027, in Washington, and Stillwater is among the cities whose mayors have recently taken part, according to Yale.

Pagonis helped launch the program in 2014 while working with the institute, according to his biography on MMO Partners' website.

Vice Mayor Amy Dzialowski said federal advocacy matters as the city layers funding sources and phases large infrastructure projects.

"It's so important to have you all advocating for us or with us at the federal level," Dzialowski said.

📺 Watch the presentation to Trustees